Page 123 of Outlaw Ever After

“To the stables, for Faunus,” he called, the Souling torches in the distance still lit when her hand slipped free.

He stopped and turned.

“Are ye all right?”

She nodded. Forced a smile but touched her forehead. “Of course.”

Alarmed, he took her face in the cradle of his palms and dipped his head to see her expression, but it was shadowy.

Her skin was clammy. As it had been when she’d collapsed. She put the back of her hand to her forehead.

“I just feel so…lightheaded,” she said, blinking, when she grappled to hold his forearms, his doublet, her legs buckling, her head drooping, as she fell—

He caught her.

“Peigi?” He lifted her in the cradle of his arms. She lay limp, crumpled against him.

“Peigi!” He jostled her, though she dangled like moss upon branches in his arms.

“Jossy!” He barreled toward the village.

So frail and thin in his arms. Down to the shore he dashed, clenching her to him.

“Jossy!” he thundered, crunching over the pebbly shore. The celebration was too loud. They couldn’t hear him.

The trees of the Tomvaich thickened across the water. He cut past the cave, over the grasses, over the hillock, as his people feasted. He broke through the cottages, into the hamlet commons.

“Where’s Jossy!” he bellowed.

The music silenced. The chattering and clinking fell dormant.

“What happened?” Aulay jumped up as Alex heaved for breath. Adjusted her weight as she shifted in his grip.

“She fainted again. I need yer maw.”

Christ, why did this keep happening?

“She returned to the castle to oversee the feasting.”

Peigi was moving in his arms. Coming to. Thank God. But he needed answers. Couldn’t bear this to happen again. He needed Jossy’s expertise and herbs and care.

“I need ye to fetch her whilst I get the lady to her chamber.”

Aulay nodded and padded off into the night as Alex hurried toward the castle. He sloshed through Allt A’ Bhacain, God, he shouldn’t have made her go on foot to the cottage. Shouldn’t have made her exert herself no matter how much she’d scolded him to stop fretting, to treat her normally instead of like a violet.

Wind whipped across the plain, biting his cheeks and nose, but still, he carried her, as he saw Aulay, in the distance, jogging up the courtyard steps into the castle.

Alex maneuvered past the vendors’ carts locked tight as the lay folk congregated around a bonfire upon the competition pitch. The last thing Peigi needed was Kendrew MacGregor catching wind of them together, and it was becoming clear there was a deeper concern. Did she have an illness?

His mind ran rampant with what-ifs, panic. He snuck inside the kitchen doors. The din burgeoned as he bypassed the corridor leading to the feasting, in favor of slipping into the reception. From there, it was only a short jaunt to the stairwell.

“What happened?” Joslyn breathed behind him.

“Collapsed again,” he murmured, turning. “And she will nay eat. Rejects every offer.”

His limbs tremored with helplessness. Sweat from the run rolled down his temples into his beard and despite her meager weight, over half an hour in his arms had settled an ache in his injured shoulder.

Worry churned with thoughts of Samhain mischief and bad omens. This was their third encounter. How was the song sung?