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“With your father having banished me from ever returning home, I was forced to take shelter with a weak, menial tribe. I was treated like a slave. It wasn’t until the tribe was set upon by renegade warriors that I finally got a chance to seek my revenge by joining that renegade troop, pulling the bunch together, and leading them. Then once again I lost what I had built. Ruddock, husband to Snow’s sister, Sorrell, killed every warrior that had attacked the Sandrik village, leaving me with only two people I could truly trust.”
“Fasta,” Tarass said.
“My daughter. She is much like me, a fine warrior and an excellent marksman. She is more patient then I am. I wanted to see you dead sooner, but she convinced me it would be a weak revenge. She suggested she join your tribe and return to your homeland with you and when the time was right, we’d strike. She knew the time was right when she saw how much you loved your wife. Still though, she urged patience, telling me your thirst for coupling would see your wife with child soon, and she was right. It was also her idea to use the myth of your mum’s people, leaving fear and disruption in its wake. Though, each pool of blood told a story.”
Tarass didn’t care. He only wanted to have his wife safe in his arms, but he had no choice but to listen.
“The first one represented the revenge I got from the massacre on the Sandrik village, the arrow Fasta shot at you and purposely missed was to let you know I was coming for you. The second pool of blood was the knowledge I stole when I killed Finn and the painted man. The latter knowing that Fasta was among your clan.” He grinned. “The third and small pool of blood will bring me the most satisfaction. Do you know what it represents?”
Tarass knew. He knew as soon as Conall had said he wanted to take everything from him and he’d start with Tarass’s unborn bairn.
Conall went to speak when he suddenly turned toward the woods, as if someone had called out to him, and when he turned back again his grin had widened. “It’s time.”
Tarass went to step forward.
Conall raised his hand and shouted, “Stay where you are.”
Tarass wanted to race at him but that wouldn’t help his wife, so he halted his anxious steps. He had to fight from running to his wife when Fasta appeared, gripping Snow’s arm and giving her a shove toward Conall. He watched her stumble and fall to the ground, grabbing her stomach, and his heart nearly shattered and his fury soared.
“I’ve taken from you what you took from me—everything that means something to you—unless you can get your wife home fast enough to at least save her.” He laughed. “But then she has to reach you first… on her own without help from you.”
Tarass went to call out to her when Fasta grabbed Snow’s arm and yanked her to her feet.
“Not a word,” Conall warned and took Snow from Fasta, his thick fingers closing around her upper arm.
A short man appeared out of the woods and handed Fasta a bow and a cache of arrows and Tarass felt more helpless than he ever did, though his mind raced with possible ways to save his wife.
“Call out to your wife, make any sound or move at all, and my daughter will set an arrow on her, and she won’t miss.”
Tarass bit his tongue, fearful he’d not be able to hold it. And how could he not run to Snow? If only the distance between them was shorter, he’d have a chance of reaching her before the arrow did. But he’d never make it at this distance.
“Go to your husband, Snow,” Conall said with a laugh and shoved her toward the woods to his right.
Tarass silently cursed the man when he watched his wife take a few stumbling steps, collapse in a mound of snow, and glance around confused. The trees would appear as gray blurs to her and she wouldn’t know if he was among them. And if he dared call or move to alert her, an arrow would pierce her back. But if he didn’t do something, they both would die here. He was no fool. Conall didn’t intend to let them live.
Snow pressed her hand to her stomach, the cramps having grown dreadfully painful. She was losing the bairn. There was no denying it. And if she had swallowed too much of the liquid that had been forced on her, she would lose her life. She had to get to her husband, if it was only to have him hold her one last time.
She looked around and almost cried with joy at how clear everything appeared to her. The fuzziness that had been there was gone and while her vision blurred now and again, she still could see things almost as clearly as when she had full sight.
