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“So I really tried to pack only the most essential, important things, except everything suddenly felt so sentimentally vital that I just wanted it all with me.”
She thought we were going to marry?
“But I can carry it all by myself if necessary. Since you didn’t bring a horse for me—”
“I have a horse.” Damnation, how the hell was I supposed to tell this girl I had no intention of marrying her whatsoever?
She paused as if confused. “What?”
I cleared my throat, my voice empty when I repeated, “I have an extra horse for you.”
“You do?” She sounded surprised. “Oh. That’s wonderful. I thought—I mean—I guess I didn’t give you ample time to reply after I asked, did I? Sorry about that. I’m a bit nervous.”
“It’s okay.” Going hoarse with regret, I admitted, “I—I’m nervous too.”
I’d never kidnapped anyone before.
“You are? Why, that’s grand. We won’t have to feel so self-conscious since we’re both bumbling through this together, then, I suppose.”
“Aye, it does help, doesn’t it?” I agreed, starting to smile. Only to pause.
Because shit. Wait. Why had I said that? I definitely should not have said that. Deciding to stop talking altogether before I’d confessed everything and shooed her back into the castle where it was safe, I pressed my lips together hard.
But she was just so fucking sweet and amiable. I began to feel sick to my stomach.
In his youth, Murdock used to amuse himself by killing stable cats. The tamed beasts would run right up to him and trustingly wind their entire bodies around his ankles, merely wanting food and attention. And he’d pick them up as if to lovingly pet them, only to squeeze their necks until they died in his hands, or sometimes he’d throw them against the side of the barn as hard as he could to kill them.
It had always made me ill to watch. Exactly how I was feeling this very moment.
If she were a kitten, Princess Nicolette would be rubbing against my calf, purring as her tail twitched with delight, just wanting me to love and pet her. Except I was going to be Murdock who gently picked her up and then wrung her lovely, vulnerable neck until she permanently stopped breathing.
Sweat coated my skin as indecision laced my brain. While a part of me wanted to push her away and warn her to run, fast, the other part had me tightening my grip on her hand and keeping her close. Sable wouldn’t be safe until I delivered the Donnelly princess to my father. No matter how innocent and undeserving she was of her doomed fate, my sister was equally innocent and undeserving of hers, and her life depended on this woman.
As if sensing my turmoil, Nicolette stroked my arm. “Don’t worry, Farrow. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I swear it.”
Fuck.
I swallowed down the hard lump of guilt in my throat.
Because I couldn’t make her the same promise.
8
Nicolette
My true love had come!
I still couldn’t entirely believe it. While a part of me had always hoped and not given up on wishing it might happen, I think a bigger portion had despaired, certain I would not see him again.
He didn’t have the mark, so there’d been no valid reason for him to form any kind of attachment or special regard for me within the few minutes we’d known each other, other than the fact that I’d saved his life from certain peril, but still…
Not even that seemed to warrant him trekking across the Vast Desert for weeks on end and endangering himself enough to step onto enemy territory just to be reunited with me.
But he had. He’d had faith in my mark when I’d told him it had chosen him.
And my mind was still spinning from the shock.
Under me, the horse I rode snuffled in the night. That and the soft swish of its hooves plodding through the sand had been the most sound I’d heard in nearly an hour.
