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“Speak,” he ordered.
“I am not an animal,” Terese said.
His head reared back as if feeling the sting of her sharp tongue. “Then why do you bark and bite?”
The other two laughed.
“How else do I communicate with you, but to speak your language,” she retaliated and was surprised to hear a tiny chuckle from Piper.
“Watch your tongue, woman,” the tall man warned.
“I am Sister Terese,” she said with a proud toss of her head. “And this is Sister Piper. We have come to offer help and to ask for it.”
He laughed. “Do we look like we need help?”
“In more ways than one,” Terese snapped.
He growled like an angry animal. “It is a good thing you wear those robes, or I would teach you your place.”
“Just like a man, needing to suppress a woman so that he can feel courageous.”
“I should cut your tongue from your mouth,” he sneered at her.
Terese lifted her chin. “I’ve been threatened with worse. Now do we talk, or do Piper and I leave you to await your deaths?”
“Tell me,” he ordered sharply.
“Are you the leader?” she asked, wanting to know as much about these men as she could. She supposed it had always been in the back of her mind that perhaps she could find out if Lachlan’s brother or the woman he searched for was in anyway connected to this group.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I will speak to the leader,” she demanded.
“Tell me!” he repeated with a shout.
“You are not the leader,” she accused.
“How do you know?”
“You would have confirmed it immediately,” she said.
This time he smiled, and Terese was struck by just how handsome this man was, even covered with dirt and dust.
“Perhaps we should keep you. You might prove an advantage to us.”
“You would tire of my blatant tongue soon enough,” she advised.
“True,” he agreed and answered her query without her having to repeat it. “Our leader is not here.”
“I am from Everagis Abbey, a short trek through the woods and over a hill or two. And you are?”
“I am Septimus.”
“A seventh son,” she said knowingly.
He confirmed with his own nod. “I suppose this help you can offer us comes with a price?”
“No, it comes with no attachments, though your help I would appreciate.”
“Let me hear what you have to offer.”
“Two clans north of here fight,” she said.
“The MacMurdos and the Longhills,” Septimus confirmed. “They know better than to bother us.”
“I don’t believe so,” Terese disagreed, shaking her head. “Two men now scout your land, I believe in preparation of an attack.”
“How do you know this?” he asked skeptically.
“Sister Piper is intimate with the woods, knowing its every sound, sensing its every presence. She came to me with the news and then showed me the footprints these men have left on your land and ours.”
He remained silent for a moment and then once again spoke in a foreign tongue and the two men who had remained seated stood and rushed off.
“Sit,” he said.
Terese, with Piper still clinging to her hand, sat near the fire.
He sat across from them. “Now tell me what I can do for you.”
“Presently, the church has sent a small group of warriors to protect us, but they will leave in two or three months.”
“Leaving you vulnerable,” he said.
“Not only the convent, but the farms around us,” Terese confirmed. “In exchange for your protection of the convent and the farms, we will share our harvest with you and tend your ill or injured.”
“How do you know you can trust us?”
“You are men for hire,” Terese said confidently. “I offer you a good exchange, one that will benefit you. You would be a fool not to accept.”
“Your tongue is too sharp.”
“My tongue is honest,” she snapped. “I present a decent, honest trade.”
“Take the offer and share our bargain with no one, or it will be no more.”
The bone-chilling voice commanded with a strength that sent a shiver through both women. Terese knew the voice came from somewhere in the dark that surrounded them. She also instinctively knew by the power of his voice this was not a man to cross.
It wasn’t only the coldness of his voice, but the emptiness of it that frightened her. To her, this man had no heart.
“I give my word,” Terese said and shivered once again, for she feared she had just signed a pact with the devil.
Chapter 8
Lachlan stood and stared for a moment before he walked up to Sister Terese, wondering if she was truly there, when on the third morning he woke just before sunrise and found her in her usual spot waiting for dawn. He had gone there the past two days since her absence, hoping she had returned and now that she had, he wanted simply to hug her.
Damnation!
He didn’t need to be reminded he was once again tempting the fires of hell.
