Page 80 of The Merciless Laird
"It's naethin'."
"Let me see."
"Ivar, I'm fine."
"Let. Me. See."
The command was low, vibrating with a possessive heat.
She held out her arm, and he turned it in the flickering orange light of the distant fires, assessing the depth of the cut. It was shallow. She was right, it was a scratch, but the sight of her blood made a primal knot in his gut tighten. He released her, andthe tension that had been pulled to a snapping point since the warehouse had exploded eased by a single, narrow fraction.
She was looking at him, her hazel eyes blown wide, holding herself together by sheer will.
"Callum," she whispered, the name a curse between them. "His men. They said his name."
"I ken." He kept his voice a flat, iron calm. "We need to move. Now."
He caught her hand, his fingers lacing through hers, and started forward. That was when a third man lunged from the roiling smoke at the passage entrance, low and fast, his blade extended with murderous intent.
Ivar pivoted on reflex, twisting to shield her, but he took the angle wrong. He felt the steel slide in below his right ribs. A cold, specific pressure that his body registered with a sickening jolt before the pain even arrived.
He didn't falter.
He brought his elbow down on the attacker's forearm and felt the radius snap. The man’s grip on the hilt didn't release, so Ivar used the momentum against him, wrenching the angle until the man was forced to the ground. He hit the stone with a dull thud and did not rise again.
Torvald materialized through the grey haze, his claymore drawn and red. He took in the carnage in a single, sweeping glance.
"Ivar." Torvald’s voice went flat.
Ivar became aware, in a distant and clinical way, that his right hand was pressed against his side and that his palm was slick and wet. A deep, bone-seeping cold began to spread from his ribs. That was the trick of the blade. The bite didn't register until the blood started to run, and then the reality arrived with a deafening roar.
He looked at Matilda.
She was already staring at his side. Her face had shattered. The "held-together" mask was gone, replaced by a raw, naked terror she wasn't managing at all.
"It’s nae bad." he started, his voice a gravelly rasp. “I promise.”
"Dinnae," she snapped, her voice a whip. "Dinnae ye dare say that."
He opened his mouth to argue, but the world suddenly tilted.
His left knee buckled before he could command it to hold. The passage wall caught his shoulder, and Torvald was there an instant later, a massive arm braced across Ivar’s chest before he could hit the cobbles.
"Right," Torvald muttered, his voice grim. "We're movin'."
The last thing Ivar registered clearly was Matilda's hand, surprisingly small but iron-firm, wrapped around his wrist. Her voice was the last anchor in the rising tide of dark, quiet, and steady, calling his name. It was the only thing that stayed with him as the edges of the world began to bleed into black.
She’s nae going tae like this,he thought with the last scrap of his consciousness.
The darkness claimed him before he could act on his promise.
The healer's room was tucked into the cold stone belly of the keep, smelling of iron, dried yarrow, and the looming scent of blood.
Torvald carried Ivar inside with two of his best men, and he would not let Matilda take an ounce of the weight, no matter the fierce, low-voiced commands she leveled at him.
Matilda followed at his shoulder, her jaw set, her silence louder than any protest.
The healer was a wiry man named Oswin, with forearms like gnarled oak branches and the brisk, impersonal manner of a man who had seen too much death to waste breath onsentiment. He took one look at Ivar laid out on the heavy oaken table, then looked at Matilda and pointed at the door.
