Page 4 of Ena’s Surrender

“I can’t stand this,” Ena said at last. “Watching ye starve, doing nothing about it, waiting helplessly when ye go on raids, wondering what injuries ye might have when ye return. If ye return.”

A muscle in his jaw tensed.

He’d always been so bloody stoic. Even when their mother and brother had died, even when Ena nearly perished alongside them. A year her junior and far too young to face the burden of caring for the dying, he had stayed by her side all those years ago. He’d risked himself to pilfer food from the surrounding homes; homes with their murdered neighbors rotting within.

He’d done it for her. To save her when he could have saved himself.

Ena snatched the pieces of bread from him and threw them back into the clay pot. “Say something,” she demanded.

He swallowed, the action visible in the flex of his neck muscles, and his expression became intense with a look of determined concentration.

She plopped onto the ground beside him, startling Moggy, who flicked her ears with irritation before sauntering off to sleep elsewhere.

The heat of fire tingled at Ena’s chilled toes and fingers. “Yell at me,” she said vehemently. “Do it and be done. Tell me how foolish it was for me to go into battle. How I could have been killed. Do anything to end this silence going sour between us.”

He looked at her finally then, his eyes alight with emotion. With…with tears.

Her heart contracted.

Her brother—who led scores of men into battle, who feared nothing, who stood against the greatest foes and came out victorious—studied her now, his eyes swimming with tears.

“I could have lost ye, Ena.” His voice broke and he hung his head, putting his fingers to his eyes and pinching away the tears. “I saw that bastard fighting ye and I thought…” He shifted his attention from her to somewhere across the room and was quiet for a long moment. “Ye’re all I have left.”

Whatever verbal lashing she had expected, dreaded, would have been far more welcome than this. The emotional onslaught cut her deeper than any retribution he could have exacted. She put her hand to her chest, but it did not stem the ache flowing within.

“Bran.” She reached for his shoulder.

He flinched from her, his eyes dry once more, his expression stern. This was the Bran she knew.

“What ye did was foolish, Ena. Ye undermined my authority in front of my men and ye put yerself at risk.”

A bit of blood seeped through his dingy linen sleeve.

“Bran, ye’ve been injured.” She reached for it, but he pulled away again.

“Aye, struck by an English bastard when I thought ye were going to be run through.” He stared sharply at her. “This is why I dinna want women going into battle with us. No’ because ye’re no’ strong, but because it keeps the men from focusing on their own fights out of fear for those they love.”

Bran had been injured because he was distracted. Because of her.

She curled her hand into a fist so her short nails bit into her palms. Even the man she’d fought against had let his weapon lower once she’d cried out in a voice that was distinctly feminine. He’d even taken care in disarming her with a move that had not left so much as a red mark upon her skin.

My dagger. Irritation nipped at the back of her mind. She’d lost her bloody dagger.

“I promised to keep ye safe,” Bran said, his tone softer. “I will always keep that promise.”

“Ye were a lad,” Ena said through the tension in her throat. “We were both bairns.” She reached for his injured side once more. “Come, let me see to that.”

He lifted his arm and held it aloft from her outstretched hand. “Dinna put yerself at risk again, aye?”

She sighed, the heavy exhalation a mix of resignation and disappointment and hurt. “Aye.”

But even as she said it, her heart was not behind the vow. Not while Bran was still at risk. How could she not do something to help?

Reiving was always a game of loss and recovery as much as it was about theft. Renault rode over the Scottish border under the cover of darkness with ten other Englishmen. It was likely all they’d need to reclaim some of their cattle as well as steal a few of the Scot’s livestock.

Renault, however, would not be joining the reivers. Instead, he would be spying on the Scots for the English Middle March Warden. The Earl of Bothbury had personally assigned him with reporting details of the land, the number of residents, the weapons they kept.

It was a task Renault had been handling for months with each border town in Scotland. He noted homes, castles, defenses, fortifications; whatever might be useful to Lord Bothbury.