Page 126 of Highland Ruse

Chapter Thirty-Five

“I taught you better than to lay around.” The hard voice pulled Delilah from the fog of sleep. “You’d better not be dead.”

Sylvi?

The heavy press of weight over Delilah’s chest lifted and air flowed into her lungs so much easier and cleaner than before.

Delilah squinted.

Sylvi stared down at her without speaking for a long moment. “You’re alive.”

Emotion clogged Sylvi’s voice and Delilah knew her friend was crying.

The hand in Delilah’s was still warm. “Kaid?” she whispered.

A breeze swept over Delilah, scented sweetly of violets and herbs.

“He’s alive,” Percy said in her gentle voice. “But only barely. I need light so I can see his wounds.”

Two large shadows entered the room. Kaid did not make a sound when they lifted him from her side, but his fingers remained clasped in hers.

Percy tried to pull Delilah’s grip away. “You have to let him go.”

“I can’t.” Delilah’s throat was so tight, she could scarce breathe, let alone talk. “I love him.”

“Then let me save him,” Percy said.

Delilah pulled her hand from his and let the men take him. It wasn’t until he was gone another sharp thought pricked her mind. “Claire.” She tried to sit up, but Sylvi shushed her.

“She’s fine,” she said. “Liv found her. The girl was frightened, but unharmed. If it weren’t for her, Percy would have still been in the forest and not summoned here as quickly as she was to help.”

Delilah rose on her shaking left arm despite Sylvi’s protests and sat upright. “Help me up. I want to see her.”

“Like hell you will.” Sylvi gave a throaty laugh. “Not until you’re cleaned up. You’ll scare the poor girl.”

Only then did Delilah look down at herself, at the gashes of blood showing through her clothing. Not just on her hip and arm, but all over. Some of it hers, most of it likely Seumas’s.

It all slammed into Delilah like a hammer. Kaid’s stillness as he lay beside her with his hand locked on hers, Claire’s fearful cries when Delilah was trying to get her to be strong, the way Elizabeth lay crumpled in death, unloved and forgotten.

Sobs choked from her chest and Sylvi held her in a comforting embrace Delilah hadn’t known the woman was capable of offering. It was there, clinging onto the support of her friend, that Delilah finally succumbed to the darkness.

She didn’t awaken again until many hours later, after the darkness of night had given way to the sharp light of late afternoon. It wasn’t until after her eyes adjusted to the brilliance of the sun that she realized she was in a large chamber. Aside from the massive bed she lay upon, there was no additional furniture in the room or even tapestries on the wall.

Only then did she remember Edirdovar Castle.

And Claire.

And Kaid.

She turned to her side. A burning pain pulled tight at her skin, but the injury was worth it.

There, lying beside her, was Kaid. His face was pale still, but he was alive.

Her eyes stung with tears and blurred his sleeping form.

“Kaid.” She reached out and touched his face. The two days’ growth of his dark beard rasped against her fingertips and made her want to rub her cheek against it for the familiar, wonderful sensation.

His brow puckered and his eyes opened, as vividly blue and beautiful as always, lit with intelligence and kindness and the emotion which only shows when a man really and truly loves a woman.