Page 95 of Highland Ruse

They were more than halfway through the forest when something rustled several feet away from Kaid. He held up a hand and everyone stopped.

Except Torra.

She shoved through a tree, her steps cracking on the dry leaves underfoot while her slender arm snapped a twig.

It was all the enemy needed.

The world exploded into shouts and war cries. Men leapt at them from all angles. The movement was apparent but a moment before a man was on Kaid with a blade flashing the light of the moon.

Kaid reacted without thinking and shoved his sword into the man’s gullet. A savage scream behind Kaid turned his blood to ice.

He turned and found Torra being held by the throat. Delilah lunged at the attacker, but the man’s blade was too fast.

The world dragged to the hideously slow pace of a nightmare.

But this was no nightmare.

Kaid was awake, watching from two paces too far away to help. The attacker drew his arm back with the intent to strike at Torra. Delilah ran between the woman and death with nothing more than a dagger clutched in her fist.

The man’s blade moved downward. Faster than Kaid’s feet, which seemed to slide in the layers of leaves beneath his boots.

Down the blade came, slicing through air, and then slicing into Delilah.

She fell back, her face alight with surprise.

The dagger fell from her fingers.

A cry wrenched from Kaid. The world sped forward, and he moved like a madman, without thought, without care, without anything funneling through him but the hatred of the man who had cut down the woman he loved.

Delilah.

It was her name which her attacker last heard before his life was brutally ended.

Everything had fallen quiet. The fighting had stopped. All the guards were dead.

Kaid jerked to where Delilah lay on the ground, immobile. A shadow covered her torso, hiding the gore of her wound from him. He didn’t want to see.

But he had to.

“Delilah.” He fell to his knees beside her and clutched at her shoulders. The woman he loved.

A moan eased from her throat and his heart wrenched.

Her hand fluttered over her stomach where she’d been struck, obstructing his view. “Help.” The word came out between gritted teeth.

She struggled against his grasp.

“Dinna move.” He wasn’t sure what he could do to help, but was certain her wriggling around with a stomach wound was not going to improve matters.

“I need help sitting.” She reached up toward him for assistance. “I can’t get up in this blasted corset.”

The moonlight glinted at her stomach, but not against blood. No, something metallic gleamed beneath the split fabric.

“I forgot I’d worn my steel corset.” She grasped his palm, and he moved to help her, his gaze still fixed on her torso.

“Ye dinna—” The words died on his tongue, absorbed by the relief flooding through him.

“Percy made us all steel corsets.” She glanced down at a seam of blood that had appeared against the narrow slits of visible skin. Little more than a scratch. “They’re a beast to wear, but this one just saved my life. I put it on when I readied myself to flee, when I thought Torra was—”