Page 38 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

The road ran easy and clear this time of year, well within his own borders for the first several miles, and he'd chosen the route for exactly that reason. It was safe ground, familiar ground, nothing to trouble either of them before the harder business of parting ways waited its turn.

She rode beside him in silence, and he let it sit unbroken a while, turning over a dozen different openings for the apology he owed her and discarding each one as either too small or too raw, his chest still tight with the memory of her face in his study doorway, uncertain and hurt and trying so hard not to show either.

He glanced sideways at her.

The morning light caught in her hair, and for one foolish moment he found himself thinking how different she looked when she was not braced for battle with him. He looked away.

Say something, he told himself. Ye've faced down warriors with a blade in yer hand. Ye can manage a single honest sentence tae the woman riding beside ye.

"Neilina—"

He didn't get further than her name when something at the tree line caught his eye. Marcas's gaze flicked towards it. A branch moved, barely. Just a small shiver of leaves halfway up the slope, though there was no wind strong enough to stir them. He kept watching.

Nothing.

Then, between two trunks, a dark shape appeared for the briefest instant before slipping back into shadow. A shoulder.

His fingers tightened around the reins and he looked ahead, the road was empty. Too empty.

There should have been birds in the brush, some movement along the verge. Instead, the trees seemed to be holding their breath.

His horse took another few steps though his attention had already moved to the road itself.

There…a little beyond the bend. A fallen tree lay across the track. He stared at it. The cut was too clean, and it had not been there when he had ridden this road two days ago.

His stomach dropped. He slowed his horse by a fraction. Neilina was still beside him, unaware, her horse walking steadily towards the obstruction. Marcas's gaze returned to the trees.

There! A boot.

Only the heel showed beneath a tangle of bracken before it disappeared again. His hand went instinctively towards the hilt at his side.

His heart gave one hard, violent beat.

Nae her. Whatever this is, nae her.

"Neilina." He kept his voice low and level, though everything underneath it was roaring. "There's men in the brush ahead, and a log across the road that didnae fall there on its own. Turn yer horse. Now. Dinnae ask me why, dinnae look for what I'm seeing, just turn and ride back the way we came, and trust me."

She didn't turn immediately. He felt it rather than saw it, her horse still moving forward beside his, her voice coming back uncertain, "Marcas, I dinnae see⁠—"

She cannae see it. She's nae spent fifteen years reading a tree line for men trying nae tae be found in it. There's nae time tae make her see it.

"Neilina—"

The arrow took the space where her question would have finished, close enough that he heard the sharp hiss cut the air a hand's width from his own shoulder before it buried itself, quivering, in the trunk of the tree they'd just passed.

In the same instant a shout went up from the gorse.

They are nae longer trying tae hide, then. A second archer stepped clear of the boulder with his bow already drawn.

Every ounce of caution in him burned away at once, replaced by something far more primal than tactics.

Nae her. I willnae lose her tae this.

"NOW." He reached across the gap between their horses, closed his hand hard around her rein below the bit, and hauled both animals into a turn with a strength that left no room for argument.

He drove his heels into his own mount's flanks the instant the turn completed, his other hand coming to rest, fast and instinctive, flat against her back to steady her forward over the horse's neck. "Low, Neilina—get low and RIDE."

She rode. Whatever hesitation had held her a moment before was gone entirely now, her whole body dropping low over the horse's neck.