Page 27 of Highlander’s Protector

“Yeah. We can’t wait for Colum and Iàcob anymore.” He tied the strings around the bedroll, and when Anna handed him his travel pack, he tied the roll to the bottom. “If the enemy has my horse, they know we’re nearby, so we need to trick them and go in a different direction than Stirling.”

David put the pack on his shoulders. It was his own invention he’d made before setting out on his journey, his own backpack to carry on his shoulders.

“Ayr,” Anna said. “’Tis west and under my father’s command.”

“Okay,” David said and walked to the path. “Just quietly.”

“I’ll go alone, David,” she said behind his back, and he turned to her. She was eyeing him coolly. “Ye made it clear ye have yer own path ye need to follow, and I dinna want to be a burden. If ye can lend me a knife, I’ll protect myself.”

David frowned. There was no reason for him to be worried about her. To be worried about the deal between the Bruce and Philip Mowbray. It wasn’t his battle. He was a modern-day American, thrown into the midst of a war that wasn’t his to fight. He hadn’t even paid much attention to the historical details when Rogene had told him about the outcome of the war. He remembered the English would attack Stirling, but Bruce would win, although he didn’t know when and how it was connected to Anna’s wedding. Rogene had told him something important, but he just couldn’t remember.

Either way, there was no reason for him not to give Anna a weapon, the rest of his silver, and some provisions and let her go and resume his search. He liked her, but there was no future for them.

But he couldn’t leave her alone. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t make sure she was safe.

It was probably the same part of him that had tried to stop Rogene from touching the time traveling stone. The part that had picked up a sword and fought for the Mackenzies in the battles with clan Ross. The protector in him.

“I won’t leave you alone, Anna. I won’t let you get harmed.”

To his surprise, relief relaxed her face. Her eyes sparkled, and a small smile stretched her lips.

“All right. Then let’s go to Ayr. We can lose our pursuers and get horses and help to safely reach Stirling.”

David nodded. “Okay. Let’s go. Very, very quietly.”

What had he agreed to? David asked himself as they made their way down the path.

When they reached the base of the hill, the camp was still sleeping. But the sentry was now awake. Still sitting with his back to them, he was curled over a bowl in his hands, slurping a pottage. David turned to Anna and put his finger to his lips. She nodded.

They crept to the left, behind the sentry. David’s eyes never left the man’s back, watching every time his hand raised and lowered the spoon. The forest floor was covered with old leaves, grass, and flowers, and David was careful to avoid stepping on twigs and branches.

A squirrel darted across his path just as he was about to put his foot down. He jumped back and something snapped under his foot like an explosion.

The forest froze as the sentry stilled, the spoon halfway to his mouth. “Fuck!” David muttered silently under his breath. Freaking squirrels!

The sentry turned his head and looked straight at David.

As his eyes widened, something red and black flashed in David’s peripheral vision. A thick piece of fallen branch in her hand, Anna lunged as the sentry was standing up, his hand to his sword. She swung the branch and hit him on the back of the head with a dull thunk.

A man in the nearest tent stirred but didn’t wake.

The sentry swayed a little but didn’t fall, and as he turned to Anna, David threw himself at the man, wrapping his arm around the sentry’s neck in a choke hold. The man’s hands grabbed at David’s arm as he grunted and groaned. In a minute or so, he relaxed in David’s grip and David let him softly fall on the ground.

Someone stirred in the farther tent and sat up.

David looked at Anna, and they ran as quickly and as silently as they could.

CHAPTER 10

Anna held her breath as the hooves of the English horses thundered above them. The scent of earth enveloped her. She saw a few white maggots crawling under the roots of the tree growing at the edge of the ditch she and David hid in. Sunlight flickered over their heads as the riders passed. David’s arms were warm and reassuring around her shoulders. His touch gave her strength. She was exhausted and wanted to lie down and sleep for a long, long time. She was still tired from hunger and thirst and was still chased by the darkness.

Perhaps she always would be.

But David helped. The sun helped, and being in the open air, breathing the scents of the forest and of nature, helped. They had been walking for a while, and it was after midday that they had heard them chase after them and hidden here.

After the English passed, she looked at David. He had such handsome, warm brown eyes and a face that belonged on tapestries and in the stories of minstrels.

Breaking eye contact, he looked up and waited. “I think they’re gone,” he whispered.