quickly behind a pine and watched as a woman with a basket emerged from the cottage.
The woman suddenly stopped in her tracks, taken aback by the sight of the strange horse at the edge of her property.
“Robert!” she called out. “Come quick!”
A tall, gangly man hobbled out the door. “What the devil?”
Feiyan froze as the couple came near for a closer look.
The villain must not be in their cottage. Maybe he’d spent the night in one of their sheds. Maybe he was lurking inside, planning to waylay them when they came to investigate. Maybe he meant to slay them in cold blood.
She waited with bated breath as the woman cooed over the beautiful beast. The man took the horse’s bridle, calming the animal with soothing speech.
The woman nodded toward the horse’s head. “What’s that?”
The man pulled out a sooty rag tucked into the bridle. “A missive?”
“Are those letters?”
“Aye. Fetch Gille Christ.”
The woman hurried off toward the stable.
Feiyan bit her lip. What if the monster was hiding inside?
She was about to shout a warning when the woman yelled out, “Gille Christ!”
A moment later, a scrawny, redheaded young lad in monk’s robes stumbled sleepily out the stable door. “Aye?”
The lad didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. No villain held a knife to his throat.
The crofter called out, “See if you can make out these letters, son.”
The lad rubbed his tonsured head, glared suspiciously at the big black horse, and then studied the scrap of cloth.
“D.O.N.U.M. E.S.T.” He frowned. “’Tis Latin.”
“What’s it say?” the woman asked.
“Donum est,” he told her. “Gift. ’Tis a gift for ye.”
The crofter stepped beyond the horse to look down the road both ways. “A gift? From whom?”
The woman seized the horse’s bridle. Already her eyes were lighting up with gratitude. Or greed. Feiyan wasn’t sure which. Certainly such a horse was not suited to pulling a crofter’s cart. But it would bring a handsome price at market.
Still, what did it mean?
Surely a brute capable of cutting down warriors in cold blood would never make a gift of his valuable destrier to a pair of poor crofters and a novice monk.
He must have sacrificed the horse to throw his pursuers off his scent. Which meant he’d proceeded on foot.
Fortunately, he’d taken as little care to disguise his own tracks as he had with the horse’s. Beside the road, leading away from the charger, were fresh depressions in the mud. Made by large boots, one with a distinct crack in the heel, they led down a deer trail into the forest.
Feiyan’s lip curled up in a calculating smile.
He’d assumed he’d be harder to track in the wilds of the woods. What he didn’t know was Feiyan was now in her element, as comfortable in the forest as a fish in water.
Still, a curious thought pestered her as she traveled silently through the wood.
How did mac Darragh—a Highlander of mindless savagery and beast-like rage—know how to read and write?
Dougal woke to the sound of frantic thrashing in the snare he’d set.
Exhaustion sat like an anvil on his chest. Still he struggled up onto his elbows. Sunlight was already filtering through the boughs of the pines. He hadn’t meant to sleep so late. But he felt as if he’d gotten no rest at all.
Again and again in his dreams, like some infernal punishment, he’d been forced to deliver the fatal blow to the blonde woman. Blindly shoving his elbow out. Driving the pommel of his claymore into her steel helm with enough force to knock it off. And then watching the spill of golden tresses as his victim—a beautiful lass—dropped to the ground.
He hadn’t intended to do it.
He wasn’t a killer of women.
He’d only meant to slaughter those who deserved death—the demons of mac Giric.
How could he have known there was a lass on the field?
Bloody hell. What kind of a clan let its lasses fight in a melee?
He snorted back his remorse, casting it off like a broken targe. It was too late for regrets. What was done was done. He’d have to suffer with the nightmares. After all, he deserved them.
But while he was awake, guilt would only burden him and slow his progress. He had to cast it off as he had his armor.
He scrubbed at his raw eyes and ruffled the dead leaves from his hair. Then he squinted into the underbrush, where a small coney was struggling in the trap.
How long had it been since he’d eaten? He couldn’t remember. He hadn’t felt like eating