Tempest Heart - Paula Quinn Page 0,4

thought about going home. But she didn’t know the way, and she didn’t want to spread the pestilence to her father.

She wondered how long she had to live and wanted to fall on her knees and weep to God. But she had done that already. Her eyes were sore and red. She remembered the man falling on her and his bloody eyes.

She thought it couldn’t get any worse. But she was wrong. Soldiers arrived the next morning and began burning the dead and the sick along with them. Some were alive while they are set on fire.

No! Not fire! Rose tried to run away but fell to the ground, weak and coughing. She had no strength left in her when they carried her off and dumped her onto a pile of soft, cold bodies.

Rose was blissfully unaware of where she was, but she knew she was dying. She knew they were going to burn her. She screamed over and over in her thoughts.

With deepest regret, she considered all of the things she hadn’t yet done, hadn’t seen. She had never been courted or kissed. She had never been in love, nor been intimate.

She wanted to weep but it would take too much from her. She wanted to sleep, but she was afraid that if she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t have the strength to open them again.

Someone approached her, blocking her from the sun. A man. He didn’t have a torch. He was handsome and rugged with black hair and pretty eyes that were the same color as the treetops last summer. She couldn’t see the rest of the man’s face.

With her very last ounce of strength, she lifted her hand to him. “Please, sir, help me.”

Chapter Two

Tristan didn’t stop in Crawford for the dead. He came for supplies. What the hell was he doing staring at some dead lass in a pile of bodies?

But she wasn’t dead.

“Please sir…help…me.”

Damnation! He had no idea Crawford had been so ravaged by the Black Death. Was it too late? Should he bother going south? Aye, he should. He’d been paid to see to tasks and they were not yet done.

“Sorry, lass,” he told the dying girl from beneath the kerchief covering his nose and mouth. “Ye are on yer own now.”

“I’m afraid,” she croaked out.

He kneeled by her and shook his head and did his best to sound soothing, but he wasn’t a damned nursemaid. She had the plague. There was nothing he could do for her. He didn’t know why he even stopped over here. He was looking for food and heard her faint voice crying for help. Curious, he’d approached the pile of dead.

He wasn’t afraid of being around death. Death was his occupation.

Still, he wasn’t ready to die just yet, and not from a pestilence. When he died, he’d like to be taken out by someone as skilled and proficient as he was.

He looked around. He didn’t want to stay. “Look, Miss, ’twill be over before ye know it. Ye—”

“No! They will burn me!”

Hell. They couldn’t burn her while she was still alive. He thought about finishing her quickly, but he didn’t kill women or children. Even when Lizzie Noble, the wife of a man he’d killed, followed him through two towns to kill him. She had come after him with vengeance and a quick dagger—quicker than some men. He subdued her and tied her to a tree. Travelers passed the tree every so often, so she would be saved and he’d be miles away.

But this was different.

With nothing more to do for this lass, he straightened and stepped away when the soldiers returned. They carried lit torches. There was nothing he could do for her.

He watched the soldiers hold the torches to some of the dead folks’ clothing. When they reached the lass, one of the men held his torch to her skirts. She cried out, stopping Tristan’s steps. He grinded his teeth and closed his eyes. Why was he bothering himself with this lass? People died. It happened every day. But she was about to be burned alive.

He spun around. “Cease! Dinna touch her!” he shouted to the soldiers about to set her ablaze. Bastards! They could see she was alive. She was crying. No, she was wailing—it just wasn’t very loud. She looked as if she didn’t have enough strength to stay alive much longer. “D’ye see she is alive?”

They smirked and sneered at him. “You are from the north.”

“Ye are perceptive,” he said through clenched teeth.