Tempest Heart - Paula Quinn Page 0,71
to take both camps to get to her. She remembered what he’d done before, and she smiled. Also, he would no doubt have the captain with him by now. They would find her, and then they would have to go back and find her father before Neill’s men found him.
“You are afraid of him,” Rose said in front of him. “’Tis immensely satisfying.”
He yanked her closer and breathed against her ear. “That is the same thing I will tell you when I set him on fire.”
Her mouth went dry. Could he do it? He was a monster. A giant, merciless monster. Could he stop Tristan? She had to do something before Tristan arrived. She wouldn’t let Neill kill everyone she loved.
“You should be grateful to me for getting you away from your home. You do not know the evil that lurks there, Rose. Or what I have done for you. Instead, you revile me, making me sorry I saved you. I did not have to. He never said to me, Neill, you may not kill Rose. No.”
Her uncle. She wanted to scream and not stop. Her uncle was responsible for all this. She could not comprehend it. “I do not understand. If my uncle hates my father so much, why continue to visit?”
“You will have to ask him.”
“I have no intentions on ever speaking to him again,” she retorted.
He relented and rode on in silence.
She heard a sound, like the growl of a bear coming from their left. She looked that way.
Neill heard it, too, and held his blade to her throat. “You should not have let yourself care, MacPherson!” he called out into the trees, knowing they were being followed.
“Pity more for ye that I did.” Came a voice, deep and rich—and from above. Not heaven, but the treetops.
Hanging upside down, Tristan appeared, and having just one opportunity to get it right, he snatched the knife from Neill’s fingers and smashed him in the temple with the hard hilt.
Rose’s captor slipped from the saddle.
Rose and Tristan were next, jumping to their feet and leaping into each other’s arms. She let him hold her for a long time, neither one saying a word until Jones, who was the one who provided the bear-like growl, rode toward them from the trees.
Tristan had come for her again. She hadn’t doubted he would.
“All right now, you two,” said Mr. Jones, reaching them.
Rose turned, flushed, and then smiled at him. What was Mr. Jones doing with Tristan? A wave of horror rolled over her when she thought of what Neill had done before he left. Was everything gone? Her heart sank. “Mary?”
“Mary is safe, lass.” Tristan told her, bending to lift the unresponsive Neill over his shoulder. “Come, before he awakens, and I have to kill him.”
Jones dismounted and punched Neill in the face to make certain he didn’t wake up too soon and threw Neill over the saddle before regaining his place.
They agreed that Rose would ride back with Tristan and they would meet up with Jones on the road beyond the bend.
Tristan’s horse was waiting for them deeper in the woods. He had dismounted and climbed the trees in the dark and then traveled through them.
They had never heard him coming in the treetops.
Oh, she thrilled in the scent of him—leather and virility. She wanted to fall into his strong arms and give herself to him. She wanted him to possess her, become one with her.
He was holding her hand and it made her want to possess him, to hold his unbridled heart. She wanted to be the only one who could.
“Thank you for coming for me. When did you know the captain and I were—did you save the captain, Tristan?”
He turned to her as they reached Perceval and helped her mount. “Aye. He is well and tendin’ to his wife. He wished to come fight fer ye, but Jones convinced him that his wife needed to see him and that he could relinquish yer care to me.”
He fit his foot into the stirrup and tossed his leg over the horse then spread his thighs on either side of her.
Her body shook for him. She fought her scandalous desires and tried to focus on what she needed to know. “You said the captain is tending to his wife. Is Mary here? With you?”
“Aye,” he told her, happily at first, and then his smiled faded. “She is all that is left of yer home, I’m afraid.”
She leaned her head on his chest behind