. .” the Buchanan began uncertainly, and then paused and shifted slightly to peer past her.
“What is it?” Evina asked, glancing over her shoulder. Sitting on top of him as she was, Evina was high enough to see over the grass, but she didn’t see anything alarming.
“I thought I saw—” He broke off with a curse just as pain punched through her back.
Suddenly gasping for breath, Evina turned back to him with alarm, and then followed his horrified gaze down to her chest. Much to her bewilderment there was a bloody arrow tip sticking out of her breast, she saw, and then the Buchanan was tumbling them both sideways to the ground.
Evina landed on her side with a grunt, and took a minute to catch her breath, but she didn’t seem to be able to. Frowning, she opened her eyes to look at Rory, but he was gone. Confused, she glanced around and spotted his feet. They were moving, and there was another pair of feet there, she noted, and then heard the clang of metal against metal and followed the sound up to see that he was in a sword fight with someone.
He wasn’t half-bad, Evina decided after watching him for a minute. Impressive even, she thought as another man came into view and she realized he was fighting two at once. Not just a healer after all, she acknowledged, and then found her eyes closing.
Evina blinked them open what she thought was a mere moment later, but it must have been longer than that, because the two men Buchanan had been fighting were now lying unmoving on the ground near her, and the Buchanan was fighting a different man. And there were two other men battling right beside them, she saw. One of them was—
“Gavin!” Evina cried with alarm as the man her cousin was battling caught him in the arm with his sword tip. She’d meant to scream, but didn’t have the air to manage it. Her voice was barely conversation level. Still, it was enough to make the men stop fighting briefly and glance her way. Evina stared at Gavin’s startled and pain-filled face and shook her head. He couldn’t be there. This had to be a dream, she decided as her eyes closed again.
The next time her eyes opened, the world was rushing past to the sound of drumming hooves, and the Buchanan was holding her tight to his chest, saying, “Hold on, Evi. We’re almost there.”
She wanted to ask almost where? Evina also wanted to ask if it had really been Gavin she’d seen, and if he was all right, but her eyes closed again before she could get the words out.
Chapter 6
“How is she?”
Conran glanced up from a sleeping Evina at that question, and watched as Fearghas Maclean hobbled into the room. While the man was up on his feet, walking obviously pained him. But then, half his derriere was missing and just starting to heal. He would be hobbling for a while, Conran thought absently, and then realized the man was waiting anxiously for an answer.
He shifted his grim gaze back to Evina. Conran had helped Rory clean similar wounds before. Still, he’d wished the other man was here for this one. He’d been very worried he might make a mistake and do her more damage than good. However, everyone had been looking to him to handle it, and that certainly hadn’t been the moment to admit that he was not the great healer Rory Buchanan. He’d done the best he could, but it had been slow, grueling work.
“I removed the arrow, and cleaned and closed the wound,” he said on a weary sigh, and then shook his head with wonder as he added, “I do no’ ken why, mayhap ’twas the position of the arrow, but she did no’ lose as much blood as I would have expected. I think she’ll be all right.”
“Thank God,” Fearghas murmured as he reached the bed and dropped to perch his uninjured butt cheek on the side of it. Brushing a strand of hair away from his daughter’s face, he muttered, “I should have let her take her sword.”
“She ne’er would have got to use her sword, and ‘twould no’ have prevented her taking the arrow. That was our first warning there was anything amiss,” Conran told him quietly.
“Aye, o’ course,” he said unhappily.
“How is Gavin?” Conran asked, sitting back in his chair.
“His arm is sore, but he’ll be fine. I sent him to find