Page 27 of Ashes of Betrayal

However, he found he couldn’t.

“Aye,” the man, who had the ruddy complexion of someone who drank heavily and spent a lot of time outdoors, rasped, out of breath from attempting to push the cart free of the mud. “It’s stuck good and proper.”

“You shouldn’t be traveling the road at this hour … so close to Bracehell,” Cailean pointed out.

The man grunted, before lifting heavily muscled shoulders in a shrug, and knuckled the rain out of his eyes. “And neither should you.”

The light was fading fast, and Cailean had pulled up the collar of his cloak. They couldn’t see his tattoos, although his size and the fae hound made them wary. The family clustered together now, like a mob of skittish sheep, as if they were expecting trouble.

Moments passed, and then Cailean huffed a deep sigh. Swinging down from the saddle, he squelched through the mud toward them. “Right,” he muttered. “Let’s see if we can get this wagon unstuck.”

“Thank you,” the woman replied, her gaunt face lighting up.

Cailean moved around to the back of the listing wagon. He then nodded to the family. The two lads were staring at him like startled rabbits, and their parents hadn’t moved.

Uneasiness shifted inside him, his gut tightening. Something in their gazes made the hair on the back of his nape prickle—and when the husband and wife shared a look, his instincts flared.Shit. He shouldn’t have stopped to help this lot.

Shouts echoed across the road then, cutting through the drumming rain.

Swearing, Cailean swiveled on his heel, his gaze going to the line of trees behind him, on the northern side of the road. A swarm of warriors, men and women clad in fur and leather, their bare arms smeared with woad, was hurtling toward him—murder in their eyes.

Watching from the safety of the trees on the southern side of the road, Bree hissed a curse.

Behind her, Tivesheh snorted in agreement.He’s done for.

Her pulse leaped into her throat. The stag wasn’t wrong.

She was soaked to the skin, and the wind felt as if it were knifing through her leathers. However, her discomfort was forgotten as she witnessed the warriors streaming onto the road. The moment Cailean had dismounted, Bree’s stomach swooped. Surely, he realized how suspicious it was to find a family out here, so close to Bracehell Barrow?

All the same, they’d been a pathetic sight, drenched and muddied, their faces hollow with hunger. And despite the face her husband presented to the world—that of the pitiless chief-enforcer—she’d seen his protective side a few times now.

Something jolted painfully in her chest.

Aye, Cailean mac Brochan was a man of contradictions, but his decision to stop and help this family had been the wrong one.

Warriors surged out of the woods and converged upon him, howling as they came.

Her husband reacted with enforcer speed, drawing his broadsword in one easy sweep and dropping into a fighting stance as the first of them swung an ax at his head.

With a snarl, Skaal launched herself into the fray, barreling into two women who were charging at Cailean with lethal iron-tipped pikes. The warriors screamed as the fae hound attacked, the sound choking off as Skaal dealt with them.

And as Cailean faced off against four warriors at the same time, his tattoos flaring bright in the gloaming, curses rang across the road. “Enforcer!”

Aye, it had been too dark for them to realize whom they were dealing with. Not that it mattered though. Enforcer or not—and even with Skaal’s help—Cailean was vastly outnumbered.

Meanwhile, the family he’d stopped to help had shed their pathetic expressions. The two lads ran off into the trees while the couple advanced on Cailean’s stallion. It was a fine beast and highly valuable. However, the horse bared its teeth, its neck snaking and huge hooves kicking, as the man tried to grab its reins.

Its teeth sank into his arm, and he gave a rough shout of pain. The stallion then swiveled on its muscular haunches and kicked out, bringing the man down. His wife shrieked, reeling back as the stallion took off into the trees, crashing past where Bree and Tivesheh still looked on.

Bree’s heart started to pound, urgency twisting under her ribs.

I must help him.

Go then.

Bree drew two fighting knives, her gaze narrowing as she surveyed the fight taking place just yards away on the road.

Cailean was surrounded now—and although he cut down warrior after warrior, and Skaal mauled anyone who came within reach of her teeth and claws, it wasn’t a fight the enforcer and his fae hound would win.

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