Page 146 of Bride of Mist
Shadows began creeping in at the sides of his vision. He tried to blink them away. He refused to close his eyes until he was sure Feiyan was safe.
She came to him then, just as his legs collapsed beneath him and he sank onto his knees in the sand.
The Fortanachs were far away now. Out of the villagers’ reach. But that was good. They were too busy escaping to hurt anyone. If they were wise, they would never return again.
Feiyan wrapped her arms around him. Her eyes filled with tears of despair.
But Dougal was beyond sorrow. The danger had passed. Feiyan was safe. She would live. Numb relief slowly filled his veins.
He tried to raise his hand. To brush the locks of hair back from her worried eyes. But he hadn’t the strength to even lift a finger.
She slipped behind him, easing him onto his back, cradling his shoulders on her lap.
The sky was clearing now, turning a shade of blue-gray that matched her wet eyes. He felt a warm drop on his hand that couldn’t be rain.
He licked his lips. They were dry. But he had to speak to Feiyan. She looked so aggrieved. He had to tell her it would be all right.
He wouldn’t be there to share the future with her.
But he wanted to tell her that she had a long and happy life ahead of her.
He wanted to remind her that Rivenloch had shown up in force to defend her, proving she was anything but invisible.
He wanted to tell her that her efforts had surely saved his clan from destruction, and they would be forever grateful.
And he wanted to assure the bright and beautiful lass that she would one day find a husband who would love and honor her as much as…
Nay, he thought. No one would love Feiyan as much as he did.
He wanted to tell her all that.
All he could manage was three weakly whispered words.
“I loved ye.”
Loved?Loved?
The possibility of losing Dougal had left Feiyan crippled by hopelessness. Mired in misery deeper than any loch, she had succumbed to despondency, sinking into an abyss of anguish.
But that word—loved,not love—was like a slap in the face, awakening her to reality. For Dougal, dying was not just a possibility. It was a certainty. And the thought that he would surrender so easily dissolved her grief like the sun burned away the mist, turning it from weak despair to fiery resolve.
The Fortanachs might be getting away with murdering Laird Gaufrid. She didn’t give a fig about that. But she’d be damned if she’d let Dougal die.
“Don’t you leave me,” she said. “Don’t even think about it.”
His eyes were dimming even as she spoke the words. She shook him back to life.
Her throat clogged with tears as she lectured him with an unshakable confidence that was as full of pretense as her disguises.
“I didn’t follow you all the way from the border—scrambling through the trees, sleeping on the cold ground, battling outlaws—just to lose you on a Westland beach.”
She clenched her trembling jaw.
“I didn’t risk my honor and my name and my neck just so you could slip away.”
She sniffed back a sob.
“I didn’t give up my mask and my virginity and my…my heart, just so you could break your vow.”
