Page 111 of The Splendor of Fire
Running along the branch, she tumbled into the next tree, and then the next, and the next. He wouldn’t look up. He’d almost reached the clearing when she heard the guard.
“I see movement!”
He froze, looking up into the tree, and spotted her.A-I-L-E-E-N!
The guards moved across the clearing right for him. Her heart crushed and tears flooded from her eyes.It’s a trap!
He registered her signs and ducked into the heather, but the guards kept coming, they’d seen motion.
Knowledge burst over her, and she knew with utter certainty shecouldn’t let him be taken. God had given them to each other, and she would die before letting him be harmed. In a split second, she knew what she had to do.
Dropping from branch to branch, she descended to the ground and ran through the heather he hid within, planting a foot on his back and springing over his crouched body, making the guard think they had seen her. Fire scorching her soul, she tore out of the heather and sprinted across the clearing as if she were trying to escape.
Six caterans hurtled after her, and she hit the ground, breath knocked from her lungs. Curling against the burn in her chest, she gasped for air, unable to breathe. She raised her hands to the air, knowing he was watching her.I love you, Lion! Run! Get out of here! Run!
The guards flipped her to her stomach, pulling her by her legs toward Niall. Air rushed into her smarting lungs and her hands clawed the ground, trying to slow them as they dragged her away from the only love she’d ever known.
At the edge of the clearing, she saw Angus and Eoghan wrestle Léo to the ground, their hands clamped over his mouth, a scream of horror in his eyes. Sobs escaped her throat as she saw the pain she caused him.
Stomach stinging against the cuts from the pebbles beneath her belly, she rasped in pain as the guards dumped her at Niall’s feet.
He crouched down and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her head up.
“Who do we have here?”
Chapter 34
DUNVEGAN CASTLE - SEPTEMBER 27, 1385
Angus’s bìrlinn pulled into Dunvegan at the same time as Calum’s vessel. Eoghan leaned forward and put a hand on Léo’s shoulder. “Did you rest at all, lad?”
Face puffy with grief, he shook his head.
“Come on, let’s get inside. We’re going to need rest.”
Eoghan put a hand out and Léo could only stare at it.
“Come on, lad.”
Putting his head back down into his arms, Léo shut him out. Longing to shut out the demons of the horrible night, to forget the feeling of her springing off him through the heather, he squeezed his eyes shut. Tears escaped and a sob as he remembered her golden hair catching the moonlight as she made it to the clearing, the guards swarming her and crashing his little bird to the ground.
Hot tears rolled down his cheeks and he bit into his fist to keep from screaming.He’d drawn his estoc and taken one step into the clearing when he’d been tackled by Angus and Eoghan. Savage loss filled him as they dragged her toward Niall, toward her punishment, toward her death.
Screaming against the hands around his mouth, pain filled his chestas it hadn’t since Théa died. He’d met her clear eyes for the last time and saw their love blazing in them. She had given her life for his.
A shadow covered Léo but he didn’t move. A large hand touched his arm, but he didn’t look up.
“Brother?”
The distinctive guttural voice penetrated his fog of loss and he looked up into Hector’s face, a new wave of anguish hitting him as stared at his brother, and hers. A large hand came to the back of his head.
“Angus says it’s Moira?”
Pain shot through his heart, and he shook his head, knowing how the truth would hurt Hector far worse. “Aileen.”
Hector’s spectral eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
Reaching inside his doublet, Léo pulled out the squashed letter and handed it to him. Tears filled Léo’s eyes afresh as he saw his name scrawled across the front in Aileen’s out-of-control handwriting.
