Page 16 of The Iron Earl
Her fingers curled into fists, her nails digging into her palms, and she turned her head, determined not to let the tears brimming in her eyes fall.
He was right.
She should be dead. Should be dead a hundred times over. She’d been told it her whole life.
Yet there she stood, alive.
She turned fully to him, but she couldn’t look up at him. Only his boot. His well-worn black boot tucked into the stirrup.
She found her voice, feigning her own ire. “I had to escape—I could not help it. After I dropped the soup on him, Colin struck me and I—I panicked. I ran.” Her chest started to shake, the air vibrating in her lungs as she tried not to get swallowed again by the rash of terror she’d felt by the fire. “I ran and then I was on the road and they passed by. Mr. Fitzgibbon offered to bring me to the nearest village, so I went with them. I knew full well the danger, but I…I could think of nothing but escape…” Her voice petered, dwindling to a whisper. So much for her false chagrin.
A frustrated growl shook from Lachlan’s chest.
Her head bowed and she turned from his leg.
For whatever she’d thought she’d gain by escaping her stepfather’s tyrannical eye, she realized in that moment she had nothing.
She was still just as powerless as she’d always been.
But now powerless in an entirely new way she had no inclination as to how to navigate.
Nothing to do but walk.
She picked up her heavy legs, starting forth on the road again.
Lachlan sighed and slid off his steed, his feet thudding onto the ground and shaking the dirt beneath her toes.
Before she took two steps, he grabbed her arm, stopping her and turning her toward him. He stood in silence, his fingers digging into the muscles of her upper arm. Silence until she lifted her chin, braving her gaze upward.
She looked up at him, the moon high in the sky above his head casting a glow about his wild brown hair, a rich deep color, like fresh bark pulled away from a tree—alive, deep. He looked like a fierce Viking she’d once seen an imprint of in a tome she’d snuck from her stepfather’s library.
A warrior, meant to intimidate.
His mouth opened. “Once we reach my lands, lass, you are free to leave, free to find a different path in life. I’ll not hold you to my household. But until then—until you are in safe lands where you can, as you say, disappear—I stand by my vow. I will get you there without harm.”
His eyes caught the light of the moon, reflecting sparks of blue as his words lost all anger, his voice oddly soft. “You need to know I have already set the way of things with Colin. With all the men. No one in my camp will ever hit you again, Evalyn. No one.”
The words stole the breath from her lungs.
He wasn’t a fierce Viking. Not at all.
An angel warrior, meant to protect.
She nodded.
She believed him.
{ Chapter 5 }
Evalyn stared at the dead rabbit in her hand, its belly cut half open.
She swallowed down the gag in her throat, her tongue curdling.
Rupe had knocked the berries she’d collected from her hands when she’d arrived back in camp, grinding them under his heel. He’d shoved the rabbit into her left hand, his gutting blade into her right just before he’d grabbed the torch angled out from the wagon and stomped off, grumbling about how it would be impossible to find the right berries now that dusk had settled.
Trying to poison the whole camp.
He’d spit the accusation out at her and the look he’d given her would’ve melted steel.