Again it came. Shuffling, heavy hooves. Far away but far too close. The murmur of a voice speaking in hushed tones, racing through the night air. Creaking leather, jangling spurs.
Soldiers.
Bending low, he slid his sword free and crept back through the trees, moving from shadow to shadow, making no more noise than a bat winging overhead. When he reached Senna, he crouched down, mouth by her ear.
“Up, lass. We’ve company.”
Her eyes shot open. Her startled, bright eyes were inches from his.
“Unwelcome guests. I’ve need of yer talents with a blade,” he whispered, rising and pointing to a far tree, indicating where to position herself.
She scrambled to her feet, feeling in the sheath lashed around her waist, pulling out the knife. Her other hand briefly touched a second blade strapped to her leg, then she slunk across the shadowy glen to where he had pointed, bending low.
The sound of hooves crunching on sticks suddenly stopped. Every muscle in Finian’s body rippled in readiness. He threw his head back, his mouth slightly parted, every sense alert to scent, sound, motion. At his side, his sword hung still. The dull silver plane of steel shone in the slatted moonlight.
A nicker broke the tense silence, then a muffled snort. Two voices, speaking in thick, almost unintelligible English accents, prickled the hair along the back of his neck.
Sweeping his sword up, he crept closer, moving from tree trunk to tree trunk like a slinking shadow. His blood welled thick and sluggish in his veins, an icy, solid feeling. Planting the heel of his hand on the gnarled bark of one tree, he edged his head around and squinted, trying to pierce the darkness.
The night was too thick, the woods too dense. He couldn’t see anything. Behind, he heard the uneven whisper of Senna’s breathing.
The soft clop of hooves began again, moving slowly away. An exchanged curse or word occasionally floated back to him. He let another moment pass. Then, to comfort Senna in her fear and ensure her continued silence, he turned to her, a finger at his lips.
Astonishment dropped his hand to his side. Was this not the woman he’d awoken two minutes ago from a dead slumber, telling her their lives were about to be shortened? Nay, it could not be. She did not look in the least afraid.
To the contrary, she radiated power and energy, and she was marvelous. Having nailed her lithe torso against the trunk of the tree, she peered around with one chestnut eye, her cheek pasted to the rough bark. Curving and tense, her body was finely tuned, her head thrown back. Masses of tangled dark curls slipped over her shoulder and along her arms. The blade hung deceptively still by her thigh, dripping from her fingertips.
The taut lines of muscles in her arm were defined by the filtered moonlight. Broken fingers did not seem in any way a hindrance. Her eyes glittered as she met his startled gaze, and she flashed him a bold, intrepid smile.
“We are alive yet,” she whispered with an exultant look.
Partner. He had a partner. Sweet Jésu, when last had he such a thing?
Never. Never, and always sought it.
He forced his gaze back to the woods. The sound of the soldiers was farther away and continued to grow more distant. Motioning for Senna to stay where she was, he crept after them.
Half a mile of stealthy hunting assured him they were indeed headed away, and would trouble them no more. He turned back. Upon reached the clearing, he saw Senna had done as he bid, waiting motionless by the tree.
“They are gone,” he whispered.
Her body was trembling with repressed excitement. He could scarcely fathom it. This was a dangerous world, and she was a small woman in its merciless midst. The crown of her head barely topped his shoulder, although the fuzz of untended hair added a good half inch, and he could nearly wrap his fingers twice around her slender wrist. With a twist, he could snap it. She was defenseless, really.
With weapons or without, she was no match for a soldier, no match for him. And she could have been killed a moment ago.
But she was smiling, God save him, with an untamed, fearless grin that smashed through the base of an untended wall of his heart and entered in.
He kept expecting Senna to be a simple matter: a smart, sensuous woman with some surprising, engaging traits. But that all lay in the dust of the past. In the damp, impressionable here and now, she was coming together as a human being in such startling and unexpected ways he was quite helpless before it.
He couldn’t think of a single thing to say. The moon was setting.
“Were they searching for us?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No way to know. I doubt it. That is a rarely used path between two towns.”
“Is it safe to stay here?”
“I don’t want to chance it. Can ye walk some more?”