Not Colin. Colin’s body.
Lifeless, unmoving, he lay not six feet away from her, on his back, his face turned away from her, his head pillowed in a pool of his own blood.
A scream curdled up from the depths of her soul,primeval and ancient in its pain. Nothing mattered but reaching his side.
Ignoring the men around her as well as the one who approached on horseback, she clambered to her feet and threw herself toward Colin.
The man he’d felled lay in her path, but he was no obstacle. Turning her face from the gaping wound in his chest, she climbed over him to get to Colin as if the man’s body were nothing more than a large rock in the road. She tightened her fingers around a handful of the material of Colin’s tunic, pulling his arm toward her as she reached him. Even her hand to his face brought no sign of life.
“Colin?”
This couldn’t be happening. She’d only just found him; she couldn’t lose him so soon. It wasn’t right. How could the Faeries who’d worked so hard to bring them together allow this to happen?
“Send us back,” she whispered as she bent over him. If ever she’d needed to believe in the Magic, this was the time. “Please send us home. Get us out of here, now! I wish to go home!”
She waited, holding her breath. Waited for the mysterious Magic to manifest itself and whisk them to safety. Waited for the green glow of lightning or an earthquake or whatever form it wanted to take.
Waited until unfriendly hands fastened around her waist and dragged her from Colin’s side.
“Goddamned freaking worthless Faeries!” she screamed, kicking with everything she had left as the man who held her lifted her up to the newcomer on horseback.
She tightened her hand into a fist and drew back, swinging wildly at her new captor, but he caught her wrist, easily deflecting her blow.
“I’d recommend against any more of your useless hysterics, my good woman. If you continue, I’ll have one of these men slit your throat and dump your body on the road along with his. Do you understand?”
Whoever he was, he spoke with a distinctly British accent.
“We’ll take her with us to rejoin the company and add her to the other prisoners. A woman, a lady by the looks of her in spite of her behavior, will likely bring MacDougall a fair ransom.”
“Or a fair bedding,” one of the men shouted, to the laughter of all.
“What about him?”
“Leave him,” her captor ordered. “If he’s not already dead, he’ll bleed out soon enough. We’ve our hands full with the lot we already hold.”
If he’s not already dead. . .
In spite of these animals, in spite of the betraying Faeries, those few words gave her something to hang on to as the horse picked up speed, carrying her away from the other half of her Soul.
Her heart lay behind her on the road, but those five words gave her hope that her heart might yet live, if only she could figure out some way to escape these men and get back here.
Flynn bided his time in the trees, watching the drama play out on the road ahead of him.
When the soldier had lifted Abigail to his mount, he’d considered using the weapon he’d brought with him. Briefly considered.
He reached for the weapon tucked in his waistband, clenching his teeth in irritation as his fingers passed right through it.
The blood he’d taken from Abigail had worn off.
Once again, his body had returned to the insubstantial state that had cursed his people since their banishment to this half-existence on the Mortal Plain. He could neither commit nor experience violence. The only ability left to his people in their punishment had been the Compulsion, an ability to control the weaker-minded among the Mortals to do their bidding.
But that was before the discovery of the consequences of taking blood. Through the ingestion of fresh blood, he could do anything.
Too bad the only blood available to him at the moment was wholly Mortal. Though it would restore his ability to act as he needed to, it would not carry the sweet tang of Magic. For that, he needed to find Abby.
Ah, well. For now, Mortal blood would suffice.
“Come to me, blacksmith.”