“Arrogant English bastard,” the man holding her arm muttered as he tied her hands over the rope above her head. Then he leaned in close, his fetid breath flowing over her face. “When we reach Dunstaffnage, I’ll be having you as payment for my cousin what yer man gutted back there on the road. Just you remember Fergus, my fine lady. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
“I’ll certainly be remembering you, Fergus,” the man next to her taunted, earning himself another kick to the stomach.
“You’ll no have an unbroken bone left in yer body if you dinna cease yer constant aggravation of these brigands.” This from farther down the line of prisoners.
“Mayhaps,” Abby’s neighbor replied after he sucked in his breath. “But bones will heal and what I intend for that man when my bindings come off will no, that much I swear.”
Fergus returned with a bucket, which he slammed to the ground beside Abby. He pushed her down to kneel on it and proceeded to tie her ankles just as the men with her had been bound. With another leering promise of what awaited her at Dunstaffnage, he left, joining his companions around a large campfire to share in the skin of drink they passed among them.
Night had arrived, bringing with it a curtain of darkness barely pierced by the sliver of moon hanging above them.
It brought desperation along with it as well.
How long had Colin lain in that road, blood seeping from the wound in his head? Hours. How could any man survive that?
They couldn’t. He couldn’t.
She was on her own. The only man she’d ever wanted, the one she’d waited and wished for her whole life, taken from her by these filthy, warmongering, piece-of-shit excuses for men.
Desperation faded into despair.
Slow, hot tears tracked down her cheeks. Once they began, there was no stopping them. Her breath caught in her throat, jerking her chest in little coughing sobs. She clenched her teeth together to hold back any sound, determined not to let her captors see how they’ddefeated her, but her pain was too great to control for long.
“Did they harm you, my lady? Where are you wounded? Are you in pain?”
Unending, horrible pain such as she’d never imagined. But she could hardly tell the man next to her it was no wound he could see, only her heart that had been torn to pieces. Not with him looking as if he’d been beaten over every inch of his body, anyway.
“I’m not. . . no wounds,” she managed at last.
“The blood on your gown?”
Abby looked down, unable to make out any but the barest markings on her gown in the dark. If her gown was bloodied, it must have come from Fergus’s cousin when she’d climbed over him to get to Colin.
“Not mine.”
The thought of Colin lying in the road brought a fresh round of pain and with it a fresh round of hot, salty tears. She couldn’t fight it any longer, it hurt too badly.
Her head lolled against her arm as she gave herself over completely to her misery. The stars twinkling above her were magnified by the prism of tears she viewed them through, as if the fates controlling her world had decided to make them extra beautiful just to mock her pain.
“You should try to get some rest. They’ll have us marching at first light.”
Rest? Tied up like this? No chance in hell. Besides, how could she sleep? Her heart hurt too much. She’d never sleep again.
Her head pounded and her nose stuffed up andstill the tears flowed. She didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Not her years of education wasted, not the damn betraying Faeries, not even being stuck in this horrible time. Without Colin, nothing mattered anymore.
The soldiers had drifted off to their blankets, many of them well inebriated by the sound of it. Now only the sounds of snoring filled the night air, adding to her desolation. She was alone. Completely alone in this awful world.
Her shoulders ached and her shins hurt where the rim of the bucket dug into her skin. Her face stung where she’d scraped up against the tree, and every muscle in her body bore witness to her fall from her horse.
Worst of all, guilt consumed her that she could sit here cataloging her aches and pains while Colin. . .
Another round of tears ran down her cheeks, raw now from the light breeze blowing over the tear-stained skin.
Above her, her hands had gone numb and she tried straightening her back to relieve the pressure from her bindings. She glanced at her neighbor to see how the others managed to avoid cutting off their circulation.
A twinkle at her neighbor’s wrists caught her attention and she blinked several times to clear her vision. Moonlight sparkled, reflecting off something metallic.
Maybe he had something they could use to free themselves from their ropes? Freed, she could make her way back to Colin. If there was any chance he lived, any chance at all, she wasn’t about to let it pass her by.