The Warrior Bride Read Free Page A

indisputable, there was a blade and there were fingers.
    “Who are you?” The voice was unknown, deep and low and deadly. The knife was sharp enough to draw forth a droplet of blood with the slightest nudge.
    Lachlan dare not swallow lest another drop follow the first. He raised his hands and swore in silence. “Put away the blade and I’ll not harm you, friend. I’ve no quarrel with you.” He had tried to learn diplomacy from Gilmour, but perhaps he’d not been the most gifted student, for the other seemed undeterred.
    “Then why do you sneak into me camp like a flea-bitten cur?”
    Silence stole into the woods. “Your camp?” Lachlan asked.
    No answer was forthcoming.
    “You are the warrior called Hunter?”
    “Aye.”
    Damnation! “Then you’ve naught to fear from me,” Lachlan said.
    There was a moment of quiet, then the other laughed and slipped his knife harmlessly away. “That much is pitiably apparent,” he said, and turned back to his fire.
    Lachlan watched him go. ‘Twas said the man had carried him to Evermyst. ‘Twas said the man had saved his life, but perhaps gratitude was not Lachlan ’s primary virtue for even now he could feel his temper rising.
    “What say you?” Lachlan asked, and followed the other through the darkness.
    Not a word was spoken for some time, but finally the warrior glanced up from his place on a log. From beneath the curved visor of his dark metal helm, his eyes were naught but a glimmer of light tossed up from the fire now and again. His nose guard shadowed his face, and the fine metal mesh attached to the bottom of his helmet did naught but continue the mystery.
    “Why have you come, MacGowan?”
    Lachlan scowled. So Hunter had recognized him.
    Perhaps this warrior was not so poorly trained as he had assumed. Indeed, perhaps he was somewhat adept. “In truth,” Lachlan said, remembering his mission with some difficulty, “I have come to return your favor.”
    The fire crackled, and although it was difficult to see past the fine chain metal that hid the warrior’s cheeks and neck, Lachlan thought he caught a hint of a smile. “Something amuses you?”
    “Rarely,” said Hunter, and carved a slice of mutton from a bone.
    “Then why do you smile?”
    Silence again. Lachlan tightened his fist. Indeed if he hadn’t come to save this fellow, he would be well tempted to give him a much-deserved pop in the face.
    “Leave me,” said the warrior and stood.
    “Perhaps you did not understand me,” Lachlan said, his tone stilted even as he did his best to smile. “I wish to repay your favor.”
    “Are you so bored, MacGowan?” Hunter’s voice was little more than a murmur in the darkness.
    “What’s that?”
    “Why else would you come but for boredom’s sake?” Lachlan straightened his back, but he was quite certain his smile had slipped a notch. “I have come for chivalry’s sake,” he said. “To repay you for-”
    But his words were interrupted by laughter.
    “For a man who is rarely amused…” Lachlan began, then shrugged, as much to relieve his tension as to finish his thought.
    “You have come for vanity’s sake,” said Hunter. “Vanity?”
    “To prove yourself me equal.”
    Perhaps Lachlan was more vain than he knew, for he had never considered a need to prove his equality. He smiled. “I assure you, you are wrong.”
    Hunter watched him for a moment. The fire flickered between them. “I have made me a rule, MacGowan.”
    Lachlan waited, but if the other planned to continue, It was a hard thing to prove. And perhaps patience was not MacGowan’s stellar characteristic. “What is that rule?”
    “I do not kill a man whose life I once saved.”
    The sliver of anger that had wedged into Lachlan ’s system expanded a bit. “You think you could best me?”
    There was not the least bit of mirth in the man’s smile only arrogance mixed with a bit of blood-boiling disdain. “Run home to your father’s castle, lad. I have no time to teach