Free His Conquest by Diana Cosby Page A

length from the edge, Seathan jammed his foot into the muck, shoved to the left. Pain exploded in his left arm as he slammed into a boulder. His vision blurred. His head spun as if after a night of too much drink.
    But they’d stopped.
    Several feet below, the rush of water roared. He dragged in deep breaths, fighting to remain conscious.
    “Seathan?”
    The worry in her voice had him forcing his eyes open. He saw two of the lass. Slowly, his vision cleared.
    Eyes wide with fear, she clung to him. “I…”
    “Thought we were going over?”
    She nodded.
    “If we had remained near the top,” he said between rough gasps, “Tearlach’s men would have seen us.”
    “I know.” Her voice shook.
    Protectiveness swamped him. Against the pain, he drew her to him. “We are safe.” For now. But how much longer he could not guarantee.
    The rumble of hooves had him looking up. Through the mist-coated grass, he glimpsed a knight cantering by, then another as the contingent passed.
    What had he been thinking to stand in the open talking to the lass as if ’twas a day of leisure?
    Her grip on his arm loosened. “I—I think the men are gone.”
    “Mayhap, but we will remain here a while to make sure.”
    “You think they will return.”
    “They will. Tearlach will not quit until he has us both.”
    Guilt flashed in her eyes. She nodded, but said no more, a mystery that left him on edge as it had from the first.
    Linet glanced toward his side, gasped. “Your wound is bleeding.”
    Not surprised, he looked down. Blood was slowly staining the garb underneath his arm. He pressed his palm against the wound to staunch the flow. Sticky wetness seeped against his fingers.
    “You have torn open the bindings,” she said. “They will have to be rebound.”
    “Aye.”
    Linet scoured the falls below. She turned back, her face pale.
    “We are wedged solidly and will not slip.”
    She nodded, her look far from assured. “Keep me steady.”
    Once he’d shifted and clasped her shoulder, she tore the hem of her gown. With his help, she wrapped the cloth around him, secured it, but he didn’t miss the awareness in her eyes when she touched him, or the tangle of need woven within.
    She tugged the last knot snug. “Take care when you climb up.”
    He held her gaze a long moment, their earlier intimate conversation haunting him with unsettling warmth. “It will serve its purpose.” He shrugged off the odd emotion and focused on his injury. Once they’d reached the safety of the cave, he would tend his wound better. A reopened gash was minor compared to the danger if Tearlach’s men discovered them.
    Time passed with soul-drugging slowness. His injury pounded as if bashed with a mace, but he focused on the warmth of Linet’s body flush against his, the way she settled against him as if she’d given him her full trust.
    Her body trembled.
    “Steady, lass.”
    She shot a worried look toward the top. “We must return to the cave.”
    He heard the fear in her voice, understood her concern with the falls but a short distance below, and with the men scouring the area above.
    “We will wait a few moments longer.”
    She nodded but remained silent.
    Against his better sense, his admiration for her grew. Many a pampered lass would be screaming like a stallion gelded.
    A wave of fatigue washed over him. Seathan fought past it, then glanced down. Water pounded below them, its rising spray a shimmering mist. Sunlight filtered through the droplets like fairy dust. He grimaced. Twice in as many days he’d thought of the fey. His mind was surely abandoning him.
    Enough!
    He pushed to his knees, then helped Linet to turn, the angled slope of grass and brambles presenting its own challenge.
    “Up you go, lass.” He shoved his foot into the soft muck, ignored the pain, and pushed.
    Linet’s foot slipped at his side. “I cannot find a grip.”
    “Catch hold of the grass. Pull yourself up.”
    She shot him a worried glance. “It will mean