Free Highland Healer by Willa Blair

she find a home there? she worried, wishing suddenly that she was back in Colbridge’s camp, where she knew her role and her place.
    “What is it like, this Aerie of yours?” Aileana asked.
    “Ye’ll see soon enough,” Toran deep voice rumbled behind her “’Tis a home like any other, filled with kin and friends, bairns and beasts.”
    Aileana heard the pride in his voice as he described something so commonplace to him, yet so foreign to her. Sadness she usually kept at bay welled up, and she fought it back. She would not get homesick now. Her parents were long dead, her life in the village gone forever. She would not cry in the arms of this stranger. She would do as she had done for the last two years—she would do everything necessary to survive.
    They rode on, stopping occasionally to rest the horse and relieve themselves. During the first such stop, Aileana considered slipping away into the forest, but suspected that Toran’s tracking skills might equal his fighting and riding abilities. Nor could she outrun his horse. She considered using her Voice to order him to release her, but here in this vast wilderness, she doubted her ability to survive more than a few days. She had no idea where the next village might be.
    Kyle caught up with them once, reporting that Donal and their men followed after relieving some of their pursuers of their mounts. But they were slowed by some of their and the MacAnalen wounded.
    “How bad?” Toran asked.
    “A few scratches and bumps,” Kyle reported with a grin. “Naught to keep them from the Aerie and auld Senga’s ministrations.”
    “Take me back to them,” Aileana argued. “I can help.”
    “Nay,” Toran said, and his tone brooked no further discussion.
    Aileana pursed her lips, but managed to keep her silence. Did he so fear her abilities that he would deny her help for his men?
    Then Toran added, “They’ll catch up to us soon enough,” and her anger evaporated into relief. Toran was just trying to keep her safe. “Kyle, ride back and hurry them along. I don’t want any of Colbridge’s men nipping at their heels. And stay with them. Another good sword arm will come in handy if they do meet trouble.”
    Kyle balked. “Are ye sure that’s wise, Laird?”
    “Aye.” Toran glanced ahead of them and noted the lowering sun in the western sky. “We’re hours away from their camp, and we’ve been on Lathan land for a while now. If they havena caught us yet, they willna between here and the Aerie.”
    Without another word, Kyle turned his horse and headed back the way he’d come. Toran urged their mount to a quicker pace, and settled Aileana firmly against him.
    After hours of hard riding, Aileana’s back ached and her backside felt numb to the toes. She remembered wishing that she’d been left behind in Colbridge’s camp. She didn’t want that, not really. At least there she could move about as she pleased. Even her earlier enjoyment of Toran’s arm about her was beginning to wear thin. She wondered how he still controlled his monstrous steed. Surely he must be as tired and numb as she.
    Suddenly lights danced amid the wind-blown leaves of the trees ahead of them. Her breath seized and she straightened, pointing. “What is that?”
    Toran slowed the horse to a walk and let his arm drop from below her breasts. With some satisfaction, she saw him shake it a bit, easing the circulation back into it, before he spoke. So, she wasn’t the only one suffering.
    “What ye see are the lights of the Aerie. We’re nearly there.”
    As they rode closer, the trees thinned out. She gaped at the fortress that stood revealed. Steep-sided and tall, it loomed proud and alone on its high tor, keeping watch over the valley at its feet. The last rays of sunlight glinted on diamond-paned glass windows set near the top of a tall tower. Torches burned along the merlons, limning the top of the defensive works with flickering gold and sparking off of metal pikes that lined the