Page 8 of Claimed by the Bounty Hunter (Highland Bodyguards #4)
Shite .
Kirk darted forward, but he was too late to catch the lass before she tumbled out the window.
If she’d broken her neck, not only would he be responsible for her death, but it would mean that he’d failed his mission hardly before it had begun. Both his missions, in truth, for if Roland didn’t have him dismembered for failing to deliver the lass, the Bruce would likely flay him raw for not only harming one of the Bodyguard Corps, but killing a woman important enough to protect.
To his swift relief, he heard the lass grunt with the impact, then moan softly even before he reached the window. At least she was alive enough to moan.
Kirk ducked his head out the window. The lass was struggling to rise to her feet after what must have been a hard landing. She glanced up at him, moonlight swimming in the dark pools of her rounded, fearful eyes.
She at last made it onto her feet and began staggering away, limping heavily on her right leg.
Kirk considered going out the window after her, but with her slow, painful pace, he would have no problem catching up to her if he simply went back down the stairs. Besides, there was nowhere for her to run. They were isolated here in the farthest reaches of the Highlands. No doubt that isolation had served to protect her, but now it would be her enemy.
He spun on his heels and strode back down the stairs. He had to grit his teeth against the man’s groans at the bottom. He didn’t know the lad, but Roland had said the Bodyguard Corps was suspected of being involved in the Fitzhugh woman’s disappearance into Scotland.
The lad was brave, Kirk would give him that. He only wished he would have gone down with less of a fight. He’d done all he could not to kill him, but Kirk had to play his part as a mercenary in the Order of the Shadow. And that meant incapacitating the woman’s bodyguard, the Bruce’s man or not.
He stepped over the lad, who lay stunned on the floor. His breathing was labored, his jaw clenched in pain. He had one hand over his right eye, where blood dripped between his fingers, but the other arm lay limp at his side, Kirk’s dagger protruding from it.
Shite . He’d done this. He’d created blood and carnage and destruction—again. His mind flashed back to Carrickfergus. There had been no blood and mangled flesh left by the time the castle fell to the Scottish army’s siege. Only bones.
Kirk muttered another curse, gritting his teeth against the task of removing the daggers from the lad’s arms. They’d drilled into him that it was best not to leave any evidence of the Order whenever possible.
Bracing a hand against the young man’s chest, Kirk gripped one of the daggers. With a swift jerk, he removed it cleanly. He did the same with the other, but there was no undoing the slash across the lad’s face. He might even lose his eye.
“Bastard,” the lad hissed, fighting feebly to swing a punch and kick at Kirk. “Ye’ll pay for this, I swear. I’ll find ye, and I’ll kill ye.”
“Leave this one alone, lad,” Kirk rasped, rising to his feet.
“Never!” The bellow turned into a groan of pain, and the lad had to pause to draw in several labored breaths. “I’ll make ye pay tenfold for any harm ye bring to the lass. I’ll hunt ye down like the cowardly dog ye are. I’ll never give up.”
Unease shot through Kirk. If the way the lad had kept fighting after taking two daggers to the arms was any indication, he spoke true about not giving up. But if this hot-headed young member of the Bodyguard Corps insisted on hunting Kirk down, it could put the larger mission in jeopardy—and force Kirk to put the lad down more permanently.
He’d need to contact Colin somehow on his journey southward. Mayhap if he could explain that his action had been in the service of the Bruce’s mission, they would spare him from a traitor’s death .
But even if he did manage to reach Colin, it wouldn’t change what he’d done to this lad.
“Forgive me,” Kirk murmured before turning his back and striding from the cottage.
He collected his daggers from the two guards outside. They each tried, despite their injuries, to attack him as well, but one at a time he locked their heads in the crook of his elbow and squeezed until they went still, their breathing slow and even. The other man amongst the guards would wake the same as these two would—with a pounding headache from the choke hold Kirk had learned in the Order, but at least they would all be alive.
When he rounded the side of the little cottage, he could make out the woman’s form in the moonlight, lurching and swaying toward the woods.
“Stop,” he said, his hard, flat voice cutting through the night air.
She looked back at him, then made a desperate attempt to break into a run. Her moan, either of fear or pain, drifted to him.
“Ye willnae escape me,” he called, striding after her. “Ye are only hurting yerself.”
Just then, she tripped, landing with a whoosh of air just at the edge of the forest.
Damn it all. Roland had ordered Kirk to bring the lass back unharmed. And even if he hadn’t, it twisted Kirk’s stomach to watch an innocent suffer.
He swiftly closed the remaining distance between them and crouched over her.
She shrieked and struck out at him like a cornered wildcat. Her nails grazed his face and she managed to get one good kick in, but a heartbeat later he had her pinned to the damp grass.
“Stop,” he repeated, keeping any sympathy from his voice.
But still he could feel her straining in his hold, despite the fact that he was twice her size and his strength easily outmatched hers threefold.
Christ, this was going to be a hellish fortnight of travel—or more, depending on how long it took him to get word to Colin somehow. If this moment was any indication, she would fight him at every step, despite the fact that she would never best him.
And he would have to be the uncaring, cruel bastard she no doubt thought he was.
He hated himself in that moment—hated who he had become, not just in the wars in Scotland and Ireland, but in his time with the Order as well.
As a soldier for first Robert the Bruce and then Edward Bruce, he’d learned to turn off his emotions, to do as he was told. Even when he’d gotten Edward Bruce’s order to maintain the siege on Carrickfergus long after they’d known the supplies had dwindled to naught inside the castle’s walls, he’d obeyed.
And when he’d stepped into the Compound, passing himself off as a mercenary willing to collect innocent individuals for coin in the service of the Order, he’d sunk even deeper into the unfeeling, uncaring man he pretended to be.
Was he still pretending? Or had he actually turned into the monster he’d always feared becoming? Did it matter that he didn’t truly wish to harm this woman? He was doing it anyway, following orders yet again, whether it was right or not.
Swallowing the sickening tightness in his throat, he pulled the Fitzhugh woman up from the ground and hoisted her over his shoulder without difficulty. She flailed wildly, but her fists did no damage against his back, and he could hold her in place easily with one hand.
God, she was so small and light. She felt fragile in his hold, like she would break with the merest pressure.
Kirk’s thoughts skittered to the future that awaited her. Aye, she’d break, but the men he was delivering her to would likely use more than the merest pressure.
This was bigger than one woman, he reminded himself, clenching his teeth against his disgust. This was about taking down the entire Order of the Shadow. And that meant he had to play his part for the time being. He was a bounty hunter on a mission, not some knight in gleaming armor saving the damsel in peril.
And he damned well needed to be convincing, else his cover would be exposed and Roland would string him up like the spy he was. He couldn’t show any weakness toward the woman—including kindness .
Kirk hardened his heart then, burying whatever shred of honor he had left as deep as possible behind a wall of cold stone.
He was no hero.
Nay, he was the villain now.
“Ye arenae going anywhere, lass,” he said as he strode toward where he’d secured his horse deeper in the woods. “Ye may as well accept that for the time being, ye are mine.”