Page 47

Chapter

Forty-Two

Adara

“ H ow is he alive?” Grahame shouted over the grunts of exertion surrounding them.

Men were everywhere. Some on horse, most hand to hand. The shield wall stood to Adara’s right, but it had broken on her left.

Eadric offered a crooked smile. “The Britons are loyal. Their leader is in my care. They are here to lay waste to those who harmed him.”

Adara sucked a breath through her teeth as she reined Ulrich as close as she dared. Moving. She had to keep moving. Had to get close enough to her father to agree to stop the madness. It was the only way to end it all.

At her side, Hagan bellowed. Adara locked her limbs in place so she would not look his way. She dug her heels into Ulrich.

“Never. She will never go with you,” Grahame spat. He jabbed his weapon at Eadric. Her father easily blocked the motion. Sweat slicked Grahame’s brow. He was already tired. Yet Adara knew he would fight for her. Would sacrifice himself to save her.

“Aye, boy, she will.”

Eadric’s mouth contorted into a cruel grin. It called to something deep in her, something she’d seen throughout childhood—her father’s cruelty in the face of her resistance. She swallowed over the dry knot in her throat.

“Grahame, I have to,” Adara called, her tone ragged, helpless.

How could she tell him she had to own all the ways she failed?

The sounds of agony, of metal through meat were enough to tell her how her side fared.

Adara narrowed her eyes against the too bright sun.

She sucked a breath, steeling herself against the sensation of defeat that threatened to swamp her.

She did not dare look at Ridley and Yrsa, Hagan and Uhtread.

Her father had too many men. He’d outwitted them.

Guston and Hyrstow were to be sacrificed.

If devastation had a face, Grahame wore it when he looked at her. “He will kill you.”

“Who said anything about killing you, Daughter? The Brit prince will not care if your face is carved up, so long as your cunt still works.”

The disgusting words were barely uttered before Grahame was roaring with rage, slicing at her father’s leg.

The movement revealed a slip of material poking from beneath her father’s arm.

There was a gap in the armor between the chest and shoulder plates.

Beneath his arm, too, if she could get close enough.

With a snarl, she dug with her other hand for the last dagger on her belt.

Eadric deflected Grahame’s blow. He parried with a strike that skimmed Grahame’s injured shoulder.

“No!” she screamed.

Adara’s heart lurched into her chest as Grahame swerved to avoid the blow.

To her right, a woman grunted in agony. Adara kept her eyes locked on her father despite her desire to find out if Yrsa had fallen.

A man’s roar overtook the melee, the clanking of metal stronger, more fearsome. The stench of blood shoved up her nose.

She would not lose everyone, everything.

“You will not take us!” Adara shouted, spurring ahead.

“I will!” Eadric spat.

To her utter shock, he plunged his sword into the shoulder of Grahame’s horse.

The animal reared back, shrieking in pain.

Adara watched in horror as Grahame attempted to keep his seat while holding a weapon in one hand, his injured arm gripping the reins.

Grahame slipped to the side, bellowing. He would be trampled.

“No!” Adara screamed.

In a blink, Grahame fell. The beast’s forelegs came down hard before it darted away.

For a moment, the entire world stopped.

Her father laughed, the sound awakening the blood-curdling sense of revenge Adara had been trying to leash.

Her fingers were strong around the tip of her dagger, her aim true as she let it fly towards her father’s exposed throat.

His reaction was just as quick. He darted to the side.

The blade skimmed the side of his neck. Blood welled.

His hand flew up to stanch the flow, but Adara was already moving, spurring Ulrich forward.

And, while Eadric of Bernira tried to sidestep, Adara of Guston thrust her sword beneath his upraised arm.

“We will not surrender!” she shouted. “We are one !”

Bones shuddered and blood unleashed like a deluge over her hand.

Pain rent her father’s features in half.

He attempted to rear back. Hot blood flecked her face.

Adara did not hesitate. She yanked her sword, withdrawing it midway before plunging it into him again.

This time, they both screamed as something inside him gave way beneath her blow.

All movement slowed around her, though Adara forced herself to stare at her father as he tried and failed to ease himself off her blade.

The man who hated her for being female, who married her off to Elvin.

The one who despised Grahame’s village, who thought he would own the people of Hyrstow as if they were hogs to be traded.

The man who conspired to have Grahame killed.

The one who would slay them all, if given the chance.

Blood dribbled from the corner of Eadric’s mouth. Rage and disgust, hope and sorrow lanced through Adara as he groped with faltering hands. Eadric did not look away from her face, nor did he say anything to her.

Adara did not wait for his last breath. She released her sword and hurled herself from Ulrich to find Grahame easing to stand, his face painted with dust.

“Grahame,” she shouted. Her frantic hands met with his strong torso, shoulders, jaw. She scoured him with her eyes, panting, “Where are you injured?”

A look of pain slipped across his features, but he stifled it with a grimace. His good arm laid heavily on her shoulder as he pulled her in to kiss her forehead.

“I am uninjured.” He pressed the words into her hair, her cheeks, her lips.

“You’re sure?” Adara demanded. She was shaking, her hands still trailing over every part of him she could touch. “You went down, and I couldn’t see…you weren’t trampled?”

Adara suddenly felt as if her mind had disconnected from her body. A rushing sound, like that of a river, took up residence in her ears. Grahame stood before her, whole. She could barely believe it.

“I am well, ’Dara. I promise.”

He pulled her to him, engulfing her in an embrace.

Adara wrapped her arms around his middle, holding him to her, breathing in the reality that he was alive.

Only when she understood that he was whole did a sob ring through her.

Grahame clasped her tighter, chanting his wellbeing into her ear.

Once she’d breathed in the sweat and sweetgrass scent of him did the truth of her actions hit her.

She had slain her father.

A slow, heart-rending sense of sorrow sucked at her middle. It confused her, the sense of wrong that invaded. Eadric of Bernira was not a good man. He had not been a good father. He would have killed Grahame, yet a part of Adara felt stained somehow.

“Eadric is dead! The earl of Bernira is dead!” Grahame’s voice rang over the battle. It was clear and strong and caused Adara’s tears to fall.

“Adara,” Grahame said, his tone gravelly. “’Dara, look at me.”

The command in Grahame’s voice calmed the roaring in her head.

The battle slowed around them. Metal and blood and pain mingled with shouts for retreat.

Hagan was still standing, slaughtering the tide of men that welled against Adara’s right flank.

In the distance the advancing soldiers halted and began turning back to the house.

“’Dara, please.”

Grahame slid a hand along her jaw, gently turning her face to his. Frantic, desperate worry shone in the depths of his eyes. Lines furrowed his brow. His hands shook as he turned them both, walking them behind their line of men, his back shielding her from further assault.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded, his hand turning her chin from one side to the other, inspecting her face. Fury made his words sharp. “You could have been killed. I nearly witnessed your father end you. For the love of G—”

Adara placed her hands on his chest, her heart trying to beat itself out from between her ribs.

Grahame kept walking her further back, his strong arms navigating her around the fallen.

Their fighters surged forward in a manner that suggested victory.

Adara barely heard it. All she could feel, all she could recognise was the feeling of Grahame pressed to her.

“Why do you not care one bit for yourself?” He locked his hands on her hips while his shouted words hit her.

Gratitude that he was whole enough to yell at her pierced her soul. All that mattered was that he was alive. That they both were.

“It’s always the same, Adara! You put yourself in harm’s way again and again and—”

“We are one, Grahame.” The words slipped from her mouth before she even thought to speak.

Grahame blinked, rocking back on his heels as he stared down at her. God, he was so beautiful it hurt. His sandy brows pinched together, his full mouth trembling.

“We are.”

“He would not have stopped,” she croaked, her throat suddenly aching as a thousand feelings arced through her.

When she looked past Grahame’s shoulder, to the scores of retreating men, a sliver of relief made itself known. Grahame’s finger hooked beneath her chin to bring her gaze back to his. His jaw rippled with restraint.

“Don’t you ever fucking do that again. Put yourself at such risk. Make me think I would have to live this life without you.”

“I’m here,” she whispered. She barely got the last word out before his lips descended on hers.

Grahame devoured her. If a kiss could have brought someone back from the dead, this was it. The sweep and spar of his tongue with hers warred with the gentle way he held her head in his hands.

They lived .

A cheer from their men caused them to break apart, though a small smile decorated the corner of Grahame’s lips.

“You did it,” he said, awe entering his tone for the first time since yanking her from the battlefield. “Goddamn, ’Dara. My little conqueror. You did it.”

All she could do was nod. Exhaustion made her limbs leaden.

“We need to check on the others,” she said, wishing she and Grahame could disappear back into Guston without having to bear witness to the casualties. He nodded.

“You do not leave my side.”