The Hawk (Highland Guard #2)(52)

The boy didn’t say anything, but Erik was fairly sure he was nodding frantically.

He thought about trying to find something to bind his wound but knew it would only fall off in the water. After checking to make sure the tunnel was clear, Erik stepped outside. But knowing how the stories of a phantom army were already spreading across the countryside, he couldn’t resist one more warning to the boy. “Tell the English to leave Scotland or pay the price. We’re coming for them.”

He heard a gasp and knew the boy must have heard the rumors. Bruce knew that fear could be a very powerful weapon among their enemies and had encouraged the tales of his phantom army of marauders intent on hunting down every last Englishman in Scotland.

Fairly certain that the boy wouldn’t blink until morning, Erik didn’t want to take any chances and hurried down the tunnel toward the dock—this time uninterrupted. He held his hand over the wound across his stomach to staunch the blood as well as he could. Stopping to examine it in the torchlight, he was relieved to see that although it was bleeding heavily, it didn’t appear too deep. The salt water, however, was going to sting like hell. At least he’d be too numb after a few minutes in the cold water to feel it.

He sure as hell hoped there weren’t many sharks nearby. Wrestling sharks might have been something he enjoyed as a lad, but he’d lost the taste for it after one had nearly taken off his hand. Erik didn’t get scared, but facing a big shark at night came damn close.

Forty minutes and thankfully no shark sightings later, Erik dragged himself out of the water and was surrounded by his men before he’d hit the edge of the beach. The loss of blood coupled with the long swim had weakened him to the point of collapse. But he’d made it.

When Domnall saw the gash, he fussed like an old woman and wanted to send someone for Meg immediately, but Erik didn’t want to wake her-- them. Ellie needed her sleep. She prickled up like an angry bear if someone tried to wake her too early. The wound could wait until morning.

But he was already looking forward to telling Ellie that his mission had been a success—mostly, though with his near discovery it would be too risky to attempt to return to Dunaverty anytime soon.

She needed to have a little fun, and he was going to be the one to show her how.

Ellie was finishing up the last bit of shortcake—leftover oat bread that Meg had sprinkled with sugar and put in the oven overnight to dry into a flaky, delectable treat—when someone knocked on the door.

Thinking it would be Hawk, she was surprised to see Duncan stride into the hall. He returned her morning greeting and then turned quickly to Meg, who had just finished taking a tray to Thomas.

“Meg, we need you down at camp to stitch a wound when you have a chance,” he smiled.

Meg smiled. “I’ll get my things.”

“Has the captain had you training this early in the morning?” Ellie asked. Meg had been called upon twice before to tend to cuts suffered in “training.”

Duncan grinned. Like most everyone else, he liked to tease her about her late rising. “It’s already midday for most of us, lass. But nay, we’ve not been training. It’s the captain.”

She jumped out of her chair before she realized what she was doing. “What’s happened?” Her pulse spiked with fear. He’d said he was going to deliver the message to her family last night. Had something happened? “Is he hurt?”

Duncan gave her an odd look and she realized she’d overreacted. She forced her frantic heartbeat to calm. What is wrong with me?

“Nay, lass, it’s only a scratch.”

Ellie could only imagine what “only a scratch” was to tough warriors like Hawk and his men. With images of limbs dangling and guts pouring out, she followed Meg and Duncan down the path to the beach where the men had set up camp.

She was grateful that neither said anything about her tagging along; she wasn’t sure she could explain it, except that she had to see for herself that he was all right. It was only the possibility that he might have been hurt while doing a favor for her that made her care.

But it didn’t explain the heavy pounding in her heart and the feeling that someone had just stepped on her chest.

A crowd of men were gathered around the fire at the rear of the cave, but they parted when Meg drew near, revealing the captain stretched out on a plaid, leaning against a low boulder.

The bottom dropped out of Ellie’s stomach. Not because he looked so pale beneath the broad black smudges smeared over his skin—though he did—or because of the large diagonal gash across his stomach, but because he wasn’t wearing a cotun, tunic, leine, or anything else to cover his chest. His very broad, very muscled, very naked chest. Her gaze dropped to the plaid slung low across his waist, and her mouth went dry. Unless she was very mistaken, the rest of him was quite bereft of clothing as well.

Dear Lord. Her palms grew damp, and her stomach started to flutter nervously. He was magnificent. Muscular but lean. The broad shield of his chest was as chiseled and defined as the rocky wall of the cave behind him. His arms were stacked and rounded with thick slabs of muscle; his stomach was flat and ripped, crossed by narrow, rigid bands of steel. If there was an ounce of extra flesh on him, she couldn’t see it.

There had to be a primal feminine instinct buried deep inside her, set to flare at overt displays of physical strength. She didn’t need to be protected, but if she ever did, he was the man she would want at her side. He must be magnificent on the battlefield.