The Hawk (Highland Guard #2)(83)

The bottom fell out of his stomach, and he nearly inhaled a mouthful of water. What if she didn’t bottle it up? What if he’d introduced her to passion only to have her share it with someone else?

Over his dead body.

He broke through the surface of the water, stood, and turned to her, scowling. If she thought this conversation was over, she was bloody well wrong. “Ellie, we’re going to talk about this.”

She tossed her head the way she’d done on the birlinn, and he saw red. “I don’t want—”

She stopped. Her gaze caught on something behind him. Her eyes widened with fear. “Erik, watch out!”

He turned a second too late.

Four men. English. Spear. Hurling toward him. No time …

He lurched to the left, but the spear caught him in the side, dragging him backward into the black abyss.

Ellie’s scream was the last thing he heard before the water closed over him.

Chapter Eighteen

“No!” The scream tore from somewhere deep inside her. A dark, primal place of unimaginable, bloodcurdling terror.

So focused on her own despair and disappointment, Ellie noticed the four soldiers on the beach only an instant before she saw the spear hurtling through the air on a direct collision course with Erik’s back. It seemed to be happening so slowly, yet she felt frozen in time, unable to move to stop it. It was the worst moment of her life, watching helplessly as the man she loved was about to die.

She reached for him, but it was too late. He grunted as the spear found its mark and propelled him into the water. She dove in after him and thought she felt his hand, but someone plucked her out of the water, circling his arms around her from behind.

She fought like a madwoman, lashing out blindly in her panic, her only thought to reach him. Her captor grunted when her head connected with his jaw—one of the only parts of him not protected by mail.

Someone was screaming. A shrill, wailing sound that pierced her ears.

A voice broke through the din. “It’s all right, my lady, you are safe.”

It was her: she was the one screaming.

“Let me go!” She struggled against the soldier’s hold, staring at the place where Erik had disappeared and seeing a horrible, dark-red cloud rising through the water. Blood. Panic gripped her chest, her throat. “I need to find him,” she sobbed. “He’s hurt.”

He’d been wearing only a linen tunic, leaving nothing but skin and muscle to protect him from the piercing blow of the spear. But he was strong. The strongest man she knew.

“He’s dead,” the man said coldly. “Or will be soon. We need to take you back to the galley.”

“No!” She wrenched out of his arms.

The spear. Erik flying backwards. The blood. She didn’t care what she’d seen. He wasn’t dead and she wasn’t going to leave him like this.

She dove into the water, reaching around blindly in the darkness. But the soldier caught her again, bringing her up to the surface gasping. He dragged her kicking and screaming up to the water’s edge. He was taking no chances this time and had her in a firm vise grip around her chest, pinning her arms to her side.

“Look for him,” the soldier ordered the three other men. To her, he said, “Stop struggling, my lady; we’re trying to help you.”

The three other soldiers didn’t seem eager to get wet, but they followed the leader’s orders. The minutes tolled painfully by as the search continued. The soldier was talking to her, but she wasn’t listening. Tears streamed down her cheeks as Ellie prayed for a miracle. Erik could hold his breath longer than any man she’d ever seen. Maybe he’d been able to reach the cave.

The man holding her must have reached a similar conclusion. “Where were you, my lady? We were watching the water, but you seemed to have come out of nowhere.”

Ellie thought quickly. “Swimming around the other side of the rocks.”

He looked as if he didn’t believe her, but thankfully one of the other soldiers approached, and he stopped questioning her.

“Nothing, Captain.”

Ellie didn’t know whether to be horrified or relieved. If they caught him, they’d only try to kill him again.

The man holding her nodded. “Get Richard and Will—”

He stopped, his gaze searching the waves. “Where’s William?”

The other soldier shook his head.

“Find him!”

Ellie’s heart was in her throat. It had to be …

Her faith was rewarded when Erik suddenly launched himself out of the water, thrusting the spear that had been thrown at him into the chest of the soldier called Richard. Ellie turned her gaze, but only for a moment. In that split second, he’d managed to pull Richard’s dagger free from his lifeless body and had turned to face the third soldier, who was approaching with his sword held high.

The man holding her swore and tossed her to the ground. He pulled his bow from across his back and readied an arrow, aiming it at Erik, who was fighting the hip-high waves and the longer reach of the soldier’s sword.

Ellie didn’t think. She sprang to her feet and knocked the soldier’s hand just as he released the arrow, sending it careening safely away from Erik.

The soldier in the water raised his sword again and Erik made his move, barreling into him as the sword descended. He swung his arm up to block the blow with enough force to send the sword flying through the air. Moments later it plunged into the water. Unable to penetrate the soldier’s mail with the dagger, Erik wrapped his arm around the other man’s neck and gave a harsh, snapping twist.