Highlander Avenged Read Online Free PDF Page A

been followed by whomever Malcolm had heard, but they still had to get back to the castle and warn her family that the English were back. At least one of them was.
    But she could see that Malcolm was nearing the end of his strength, and it would take them longer to return home through the wood than by the trail. Though he was not admitting such to her, he had started to stumble over tree roots and let his arm hang, weighed down by the claymore, rather than holding it more closely to his body to keep it from damage or tangling in the wood. His right sleeve showed speckles of blood where her dressing should have protected his wound.
    Jeanette knew a burn ran down the mountainside not far in front of them. If the man’s pride, or stubbornness—she didn’t know him well enough yet to judge which—kept him from admitting he needed to rest, she was not so encumbered.

    “I AM THIRSTY ,” Malcolm’s companion said from behind him, her voice still wisely quiet, but it held a tremor he had not heard before. He stopped to let her catch up with him. “There is a burn not far ahead. ’Twill not delay us long to quench our thirst,” she said. She looked pointedly at his injured arm. “ ’Twould appear I need to re-dress your wound, as well.”
    “ ’Tis a good idea,” he said. The idea of sitting for even a few minutes, and slaking a thirst he had not been aware of, sounded like a reprieve from the lethargy that was quickly overtaking him. “Why do you not lead the way?” He motioned for her to pass, giving him the opportunity to see if she was as fatigued as he.
    She clearly wasn’t fatigued as she strode by him. She was pale, though, even for her, and her hands trembled. He recognized the signs of the shock of battle settling over her. He had seen it many times with lads after their first battle was finished and the surge of battle lust subsided, leaving trembling limbs and queasy stomachs in its wake. She was a brave one, this lass whose name he had yet to learn. Strong, steady, and the look in her eye when she had felled the soldier was no less satisfied than any warrior’s he had seen taking down a foe. Until she’d realized what she’d done.
    It was clearly not in her nature to hurt anyone, yet she seemed to feel no remorse over felling the English soldier. There was much to this woman he did not understand and he found that remarkably intriguing.
    Before long they came to the burn, which was still rushing with spring runoff between steep banks. His companion looked at him, then back at the burn and sighed.
    “If we follow it down a little ways, it comes to a clearing where the banks are much more gentle,” she said, and she headed almost straight down the ben now, following the burn so quickly it was as if she raced it.
    Malcolm had to push himself even harder to keep up, losing sight of her in the thick foliage now and then, until he almost ran her over when she stopped suddenly.
    “Angel, what is wrong?” he whispered near her ear.
    She was standing statue still, her breath hitching as if she could not draw air into her lungs, still trembling like a leaf in a summer gale. A beautiful clearing opened up before them, the burn running strong on his left, but with a bank so gentle, he knew the clearing must flood at times. When he glanced at her again, her eyes were fixed upon a set of three large boulders to her right and her blue eyes were filled with a misery he did not understand. Was she suddenly taken with remorse over the soldier?
    He touched her shoulder lightly, earning him a startled look as if she had forgotten he was there.
    “What troubles you?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “Nothing.” She walked into the clearing, knelt beside the burn, then began to wash her hands, using the coarse sand she found along the edge of the water to scrub them clean. Malcolm looked at his own hands and discovered they were blood-splattered and dirty from their scuffle with the English soldier. He joined