“Help me now,” she urged.
Quiver lowered his voice. “I don’t know if all I heard is true, but I do know one thing—Brynjar the Fierce is no myth. He’s real. I know a man who had been captured by the Northman and escaped. And all he does is drink to forget.”
“Brynjar?” she asked, not understanding what the man had to do with her husband.
“There’s a story that says Arran of the Clan MacKinnon was captured by Brynjar and what he suffered at the man’s hands robbed him of his heart and soul. After his escape, it’s said he was a different man. He entered battle without fear, almost as if he didn’t care if he died, and he was often the last man standing on the battlefield, dead bodies strewn around him, blood running like a river down his sword and blood dripping off him. One person who witnessed it shivered at the telling, saying that only Satan could do what Arran did and leave the carnage behind him without a bit of remorse for the fallen on either side.”
“A warrior who shows remorse is no warrior.”
Purity and Quiver jumped at Arran’s remark, neither having heard him approach.
“I leave you to guard my wife and you get lost in the telling of a tale?” Arran accused.
Purity, feeling it her fault, was quick to defend Quiver. “I asked him to explain and besides, Princess would have alerted us if anyone approached.”
“She did,” Arran said. “She got up and waited to greet me as I stepped out of the woods and neither of you noticed.” His hand shot up when Quiver went to speak. “Don’t bother apologizing or calling yourself a fool. I already know that to be true and I’m tired of your useless apologies. Fail me once more and you’re done. I’ll take the first guard duty tonight.”
“Aye, sir,” Quiver said and hurried to settle himself on the ground to sleep.
Arran leaned down in front of the spit and stripped some meat off the carcass, then sat not far from the fire, but a distance from Purity.
“What did I tell you?” he asked between bites.
“I could ask the same of you,” she said.
“Do not make our marriage, difficult, wife,” he warned.
“Again, I could ask the same of you.” She suffered a twinge of regret seeing a weariness in his eyes she had never seen before.
“Leave the past in the past.”
It wasn’t a command. It was more like he was reminding himself of what he needed to do and it troubled her that he should suffer such horrible memories alone. She offered him the only thing she thought might help.
“I love you, Arran, and I am here for you whenever you need me.”
“Don’t love me,” he snapped.
“Too late, I already do and there isn’t anything that is going to change that.”
“I can’t lo—”
“I know, but that doesn’t change how I feel about you and I see no reason to hide my love for you or deny it. It’s there tucked safely in my heart and there it will stay. So if you ever should need it, you know it’s there.”
“Go to sleep, wife, tomorrow we reach home,” he ordered.
“We’re already home, husband. Wherever you, me, Princess, King, and Hope are, that’s home,” she reminded.
Later, when Arran woke Quiver to take guard, Quiver said to him, “You’re a lucky man, sir, to have a wife who loves you so much that as long as she’s with you, she’s home.”
Quiver may think him lucky, but he thought it more a curse, not on him, but Purity. Her kind heart deserved better than him and here she was cursed to spend the rest of her life with a man who had nothing left to give, whose smile that once came so easily was lost to him forever, whose joy of family was no more, who only thought of one thing and one thing alone—survival against evil. And he had learned the only way to survive evil was to become evil himself.
He turned to find a spot to sleep where he’d be more alert to sounds, not fully trusting Quiver to guard well, when he spotted his wife shiver. He went to her and gently touched her hand. It was cold, she was cold, the night having taken on a substantial chill, and he stretched out beside her to wrap himself around her.
He tucked her close against him to share his warmth and she turned to snuggle even closer, burying her face between his furs until he felt her cold nose against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her once she settled and held her tight so his warmth could seep through her. She felt good in his arms and somehow it felt right her being there, but then she was his wife. She belonged there in his arms. But it wasn’t about belonging to her. It was about…