The Knight's Scarred Maiden. Nicole Locke

      They talked over her like she was dead. Parts of her were throbbing already, but she was alive and had suffered much worse. ‘I’m fine.’

      ‘She’s hurt,’ her shadow man said. ‘Her cheek...perhaps her ribs.’

      ‘Left cheek?’

      ‘Does it matter?’ her shadow man asked.

      Helissent did risk moving her head as she heard the other man heave up the lax weight of one of her attackers. ‘I wanted to be sure I left them in the same condition they left her. Except I think I’ll take their...shoes...too.’

      For one blazing moment, she wished he’d leave them worse off. But one look at her rescuers faces, and she knew they would be. Despite their easy banter, their faces were dark, their eyes speaking of a violence she had never committed, but had almost been victim to. Whatever happened to the men, they would be worse off than her.

      ‘Is there somewhere you can get help?’ he asked.

      She turned her attention to the man still crouched beside her.

      Nowhere. Her home was with Rudd, who’d just sold and tried to rape her. Her last view of him was him fleeing. Would he stay away for a night? ‘My home is behind you.’

      ‘Anywhere else?’ he pressed.

      ‘No, there’s no one else.’ His expression darkened. He didn’t like her answer, but what choice did she have? She pushed herself up, took heart that she stayed up this time. ‘I can get there myself.’

      He adjusted his crouch. ‘I’m going to lift you now.’ He reached out and suddenly stopped. ‘This is no time for propriety.’

      At his unforgiving tone, she realized she’d inadvertently stiffened as he leaned over her.

      It wasn’t propriety that caused her to stiffen. No one had touched her since John and Anne, and before that, the healer, Agnes. No one. Not even when money or drinks were exchanged had she felt the brush of fingers. Travelers gave her a wide berth because she horrified them, regulars because they remembered her healing and didn’t want to hurt her.

      But this man, this stranger, hadn’t hesitated. It startled her.

      ‘I’m sorry, it’s just—’

      ‘That man’s going to wake and we’re not going to be here.’ Without warning, he simply lifted her.

      Held. She was being held as if her entire body was of little consequence.

      No, he held her securely in a way she’d never been held before. She was acutely aware of the heat of his body, the smell of leather and evergreen, the way his chest rose and fell with his breath. Knew exactly where his arms touched her underneath and his hands. His hands—how they cradled her arm, the outside of her thigh.

      All of it intimate suddenly as if they weren’t outside with a vast forest at her back and clear night skies above. Her and only...him.

      His hood partially fluttered when he lifted her. This close, she could see him if it wasn’t dark. As if he could sense her scrutiny, he shifted his head away from her gaze.

      ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ she said, before she stopped herself.

      Almost imperceptibly, he tightened around her. ‘Does it matter?’

      Did it matter that the one man who gave her a compliment on her baking, who rescued her from rape and maybe death, was the same? To her, very much. To him, probably not.

      His long strides quickly covered the distance to her home, to her only sanctuary that wasn’t any more. Stopping at the door, he asked, ‘Are there any others here?’

      She shook her head, and he opened the door. His only hesitation was as he took in the main living area, and the one closed door that indicated Rudd’s room.

      Thankfully, her pitiful home was dark and covered in shadows. ‘You can put me down.’

      ‘You need to lie down. I want to see the extent of your injuries, and if I can do anything. I have salves I can bring for you.’

      There were hardly any candles. And she didn’t want this man seeing her home, or her bed shoved under the crooked eaves in the back corner.

      The only indication of privacy was from the coarse torn sacks she had sewn together and hung from the eaves. They were far too short, and hung only on one side, but they blocked her view of Rudd’s door. She had once had a more proper room made by the innkeepers. Nailed-up boards and heavy quilts. When Rudd moved in, he claimed he was cold and took the quilts and yanked down the boards. He had been displeased when she made herself a cruder bit of privacy, but thankfully, he’d remained quiet about it.

      ‘I have salves here.’ Many of them. Her skin was sensitive to heat, to cold, and she often injured herself in the kitchens. Her skin could hardly take a scratch. ‘I can care for myself.’

      She hadn’t had to take care of herself like this in a long time. Tonight reminded her how it felt to be helpless. She hated it more than the pain. She knew what it took to heal a body and straining it when it was already damaged wasn’t wise. However, right now she just wanted him gone and she held her ground, though it was starting to cost her.

      ‘I’m not harmed,’ she said. ‘Set me down.’

      ‘It’s the shock. You’re trembling—when it eases, you’ll feel the pain. We need to care for you quickly.’ He looked around the room like he was trying to find an answer. It was too dark for him to see her bed and he slowly lowered her to the ground, but he did not let her go. One hand around her waist, the other at her elbow.

      So easy to lean against him, and for an odd suspended moment that was exactly what she wanted to do. Instead, she stepped away from him. Only to stumble as her legs gave and his hold tightened.

      ‘Your bed,’ he said firmly.

      She was trembling so much she couldn’t hold herself up. ‘I’ll be fine.’

      ‘We waste time arguing this. My man is out there.’

      How could she have forgotten? One man against three. She nodded her head towards the corner and he half-carried her there, batted away the thin hanging sacks and set her down on the bed. Instant relief for her throbbing leg, but a sharp pain in her ribs. Swiping her tongue against the blood flowing from her lip, she tried to control her shaking body.

      It was overwhelming to have this man in the same room with her. Rudd was large, broader, but somehow he didn’t take up as much space. She hurt, felt sick, the last thing she wanted was to humiliate herself in front of him, and yet she simply sat as he stood over her.

      She couldn’t quite see him. Yet some odd pressure built between them and reverberated around the room. He was a stranger and yet familiar in a way she couldn’t comprehend.

      Silence held suspended between them as his hand went to the dagger at his waist, then his scabbard.

      He glanced at his hand, then lowered it as if remembering what he’d left behind. The sword he pointed at the men. But he had knocked them unconscious with rocks when he could have easily killed them. It was another indication of the caliber of man he was. That he was well trained and honorable. But she didn’t know the other man, who was a giant and sounded like he relished battering those men.

      ‘Will he be all right?’

      The room was dark, but not absolute. She could almost see the lifting of his arms, the untying of his cloak. Hear the heavy fabric pool to the floor.

      ‘Your man, out there,’ she explained. ‘Rudd’s unharmed. He could return and then—’

      He made some sound, amusement and disbelief like her question surprised him. ‘Nicholas can hold his own.’

      There was something dangerous about his amusement and she was brutally reminded they were mercenaries. Hired swords. Men who made their living on violence