Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
She stood, her hands tight around the small bundle of wood she held and her shoulders tense.
“You shouldn’t be doing this alone,” he said softly.
“I needed to do something that would help clear my head.” Her voice held no tremble, but neither did it hold peace.
Raff stepped beside her. “Did it help?”
She shook her head. “I fear what this witch frenzy will do to our village. It took one accusation to plant the seed and now, like a weed, it grows out of control and not just one innocent, but many may lose their lives because of it. And I fear there will be no stopping it.”
He reached out and gently took the bundle of kindling from her arms, setting it down beside the door. Then he took her hands in his, his thumbs brushing lightly over her knuckles. “Aye. But I won’t let them take anyone from this village.”
Ingrid’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You know as well as I do that my fused fingers mark me as a witch. How long before someone reports me to Laird Chafton?”
Raff drew her close, his brow resting against hers. “Then I fight. I fight until there’s no one left to take you from me.”
For a moment, she said nothing. Then she pressed her cheek against his chest, where his heart beat strong and steady. “I don’t want you harmed. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” he said, hugging her firmly as if his arms alone could shield her. “We could leave, but our friends would be questioned, and torture can make people talk. We need to stay and do nothing to draw suspicion to you or others. We live our lives as we have been only with a more watchful eye.” He reluctantly eased her away from him and smiled. “I am starving, wife. Is supper done?”
His smile brought a smile to her face. “Almost. You have time to wash up.”
He grinned. “Are you telling me I stink?”
She ran her hand slowly along his chest. “It is a pleasant-smelling husband I expect in my bed tonight.”
“I won’t be long,” he said and kissed her cheek before hurrying off.
His smile faded as he kept a quick pace to the stream where he intended to go, and thanks to his wife, he hadn’t had to make an excuse. She sent him where he wanted to go. He was impatient to speak with the witch and see what might be done to stop this madness.
CHAPTER 15
Raff crouched beside the stream, watching the moonlight ripple across the water’s surface. Dusk brought the cold and it bit through his plaid, but he didn’t move. He didn’t come for comfort.
He’d come for answers.
He dragged a hand down his face, frustration biting deep, and mumbled, “Where are you, witch?”
The woods remained silent around him, but he sensed the tension in the stillness, the kind that came before trouble. The merchant’s visit had left the villagers uneasy. Fright filled nearly everyone’s eyes, whispers grew, and too many eyes cast a questioning look at neighbors and friends.
His concern for his wife had also grown, especially when the one mercenary made mention of a strange mark or disfigurement. Ingrid bore a disfigurement. Her fused fingers that had never meant anything to him except that she was born different. But now… in the wrong hands, that mark might mean something else and with fear mounting and glances that questioned… he didn’t want to think of what it might mean for her.
He picked up a stone, stood, and tossed it into the stream. “Where are you?” he muttered into the night. “You show yourself when it pleases you, vanish when it suits. But this… this is your doing.”
His voice cracked with frustration, and shame followed quickly behind. He had asked for the wish. The peace he thought it would bring. But he’d been wrong.
And he worried what his foolishness would cost his wife.
A branch snapped behind him. He swerved around, heart pounding, hand instinctively going to the hilt of his dagger at his waist.
She stepped from the trees, her black cloak blending with the shadows, her presence as familiar as it was unnatural. “Stop crying your worries into my woods,” she said, voice sharp and cold. “Or it will soon be flooded.”
“You heard me?” he asked, with a mix of relief and anger.
“Would I be here if I didn’t?” she asked, not hiding her annoyance. “You wear your dread like a wet cloak. Leaving you heavily burdened.”
“They’re hunting witches now. Mercenaries. Bounties. Clan MacMunn stirs the pot and fools drink the brew. If they think Ingrid—”
“Then what?” she snapped. “Will you offer your cursed life in exchange for hers? Would you beg? Bargain? Burn?”
Raff flinched at the word. “If they would burn me in exchange for her, I would do so in a heartbeat.” He looked away for a moment, realizing the depths of his love for Ingrid. “But it would be foolish of me, for they would not dismiss her for me. They would take us both, then I would have no chance of saving her.”