Highland Bear (Book 4)

Chapter 39

AN - For all those who celebrate I hope you have a good Easter, and here is a little gift just before the day ends! And it was not too long a wait for you! Az x

Chapter 39

Breathing was painful, harsh and freezing her insides with a burning agony. Heart thudding against her chest in aching beats, feeling that even with her disability, she could almost hear the roar of her blood being pumped around her body. Feet numb yet on fire at the same time as her feet were bare against the ice-covered ground and inches of snow.

Tears fell unbidden and unchecked down already carved tracks upon her frozen cheeks. How had it come to this? The night before had been one that she would never forget as long as she lived. Yet it had started so innocently, if chilling to the bone and with painful wracking shivers. At least she had managed to gain a little warmth, from the arms of Artair, with the combined concealment beneath both their cloaks. Even if both were soaked from the onslaught of the weather and there had been no hope of leaving it anytime soon.

But at least she could say that they had managed to survive so far reasonably well. Now however she could not say what was going to happen; or whether they would all be dead by the next nightfall. It was not a good feeling to behold, trapped in the wilderness with nothing upon her feet and nothing in her stomach. Artair having disappeared moments ago in the almost sheets of snow still falling from the angry clouds above. Her silent world made the terror within her build to unfathomable levels. Unable to tell whether or not danger approached from behind or around from another direction.

Tears dripping from her chin as she used the back of her hand to wipe at her nose. She was cocooned in a silent living hell, unknowing of which way to face or which way to go. Not knowing what had come of Alfred or the others who had traversed this harsh landscape with them. Artair having left her behind, which she could not blame him for, as she was slowing him down terribly. Yet, she had hoped of seeing this journey through to a hopeful conclusion, rather than dying in a frozen wasteland, at the hands of those that even now were tracking her like dogs did a rabbit. She was the prey they hunted, and if they caught her she was not sure she would survive to see if she could see a friendly face once more.

Unable to do anything other than choose a direction and hope she had God and fate on her side this day. She had seen death up close and would hope never to see such a sight again, the bright red spurting upon the pristine white to be visible even through the thick flakes floating about them. Her mind was a tumble and she could not quite grasp what had happened in the last hours, only flashes and certain parts remained vividly ingrained in her mind. Like the flash of warm red spurting against the white, while Artair had dragged her away, her gaze could not have left the seeping of life, leaving their adversary. That red had glazed her vision for many an hour since. Every step she took having her look in vain about her, without being able to see beyond the shape of Artair as he had dragged her forward once more.

Confusion shrouded her, unable to grasp exactly how it was she was here and exactly where she was going to go. The horses having run upon the attack making this all the more arduous for her. Her feet burning uncontrollably as she made her way further and further through the snow and ice, her tears and breathes coming quicker and quicker. Vision blurring as the water stung her eyes, unable to see anything as the world closed in around her.