He dodged it easily by leaning into the tree trunk and yanked the circlet from his head, tossing it to clink against the steel lining his breastplate. Her arrow quivered where it stuck into the ground before the mighty white horse. The trained beast didn’t even back away from it but watched his master.

Before Ella could nock another, Cain slid one of his arrows into his bow and held it pointed up directly toward her face. An opening of his fingers would split her skull. “We could spend the morning shooting at each other until ye are dead or out of arrows,” he said, his voice as steady as his hand.

Lord, how had it come to this? The day had started off so promising, as she helped young Jamie train with his wooden sword in the glow of the dawning light. The yeasty aroma of baking bread had wafted on the breeze from the kitchens as they’d practiced in the herb garden to the sound of summer finches waking among the trees.

All of that had changed with the thudding of horse hooves across the wooden bridge beyond the wall. Her scout had barreled into the bailey to report that Sinclairs were riding onto Sutherland land, armies of trained warriors led by the maniacal Chief George Sinclair.

And here she was, a few short hours later, about to die.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Dearest Lord, keep Jamie safe, Ella prayed as she balanced in the branching oak. She stared down the steely tip of Cain Sinclair’s arrow, sliding her gaze past the threat to stare into his rare light-blue eyes.

“If the legend of your abilities proves true, you will pierce me dead with one clean shot.” With God’s grace, he’d be vain enough to dispatch her with mercy. She’d endured pain in her life, and the anticipation of more brought the tingling sensation back to the skin beneath her leather mask.

They stared at each other. Although Ella wouldn’t shame herself by looking away, she let her gaze slide along his solid jaw that was covered by a few day’s growth of beard, his nose that held a bump where it had once been broken, and his cheekbones where a white line showed a scar from battles past. He had painted blue lines of woad on one side of his face from forehead to jaw to give him the fierce, wild appearance of their Pict ancestors. But he didn’t need paint to give him the look of promised death. The intensity of his eyes spoke of slaughter, and the hardness of his muscles preceded pain.