The Undivided by Jennifer Fallon & Jennifer Fallon

Author:Jennifer Fallon & Jennifer Fallon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 35

Most of the blood in which Ren was drenched wasn’t his, he discovered, when they finally hauled the dead weight of the slain wereman off him, and he was able to scramble to his feet, soaked from the cold rain and the warm blood of his attacker. He looked around, breathing harder than if he’d run a mile, stunned by both the ferocity of the attack and the unlikely appearance of his saviour.

‘You are the lost twin,’ the woman said.

Ren nodded, not sure if it was a question or an accusation. The rain was pelting down now, chilling him to the core, washing the blood from his face and making the fire spit and hiss. He rubbed his face and stared at the woman who’d rescued him. No older than twenty or twenty-five, he guessed, she was dressed in a similar fashion to Ciarán: tooled leather armour and trousers with gold trimmings, a bloody Roman sword in her hand, a quizzical expression on her face. She seemed oblivious to the rain.

‘I suppose,’ he said.

‘Ciarán was right,’ she said, bending down to wipe her blade on the wet grass. ‘You have no skills. You’ll not last a day in Sí an Bhrú.’

Ren wasn’t sure how to answer that. She didn’t give him the opportunity in any case. Instead, she turned to Ciarán, who was unceremoniously slashing the throats of the dead weremen. The creatures were slowly morphing back into pale-skinned, naked, man-shaped creatures. She ordered him to run them through the heart as well with his airgead sídhe dagger, to be sure they were dead. Ren watched the gruesome task, almost too overwhelmed to grasp what their transformation back into human form meant.

Ren turned to find Brógán standing beside him, nursing a wounded arm that looked as if one of the wolves had taken a piece out of him.

‘One of them got you,’ he said. ‘Are you going to turn into one of them, now?’

The Druid shook his head. ‘Of course not. You can’t catch shape-shifting.’ He smiled. ‘You have some of the strangest ideas about the Daoine sídhe, Leath tiarna.’

‘He has no idea at all,’ said the woman who’d come to Ren’s rescue, sheathing her sword. ‘That’s the problem.’

Ren studied her, not ungrateful for her assistance, but a little annoyed by her tone. He wondered who she was. He was under the impression Ciarán had gone to fetch an eighty-year-old Druid warrior to be his bodyguard. This woman was tiny — barely reaching his shoulder — dark haired, lithe and cranky. Maybe she was Sorcha’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter or something.

‘He will learn, a mháistreás,’ Brógán assured her.

‘But will he survive the lesson?’ Ciarán asked as he joined them, wiping his dagger on the leg of his trousers. He added to the woman, apologetically, ‘I think one of them got away.’

She frowned. ‘You’ll never track him in this rain. Was he wounded?’

‘Bleeding like a stuck pig.’

‘Then let’s hope he won’t make it through the night. In the meantime, we should get our fragile Leath tiarna here into the hut and dry him off.

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