Donnan nodded and then glanced to Gavin. “Are ye well enough to fetch his mount?”
“O’ course,” Gavin said irritably, and headed away muttering, “Took in a bit o’ water, is all, but I’m fine now.”
They watched him go, and then both Evina and Donnan shared small smiles. Gavin was always a bit touchy at any suggestion that he may not be up to par. He was young yet, but determined to prove he was a man.
“The Buchanan’ll no’ be pleased at being knocked unconscious,” Donnan predicted solemnly as he shifted his attention back to the unconscious man.
“Nay,” Evina agreed on a sigh, her eyes wandering toward the still-submerged lower half of the unconscious man’s body before she caught herself and drew it back to his face. This hadn’t been how she’d hoped this task would go. She’d planned to have an amiable chat with the man, and convince him to come with them. Knocking him out and dragging him home with them had only been a last-resort possibility if he’d refused to accompany them willingly. However, things rarely went according to plan in her experience.
Shaking her head, she glanced warily around the clearing again before her gaze settled on her cousin leading the Buchanan’s mount to them.
“Thank ye,” Donnan said, taking the horse’s reins from Gavin. “Go fetch our beasts while I get him on his horse.”
Nodding, the younger man moved quickly away to retrieve their waiting horses.
Evina watched Donnan bind the Buchanan’s hands and feet and then frowned when he caught him by his tied hands and drew him into a sitting position.
“Can ye manage on yer own? Or do ye need me to help ye with . . .” Evina’s question died in her throat. Donnan already had the man over his shoulders and was carrying him the few feet to the Buchanan’s mount. She watched silently as he slung him over the beast and quickly attached a rope between his bound hands and his feet under the animal’s belly so that he wouldn’t slide off during the ride.
Evina supposed she shouldn’t be surprised at how easily Donnan had managed the task. It was why she’d brought him along on this journey. The man was huge and strong, his neck as big around as her thigh, his upper arms bulging with muscle and his shoulders almost twice the width of most men’s. He probably could have carried the three of them if necessary, Evina thought as she watched him arrange the Buchanan’s plaid over his back and fasten it around his neck and knees to keep it in place.
“That should do,” Donnan announced as he stepped back from his handiwork.
“Aye,” Evina agreed as Gavin reached them, already astride his mount and leading Donnan’s. She waited as the first mounted, but once he was settled and had the reins of the Buchanan’s horse in hand, she turned her own mount to lead them out of the clearing. Her thoughts were already on the ride home and the quickest way there. It was usually a two-day ride, but she intended to make it in a little more than one. There would be no stopping to eat or make camp at night. They would eat in the saddle and ride nonstop, as they had on the way out. Her father’s life depended on it. If he still lived.
That last thought made Evina press her lips tight together and spur her horse into a run before they’d even left the clearing. Her father couldn’t die. He just couldn’t. He and Gavin were all the family she had in this world.
Conran groaned as pain dragged him back toward consciousness. It wasn’t one pain, but a whole battery of pains, and they were assaulting him from nearly everywhere. His arms, his legs, his ankles and wrists, his stomach and his damned head were all throbbing, pounding or aching at the moment and he didn’t understand why. He also didn’t understand what he was seeing when he was finally able to open his eyes. Everything was just a fuzzy blur at first, but even when his vision cleared he couldn’t quite grasp what he was staring at.
Something dark brown was filling most of his vision, although there was a strip of something blue on one side. Unable to figure out what the brown was, Conran turned his head slightly to peer at the blue instead, hoping that might be more comprehensible. But beyond the blue he could see the tail end of the horse he was apparently on, and beyond that, what appeared to be an upside-down rider following.
Although the rider wasn’t the one who was upside down, he was, Conran realized suddenly as he stared at the large man and the scenery disappearing behind him. He was hanging upside down on a horse, his stomach across the saddle, with his legs hanging down one side and his shoulders and arms the other.
That explained his aching stomach, Conran supposed as he bounced on the beast’s back, his stomach slamming into the pommel and top of the saddle. His aching head could be blamed on the blow he now recalled taking back at the river, and his ankles and wrists hurt because they were both presently bound, and tightly too. There also appeared to be a rope attached to his bound hands that disappeared under the belly of the beast he lay on.
Conran wasn’t positive what that rope was attached to at first, but when he tried to draw his hands toward himself, a tug on his ankles gave him the answer. His wrists and ankles were trussed up and tied together under the horse. If he slipped, his weight would drag him down so that he hung under the animal like a boar tied to a spear to be carted home after a hunt. Did that happen, he was likely to be kicked in the head. Brilliant.
Turning his face, Conran peered at the blue cloth next to his head. Someone rode with him. Presumably to keep him from slipping, he supposed. He could feel pressure on one butt cheek, as if someone were pressing down to keep him from shifting and slipping under the animal.
The naked man who’d attacked him while he was cleaning up at the waterfall? he wondered, but then took a look at the cloth next to him again. Not a plaid, and not braies either. The blue cloth draped, looking more like a skirt to him. It was pulled tight because the rider was astride, but it was a skirt he was sure. Conran let his eyes follow the cloth down to where it ended just above a strip of dark brown that might have been the bottom hem of braies worn under the skirt, and then there were a bare couple of inches of pale calf showing above the top of brown leather riding boots.
Conran hung there for a moment, simply staring at the bit of skin, and then tried to lift and turn his head to look at the rider presently touching his bottom so familiarly, but the movement made the pounding in his head increase in severity enough that he quickly gave up the effort. After waiting a moment for the pain to ease back to a dull throb again, Conran called out instead. Or at least he tried. Even he couldn’t hear the weak sound of his breathless voice over the drumming of the horses’ hooves. Aside from the fact that his position made it impossible to take in enough air to propel anything of volume, his mouth and throat were dry as old bone.
Unable to get the rider’s attention, Conran tried to make himself relax, but his position was damned uncomfortable, and growing more so by the moment. He had to get the attention of the person he rode with. After a moment of debating the situation, he finally simply turned his head and bit into the patch of naked skin above the leather boot.
It immediately became obvious that it had been the wrong move. Rather than slowing to a halt at the realization that he was awake, the rider clenched the hand on his bottom in a startled response, driving sharp nails into his ass. The unknown female must also have yanked on the reins in surprise with her other hand too. At least, that was his guess when the animal suddenly reared up with a distressed whinny.