Page 85 of A Scot in the Storm
The road had gone slick with freezing mud beneath the fog. The mare’s hind legs lost purchase as she lunged, and Rory twisted hard in the saddle trying to free his boot before twelve hundred pounds of terrified horse came down on top of him.
Pain radiated through his left shoulder as he hit the frozen ground. White flashed across his vision so sharply it nearly stopped his breath. For one disorienting heartbeat he heard nothing at all. Then the world rushed violently back into place.
Rory stayed flat on his back staring upward into the pale blur overhead while pain pulsed deep and nauseating through his shoulder.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered hoarsely into the fog, “that was poorly managed.”
The mare danced sideways again, reins dragging as Rory swore softly and pushed himself upright. The movement nearly dropped him back into the mud.
The mare settled enough for him to catch the reins and soothe her with his good hand. The bird, whatever it had been, had vanished back into the fog.
Rory mounted one-handed with considerable difficulty and rode the remaining mile to Kinnaird Head in deepening pain while the fog swallowed the whole around him.
By the time the castle emerged from the haar, yellow windowlight glowing faintly through mist, his shoulder throbbed hard enough to make his vision pulse with every hoofbeat.
He turned the horse over to the stableboy and made his way inside the castle. Warmth and peat smoke hit him the moment he staggered inside.
Ewan looked up from the kitchen table where he sat with a mug of ale and a heel of bread in one hand.
“Well,” he said after one glance. “Ye look terrible.”
“Thank ye kindly.”
Then Janet appeared from the hearth and stopped dead.
“Oh, for the love of all the saints.”
Rory sighed. “I’m perfectly capable of walking upstairs on my own.”
“Aye,” Janet said flatly, “and after that perhaps ye’ll juggle axes for entertainment.”
Ewan grinned openly now. “I wager that silly horse threw him.”
Abigail looked up from the far side of the table where she sat beside a stack of papers and an untouched cup of tea.
The concern on her face made something warm move through his chest at the sight of her.
Janet, who had come to the castle to visit her sister, pointed toward the chair nearest the hearth.
“Sit down before ye fall down.”
“I’m no’ falling down.”
“Yet.”
Rory lowered himself into the chair with what dignity remained available to him. Unfortunately the movement shifted his shoulder again, and pain shot clear down his arm hard enough to tighten every muscle across his jaw.
“What happened?” Abigail asked.
“Fog. Horse. Bird. Mud. Pride.” Rory leaned his head briefly against the chair back. “Not necessarily in that order.”
Ewan set down his mug. “The damned horse bolted at a raven?”
“It was bigger than a raven and the bloody bird screamed.”
“All birds scream.”
“That thing sounded possessed.”
