The Rose and The Warrior by Karyn Monk Read Free Book Online

men,” Colin promised Roarke. “Do you understand?”
    Roarke nodded.
    â€œ ’Tis his right foreleg,” Melantha reported as Colin knelt beside her.
    Colin expertly ran his hands over Morvyn’s rapidly swelling leg. The horse whinnied with pain and tried to pull away.
    â€œEasy, now,” said Colin, stroking the horse to calm him. “Rest easy.”
    Morvyn studied him a moment, his velvety nostrils flaring with each rapid breath, his eyes dark and filled with suffering. Colin continued to stroke the animal’s neck, murmuring low words of reassurance. Finally Morvyn lay back against the ground and permitted Colin to finish his examination.
    â€œIs it bad?” asked Melantha, biting her lip.
    Colin eased the horse’s swollen foreleg onto the ground. “I fear it’s broken, Melantha.”
    â€œNo.” She shook her head.
    â€œPoor Morvyn must have struck it very hard when he tried to clear this tree.” Colin’s tone was low and soothing, as if he were speaking to a distressed child. “His bones are not as strong as they once were, and his leg just cracked.”
    â€œIt isn’t cracked,” Melantha insisted, laying her hand protectively on Morvyn’s sweat-soaked shoulder. “It’s just sore and swelling a bit, that’s all.”
    â€œHe cannot stand, Melantha,” Colin pointed out, gently placing his hand over hers. “He cannot move.” He hesitated a moment before quietly stating, “We’ve no choice but to end his pain.”
    â€œNo!”
She knocked Colin’s hand away. “You’ll not touch him, Colin, do you understand? Not you, nor anyone else. It’s my fault he’s injured. I’ll tend to him.”
    â€œWe’ve no time for that, Melantha. We have to get these MacTier prisoners back to our holding—”
    â€œThe MacTiers can wait,” Melantha interrupted. “It will soon be dark, so we have to stop anyway. We’ll make camp right here, and I’ll tend to Morvyn, and by morning the swelling in his leg will have eased and he’ll be fit enough to stand.”
    Colin regarded her with aching regret. “He’ll never stand again, Melantha. You must accept that.”
    â€œYou’re wrong. And I’ll not let you kill him when it’s my fault for riding him so fast when the light was falling and he was tired. I caused him to miss that jump, Colin,” she said, her voice nearly breaking. “I’ll not let you slay him for something that was my fault.”
    Roarke studied her. He had thought her cold and unfeeling, but he had been mistaken. The same woman who had shown not the tiniest fragment of concern for him when he had been wounded was now almost shattered by the possibility of losing her beloved horse.
    At that moment he would have let her build a cottage around the damn animal and stay here for as long as she wished, as long as it made her happy.
    â€œVery well, Melantha,” Colin relented. He laid his hand with tender familiarity upon her cheek, a gesture that Roarke found both telling and a little irritating. “We will make camp here, and you can tend to him.”
    Melantha swallowed thickly. “Thank you.”
    â€œBut if he cannot stand come morning,” Colin continued seriously, “we have to end his misery.”
    â€œHe will stand,” Melantha assured him in a small, fierce voice. “I will see to it.”

    â€œSo this is where ye be hidin’,” said Magnus, emerging through the trees. “We’ve been searchin’ all of God’s green earth tryin’ to find—good Lord, lass, what’s happened to yer head?”
    â€œIt’s nothing,” Melantha assured him.
    â€œYe’ve cracked yer pate and ye’re halfway to bleedin’ to death, and ye call that nothing?”
    â€œIt’s Morvyn who has been injured,” Melantha said adamantly. “I need