Page 4 of Leila’s Legacy

“Stop.” Niall spoke the word with booming authority.

Everyone went still. Or rather, his soldiers did. The woman spun around to face him; twin daggers gripped in her hands.

The fierce set to her face dissolved for a moment, letting him glimpse the softened expression beneath. Delicate muscles stood out at her neck and her bright blue eyes widened.

“’Tis you,” she whispered.

He lifted his eyebrow. While he wouldn’t mind knowing the lass for a bit of bedsport, he’d never met her before.

He stepped closer and her face hardened.

“Be gone from here.” There was a huskiness to her proper accent. English, of course.

“We’re no’ here for theft,” he said.

Niall’s injured man rolled to his side on the ground and slowly staggered to standing.

She didn’t bother looking at Niall’s reiver. Instead she dragged her gaze over Niall as though sizing him up. “What are you here for?”

“To find the warden’s daughter.” He crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to appear at ease.

The smirk of her rosy lips indicated she saw through the guise. “He has several.”

She stalked closer to Niall with those daggers poised in her hands. Several more lined her belt; perfect for throwing, no doubt. Her hips swayed in a decidedly feminine manner as she stepped one foot in front of the other in his direction.

His men tensed, but he shook his head. He would not be intimidated by this woman. “She is called Lady Leila.” His gaze remained trained on her to see if she reacted to the name. Mayhap she knew her. Mayhap she was her.

After all, he’d heard the warden’s daughters were skilled in weaponry. But would the warden really send her to the pestilence-ridden village? With no guard?

If the woman recognized the name, she did not show it. She came to a stop and stared boldly at him. There was a sweet, fresh scent about her, like herbs. Sage and mint and lavender, or something of the sort. A handkerchief was tied about her neck, no doubt filled with herbs, presumably pulled down when she’d launched her attack. “Leave.”

Niall squared his shoulders. “We want information.”

“Are you not afraid?” She slid her daggers into her belt. “The contagion carries on the air. It’s breathed in as an odor. Do you not smell it?”

Unbidden, Niall’s thoughts wandered to the man he’d left on the bench. The villager had smelled terrible, of illness and rot.

“The man you spoke with is already dead.” Her cold stare held his, ice-blue and veiled with thick, black lashes, slightly tilted at the corners like a cat. “Do you know how the pestilence strikes?”

Niall held his ground, as any warrior worth his merit should.

“As it works its way into your humors, it will heat your blood and carry a fever.” The woman tilted her head in a pitying manner. “’Tis quite uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were already growing warm…”

Niall gritted his back teeth against her words. His body had begun to heat after speaking with the man. His pulse raced with intensity.

“Your heart will bang in your chest like a drum.” She curled her hand into a small fist and bumped it over her own heart. “Dum,” she intoned. “Dum. Dum. Dum.”

The pounding was in his head now, thrumming an unmistakable rhythm of fear.

“An aching head comes next.” She kept her ice-blue stare on him and pressed her slender fingers to her temples. “Roaring in your ears until you can scarcely hear.”

He said nothing as her husky voice wound around him like a spell, saying aloud every symptom as he felt them.

“If you leave, you might still be safe.” She turned on her heel and Niall’s men’s eyes went wide. “Otherwise, you will all soon be dead. Go.” She tossed a glance over her shoulder at Niall. “Now.”

He jerked his head toward the direction they’d come from, and his men immediately scrambled to obey his silent order to retreat.

“How do ye know me?” Niall asked.

The woman said nothing.

“Do I know ye?” he demanded.

She smirked at him. “Stay, then.” She turned, putting her well-formed backside toward him, and strode casually away. “’Tis your death.”

Damn her. And damn the whole bloody mission he’d had to accept in coming to the village.

He spat out a curse and went after his men. If they weren’t on English soil right then, he would have hauled the woman off with him. For he knew without a shadow of a doubt in his mind that this woman was Lady Leila. Just as he knew with certainty that she was indeed a witch.