You scared, Miss Mercy?”

Was she? She should be. Sitting in the dark of a guarded hut. A harsh language in harsher voices leaching in like a disease from outside the bark walls. And soon she’d belong to either a broad-faced Wyandot or a sweet-talking traitor. But wonder of all wonders, the peace that had crawled into her soul earlier in the day when she’d cried out to God had unpacked and set up house in her soul.

She reached for Livvy’s hand with both of hers, still bound, and squeezed the girl’s fingers. “No, I am not frightened, leastwise not overmuch.”

Livvy squeezed back. “I surely do wish they would have cut that rope from your hands.”

“No doubt they soon—”

She jerked her face toward the removal of the framed bark door. Torchlight outside painted a black silhouette of a man…and outlined the shape of a floppy felt hat atop his head. She released Livvy’s fingers and clenched her hands together so that her knuckles cracked. Surely this thief hadn’t been part of the bargain, had he?

She launched toward him. He flinched. And a smile ghosted her lips. Did he yet feel the pain of her earlier head butt?

Grabbing hold of her arm, he dug his fingers into her flesh and yanked her into the night. He hauled her to a ring of men assembled in a loose circle near a large fire. Spectral light flicked over their bodies, painting a nightmarish scene of fiendish ghouls. Two parted, making room for her and her captor. The thrill of a fight brightened the eyes of every man there.

Directly across the flattened patch of ground stood the sachem. Golden gorgets hung from his neck, reflecting flickers of firelight. He stood like a god, arm raised, ready to call into action a battle to the death.

At center, two bare-chested men faced off, ten paces apart, but only one of them commanded her attention. Elias stood with his chin high and shoulders relaxed, at attention but not. A strange mix of nonchalance and wolf about to spring. Though she’d thought on it the better part of the day, she still had no answer as to why he was about to risk his life for her. He could have run free, escaping the locked cell that awaited him at Fort Edward. Why had he bothered coming after her? That question, and a host of others, crowded uninvited and unanswered inside her head, making it ache all the way to her jaws.

Without warning, the sachem dropped his arm.

And the big man charged.

Elias feinted right, then immediately swung back and struck. His first punch glanced off the big man’s chin. Mercy did not know much about hand-to-hand battle, but if that was the best Elias could offer, he’d be dead within—

His second fist flew like a musket shot, catching her and the big man off guard. Elias’s blow sank deep into the man’s stomach, punching him back and doubling him over. Before he regained balance, Elias was on him, knuckles flying, blood splattering, driving him back.

Mercy gasped. She’d always sensed an underlying danger about Elias Dubois. Now she understood why. He struck so hard and fast, he beat the man toward her side of the circle.

Three paces from her, the big man teetered off balance, tipping her way. She retreated, only to be stopped by the chest of the man behind her. But at the last moment, Elias’s attacker used his momentum to reach down and swipe up a handful of dirt on his upswing.

“Elias! Duck!”

Too late. The man whipped around and flung the dirt in Elias’s eyes. He staggered back, blinded, and furiously rubbed away the grit.

Next to her, a warrior rumbled something low, then held out a hunting knife. Elias’s attacker grabbed it and charged.

“No!” she shouted. “Elias, he has a—”

A hand covered her mouth, jamming her head backward against muscle and bone. If Elias’s blood was spilled here and now, she’d belong to a killer with no honor.

Elias blinked, the whites of his eyes stark against the dirt on his face. He crouched low, hands out, with nothing to parry but the flesh of his bare arms.

The man advanced, slashing the knife downward. Elias twisted and reached for the man’s knife arm with both hands—but the move left his belly open. The big man kneed him in the gut, and as Elias loosed his hold, the man sliced the blade in an arc.

A red line split open on Elias’s chest, and she could do nothing but watch as his lifeblood began to ooze out and run down to his breeches in long drips. Elias reeled, and her heart broke. Traitor or not, she did not want him to die.

The men around her howled their approval, and the big man advanced.

Mercy blinked away tears. Elias didn’t stand a chance, not against a man a head taller and hornet mad, gripping a deadly stinger.

With each thrust of the knife, Elias backed away, until he crashed into the line of warriors behind him. The men shoved him forward.

A slow smile spread like a stain across the big man’s face, the kind of grin only a nightmare such as this could produce. A slow chant began quietly then gained in strength as each warrior in the circle joined in.

Elias’s attacker took another swipe, this time kicking his leg forward to tangle with Elias’s and knock him off balance.

But on the downswing, Elias spun around to the man’s back, seized the arm without a knife, and elbowed the beast at the base of the neck. The big man dropped to one knee—and Elias made a grab for the weapon.

This time the blade came away in his hand. With a mighty roar, Elias slashed a gaping cut across the top of the big man’s thigh, then jabbed a kick to his chest.

The man landed on his back, air whumping out of his lungs.

Elias pounced, pinning one of the man’s arms with his knee, his free hand pinioning the other arm, and raised the blade high.

The chanting stopped. So did time.

Mercy froze. The muscles of the man holding her tensed. What was Elias waiting for?

Then he struck hard, hitting the warrior in the head with the hilt of the knife. Lightning fast, he raised the blade again and stabbed it into the ground next to the man’s ear.

Panting, Elias stood. He flicked blood and sweat from his face and staggered a moment, then faced the sachem. Deadly silence filled the night. Mercy held her breath.

Elias’s ragged voice cut the air in words she couldn’t understand. The sachem glowered. Warriors to her left and right all grumbled and growled. What on earth had Elias said?

With a wild glance, she looked for the native who spoke English and spied him two men away from her. She wrenched her head free from the brute’s hand on her mouth and called out, “What does he say?”

“He tells Red Bear he gives back Nadowa and asks for you in return.”

Her blood drained to her feet, and the world started to spin. This was not to be borne, leaving a warrior down but not dead. Surely Elias knew the rules when he’d asked for the challenge. The rules demanded blood.

But if not Nadowa’s or Elias’s, then whose?

Fire burned a swath across Elias’s chest. Thank God the slice wasn’t deep, or he’d be the one stretched out on the dirt. Every muscle quivered. Every bone screamed. He wore each of his twenty-seven years like chains too heavy to lift. But if that was what it took to free Mercy, then so be it.

He met and matched Red Bear’s stare. How generous was the sachem feeling? For it was no small thing that he’d left the knife blade sunk into the ground next to Nadowa’s ear instead of in the warrior’s chest.

Firelight glinted in Red Bear’s eyes, fearsome as the flames of hell. “There is no honor in this. You shame Nadowa by letting him live. If I let the woman go while there is still breath in his body, it shames us all.”

Armed with nothing but an arsenal of words, Elias loaded and shot, praying for a direct hit. “Yet the blood price has been paid, Great One. I wear Nadowa’s. He wears mine.” He lifted his hands, knuckles split, the splatter of the warrior’s blood mingled with his own. “And if you let my wife and me go free, I offer a payment that will benefit all, granting you far more victory and glory than the taking of your finest warrior’s life.”

A rush of whispers blew behind him, some laced with interest, others scoffing, and a few rumbling with restrained rage.

Red Bear folded his arms, chin held high. “Speak.”

“I offer you the very riches your men were looking for when they found my wife.”

The sachem’s eyes widened. Indians weren’t usually greedy for gold, but not so with Red Bear. This shrewd old rascal knew when an opportunity wafted beneath his nose. “How do you know this?”

“Why do you think your men found nothing in those wagons they ransacked? I was the one who hid the cargo out of necessity. I will lead you there come morning.”

A slow smile curved the sides of Red Bear’s mouth. “Shadow Walker is a man of many surprises. The trade is good. The woman is yours. Come and let us feast.”

“Your offer, Great One, is well met.” He stepped closer, speaking for only the sachem’s ears. “But I have been without my woman for a long time. Grant us shelter alone for the night.”

The implication drew a chuckle from the older man.

God, forgive me, Elias prayed silently, for the insinuation and the lie. But had not Abraham done the same when he alluded to his wife as his sister in order to save both their lives? Granted, this was the reverse and he was no Abraham, but even so, far more lives than his or Mercy’s depended upon this. Please, God.

Red Bear tipped his chin toward the farthest hut. “It is yours.”

Elias pivoted and walked tall, hiding a wince with every step. He crossed back to where two men helped Nadowa to stand. The warrior’s head lolled, still groggy from the bite of the knife hilt. Some men might gloat over such a triumph, but he found no pleasure in seeing a beaten man. Ah, but he was weary to death of fighting and blood. He crouched and worked the knife free from the dirt.

Mercy stood unattended now, like a lost little girl abandoned at the side of a road. He strode toward her, her luminous eyes watching his approach. Warriors filtered past him, drawn by the fire and the savory tang of roasted venison.

On the way, he stopped and lurched sideways, snatching Mercy’s hat off the head of the man who’d stolen it. The man whirled, murder glinting off the silver of his drawn blade.

Again? He’d not yet bandaged the slash on his chest. Even so, he hunkered into a fighting stance, hat in one hand, knife in the other.

Red Bear’s voice thundered in the dark. “Shadow Walker reclaims his wife’s hat and will pay for it come sunrise. Let it go, Standing Fist.”

Working his lips, the man spat at Elias’s feet, then stalked off to the fire.

Elias breathed in relief and blew out a prayer. Thank You, God. Then he turned and closed the distance between him and Mercy. Reaching out, he placed her hat atop hair so loosened and wild, it spread down to her waist like a mantle. Despite the affront of her capture, the cut on her cheek and the bruise near her eye, the woman was a beauty.

But best of all, and wonder of wonders, the disappointment in her eyes had vanished, replaced by a sheen of awe.

“Hold out your hands,” he said gently.

She lifted her wrists. The leather thong cut into her skin, and for a moment he regretted not having killed Nadowa for such a violation.

“I don’t know how you managed all that, but”—a gasp cut off her words as he worked the knife between her wrists—“I thank you…Shadow Walker.”

He flashed a grin as her bindings fell to the ground. “I would say it was my pleasure, but in all honesty, I can think of far more pleasurable things than grappling with an angry Wyandot.”

“Seems they are not angry anymore.” Mercy rubbed the tender skin at the base of her sleeves. “What did you say to turn away the sachem’s wrath?”

“Come, and I will tell you.” He led her past the warriors already tearing great bites of venison from two does brought in earlier. Lewd comments followed him all the way to the makeshift longhouse, most about his manliness, some about her curves. All about what they expected would be going on once he was alone with Mercy. Sweet heavens, but he was glad she did not understand the language. It was humiliating enough that he did.

So he forced his mind onto a different trail and glanced at Mercy. “I have not seen Rufus or heard word of him spoken. Was he taken along with you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I assumed he was killed, like Matthew.”

He grunted. “There was no evidence. His body was not there. These warriors would have had no reason to haul him off and kill him elsewhere.”

“You think he is still alive?”

“Hard to say. But Lord knows the man was ever good at hiding.”

He shoved aside the door flap to the shelter and allowed Mercy to pass. Once he stepped inside, his body yearned to stretch out on one of the furs lining the pallets on either side of the wall. Instead, he strode over to where he’d left his few belongings and reached for his shirt—then gasped. Pain seared like a branding iron.

Mercy’s light step caught up behind him, her soft voice a soothing balm. “Let me bandage that chest of yours.”

Despite the cold sweat dotting his brow, heat ignited a fire in his belly at the thought of her warm fingers tending to his bare skin. “I can manage,” he ground out.

“Not easily.”

He blew out a breath. It would take him longer to bind up his wound on his own. And time was scarce.

He turned. “Fine. But I will be tending to that wound on your shoulder as soon as you are finished. Ah-ah!” He wagged his finger at the pert angle of her chin. “Do not tell me that injury is not festering something fierce.”

Furrows marred her brow as she frowned, yet she snapped into action. Low light from an untended fire at the center of the shelter grew as she lobbed wood onto it from a pile dumped near the door. He sank onto the hardened dirt next to the flames, shivers creeping over the bare skin of his back. He always felt this way after a fight, all jittery and sharp-edged.

Mercy lugged over a skin of water, set it at his side, then said, “Close your eyes.”

What the devil did she have in mind? “Why?”

“I believe you asked me to trust you once. I expect the same courtesy.”

How was he to argue with that? He closed his eyes.

A bit of rustling ensued, then the distinct sound of ripping fabric. A smile twitched his lips. Of course. She aimed to bandage him up good with the cloth of her petticoat.

“I am finished.”

His eyes barely opened when cold water doused him from overhead, shocking and nipping all at once. “Sweet mercy! A little warning would be nice.”

“What did you think? That I would bind up a dirty wound?” She clicked her tongue like a mother. “Arms up, please.”

He complied, and while she worked to wrap the torn strips of fabric tight against his torn skin, he wondered at her complete ease with the interior of a warrior longhouse and a half-naked man to tend to. But then again, perhaps she truly had grown up in a home such as this.

“Why did you not tell me Black-Fox-Running was your father?” he pondered aloud.

“My past is of no account.”

He grabbed her hand as it crossed to the front of his chest and pulled her close. “Everything about you is of account, leastwise to me. Surely you know that by now.”

She stared, long and hard, and for some odd reason, tears glistened watery and bright in the firelight. What on earth was she thinking?

She pulled away without a word and went back to wrapping the binding around his chest. The woman was a mystery. A glorious, beautiful mystery.

“And your mother? Let me guess—” He grunted as she yanked the cloth tight at his back. “Was she the daughter of some high-ranking official?”

“Nay, my mother was nothing special save for her claim of her forefathers being the first to settle at Plimouth.” Mercy’s words kept time to the deft movement of her fingers. “Even so, I am of late coming to view her strength and courage as rivaling that of my father.”

She retrieved his shirt and held it out. “As long as you don’t go challenging any more warriors, that should hold.”

“No more challenging.” He grabbed the shirt and eased it over his head, then stood. “But we do have some traveling. We leave as soon as I tend to that shoulder of yours.”

“Turn your back, and I will tend it myself.”

“But—”

His rebuttal died a fast death from her murderous scowl. Perhaps it was better for her to tend to such a flesh-baring task. He crossed back to where his hunting frock, his belt, his newly acquired knife, and Mercy’s blade lay on a fur.

“Why do we leave in the dark of night? It is not safe.” The sound of fabric rustled, followed by water trickling off skin—and he nearly turned around when she sucked in an audible breath.

So, he had been right. That wound of hers did hurt something fierce. Blast the man who’d hurt her!

“Elias?”

He jammed his arms into the sleeves of his hunting frock more forcefully than necessary. “We need to make it back to the gold before Red Bear’s pack of warriors.”

She sucked in another gasp, then blew out a long breath. The sound of her pain twisted his gut.

“Why would they return to naught but empty wagons? They couldn’t know…” This time the air rushing into her mouth was a threat. “You told them!”

He buckled his belt and snugged the hunting knife at his waist, glad to finally have a weapon, especially with the venom in Mercy’s voice. “I promised them the gold. And I am no traitor, if that is what you are thinking. It was the price for your freedom.”

“Why did you not simply kill that man?”

At the sound of her next sharp intake, he wondered that very thing. The man should’ve paid for his rough handling of Mercy. And he would one day, unless God’s grace saved him from the same darkness he himself used to wallow in.

His finger traced the hilt of the knife at his side. “It is God’s place to take a life, not mine.”

More water trickled, followed by a long silence. Finally, she murmured, “You are a complicated man, Elias Dubois. Oh, and you can turn around now.”

“You are quite the tangle yourself.” He snatched up her knife and strode back to her. A worn piece of petticoat peeked out from the rip on her shoulder, her wound as freshly bound as his. She’d endured it all with but a few gasps. What kind of woman did that?

The kind of woman I want.

He planted his feet wide to keep from staggering. The realization hit him harder than the beating he’d just taken. He wanted this woman so much the yearning ached, warm and pulsing, in his soul.

“Mercy, I—” He what? He pressed his lips shut. This was mad. Heaven help him, now was definitely not the time for love. It wouldn’t be fair to her for him to spout feelings he couldn’t back up with action. Lord knew if they would even make it out of this mess alive.

He shoved down the words he wanted to say and instead held out her knife in an open palm. “I found your knife.”

Her gaze shot from the blade to him, admiration shining vividly in her brown eyes—a look he’d never tire of if he lived to be an old, old man.

“You never stop surprising me, Shadow Walker.” This time his name was a purr instead of an indictment.

And he liked it.

She reached for the knife, her slim fingers brushing against his skin, leaving a trail of wildfire.

Oh, hang it all. He wrapped his hand around hers and pulled her to him. His heart beat a drum against his chest, eclipsing the pain of battle.

She came willingly and lifted her face to his. “It was no small thing what you did for me, but you have yet to tell me why.” Her gaze bored deep into his. “Why did you not just run away to freedom?”