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healing, and I fear my young attendants harbor too great a hatred for these Rangers to care for him reliably.”
    “Consider it done.”
    Whatever else they said was lost beneath the din of Amalie’s heartbeat as it thundered in her ears. One hand clasped over her mouth, she closed her door, and leaned against it, stunned.
    Bourlamaque had just given her over to care for a man he had consigned to death.
    And not just any man.
    The leader of MacKinnon’s Rangers himself.

     
    M organ drifted between agony and oblivion. He’d known when French soldiers carried him into the fort. He’d known when they’d realized who he was, shouting his name and cheering as if they’d taken a great prize. He’d known when they’d stripped him bare, shackled him, and called their surgeon to probe his wounds.
    “Il a perdu beaucoup de sang. Ses blessures sont profondes. Il pourrait bien mourir.”
    He’s lost a lot of blood. His wounds are deep. He might well die.
    Morgan understood their words, and he welcomed death. He knew well what would happen to him should he survive. ’Twas far better to die now, his blood spilled upon the floor, than to perish in the fires of the Abenaki, his torment stretched over unending days.
    Aye, he feared so terrible and painful a death. What man would not? But more than pain itself, he feared that the flames might prove fiercer than his courage, loosing his tongue, overthrowing his mind, breaking him so that he betrayed his brothers and the Rangers.
    And that he could not do.
    If there’d been any hope for escape, he’d have seized it and fought his way out like a man—or died trying. But shackled hand and foot and this close to death, he’d never get out of bed, let alone out of the fort.
    Hadn’t he always known this day would come? Aye, he had. But if a MacKinnon had to die, ’twas far better that it be him than Iain or Connor.
    If only there were a priest…
    He let himself drift, relinquishing his soul to God.
    But the French were not going to let him go so easily. They forced laudanum down his throat and thrust a leather strap between his teeth. It was not out of mercy for him that they did these things. They were simply trying to heal his body so they could pry into his mind.
    “Bite down,” their surgeon said in heavily accented English.
    Too weak from loss of blood to fight them and chained to the little bed, Morgan spat out the strap, his pain turning to rage. “Save your blade for another! I dinnae want your help!”
    The surgeon looked down at him, his blue eyes troubled, Morgan’s blood already on his hands. “That is not for you to decide, Major MacKinnon.”
    Rough hands forced the strap back into his mouth and held him down as the surgeon raised his knife.
    The pain was staggering, far worse than Morgan had imagined. The shock of it drove the breath from his lungs, turned his stomach, made his entire body jerk. He felt his chains draw tight, iron biting into his ankles and wrists.
    Holy Jesus God!
    He clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, fought not to cry out as the surgeon cut into his chest, searching. A cold sweat broke out on his brow, the moment wearing on until he was aware of nothing but pain. He felt his body arch, as with one last excruciating tug the ball was pulled free.
    Darkness dragged at the corners of his mind, drew him down.
    But it didn’t last.
    The surgeon cleaned the wound with brandy, the deep, fiery burn a new kind of torment. Then he stitched it, applied a stinking poultice, and wrapped Morgan’s shoulder with linen strips.
    By the time the surgeon had finished, Morgan felt strangely euphoric. Perhaps he’d gone daft. Or perhaps the laudanum was now at its full strength.
    Then the surgeon moved to Morgan’s right thigh, and the ordeal began anew.
    “Il faudra peut-être amputer sa jambe.”
    Through a haze of pain, Morgan understood.
    They were trying to decide whether to cut off his leg.
    A bolt of fear surged from his gut, lodged in his