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The first cannon blast echoed across Kings Mountain just before dawn. Claire had felt it in her chest more than she heard it. Smoke rolled thick through the trees, sharp with sulphur and blood, while shouting had erupted somewhere below the mountain.
Men screamed. Horses reared. Muskets cracked one after another in deafening succession. Jamie had kissed her goodbye before sunrise. “Stay behind the lines,” he’d told her firmly, hands cupping her face. “Promise me, Sassenach.” Claire had lied directly to him.
Now she had pushed uphill through mud and smoke with her medical satchel slamming against her hip, fury and terror knotting together inside her chest. Bodies had littered the forest floor already. Some dead. Some dying.
She had stopped twice to help men she didn’t know, one with a shattered shoulder, another barely sixteen with blood bubbling from his lungs. Her hands moved automatically, years of battlefield medicine taking over even while her mind screamed one thing over and over: find Jamie.
Another gunshot had cracked nearby. Claire flinched instinctively and kept moving. The fighting worsened near the top. Loyalists and militia had collided in brutal chaos between the trees, smoke so dense she could barely see ten feet ahead.
Then she heard his voice. “Forward!”
Relief had slammed into her so hard her knees had nearly given out. She scrambled toward the sound, ducking behind a pile of rocks as another volley exploded overhead. Through the haze she had spotted him instantly, tall, broad-shouldered, sword in hand, barking orders while men surged around him.
For one reckless moment, she had almost laughed. Then she had seen the rifle aimed at his back. Everything inside her turned cold. A Loyalist soldier crouched behind a fallen tree several yards uphill, steadying the musket directly at Jamie’s spine while the chaos below had kept everyone else distracted. Claire hadn’t thought.
“Jamie!”
He had half-turned at the sound of her voice just as the musket had fired. The shot had missed him by inches. Wood had exploded beside his head. Jamie had whirled instantly, drawing a pistol and firing in the same motion. The soldier had dropped backward into the leaves.
For one heartbeat they had simply stared at each other through drifting smoke. Claire’s breathing had come hard and fast. Jamie had looked furious. Absolutely furious. He had stormed toward her through the battlefield, grabbing her arms the second he had reached her. “What in God’s name are ye doing here?”
“You were nearly shot!”
“And ye think charging into a battlefield was wise?”
“Yes!” Jamie had yanked her downward as bullets had torn through branches overhead. Claire had crashed against his chest, his body shielding hers automatically. He had gripped the back of her neck, eyes blazing as he had looked her over frantically for injuries. “Are ye hurt?”
“No.”
Only then had some of the panic left his face. “You promised me ye’d stay behind.”
“And you promised me you wouldn’t die.”
A muscle had jumped sharply in his jaw. Around them the battle had raged louder, closer. Men had screamed somewhere downhill. Jamie had rested his forehead briefly against hers like he had needed the contact to steady himself. “Christ, Sassenach,” he whispered hoarsely. “Ye frighten me.”
“You frighten me too.” His hands had tightened around her for one fleeting second before duty had dragged him back. Claire had seen it happen in his expression, that terrible split between husband and soldier. Then a voice had shouted his name from across the hill. Jamie had exhaled sharply. “We must move.”
Together they had raced through smoke and gunfire across Kings Mountain, side by side like they had crossed every challenge before. Neither of them had noticed Ferguson watching from the trees above. Watching Jamie. Watching Claire. And slowly raising a pistol.
The gunshot had cracked before anyone had understood what had happened. Jamie had turned too late. Claire had moved first. One violent shove to his chest had sent him stumbling sideways across the muddy ground outside the shattered ridge house. Then the bullets hit.
“CLAIRE!”
She had folded instantly, white skirts blooming dark with blood as she had collapsed into the dirt. For one suspended heartbeat, nobody had breathed. Then Jamie had been on his knees beside her. “No. No, no, no, mo chridhe, look at me.” His hands had shaken as he had pressed them against her abdomen, blood spilling hot between his fingers. “Stay wi’ me. Claire!”
Ferguson had lowered the pistol slowly, horror dawning across his face. He hadn’t meant… but Ian had killed him before another thought could form. The world had erupted into shouting, boots, smoke, chaos. Jamie had heard none of it. His attention had been with Claire. Only the terrible hitch in her breathing. Her eyes had fluttered open briefly, unfocused in the firelight. “You’re… alive.”
“Aye.” His voice had broken. “Because of you.”
Claire catched her breath. “That was the idea.” Even now, she had tried to smile. “Frank… he was wrong.”
Jamie had bent over her like he could shield her from death itself. “Do not leave me,” he whispered fiercely. “D’ye hear me? I canna survive it again.” Blood had coated his hands. Her blood.
The same hands that had once held her in Paris. In Scotland. At Fraser’s Ridge. The same hands that had buried friends, fought wars, built homes, loved her. Claire winced as another wave of pain had torn through her. She had known the feeling immediately. Internal bleeding. Too much blood loss already. Her mind had clinically cataloged every symptom while the rest of her fought panic.
“Listen to me,” she breathed. “The bag… surgical kit…” Jamie shouted for it before she had finished speaking. Ian had dropped beside her, tears streaking down his face. “Auntie…”
“I’m alright,” Claire lied automatically.
Ian let out a strangled laugh-sob. “You are literally dying.”
“Not today,” Claire had muttered. But Jamie had seen the truth in her eyes. He had seen men die on battlefields. The trembling cold overtaking her body despite the summer heat. Fear had clawed up his throat so violently he could barely breathe around it. Not Claire. Not after everything. Roger had returned with the medical bag, and suddenly Claire had issued instructions through gritted teeth while Jamie had obeyed every word instantly, desperately. “Clamp there, no, harder…”
“I’m hurtin’ ye.”
“Do it anyway.” His hands had been slick with blood as he worked. Claire bit back a scream. Ian steadied her shoulders. Jamie had been unraveling. Because Claire’s blood had been everywhere. Because every time she had exhaled, he feared she wouldn’t inhale again. Because this should have been him.
When Claire’s strength had finally given out, her head had lolled weakly against his arm. “Claire?” Panic had sharpened his voice. “Claire!” Her eyes had drifted shut. “No!” Jamie gathered her against his chest, crushing her close. “Open your eyes, damn ye!”
Slowly, painfully, she had. “Still here,” she whispered. He pressed his forehead against hers, trembling so hard she had felt it.
“Ye scared me.”
“I know.”
A tear slipped down his face before he could stop it. Claire lifted weak fingers to his cheek, smearing blood across his skin. “I couldn’t let you die.” Jamie caught her hand and kissed her palm fiercely.
“And I willna let you.” Cold blue light spilled across the trees, across the two people who had crossed centuries and wars and loss for each other. Jamie held her tighter as if love alone could anchor her soul to this world.
And somewhere in the growing light, Claire heard him praying in Gaelic with a broken voice. Claire’s breathing slowed. Too slow. Jamie felt it before anyone else had noticed. One breath. Then another, weaker than the last. Her hand had gone slack in his. “No,” he whispered immediately, the word breaking apart in his throat. “No, stay wi’ me.”
Claire’s eyes had remained half-open, unfocused on the paling sky above them. Blood soaked through every bandage they had managed to wrap around her. Jamie pressed harder against the wound, hands trembling violently now.
“Claire...”
No response. Roger had turned away sharply, jaw clenched hard enough to crack. Ian bowed his head beside them, tears streaking silently down his face. But Jamie refused to understand what was happening. Because this was Claire. His Claire.
The woman who had torn through time itself to return to him. The woman who had stood beside him through war and famine and grief and twenty years apart. She could not die here. Not in the dirt. Not in his arms. “Look at me, Sassenach.” His voice had become desperate now, rough with panic. “Ye promised me. Ye promised.”
Claire exhaled softly. Then nothing. Silence. Jamie froze. The world around him had disappeared entirely. No shouting. No wind through the trees. No crackling fires. Nothing except the unbearable stillness in his arms.
“Claire?” His voice shattered. He gathered her closer against his chest, one hand cradling the back of her head as if he could physically keep her soul from leaving.
“No!” The cry had ripped out of him so violently it hardly sounded human. “CLAIRE!” But her body had remained limp. Still. Jamie Fraser had survived battlefields, prisons, whips, starvation, loss but this? This destroyed him.
Tears had fallen freely down his face now as he pressed his forehead against hers. “Please,” he had whispered brokenly. “Please dinna leave me alone.”
And suddenly, he remembered. Not the battlefield. Not the blood. But another room. Another lifetime. The abbey in France. Claire lying pale and exhausted beneath candlelight after Faith. His own shattered soul after Wentworth. The first time she dragged him back from the edge of death with nothing but her hands and her voice and sheer stubborn love. “Fight me if ye must,” she had once told him. “But let me save you now.” Jamie’s breath had hitched sharply.
A memory inside a memory.
Claire laughing beside a fire at Fraser’s Ridge.
Claire in candlelight in Edinburgh.
Claire beneath standing stones.
Claire in his arms the first night after Culloden when he had thought he would never see her again.
All the lives they had already stolen back from fate.
“No,” Jamie had whispered again, but this time the word had carried fury beneath the grief. “I willna accept it.” He cupped her face with bloodstained hands. “Ye hear me, Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp Fraser?” His voice shook with raw desperation. “Ye once told me that while my heart beats, yours does too.”
Nothing. Jamie bent over her completely now, forehead pressed hard against hers. “My heart is still beating.” A tear struck her cheek. “So yours must as well.” For one terrible second, nothing happened.
A gasp.
Small and sharp. Claire’s body jerked violently beneath his hands as air rushed painfully back into her lungs. Everyone around them froze. Jamie stared at her in stunned disbelief. Claire coughed weakly, face twisting in pain as her chest heaved.
“Claire?” His voice cracked entirely.
Her eyes fluttered again, unfocused at first before finally finding him. Her view every morning when she woke up, or if she took a nap, her first view was and had always been Jamie. He let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh before crushing her against him carefully, shaking so hard he could barely hold her.
“There ye are,” he whispered frantically into her hair. “There ye are, mo chridhe.” Claire blinked slowly, confusion clouding her expression. Claire stared at him weakly, then at the tears still pouring down his face.
“I’m here,” she murmured faintly. Jamie kissed her forehead once. Twice. Again. As though he needed constant proof she was still warm beneath his lips. Ian swore softly under his breath nearby, half laughing, half crying. His entire world had narrowed back down to the woman in his arms. Claire lifted trembling fingers toward his face again. “You’re crying, my love.”
“Aye,” he choked out instantly. “Because ye terrified me, woman.” A faint smile ghosted across her lips. Jamie closed his eyes briefly in overwhelming relief at the sight of it. She was alive. As dawn finally broke fully across Kings Mountain, Jamie held his wife against his heart like he had dragged her back from death itself and perhaps, somehow, he had.