Highlander Ever After

by Jennifer Ashley

  He pulled out a knife and cut the knots that bound her ankles. When he hauled her to her feet, Zarabeth had to cling to him, gritting her teeth as the blood flowed through her lower limbs. She realized she’d never be able to run until her legs un-cramped and her feet lost their numbness.

  Ivan simply stood, patiently waiting until she felt better. He was a well-trained servant, raised to anticipate his master’s or mistress’s every need.

  When Zarabeth thought she could walk, she nodded to Ivan. He carried the lantern in one hand and supported her firmly while she hobbled with him across the vast room. Ivan stopped in a corner and discreetly backed away until she was alone in the darkness.

  Zarabeth knew better than to run. She was weak and tired, and Ivan would pounce on her and drag her back to the middle of the room if she tried. He’d tie her up again, even more securely. Zarabeth needed to take her time, win their trust.

  She did not have to relieve herself, but she scuffled against the wall as though hiding embarrassing noises. She felt her way along the stone, wincing as she found moss and slime from who knew how many centuries ago. This was a dead place.

  When she guessed she’d been long enough, she called to Ivan, who immediately started for her. He steered her back to the middle of the room and silently handed her a handkerchief when she said she’d touched the wall and gotten ooze on her hand.

  She sat down, but when Ivan bent to tie her feet again, she let out a true moan of protest. “Please, don’t. It hurts so.”

  Ivan did not trust her yet, but Constanz looked distressed. She heard Ivan’s new thought that when Zarabeth became princess over Nvengaria, she perhaps might remember how kindly Ivan and his brother had treated her. He nodded and didn’t bind her, then brought her more bread and water.

  Zarabeth asked a few more curious questions, probing gently at their thoughts as she did. She could only discover that a highborn Nvengarian man had given them orders to hold her under their protection, but she could not discern his name or face. He’d communicated with them by means of messages they’d picked up during their patrols—a message had come during Hogmanay instructing Ivan and Constanz to rid themselves of Valentin as soon as possible. Ivan had gone through the tunnels, knowing Valentin liked to patrol the area around the Ring of Dunmarran, shot at him, then fled back through the tunnels to the castle.

  Ivan and Constanz now were waiting for the search for Zarabeth to die down so they could smuggle her out to a ship. They’d found this place while they patrolled the hills searching for those who wanted to kill Zarabeth, and decided it a good place to hide her.

  Ivan allowed Zarabeth to lie down on his coat, and she dozed, trying to conserve her strength. She watched with half-closed eyes while Constanz, restless, explored the room. His lantern revealed a door on one side of the large chamber and the black opening to a passage on the other. The door had a new lock with no key in it—probably one of the footmen had pocketed the key.

  “Are we under the old Ross castle?” she asked, sitting up again.

  Ivan glared at Constanz. “You told her?”

  “He never said a word,” Zarabeth assured him, as Constanz reddened. “I concluded it. Do you know about the ghosts?”

  Both brothers glanced around uneasily. “We have not seen or heard any ghosts,” Constanz said. “Don’t be afraid, Your Highness.”

  Zarabeth recalled Adam’s story and embellished it a little. “Adam said that many Highlanders were killed here after Culloden. They tried to stop the English destroying the castle, and the English killed them and buried them down here. ’Tis said their ghosts walk on midwinter nights under the moon. But I am not worried. ’Tis likely only an old legend.”

  “Likely,” Ivan echoed, but he shot another nervous glance around the chamber. Constanz silently lit a second lamp, and Ivan did not admonish him.

  The black maw of the open passage gaped, and Zarabeth could imagine the ghosts of angry Highlanders pouring out of it, screaming for revenge.

  She wished one live Highlander would dash in, ready to wreak havoc on any who dared touch her.

  Egan. Please find me!

  She cast her mind wide, trying to reach up through the stones to detect anyone hunting for her, and again found only silence. Either the walls were too thick, or no one had thought to look for her here.

  In any case, she could do more than wait for rescue. While Ivan and Constanz worried about ghosts, she put the remainder of her plan in motion.

  Chapter 22

  The Secret of Castle Ross

  Mary did not find it difficult to slip from Castle MacDonald with Valentin, because every inhabitant had rushed out to search the night. Valentin consented to sling one of Egan’s plaids around him in hasty disguise, but he discarded it almost as soon as they left the path to cut across the open ground. When Mary started to ask what he was doing, Valentin turned to her.

  “You should go back inside now. I thank you for your help.”

  Mary put her hands on her hips. “Not a bit of it. I want to help find Zarabeth, not wring my hands in my bedchamber.”

  Valentin stepped closer to her. “I admire your courage, Mary.”

  She thought he’d add a caveat, such as But a woman should stay out of this kind of business, but he did not.

  Valentin leaned to her as he had in the bedchamber, nuzzling her hairline as though taking in her scent.

  “This will frighten you,” he said, easing away. “I did not want to tell you about what I am, but you will have to know sometime. You might hate me for it, but I cannot hide forever.”

  “Hate you? I could never …”

  “Mary.” Valentin’s voice was low, pain in his eyes. In the moonlight, his half-naked body was sleek and taut, a statue come to life. “You are so beautiful.”

  He lowered his head and kissed her. Heat flared through Mary’s body as he parted her lips and the kiss turned hard. He tasted her as savagely as he had the first night, his mouth opening hers, urging her to kiss him back. Mary touched his chest, finding his skin hot, his heart pounding beneath her fingertips.

  He eased away. “I wish this could be easier,” he said softly.

  Mary loved his voice, his accent rich and deep. Valentin gave her a look filled with darkness and sorrow, then took a step back, unbuttoned his breeches, and pulled them off.

  Before Mary could do more than gape—his body was faultless—his limbs began to change.

  It happened very quickly, but at the same time seemed to take forever. His face elongated, his hands curving to massive claws. Mary stifled a shriek and stumbled back as black fur covered his body, and he landed on all fours, the largest wolf she’d ever seen. The beast regarded her with wolf’s eyes that were blue rather than tawny.

  Mary pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Valentin—What are you?”

  He couldn’t answer her, of course. Valentin brushed past her and loped into the darkness.

  * * *

  When Zarabeth calculated a few more hours had passed, she announced the need to relieve herself again. Ivan looked pained but led her away from the center of the room. She asked to go to a different corner, and he took her there without question.

  Once he backed away, leaving her in darkness, Zarabeth quickly and silently felt her way along the wall to the open passage. Walking carefully through the yawning opening, she found a wooden staircase that headed down into deeper darkness. She had not truly thought it would lead up and out, because Ivan and Constanz would have blocked it in some way if it had.

  Keeping her hand on the wall, Zarabeth picked her way down, testing each step before putting her weight on it. She wanted to hurry, but tripping and falling through rotten floorboards would not help her.

  She counted the steps as she went down and reached twenty before she heard Ivan calling to her. Still she made herself go carefully, holding her skirts out of the way, fighting the urge to move faster.

  She heard Ivan curse when he realized she’d fled. He called to Constanz a
nd told his brother to follow him, then bellowed in anger when Constanz refused. Constanz was afraid of the ghosts.

  A dozen Highland ghosts with murder on their minds didn’t sound at all bad to Zarabeth just now. Perhaps she could persuade them that a horde of Englishmen were trying to capture her, and they’d fight on her side. She started to laugh, then bit back a sob.

  Her body jarred as her foot came down on level stone, the stairs ending. She groped until she found another wall, then felt her way along it as quickly as she could, reasoning that the floor would be sounder against the walls than in the middle of the passage.

  She felt a coldness brush her, and she froze. A ghost?

  Or fresh air?

  She hurried toward the sensation, holding in the shivers that suddenly wracked her body. Unhappily, she heard Ivan and Constanz bravely start down the stairs.

  Zarabeth knew that the tunnels beneath Castle MacDonald led to the outside air, and she reasoned that Castle Ross might have had similar tunnels for similar reasons. She had no way of knowing where these tunnels would lead or whether they had been blocked off from the outside world, perhaps for centuries. She could only limp along, biting back tears.

  A glance back showed her the warm glow of a lantern far behind her, and the angry thoughts of Ivan and Constanz came to her. They moved more quickly than she did, and not as cautiously.

  Zarabeth continued groping along the wall, praying she’d find her way to the surface so she could run as fast as she could back to Castle MacDonald, or to Ross Hall if it lay closer. She wanted to scream loud and long, to have someone find her, help her, carry her to safety.

  One someone in particular.

  She thought of Egan’s rich brown hair straggling across his shoulders, his eyes that sparkled with gold when he smiled. She liked his firm mouth that could open in roaring laughter, turn down in fearsome frowns, or kiss like fire. She thought of his hands cupping her face as he kissed her, of his hard body on hers in the night, of the rightness of him firmly nestled inside her.

  I love you, Egan MacDonald.

  Her young infatuation for her Scottish soldier had dissolved and gone. That had been a selfish emotion, a girl wanting a man to pay attention to her. She loved what Egan was now, her Highlander who pleasured her fiercely, who growled at his family but cherished them, who’d teased and cajoled Zarabeth until she’d put aside the horrors of her marriage and laughed out loud.

  Egan had made her live again, and she loved him for it.

  A whisper brushed past her, a wisp of words she couldn’t quiet hear. Ghosts again?

  Ivan and Constanz behind her seemingly hadn’t heard, nor did they feel the breeze that touched her skin. They were afraid, but not panicked, nothing on their minds but retrieving Zarabeth so they would not fail their cause.

  Abandoning care, Zarabeth ran forward, praying not to trip on a loose stone or stumble into a hole. Not many steps later, her hands banged painfully into a wall ahead of her, stone scraping her skin.

  Choking back sobs, she felt her way along it until she found the boards of a door. She pushed at it, but it wouldn’t open, tried the old handle and found the door locked or rusted shut.

  No. Giving up trying to be silent, she pounded on the door, reasoning that the wood around the lock would be old and rotten. She heard Ivan shout and the brothers run forward.

  She hurled her body into the door and was rewarded as the boards in its middle splintered. She felt stinging cuts on her face, but kicked her way through, hoping against hope it led to a way out. Once in the snowy fields, she could run, calling out to those who must be roaming the hills looking for her. Neither Egan nor her father would give up searching—she knew that.

  Zarabeth fell through the door, hearing Ivan and Constanz rushing to find her. She climbed to her feet, slivers stabbing painfully into her skin, and found herself in a stuffy, warm place that smelled of steam.

  She groped and couldn’t find walls to guide her, but she went on, moving as fast as she dared, arms outstretched. Ivan and Constanz reached the door, kicking in what remained of it.

  Ghosts of brave Rosses, please help me!

  Whether it was the ghosts responding or simply a ruined house falling further into ruin, the door beam and the wall it held up collapsed behind her. The room filled with crumbling earth, choking her, cutting off Ivan and Constanz and the light of their lantern.

  The rumbling of the fallen wall faded and perfect blackness reached down to smother her. Zarabeth struggled to stay on her feet, tears trickling down her filthy cheeks.

  Egan! she cried again, her heart pounding, but only silence answered.

  She thought the warmer air came from somewhere on her right. Carefully stepping on the uneven stones, she put her hands out in front of her and began to explore the darkness.

  * * *

  Egan pulled up his horse so abruptly the gelding skidded on the snow. The night was quiet, punctuated only by the faint calls of searchers far away.

  Olaf reined in his horse next to him. “What is it?” he asked breathlessly.

  Egan held up his hand for silence. He’d heard it, a faint cry—his name. Or at least he thought he had.

  “Zarabeth?” he shouted into the night.

  His voice echoed from hills and down into the loch, the land empty and cold.

  Nothing.

  “What did you hear?” Olaf asked as the last syllable died into silence.

  “I thought she called me.” Egan shook his head, his heart like lead. “A trick of the night.”

  “He must have taken her away by now.” Olaf’s eyes were dark with despair.

  “I know this land.” Egan rose in his stirrups, gazing through the darkness. “There are places to hide her everywhere, hidden holes and deep woods, plenty of choices for a man who knows his way around.”

  “And who does know his way around here? Not a Nvengarian.”

  “No, but several Nvengarians have been all over this area since Zarabeth arrived and could have discovered many things.”

  Olaf’s lips tightened. “Valentin.”

  “Mebbe not. I believe in Valentin.”

  “Then why has he disappeared?”

  Egan swept his gaze across the snowy hills, coming to rest on the stark black stones of the Ring of Dunmarran. “Either he’s hunting for Zarabeth, or he’s been taken as well.” He turned his horse. “I want to look down there.”

  “We have been there,” Olaf reminded him, his despair mounting.

  “Even so.”

  The land was silent, the moon and stars glittering in silver profusion. Zarabeth would love it; she loved beauty of all kinds.

  Egan reached the first stone and dismounted. The horse wandered into the ring, which was free of snow as usual, and bent his head to crop grass.

  Egan thought of how Zarabeth had wrapped her arms around him when he’d playfully flipped up his kilt for her in the middle of the circle, intending to give her a glimpse and no more. She’d leaned her lush body into his back, making his cock rise hard and tight. He’d wanted her with intense longing he’d barely been able to hold back. If he hadn’t known other riders circled the stones that day, keeping watch, he would have taken her on the warm, damp ground.

  The image came to him powerfully—her eyes heavy with desire as she lay under him in their bed, her hair spread across the pillow like black flame.

  I love ye so much, Zarabeth …

  Egan!

  Egan snapped his head around, hearing her voice loud and clear. He started to call out, then the words died on his lips.

  He remembered what he’d suggested the night after their wedding, when she’d confessed she could read others’ thoughts—how she must have heard his anguish when he’d lain half dead in snowy Nvengaria. She’d never heard him since, she’d said, and could not explain why.

  When she’d been lost at sea, clinging to the rocks below the Devil’s Teeth, Egan had heard her calling out, and had found her. He couldn’t have heard her actual
voice, he realized now—the surf and wind would have drowned out a human cry.

  He’d heard his name, clear as day, as he heard it now. Egan!

  Egan closed his eyes, imagining Zarabeth’s beautiful face, the wicked blue of her gaze, her red-lipped smile.

  Zarabeth.

  * * *

  Zarabeth sobbed with relief when she heard the voice in her head, the full, rumbling baritone of Egan MacDonald.

  Egan, I am here. Help me, please!

  Zarabeth.

  The word was full of longing, of hunger, of love. She clung to it, praying she was not imagining it in her desperation.

  Egan, please help me!

  Where are ye, lass?

  She stopped, hugging herself as tears of joy replaced those of fear.

  I don’t know. I believe I was under Castle Ross, then I found a tunnel. I ran—Ivan and Constanz were chasing me, and I fell through a doorway. It collapsed …

  She broke off as Egan’s anguish reached her. Are ye all right?

  I think so. But it’s so dark.

  His voice moved to its commanding tones, Egan the soldier trying to plan. Do ye know which direction ye went? Where ye are in Castle Ross?

  I have no idea. I didn’t wake up until I was inside. I went down a flight of stairs at the end of an open passage that led out of a huge chamber.

  I’ll send for Adam. I wager he knows every corner of that castle, even if he lives in luxury now.

  And then Egan went silent. The voice vanished from her head—perhaps he was shouting orders for his men to find Adam and drag him there—but it left her bereft.

  Egan, don’t leave me.

  I’m here, lass. His voice came back to her, deep and true. I’ll never leave ye. The sincerity in the statement left her breathless.

  I love you.

  I love ye too lass. Before Zarabeth could cling to the happiness of that simple declaration, Egan was asking more questions. Can ye tell me anything else about where ye are? A hole, a room, a cave, a tunnel?

  I don’t know. I can’t see anything. But it’s warm and a little smelly, like the baths at Baden.