Highland Troth (Highland Talents Book 3)

by Willa Blair

  “Nay,” Caitrin managed to protest. “Dinna do this.” If she was lucky, she might provoke him into hitting her hard enough to knock her out. She tried to clench her legs together, but MacGregor knelt painfully on her thigh. She flailed at his arms and he slapped her.

  “Nay, ye willna stop me. And ye will be awake to enjoy this. My women ken when they’re being marked.”

  The first cut wrenched a weak scream from her. She could tell it was deeper than the others he’d made on her breast. He made the next cut more shallow, and shorter. If the first was a branch and the rest were needles, then how many branches did he think to do? He could lame her.

  She continued to struggle, but pain made her nauseous and eventually, she doubled over, rolling her upper body to the side. Where was Jamie? Why was this happening to her? MacGregor took his time between cuts. Did he enjoy watching her blood well in the lines he made? She waited until he lifted his blade from her skin, then she tried to buck him off her thigh. But he was too heavy, too strong, and she was too weak. Too defeated. He didn’t bother to strike her—merely waited for her to give up and lie still.

  How much longer would he cut her? Would he rape her here, in front of his men? Of course he would, and call it a bride-bedding. He would want to flaunt his mastery and proclaim the paternity of the laird’s children. Too bad for him, Jamie had her first. Thank God. During what was surely to come, she would have to hold on to that memory.

  What if she got with child? How would she know who to name the father?

  God, the pain. Another branch, then. More pine needle scratches. She looked desperately around. Through the partially open door, she could see several of MacGregor’s men were down. Uilleam, Jamie and the rest of the Lathans were still fighting. Her breath hissed at the next scratch, but she forced herself to pay attention to what was going on around her. Aye, a lot of Alasdair’s men were down and the Lathans were now about evenly matched.

  What could she do to distract Alasdair? To buy time?

  “Alasdair, please, ye’re hurting me.”

  He paused and turned his head to regard her quizzically.

  Which meant he stopped cutting, if only for a moment.

  “That is what I mean to do, my dear.”

  “Ye didna need to do this. I wouldha bled for ye,” she lied. Or perhaps she did not lie. Jamie’s possession happened so recently, the next penetration might have the same result.

  “Ye are a whore for that Lathan. I ken it.”

  “How could ye ken such a thing? I wouldna dishonor ye under yer own roof.”

  “Ye would. And steal from me, too, and lie about that as well.”

  “If ye have such a low opinion of me, why do ye wish to marry me?”

  “I dinna. No’ any more.” He leered and Caitrin’s heart sank as he waved the bloody point of the knife before her face. “Ye will be my mistress. That is all.”

  He had gone quite mad. There was no other explanation.

  “Ye could simply send me home to Fletcher.”

  “And let ye languish there? Nay. Ye’re ruined. Ye’ll be even more ruined when I’ve finished with ye, but I’ll keep ye as long as I have a use for ye. Then ye’ll disappear.”

  Bile rose in Caitrin’s throat again. “Disappear?”

  “Ye dinna expect me to keep ye around when ye’re old and fat?” He laughed at that and Caitrin cringed.

  He glanced at the fighting then turned back to her thigh. Caitrin pawed at the floor as far as she could reach around her, looking for something, anything, she could use to bash him over the head. She found nothing.

  He scratched faster now. He’d seen the tide had turned against his men, yet instead of going to fight with them, he was determined to continue to mutilate her. Each new slice stung, then bled. Catrin tried again to buck him off, but this time he turned and punched the side of her head. “Be still!”

  Her world narrowed down to pain, dizziness, and nausea.

  Then suddenly, the weight on her leg disappeared and Jamie’s outraged shout penetrated the haze. “It was ye!”

  ****

  Jamie finally shed the layers of reserve he’d built up over the years when he glimpsed MacGregor through the partially open doorway, cutting the fabric of Caitrin’s dress. The rage in him boiled to the surface, making him want to slay the man more than anything in this life. More than his own life. But he couldn’t help Caitrin right away. First, he had to deal with MacGregor’s soldiers, or there would be no one left to help her. His berserk attack on the guards at his back galvanized the Lathans and Uilleam to turn on their captors.

  They seemed to take Jamie’s frenzy as their own and quickly evened the odds.

  MacGregor bodies littered the ground by the time Jamie regained his senses enough to realize his men could handle the rest of their guards. He burst in to the croft, banging the door against the wall hard enough to rattle dishes in the cupboard.

  The thin lines of red marring Caitrin’s breast made cold sweat break out on Jamie’s face and chest. In contrast, raw, blistering fury rose to scald his throat at the sight of MacGregor hunched over Caitrin, blade poised above her body. His vision tightened to a pinpoint focused on the tip of the blade in MacGregor’s hand. Even to his own ears, his growl sounded animalistic as he advanced. Caitrin lay trapped beneath Alasdair’s weight on her leg, but before Jamie could haul him off her, the pattern of bloody cuts on her chest brought back the memory he’d spent years burying deep.

  “It was ye!”

  He grabbed Alasdair by the throat, heedless of the blade in the man’s hand. As he hauled him to his feet, prepared to take a swing at him that would knock him across the room, he exposed Caitrin’s thigh. Jamie roared. Instead of hitting him, Jamie hoisted the big man off the ground by the neck and shook him.

  Alasdair fought free, scrabbling to get his feet back on the ground. He dropped the thin blade and grabbed Jamie’s shirt, tearing it open down the front as they fought. Jamie had no doubt MacGregor would kill him if he got the chance. He didn’t intend to let him.

  But a blow to the head stunned him and he dropped to his knees. MacGregor picked up the dirk he’d set aside for the thin blade he’d used on Caitrin and held it to Jamie’s throat. “Tell me how to find the secret way into the Aerie or while ye watch, I’ll take a whip and flay all the skin from her.”

  Jamie fought to get his body back under his control, but his head still felt muzzy.

  “What makes ye think there is another way in?” he asked, stalling as his vision cleared.

  “Yer damn courier, Ewan, died with the secret, but ye’ll tell me or watch her creamy skin peel off.”

  Ach, Ewan! Dead? The thought of him being tortured and dying under MacGregor’s hand sickened Jamie. And told Jamie if he didn’t defeat MacGregor, they were doomed. Since he was now willing to admit to killing one of their men, he had no intention of letting them live, letting them return to the Aerie. Not one of them. Perhaps not even Caitrin. Suddenly the world snapped into focus, and Jamie wrenched the knife away from his neck and out of Alasdair’s hand. It slid across the floor. He head-butted Alasdair in the gut, then surged to his feet and waded in, swearing with each blow he landed. Then he grabbed MacGregor by the throat, lifted him off his feet and squeezed.

  “God damn ye to hell. Did ye do to Ewan what ye did to Caitrin? And the same to all the women in the pubs in St. Andrews? No wonder they refused to talk. What kind of monster are ye?”

  MacGregor was turning purple, gasping and making thin sounds, as though trying to answer Jamie, or begging to be released, but Jamie would have none of it. He did lower the man to his feet. He didn’t intend for him to die just yet. Not until he’d answered some questions.

  “Who taught ye to do this?” He shook Alasdair again, and as he did, the comb fell from Jamie’s open shirt front to the floor and slid to the wall.

  Alasdair’s eye’s widened as he looked from the comb to Jamie’s face, and back to the comb again.

  Jamie had no doubt
he recognized it. He loosened his hold on Alasdair’s neck. “Ye ken that comb. Talk.”

  Alasdair shook his head, gasping for air.

  “The elders sent Caitrin home to her father rather than leave her at Lathan where she might be the next victim of whoever killed the owner of that comb. Talk!”

  Alasdair coughed. Jamie tightened his hold. “But the killer never came into the Aerie, did he?” He gave Alasdair another little shake and was rewarded by Alasdair’s attempt to turn his head and form the word “nay.” He did neither well, with Jamie’s fist around his neck. “So ye attacked her in the woods outside the keep, did ye?”

  He released MacGregor and shoved him against the wall. “Ye’d best find yer voice if ye want to keep breathing.”

  MacGregor sucked in a deep breath then doubled over, coughing. “No’ me. Da. Uncle. And Alain.”

  “Alain? Who is that?”

  “Was…hunting master…all killed at Flodden.”

  Annie had told the truth about that much.

  “What did ye see?”

  Alasdair shook his head again. “All of it.” He sucked in a deeper breath. “Ye kent the lass, did ye?”

  Jamie swung at Alasdair, roaring, “She was my sister, ye sick bastard. And yer da…yer uncle…” Jamie stopped and spat. “They cut her. Raped her. Then they killed her. And they let ye watch it all?”

  Alasdair rubbed his jaw. “Aye. Made me. They were going to let me have a go at her, too, but she was dead by the time all three of them finished with her.”

  Jamie bounced Alasdair’s head off the wall, hard. Nay, he couldn’t kill him yet, though he wanted to. Ach, how he wanted to. His poor sister, dying that way. He was beginning to regret learning the truth, but he knew this much, he needed to hear the rest.

  “And then Alain kept her comb as a memento? He gave it to his wife?”

  “Nay. I saw Da take it off her. Once they’d…done. But Ma might’ve suspected something. All those years, she never asked what he did when he left her. He never told her. He kent she wouldna have anything he brought her,” he said, gesturing to the comb. “So Da gave it to Alain. I havena seen it for years.”

  “Yet ye recognized it.”

  “Do ye expect me to forget something like that?”

  “And I saw it yesterday in the hair of the lass ye assigned to care for Caitrin.”

  “What? No’ I. The steward assigns the servants.”

  “Alain’s daughter gave it to her. She claimed she didna ken how her da came by it.”

  MacGregor grinned. “I doubt he spoke of it.”

  That grin earned him a blow that knocked him to the floor.

  ****

  Caitrin gasped, appalled at the savagery in Jamie’s reaction to MacGregor’s taunt. MacGregor’s blood marked the wall where Jamie bashed his head. Jamie’s pounding had opened other wounds as well. Alasdair deserved every pain, every torment Jamie could inflict on him now. He was bloodied and bowed, but Caitrin doubted he would remain that way. MacGregor had too much cunning, too much meanness, to stay down for long. Did Jamie know that? She should tell him.

  Would Jamie have to kill him? Not that she would object. MacGregor had hurt her, many times. Today was by far the worst—and the last, if she read Jamie’s fury correctly. How much strength did it take to dangle a man Alasdair’s size from one hand? How much fury fueled such inhuman strength? Aye, this savage Jamie would kill him, but her gentle Jamie was still in there somewhere and he would only kill MacGregor if he had no other choice. She hoped it came to that.

  As much as she longed to go to Jamie, she stayed on the floor, out of the way. In truth, she wasn’t sure she could get up. Her thigh burned and stung at the same time. It felt slick with seeping blood under her hand, as did her breast. She clutched the tatters of her dress to her chest, wanting to be covered and trying to stop the shivering that suddenly beset her. She laid her skirt over the wounds in her leg, hoping to staunch the bleeding.

  Pain washed through her, the worst Alasdair had ever inflicted on her. Her breast and her thigh throbbed with each beat of her heart. Would it ever stop? Would she ever escape him? She felt weak and dizzy and cold, but determination kept her sitting up, paying attention to the story Jamie dragged out of Alasdair. It explained so much. Both of Alasdair’s behavior and Madeleine’s anger. Jamie’s history. And perhaps hers, as well.

  She could hear men moving around outside the croft house. Shouting orders, shouting epithets. The Lathans must be sorting out the living from the dead.

  She wanted to call for help, help for her and help for Jamie, but no one outside this croft would hear her, even if she could summon up more from her voice than a croak. And she might distract Jamie, who likely would not welcome the interference. Alasdair was his to deal with, and she sensed he wanted it no other way.

  But Alasdair might be pretending to be more beaten down than he truly was. He lied about everything. He would lie about that, too. She would not be the one to give him an opportunity to turn the tables on Jamie.

  She could not risk Alasdair winning. The blade Madeleine gave her lay in the dirt outside the door, so she lacked even that for protection. Not that it had done much good the first time she’d tried to use it on Alasdair. And his thin blade, the one he’d used on her, lay on the floor near Jamie’s feet. So near. Yet too far away for her to retrieve it. Jamie might need it. She might crawl closer, or even force herself to her feet, if she must, to give it to him or to use it herself. But even dazed as she was, she knew if she got too close to the men, Jamie’s attention would shift from Alasdair to her. Nay, that could lead to disaster as well. She could only sit and bleed and pray Jamie got what he needed from Alasdair quickly, before she passed out.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I should cut off yer balls before I kill ye,” Jamie snarled. “Tell me what happened. The longer ye talk, the longer ye will live.”

  Jamie felt Caitrin’s wide-eyed gaze on his back, but he couldn’t spare her his attention right now. As bad as they looked, her wounds were not life-threatening, and Jamie was not about to let MacGregor try anything.

  Silence, broken only by Alasdair’s hacking cough and the sound of Kyle giving orders, told Jamie the fighting was over.

  “Jamie.” Kyle’s voice sounded suddenly close, at the open door.

  Jamie could only imagine what he thought of the scene they set.

  “Bind the survivors, take them to their horses, and get ready to travel,” Jamie ordered without taking his gaze off his prisoner. “Leave Caitrin with me. This won’t take long.” He heard Kyle move away and nudged the man sprawled at his feet. “Talk, MacGregor. For yer life, or yer last few miserable minutes of it.” He should have ordered Kyle to tend to Caitrin, but he would do that himself, in moments. He couldn’t bear the thought of another man touching her, especially not where Alasdair had cut her.

  “Why….why should I tell ye…anything.”

  “Because I’ll kill ye where ye are unless ye do.” Jamie heard the men moving off into the woods, but he kept his focus on MacGregor.

  “Ye will, anyway.”

  “Aye, I will. So live a few minutes more and explain yerself.”

  “Explain myself?” MacGregor’s coughing fit had ceased and he straightened up. He glanced past Jamie’s legs.

  Jamie saw the defiance in his eyes as he beheld his men, dead or under Lathan control. He would get no help there.

  MacGregor shrugged. “Explain what my father used to do to me, his useless spare of a spare of a spare? He wouldna touch his heir, or the spare, but me, ach, aye. To this day, I dinna think my mother kent the kind of man she married. She would no’ have approved.”

  “Did ye start with the tavern whores in St. Andrews, or were there others before them?”

  “I remember them well. I watched what my da and uncle did to yer sister. They were so much alike, the Twins. Especially in how they enjoyed their perversions. I had plenty of time to learn from them that day, and others. Ye didna ken who
to suspect, did ye? Surely no’ yer auld schoolmate.”

  Jamie shuddered, fighting to let Alasdair live long enough to tell all he knew.

  “I dinna ken why yer sister was in the woods by herself. Meeting a lover, perhaps?” MacGregor chuckled and coughed. “She was too sweet for a man of my laird’s…taste…to pass by.”

  Jamie’s stomach turned. He knew exactly why his sister had been alone, away from the keep. Their father had told her of his plans to marry her to a man she didn’t like. Jamie knew she loved someone else, but not who. He’d seen her leaving the keep and run after her, hoping to discover who she was meeting. Much as Caitrin used to run after Toran and him. Netta had seen him, run faster, and hidden in the forest. He’d looked for her, but eventually had given up and gone back to the Aerie as darkness fell, thinking she must have returned home already. He’d never seen her again. But years later, he’d heard how she’d been found, and what was done to her.

  What Alasdair MacGregor had begun to do to Caitrin. And worse.

  “So they tortured her,” Jamie ground out. “Raped her. Then killed her.”

  “I suppose they couldna let her return to tell her da who had done those things to her. She was ruined for another man, anyway. ’Twas kinder to cut her throat.”

  Caitrin’s sob kept Jamie from doing the same to MacGregor. But still he could not face her. He kept his gaze on the man on the floor at his feet instead. “And when ye came to St. Andrews, ye began to practice what ye learnt.”

  “Ah…the lasses in the pubs. Aye, they thought to make a day’s wage or more off me—a wealthy student. They looked down on us, ye ken. Those whores looked down on the students who drank their ale and paid for their favors. So I paid them good coin to let me do whatever I wished.” MacGregor chuckled and Jamie nearly went for him. “Some got more than they bargained for, but if they started screaming, really, what did they think I would do?”

  “Why were ye never caught? Any of the ones who lived could have identified ye.”