by Willa Blair
“I told them I’d kill them, slowly, of course. And if I wasna around to do it, I had friends who liked to do the same things I did. They’d never ken which of their trysts would end them. No’ true, but they didna ken that. Either way, they thought they’d end up dead unless they stayed quiet. So they did.”
“Ye will hang for this.”
“Nay, I dinna think so. A laird’s word against yers?”
“And mine.” Caitrin’s voice at his side startled Jamie. He’d been so focused on MacGregor, he’d never heard her get to her feet and move toward him. He turned to her. It was a mistake.
Alasdair MacGregor reached out, grabbed the comb from the floor, then broke it in two as he leapt to his feet. He charged at Caitrin before Jamie could react and step between them. Like the wildcat that had attacked her in the dark forest, he went for her throat, slashing with a piece of the comb in each hand. She blocked his attack with her arms, snagging the teeth of the comb in her sleeves. He knocked her down and fell on her, wrapping his hands around her throat.
Jamie grabbed MacGregor by the hair, hauled him off Caitrin, and then slammed his head into the wall, stunning him. He fell to his knees by Caitrin, where she lay, pale and panting.
“Lass! Caitrin…”
“He didna cut me…dinna let him…”
Cut. Aye, he’d give the bastard some of his own medicine before he ended his miserable life. The dirk lay where MacGregor had dropped it. Jamie scooped it up and cut MacGregor’s clothes away, baring the front of his body, intending to make good on his earlier threat to unman him. In his fury and haste, he left shallow gashes in MacGregor’s skin, from neck to crotch.
“Jamie, nay!” Caitrin’s horrified plea barely penetrated the rage that ruled him.
She rolled to her side and reached out to him, but his outrage blinded him to everything but the man before him and he didn’t heed her. He knelt with knife point poised to castrate MacGregor, but what he saw there stopped him.
Scars. Old scars. Some long and deep, others around them short, shallow flicks, in tracks from his sack down his thighs. This was what Alasdair had meant? His father had done this—to his child? Horror supplanted Jamie’s rage long enough for him to drop the dirk. Caitrin crawled to him, screamed and clapped a hand over her mouth when she saw the damage her attacker had suffered so long ago. “Oh my God.”
“God had naught to do with this,” Jamie answered her. “Or with what this made him become.” He rolled MacGregor over to shield his body, and then he stood and helped Caitrin up. “He deserves to die for what he did to those women in St. Andrews, and to ye. And to Ewan. But no’ for my sister. The bastards who did that are long dead. I’ll no’ unman him. His father did enough of that years ago.”
He went to the door and shouted for Kyle to bring some men, then Jamie turned back and wrapped Caitrin in his arms. “Are ye well enough to ride? The healer must see to ye.”
“I am. What about him?”
“We’ll throw a plaid over him so he doesna frighten small children, and let Toran exact Lathan’s justice on him for his crimes. I’ll no’ take him as far as St. Andrews, and dare no’ return him to MacGregor, where he has allies aplenty.”
“Perhaps no’. Has it occurred to ye he may have treated his own people the same way he treated me? Or worse, the way he was treated?”
“Nay. Else he would be dead of a knife in the back long before now.”
Kyle approached the door with another Lathan and one of the MacGregor prisoners.
“What happened?”
“He’s no’ dead. Find a plaid to cover him and get him out of here.”
A feral growl was the only warning Jamie got as MacGregor sprang at Caitrin with the dirk Jamie had carelessly left near at hand. Jamie shoved Caitrin out the door at Kyle and pulled his own dirk. MacGregor managed to slash his arm as momentum carried him past Jamie, but Jamie grabbed the tatters of his clothing before he could carry his charge to attack Caitrin, hauled him back around and buried his dirk in his chest.
MacGregor went down without another sound.
Jamie glanced from him to see to Caitrin’s safety. She held her knife before her and the expression on her face told him she’d been prepared to use it. Good lass. She’d had the presence of mind to scoop up the blade MacGregor had knocked out of her hand, though the reach of Kyle’s dirk outmatched hers by a foot. One way or the other, MacGregor had sealed his fate. But Jamie saw it done.
****
Caitrin didn’t know whether to be pleased or relieved as MacGregor’s body collapsed into a heap on the floor, Jamie’s dirk in his chest. Twice more, he had attacked her and Jamie had saved her.
She’d never seen Jamie like this. Out of control with anguish and fury. He had a beast in him she’d never suspected, one he’d kept hidden from everyone around him. Her childhood friend, the man she thought she loved, was terrifyingly out of control.
Should she fear him? She backed up a pace, her gaze going from MacGregor’s body to Jamie’s tense form, looming over the man he’d just killed, breathing hard, every exhale nearly a growl, every muscle locked tight, blood dripping from the cut Alasdair had inflicted on his arm. She heard Kyle and the others standing behind her shuffle and mutter, but she paid them no heed.
Caitrin now understood why she’d been sent home so suddenly, all those years ago. The manner of Jamie’s sister’s death had compelled the Lathan to send her away for her own safety.
Jamie’s chest heaved and he doubled over.
Caitrin feared he was going to be sick, but quickly realized he was sobbing and fighting it. Surely not because he’d been forced to kill the monster at his feet. Because of what he’d learned about his sister’s death? Ewan’s? Or because of what had been done to the young Alasdair that made him into a monster?
“Jamie…” She kept her voice soft and low, hoping to reach him through his anguish, but he didn’t move except to shudder. “It’s over,” she told him and moved toward him.
“Stay back.” His voice cracked, a ragged cry torn from somewhere deep inside him. “Kyle, take the prisoner back with the others. Caitrin, go with him.”
“Nay.” Caitrin froze where she stood, still out of reach, as Kyle and the other men moved away. “I want to help ye.”
“Ye canna.” He shook his head, or maybe his shuddering strengthened, making it more visible, more pronounced.
“I can if ye will let me.” She took another step toward him, but his hand shot out, blocking her.
“Dinna come near me. I…I still want to…kill something.”
“It’s no’ yer fault.” Caitrin backed up a pace, taking Jamie’s warning seriously, but she refused to leave him in this state.
“It is my fault. My sister died because of me.”
“What? Nay! Ye didna kill her. Alasdair’s monster of a father and the others did.”
“’Twas my fault she stayed in the woods long enough for them to find her. We’d been warned to be in the keep by dark.” The despair in Jamie’s voice nearly drove Caitrin to her knees. How long had he been holding on to that pain? Since before the Lathan sent her home, surely. From the day they found his sister’s body.
The Jamie she knew was easy going and even-tempered. He always said just the right thing to defuse a tense situation with a joke or a perfectly timed comment. She’d never dreamed he could harbor such grief, such anger. Was that why he’d become such a skilled negotiator? Years of bargaining with himself to keep the anger and pain at bay? Hidden beneath charm and reason?
Did Toran suspect? Nay, likely not, or he would not have sent his friend away from the Aerie.
“I’m sorry, Caitrin…for so many things.” He straightened up, finally, his back to her. “I have to walk away now. I dinna wish to hurt ye.”
The hoarse agony in his voice sent chills coursing down her limbs. “Ye canna hurt me, Jamie Lathan. ’Tisna in ye to do such a thing.”
“Ye canna ken what is in me. No’ now. I’m so…filled with fury
…I can barely speak.”
His choked panting, rather than her talent, gave her the truth of that. “Jamie…”
“Find something to bind yer wounds then go get Will. Tell him to bring a horse to carry the MacGregor’s body back to the keep. ’Tis past time for the healer to tend to ye, as well.”
She hesitated. “Yer arm.”
But still Jamie didn’t move, even to turn to face her.
“Do as I say.”
Before Caitrin could argue further, he walked out into the sunshine, leaving her with MacGregor’s body cooling on the floor.
She spun away and began rifling cabinets for bandaging, but found none, so she ripped the sheet from the cot in the back room, tore it into long strips and bound them into a makeshift bandage around her thigh. Another folded strip made a pad over the wounds on her breast that she held in place by tying her dress closed with another strip looped under her arm and over the opposite shoulder. All the while, she ignored her attacker on the floor. She found a cloak and shouldered it on over her torn dress. That would have to do.
She quit the croft house and hobbled away from it as quickly as the pain in her thigh would let her. She didn’t see Jamie. Where had he gone?
Uilleam, the other Lathans and their prisoners were at the treeline, not far from the croft, yet she struggled for breath and limped by the time she reached them. Kyle saw her first and came to her.
“What can I do to help ye?”
“Jamie wants Uilleam to bring a horse for the MacGregor.” Better not to mention in front of his men he was dead. They’d find out the truth soon enough. “Make sure these men are under Lathan control. He expects trouble.” Of course, Kyle would know that. He’d seen what happened and knew how their prisoners would take the news.
“Where is Jamie?”
“I dinna ken,” she answered, her voice breaking on a sob that rose from behind her wounded breast. Suddenly, her knees gave out.
Kyle scooped her up before she crumpled to the ground. He carried her to a waiting horse, and lifted her up, seating her side-saddle. “Will ye be all right there long enough for me to talk to Uilleam?”
“Aye.”
“Ye willna faint and fall, will ye?”
“Go.” Suddenly, she barely had the strength to speak. She suspected shock had set in, from the events or from blood loss, she didn’t know. She just wanted to lie down and not get up again for days. She leaned over the horse’s neck and willed the world to go away.
It wasn’t long before a low rumble alerted her Jamie and Will had returned with Alasdair’s body. She opened her eyes to find Kyle standing beside her mount.
“I’m to stay with ye. Jamie is…distracted.”
She took a breath, redolent with horse and…blood, sat up and glanced around, but didn’t see him. “That’s a word for it, I suppose.”
“Do ye think ye can ride, or would ye feel safer riding with me?”
“I’ll try it. Ye need to be ready for anything, and I’ll be in yer way.”
“Verra well.”
Kyle left her long enough to mount up and leaned over to put her reins in her hand. “Ye willna get far without them,” he chided her gently.
Caitrin smiled tiredly and flicked them. Obediently, her mount stepped forward and began the long ride back to MacGregor. True to his word, Kyle stayed with her. She found Jamie at the back of their sad little group, escorting the body of the man he had killed. The monster. The son of a monster. Nephew of a monster. Caitrin wished Jamie would let her comfort him, but he refused, beyond her help for now. Later, after he’d had time to calm down, he might accept her being near him again. Or he might not want her, now MacGregor had marked her. The pain in her breast and thigh reminded her she would have to heal. Then later, she’d try to prove to him those scars didn’t matter.
Could she do that? Would she ever believe it herself? She’d always bear the reminder of this awful day. She’d always be a reminder to Jamie of what he’d done, and nearly done. Tears slipped down her cheek, and she impatiently wiped them away. Could she do that to him? She had no choice but to live with her scars. She would have to learn to ignore them. Could Jamie do the same? If he truly loved her before MacGregor cut her then she might have a reason to hope. Men lived with the proof of other men’s possession if their women were widows. Even another man’s child could be a source of joy. But she would have scars, and no one welcomed those.
****
Jamie’s emotional overload drained away on the ride back to MacGregor, leaving him empty and numb. He’d let loose the fury he’d kept bottled up for years, and a man had died. The fact that the man deserved to die—many times over—did little to ease Jamie’s concern about how he’d died. How out of control Jamie had been from the time he’d seen MacGregor kneeling on Catrin’s leg, until MacGregor began his revelations, each word a dirk in Jamie’s heart, until now.
He’d achieved some clarity with the numbness, but the memories were still as sharp a pain in his gut as ever. A reminder of the awful time after his sister’s body had been discovered. The fear in the town of St. Andrews over the deaths there. Someone had kept the mutilations out of town gossip, or Jamie would have known.
It all tangled up in his mind like a snarled ball of yarn. What MacGregor had done to Caitrin at his keep. What he was doing to her by the time his men had been subdued. How MacGregor had kept going for Caitrin instead of Jamie, attacking her, again and again. What his father had done to him. To Jamie’s sister. The news of Ewan’s death—and how he had died at MacGregor’s hands. He knew there would be a reckoning, just not yet. He couldn’t think.
The day after MacGregor’s burial, Jamie went before the clan’s elders. He’d expected to have to answer for their laird’s death, perhaps with his own life. But the clan elders had accepted Jamie’s explanation of events and the corroborations of the men who were there to see what MacGregor had done. Fortunately, one of the witnesses was a MacGregor, so it could not be said to have been murder.
One of their own had seen and heard the awful truth.
The men responsible for helping MacGregor torture and murder Ewan had been found and hanged. Even Fletcher’s cousin, who’d betrayed them to MacGregor, had been found. Jamie had been surprised to learn that Malcolm, whom they believed had died for his father’s treachery, was not Rabbie’s son at all, but a fosterling. Malcolm had been the bastard son of MacGregor’s uncle, and a cousin to MacGregor.
There was nothing more to do here.
But they were stuck in the keep until the healer said Caitrin could travel. The makeshift bandaging she’d managed before leaving the cousin’s croft had helped, but the healer feared fever and kept putting fresh poultices on her wounds every few hours. Kyle told him Caitrin accepted it all with grace, but her eagerness to be gone looked more like impatience by now. This keep held nothing but bad memories for all of them.
What should he do about Caitrin? Did he dare approach her? He’d avoided her since their return. Once he’d allowed his rage to consume him, he feared it would it do so again. Would he lose control and hurt her? Could he be a danger to her? He’d rather die.
But after what she’d heard, what she’d witnessed, she might be too terrified of him to ever come near him again. So, it might not matter. He had proven to her, there was more to him than the peacemaker—no longer the lad who’d looked out for her, cared for her, included her when Toran would rather have avoided her. It wasn’t that she’d seen him kill a man. That was a fact of life among the clans. Rather, she’d seen him let his rage master him. How he’d nearly mutilated his prisoner would surely turn her away. It would have been no more than MacGregor deserved for what Jamie suspected he’d done—and what he’d actually done through the years, but Caitrin should never have seen any of that. Their discovery of what MacGregor had suffered as a child made it all the more horrible. It didn’t excuse MacGregor’s subsequent actions, but it did, at least partly, explain them.
The knock on Jamie’s door su
rprised him. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and he’d demanded to be left alone. He opened the door to find Kyle in the hallway.
“She’s asking for ye,” he said, planting his fists on his hips. “When are ye going to her?”
The corded muscle in Kyle’s neck told Jamie he had been patient as long as he could. Jamie nearly shut the door in his face, something he’d done every time Kyle had disturbed him before this. But the evidence of Kyle’s anger stopped him. He deserved an answer. Kyle had been wearing a path in the stone floor between their chambers these last few days. He’d been acting as go-between, keeping Jamie appraised of Caitrin’s progress, even if he had to shout his report through the stout oak of the closed door. Jamie had no doubt he’d been telling Caitrin Jamie had locked himself away. A pang of remorse speared Jamie’s belly. Caitrin would be worried.
“If ye dinna go see her soon,” Kyle continued when Jamie failed to answer, “the next person knocking at yer door will likely be the lass, and following close behind her, the healer will be mad as a scalded cat. She doesna want the lass walking about just yet.”
Jamie rubbed his unshaven jaw, scraping his palm over the bristles that measured how long it had been since he’d done anything but wallow in his memories and sulk.
“Ye are right. I’ll go. But I’d best clean up first, aye?”
“That’s a brilliant idea.” Kyle’s expression smoothed out and his tone lightened. “I’ll have a tub and hot water sent up for ye.”
“Dinna tell her I’m coming.”
“What? So ye can decide against seeing her, again? Nay, I’ll tell her to expect ye in an hour. Dinna be late.”
“Ye bastard. All right. Now go. And send someone with my bath.”
Kyle laughed his way down the hall as Jamie slammed the door. “Rank interference,” he muttered. But Kyle was right. He was overdue to rejoin the world. He’d grieved for his sister years ago, and again these last few days. He’d have to trust his control of his demons. Caitrin wanted to see him. That should be proof enough she trusted him, despite what she’d seen, more than he trusted himself.