Burke gave up trying to disengage her and instead scooted onto the bed next to her.
“You have to calm down, love,” he whispered to her. “Breathe. That’s it, nice and slow. Just breathe.”
Meredith took several shaky breaths, and her sobs began to quiet. Even though it was clear the lass had gone through something terrible, Daniel had to clench his fists at his sides to stop himself from harshly demanding to know what was going on.
“That’s better, love,” Burke said, smoothing Meredith’s hair. “Now, can you tell us what happened?”
Meredith forced herself to speak through trembling lips.
“We were walking in the woods…I don’t know where…”
Daniel turned to his brothers. “They were going to a cottage in the Galloway woods where Rona likes to visit some friends,” he said by way of explanation.
Meredith took another deep breath and went on.
“I got sick, so I stopped. They went on a little way ahead. Then…then I heard…I heard Rona scream, and the sound of horses…”
“Did you see how many there were? Were they wearing armor? Did they bear a particular coat of arms?” Daniel interjected, panic stabbing him.
Meredith shook her head and lowered her eyes.
“I hid. I hid like a coward.” She broke down as a bereft sob shook her.
“Nay, love, you’re not a coward,” Burke soothed, tilting her chin up so that she looked into his eyes. “You saved yourself and our babe, and you made it back here to tell us what happened. Go on.”
Meredith swallowed and gave a little nod.
“I hid in some bushes, but I could hear them not far off. There were shouts from many men, and the sound of metal on metal. I heard Rona scream again, but then things fell quiet for several moments. Then a man cried out, and I heard Rona again. Then all I could hear was the horses retreating, and the forest went silent.”
“Christ,” Garrick breathed, raking a hand through his hair.
“That’s not all,” Meredith said, her face contorted in horror. “I stayed in the bushes for a long time—I don’t know how long. But it was growing dark by the time I came out. I went toward where the sounds had come from. I saw…” She struggled to choke out the words. “I saw…a pile of…bodies…”
She squeezed her eyes shut as if she were trying to get the image out of her head.
Daniel’s stomach plummeted even as his chest seized painfully.
“Did you see…was Rona…” He couldn’t even speak the words.
Blessedly, Meredith shook her head quickly. “I didn’t see her there. They must have taken her. But Patrick and Harold…”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Daniel’s intuition about the two men had been right when he’d selected them to accompany Rona and Meredith into the woods. They’d fought and died trying to protect the women.
“There were others, too,” Meredith went on, running a shaky hand over her eyes. “Men in chainmail.”
“Englishmen,” Garrick said darkly.
“And the ground was all churned up from the horses. There could have been as many as a dozen of them.”
“How do you know…” Robert began with a look of surprise at Meredith’s words.
“She’s very good at following animals by the tracks they leave,” Burke said quietly to him.
“But I’m apparently not good at following human trails,” Meredith said, bereft. “I got lost trying to get back to the village. I tried to get here as quickly as I could, and I went too fast…”
“Nay, love, nay. You’re here. You made it. You delivered the news.” Burke kissed her hair and wrapped her in his arms. Tears still streamed down her pale, scratched cheeks, but her sobs were quieter now.
Daniel’s whole body was taut with fear.
“We have to go after her. Now,” he said and began pacing the chamber.
Before anyone could respond to him, Jossalyn burst into the room.
“I went down to the hall for the evening meal after my bath, but it’s chaos down there. Someone told me—”
She caught sight of Meredith, bedraggled and sobbing on the bed, and bolted toward her. Jossalyn took one of Meredith’s hands in hers and looked around, shocked.
“What happened? The babe?”
In a low, calm voice, Burke repeated what Meredith had just told them. As the story unfolded, Jossalyn grew paler, her eyes wide.
“You think it’s…it’s my brother?” she asked when Burke concluded.
“We can’t know for sure until we see those bodies in the forest, but I’d stake my life on Warren being behind this,” Robert said darkly.
“Then why aren’t we out there now?” Daniel barked. “We’ll take all the castle’s men, plus the Highland warriors, and find the bodies. We can continue on from there to Dunbraes.”
His brothers and cousin exchanged a look, and he knew with a sinking sensation they wouldn’t follow his plan.
“They took Rona alive, Danny,” Robert said quietly, carefully eyeing him. “That means they probably want to ransom her.”
“Or they took her because they want to rape and torture her to death!” Daniel bellowed. His blood roared deafeningly in his ears, and he glared at the men one at a time.
“What would you do if it was one of your wives?”
“I wouldn’t be able to think straight,” Robert said levelly, “which is why I would turn to you to help me make a plan rather than charge off into the woods in the dead of night.”
Daniel inhaled sharply and was about to shout a response back at his elder brother when Robert cut him off.
“We can’t lead a half-formed attack on Dunbraes, either. The castle is nearly impenetrable. We need to wait for the Bruce and his army before we can launch a full-blown attack.”
“I’ll not wait a week or more for the Bruce to get here!” Daniel shouted. “We all know what Warren is capable of, if indeed he has her.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jossalyn shudder at his words. He rounded on her.
“What will he do to her?” he barked.
“Easy, brother,” Garrick said lowly, taking a step toward Jossalyn.
Jossalyn met Daniel’s eyes, and icy fear replaced the fiery urgency in his blood.
“Raef is…a violent man,” she breathed. “He has no qualms about hurting women.”
Daniel bellowed a string of expletives. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself standing in front of the chamber door. He slammed his fist into the thick wood, barely registering the pain through the haze of fear and desperation hanging around him.
Suddenly Robert and Garrick spun him around and threw him against the door, pinning him. He struggled wildly against them like a rabid animal.
“Let me go! We must go after her!”
He writhed and pulled, thrashed and bucked against his brothers, but they held him fast to the door, restraining his arms and throwing their shoulders into his chest.
He wasn’t sure how long he struggled against them, but suddenly he felt drained. More than drained. He was empty, hollow, nothing.
He went slack, and his brothers released him and slowly stepped back. Both were panting with the exertion of subduing him. His back slid down the door and he slumped onto his heels, spent.
“We cannot wait for the Bruce, even if he is only a week away,” Garrick said quietly to Robert.
Daniel raised his head enough to look up at his brothers. Robert stared down at him for a long moment, contemplating Garrick’s words. Finally, he spoke.
“Aye, we cannot wait,” Robert said, his face dark. “If it were Alwin or Jane—” He didn’t finish, but squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head slightly.
Though his brother’s words should have heartened him, instead Daniel felt numb inside. No matter when they got to Rona, it wouldn’t be soon enough. She had been taken, probably by the most ruthless, vengeful Englishman in all of Scotland. Warren saw Scotland and its people as a scourge, a plague against
order and control, and he had a personal vendetta against the Sinclairs. What would he do to Rona to exact revenge?
Robert and Garrick stepped forward and lifted him to his feet.
“Don’t let the fear overtake you, Danny,” Robert whispered to him. “Rona needs you. She needs you to think clearly, to help us make a plan.”
Daniel shook his head, trying to clear his mind from the panicked fog obscuring his thoughts.
“We should confirm that the men in the woods, the ones who attacked Rona, are indeed Warren’s,” Burke said from the bed. He gently separated himself from Meredith, who was sinking into an exhausted torpor. As Burke stood and joined the other men, Jossalyn scooted up to take Burke’s place, silently wrapping her arms around Meredith’s shoulders.
Daniel nodded numbly. “And then what?”
Robert ran a hand over his stubble-covered chin.
“Then we’ll wait for Warren’s ransom letter, assuming he took her and that he wants to negotiate.”
Anger surged through Daniel once again, evaporating his stupor. “Wait? I thought you just said—”
Robert held up a hand to stay him.
“But we won’t be sitting on our hands in the meantime, brother. We’ll be planning an attack on Dunbraes. A covert attack. We’ll have to put off a full-scale siege of the castle until we have the Bruce’s reinforcements—and until Rona is safe.”
Garrick nodded slowly. “But we can plan a stealth extraction in the meantime. Then when Warren’s ransom letter arrives, he’ll think he’s a step ahead of us, but we’ll be ready to launch our rescue. He won’t expect that.”
“Forgive me for saying this,” Burke interjected with a frown, “but we were already struggling to pinpoint a weak spot in Dunbraes for the siege. How will we penetrate the castle with even fewer men, less time, and a hostage to be used against us?”
“It is far easier for four men to slip around a castle’s defenses than it is for an army to attack in the open,” Garrick responded. “We’ll have to use stealth—darkness, silence, and only the four of us.”
Daniel shook his head, desolation swamping him again. The task seemed nearly impossible, and yet the alternative was unthinkable. How could this be happening? How could Rona be in Warren’s hands, and he and his brothers and cousin planning a covert extraction against one of the best-fortified castles in all of Scotland or England?
His doubt and anguish must have been written clearly on his face, for his eldest brother gripped his shoulder hard.
“We’ll get her out, Danny,” Robert said softly. “I promise.”
HIGHLANDER’S RECKONING
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Rona’s lips were cracked, her mouth bone-dry. Blessedly, hunger had left her the day before, but thirst, along with cold, were her constant, menacing companions. The dungeon where she was being kept was mostly dark, so she couldn’t be sure how long she’d been down there, but she guessed it had been close to three days since she’d been taken from the woods.
No one had come to tend to her since that first night—or early morning, more likely—that she’d been deposited here. The silence, isolation, and near-darkness had begun to do things to her mind. She tried to sleep, but the stone floor stole what little heat she had in her body. She’d called out at first, begging for food, water, something to wipe the crusted blood from her face, but no one ever answered.
She wondered if Warren’s plan was to simply let her die down here without bothering to ransom her as he’d alluded to when he’d taken her.
She prayed, but her mind was growing slow and hazy. Sometimes she prayed for someone—usually Daniel, but anyone would be welcome—to arrive and spirit her away. Sometimes she prayed that Warren or a guard would appear and tell her their plan—to kill her, to release her, to let her live for another month in the dungeon, or whatever else they had decided. Sometimes she simply prayed for food and water. So far, she hadn’t allowed herself to pray for death.
As the hours and days had stretched, she let her mind wander to Bhreaca. She pictured a hot summer afternoon, one where the air was heavy and still and the smell of warm soil and plant life hung all around. In her mind, she could almost feel Bhreaca’s weight on her wrist. She’d give the falcon a little push upward, and Bhreaca would launch herself into the blue sky, speckled chest flashing.
As she always did, Rona would close her eyes and climb with Bhreaca, pumping to gain altitude. Then they’d be gliding on the warm, still air. Suddenly she and Bhreaca would fold their wings tight to their bodies and plummet in a stoop. Rona was weightless, the ground fast approaching. Just at the last moment, she and Bhreaca would unfurl their wings, catching themselves before crashing to the earth, then sweep their feathers and climb back into the sky.
The groan of a door in the distance had Rona snapping her eyes open, her reverie evaporating. She forced herself to remain where she sat leaning against one of the dungeon’s stone walls. She had to conserve what little energy she had left.
A flicker of torchlight reached her through the small grate inlaid in her cell’s heavy door. She sat up off the wall in desperate anticipation. Footsteps approached, and the light grew stronger. It wasn’t a dream or a hallucination. Someone was coming.
Her heart pounded as she heard the jangle of a key in the cell’s door. The door creaked open and light flooded the cell, forcing her to throw a hand over her eyes.
Something small and hard hit her and bounced to the ground. She blinked and kept one hand up to shade her eyes. A heel of bread lay on the floor in front of her. She snatched it up without looking at who had entered her cell, so desperate was she for food.
She shoved the heel of bread in her mouth and gnawed on it, but her mouth was so dry that the bread might as well have been a ball of cloth. She continued to gnaw, though, begging her body to cooperate.
A chuckle brought her attention up to the figures who had entered her cell. A guard stood just inside the door holding a torch. And Raef Warren rose over her, laughing.
“The comely wife of Daniel Sinclair, reduced to this,” Warren said with a smile.
It was all Rona could do to suppress a snarl at him.
“What do you want?” she managed to whisper. Her voice cracked and wavered from thirst and disuse.
Warren motioned to the guard, who unfastened a waterskin from his belt and tossed it at Rona. She scrambled to catch it, and then she forgot Warren and the guard and her cell for a few blessed moments as she gulped down the water.
She forced herself to stop after several mouthfuls. She would make herself sick if she drank too fast, and she didn’t know when she’d get more water. As she wiped the back of her hand over her dry lips, she looked up at Warren again.
Her eyes were now adjusted to the torchlight, and she examined him. He was clean and tidy, his fine silk breeches and vest perfectly smooth. But he wore a bandage around his head. It wrapped diagonally across his face, obscuring his left eye and cheek. He continued to sneer at her, but she noticed that it was more of a wince than a smile.
“How is your face, my lord?” she said icily, lifting her mouth in a smile. “Scarring nicely? Or perhaps the wound is still open.”
She didn’t know what force of will simmering deep inside her made her goad him, but she embraced it. She would never let a man like Raef Warren send her cowering or scraping to him. He could beat her if he wanted, or even kill her, but he couldn’t snuff the fire that burned inside her.
Warren’s mouth dropped into a grimace, his uncovered right eye bulging. He stepped forward and struck her across the face with the back of his hand. She toppled over at the force of the blow but managed to hang on to the heel of bread and the waterskin.
“You pathetic, disgusting cunt,” Warren hissed. “I should cut your flesh off an inch at a time for what you’ve done!”
He unconsciously raised his left hand to the cheek she’d bitten, but even before his fingertips brushed the bandage, he winced in agony. As she squinted up at him
in the torchlight, she thought she saw little red trails running from under the bandage down his jaw and neck. He lowered his hand, returning his attention to her.
“But I can’t dismember you quite yet.”
Warren stepped toward her once again, and she saw a knife flash in his hand. She screamed and tried to scoot away, but she was already backed up against the stone wall.
She caught her breath as she tried to prepare herself for the feel of the knife slicing into her flesh, but instead, Warren grabbed her by the hair. Gripping a lock of her hair in one hand, he slid the knife across the strands and then stepped back again.
“What…what are you doing?” she said shakily.
“This is for the ransom missive,” Warren replied. “We have to make it look…compelling if we want your Sinclair husband and his men to come charging to Dunbraes.”
Rona tried to register Warren’s comment through the fog of exhaustion, fear, and weakness floating through her mind.
“You want him to come? Why?”
“You need not concern yourself with that,” Warren said dismissively and turned toward the cell door.
“Wait! When will you release me? At least give me another waterskin!”
Warren paid her no heed and instead strode out the cell door with the guard trailing him. The door creaked on rusty hinges and slammed shut firmly.
“Why do you want Daniel to come?” Rona screamed after them.
The torchlight grew dimmer and dimmer until she heard another door open and close in the distance. Then the light disappeared completely.
She held her knees to her chest and closed her eyes tightly, trying to keep the tears at bay. She needed to save her energy, and she couldn’t waste precious water on tears, she told herself firmly. But the darkness surrounding her seeped into her, blackening what little hope she had been holding on to.
Daniel would come for her. She knew it. Though they had not yet spoken the words to each other, there was love between them.
She thought of his strong, handsome face, his blue-gray eyes like a stormy sea, his firm and frequently dark-bristled jawline. She imagined his warmth and strength surrounding her as he held her, kissed her, melded her body to his. She thought of the way he frowned and stubbornly crossed his arms, mirroring her, and the way he smiled at her, softening her even when her temper flared.
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