by Adele Clee
It was wrong of her to blame Lachlan. The fault was hers and hers alone. She had not wanted to marry Nikolai, but he had a forceful way of speaking that made the most abhorrent act seem appealing. She had been powerless to say no to him.
Lachlan clenched his jaw. “You know why I left.”
Aye, to be far away from her. She’d wanted him to stay and fight for her. She’d wanted him to kill the devil, Nikolai, with his bare hands.
“Aye, ‘cause you’re a coward.” Isla regretted saying the words as soon as they’d left her lips. If she were a man, she would not be standing.
Douglas sucked in a breath. “Have a care, lass.”
Lachlan snorted. “It seems I’m not the only man you’ve chased away.” His tone brimmed with resentment. “I hear your husband fled into the night and has not been back for three years. Mayhap he’s gone to Edinburgh where the ladies hearts are kind and tender, where he’ll not find a lifetime’s worth of bother.”
Douglas shook his head and tutted. “Keep yer head, lad, and remember why ye came.”
Isla felt the tips of her fangs burst from their sheath as an intense rage burned in her chest. Her hand flew to her mouth in a bid to disguise it. It was not the pain of Nikolai’s rejection that induced such a virulent reaction. It was the pain of losing Lachlan’s love.
She turned her back, couldn’t face the man she’d once hoped to call her husband. “Get out, Lachlan. Get out of my home.”
Douglas stepped up to her shoulder. “Will ye not just listen to his proposition, lass?”
“You listen to him if—” Her voice sounded strange whilst baring her fangs. She could not let Lachlan see what she had become. Fear or pity were not emotions she wanted to see in his beguiling eyes.
Without another word, she turned and ran from the room. She would not go to her chamber. Douglas would send Malmuirie up and she was too agitated to talk. Grabbing her cape from the coat stand, she rushed out into the night. Perhaps she should go down to the village, scour the fields for an animal to sink her teeth into just to add credence to their silly stories.
But she chose to walk in the forest.
In the forest, she did not feel so alone. There were other nocturnal creatures roaming the darkness. There were other creatures wandering aimlessly, lured to the night.