“So you are awake.”
Lucy dragged her anxious gaze from Tearlach’s bowed head to their captor as Wymon followed the men into the cell. He was obviously weary, his clothes disheveled and sweat stained from his labors and he wasn’t looking at her as if he were happy to see her. If anything, he was eyeing her like a problem when he was sick to death of problems.
“Are you willing to marry me yet?” Wymon asked grimly and there was a threat in his very tone of voice.
Lucy bit her lip and glanced to Tearlach. She wanted to say “no” on principle alone as she caught a glimpse of his raw and bloodied back as he passed, but pride would not get them out of here this day and she was quite sure Tearlach could not survive a second day of such torture.
However, she found the lie of saying “aye” stuck in her throat, so she cleared it and said cautiously, “Mayhap.”
It wasn’t good enough for Wymon. After the stubborn resistance of Tearlach, any resistance on her part was too much and he was suddenly across the room and standing in front of her, fist raised. The fist never fell, however. It was stayed when one of his men suddenly stepped to his side and said, “He shall need to feed to have the strength to survive tomorrow if you choose to interrogate him some more then.”
Wymon slowly lowered his fist, a bitter smile curving his lips. “Aye. You are right.”
Lucy swallowed and took a slow breath, waiting. She had no idea what was coming next, but Wymon’s smile was too unpleasant for it to be anything good.
“Unchain her,” he ordered, turning away and Lucy blinked after him with surprise. She’d hoped to get free for a moment or more, but hadn’t really been sure she could achieve it. Now, here he was ordering it.
Her attention shifted back to the two men who suddenly stepped forward on either side of her and—even as Tearlach was chained back to his wall—she found herself being freed. The moment her right hand was free, Lucy allowed her weight to fall forward as if she didn’t have the strength to hold herself. It left her slumping against the man who had freed that side and she let her hand slide along his body as if for purchase, but it wasn’t until she dipped her hand into his pocket that she found anything useful.
Tucking the item she found quickly up her sleeve, she allowed the man to help her upright as her second hand was freed and then he held her there while the other man bent to undo both of the chains at her ankles. The moment the last chain fell away, Wymon stepped forward and caught her arm, dragging her away from the soldier still trying to help her remain upright. He pulled her across the room to where the men were just finished securing Tearlach in his own chains.
“MacAdie’s had a rough day,” Wymon announced, his grip hard on her arm. “He needs strength for tomorrow’s trials.”
He shoved her so close she was pressed against the Scot’s chest and Lucy glanced from one man to the other with confusion.
“You are going to assist him with the matter,” Wymon announced with a cold smile. “Perhaps this will aid you in making up your mind and clear ‘mayhap’ from your vocabulary.”
While Lucy was still trying to puzzle that out, Wymon glanced around.
“Move closer,” he ordered several of the men. “I do not want her dead...yet...and if he loses control, you shall have to stop him.”
Lucy didn’t have a clue what Wymon was talking about, but he was succeeding in scaring her. He smiled when he saw that fear in her eyes as he glanced at her again.
“The MacNachtons and MacAdies are bloodsuckers. Vampire,” he told her with amusement. “He has lost a lot of blood this day. He is weak. He needs blood and shall have yours.”
While Lucy stared at him with disbelief, Wymon turned to peer at Tearlach. “I understand your kind prefer the jugular vein, MacAdie. Is that so?”
The look Tearlach turned his way was cold and empty. He was no more going to answer that question than he had any of the others.
“Feed,” Wymon ordered, shoving Lucy even closer to him. They were now as close as lovers, only their clothes pressed tight between them as a barrier.
Tearlach stared down into her face and she saw a struggle take place in the depths of his dark eyes, and then he turned his head away.
Wymon chuckled nastily at his reaction, then tugged Lucy away and back to his side. He slid his dagger from his waist and—before she realized what he was up to—jerked her wrist to him and sliced over it so that thick red blood immediately began to flow. She gasped as the pain of the slice struck her, then gasped again as Wymon held the wrist up before Tearlach’s face.
“Feed,” Wymon insisted and Lucy was about to curse the man for a fool in believing the ridiculous rumors about Tearlach and his people when movement caught her eye and her gaze locked on his face. As she watched in horrified fascination, the Scot’s lips parted revealing wickedly sharp incisors that protruded past his other teeth. She stared at those fangs with a sort of disbelief as Tearlach inhaled the scent of her blood. What could only be described as a deep horror rose up on her face.
His head started to bend forward toward the offering Wymon was making, but a small sob of sound from her lips made him pause sharply. His eyes blinked open and found her face. Whatever he saw there made him stop cold. Mouth closing to hide his teeth, he lifted his head and turned away.
“Fool.” Wymon laughed and then shrugged and tugged Lucy away from the man and began to drag her back across the cell. “Perhaps you shall change your mind come morning. You should be very hungry by then and will need the blood to survive another day of this.”
Lucy remained silent, her gaze locked on Tearlach as she was rechained to the wall. Her mind was having trouble accepting what her eyes had seen and she was watching, hoping he would open his mouth and she would see that it had all been a mistake. Surely, she’d not seen what she’d thought she’d seen? The rumors weren’t true, couldn’t be. There was no such thing as vampires and—
“I shall bid you both good night.”
Lucy turned her gaze reluctantly to Wymon as he ushered the other men out of the cell.
“Until tomorrow,” he added with a grin as he followed the last man out and pulled the door closed with a hollow thud.
Lucy stared at the door as she listened to the footsteps fading away up the stairs.
“Are ye a’right?” Tearlach asked as the door to the main level of the castle clicked closed and Lucy turned an amazed gaze to the man.
“What?” she asked with disbelief.
“Are ye a’right?” He asked the question through gritted teeth, but there was real concern in his face and voice.
Lucy stared at him silently, wondering how he could ask that when he was the one who had suffered the tortures of the damned all day.
“Yer wrist,” he added finally when she simply stared at him in stunned silence.
“Oh.” She glanced toward the wrist, aware that it was still bleeding. Fortunately, it was her left wrist and she was right handed.
“He cut ye verra deeply.” His gaze was locked on the blood slowly running down her arm and dripping onto the floor.
It was a hungry gaze, but Lucy decided to ignore it and simply said, “Nay. I am not all right. And neither are you. And we are getting out of here.”
Tearlach gave a sharp laugh at her words and asked, “And how’re ye proposin’ we do that, lass?”
Lucy didn’t answer. She was too busy trying to work her fingers over the chain on her wrist and reach the metal she’d retrieved from the guard’s pocket and slid up her sleeve. It would be difficult to retrieve with the chains on, but she would do it. She had to.
Three
Tearlach closed his eyes and forced himself to ignore his various pains as well as the sharp scent of blood in the air. It was a difficult task. His back was on fire and his hunger was a burning that was filling his chest and mind. It would have been easier for him to ignore both agonies had Lucy seen fit to distract him by talking again. However, it seemed that although she’d talked to him through the
last two days, now that she knew what he was, she wanted nothing more to do with him. She hadn’t responded with more than a distracted grunt to any of the half a dozen comments and questions he’d asked since assuring she was all right. It almost made him sorry he’d spared her and not accepted the blood offering Wymon Carbonnel had made. After all, the blood was now simply wasted anyway, running down her arm and dripping from her elbow, drop after drop hitting the ground with a sound that was overloud to his straining senses. Each splash taunted him with what he could have had but had turned down in the face of her horror.
Tightening his mouth, Tearlach tried to block the sound and think of something else, but his mind was full of unpleasantness at the moment. Memories of the torture he’d suffered, the horror on Lucy’s face when she’d spotted his teeth and realized what he was...
He felt his soul cringe at the memory of her expression. It had been a sharp contrast to the soft reminiscing and husky laughter she’d shared with him through the night and had made him feel, for the first time in his life, like the monster his people were whispered to be.
Tearlach had lost a lot of blood during the torture and had any of the men got close to him on the way back into this chamber, he’d have taken a chunk out of them without regret. However, Lucy had been another matter. He’d had little difficulty refusing the offer of blood when Carbonnel had merely shoved the woman up close to him, but once he’d cut her and Tearlach had seen the blood bubble to the surface of her skin, smelled the tinny scent, his hunger had been all consuming. Had Lucy not gasped and drawn his gaze to her horrified expression, he might very well have latched onto her wrist and—
“Tearlach? Are you awake?”
He almost ignored the soft question until his muddled mind realized that the sound had come much closer than from across the chamber and that he could actually feel her soft breath on his cheek. Blinking his eyes open, Tearlach stared down in amazement at the petite blonde now standing before him, concern on her face as she peered up at him. “What? How...?”
Lucy grinned at his astonishment. “Do you not remember my telling you about those games my brother and I used to play in our own dungeon?”
“Aye,” he said faintly as she moved to his hand and began to poke a bit of metal into the lock and twiddle it about. “Ye played prisoner, but yer brother always got free.”
“Aye,” she murmured, her voice distracted as she worked at the lock. “We stopped playing once I too knew how to work the locks. It was no longer any fun.”
Tearlach watched her with bewilderment. Just moments ago, she hadn’t seemed willing to even speak to him, yet now she was working at unlocking him. He’d barely had the thought when he recalled that while she’d been merely grunting or ignoring his earlier comments and questions, she’d also been shimmying about slightly in her chains, straining against them. At the time he’d paid it little attention, thinking it a waste of time anyway. Now, however, he realized she must have been distracted trying to free herself. She hadn’t been ignoring him at all, at least not because she no longer wanted anything to do with him. She’d hardly be unlocking him now if she thought him a monster.
“Why didn’t ye tell me ye were tryin’ to unlock yerself?” he asked with exasperation.
“I did not wish to get your hopes up in case I could not get us free,” Lucy admitted and then released a pleased little sigh as the first of his chains clicked open under her efforts.
Tearlach watched her set to work on the second chain on the same wrist, a small frown claiming his lips as he wondered if he’d have the strength to hold the wrist up once the chain was gone. He’d lost so much blood and was so weak he wasn’t at all sure he would. In fact, he was rather certain that he wouldn’t be able to stand without the chains to hold him up. Escape would be impossible whether he was unbound or not, he realized with dismay.
“Why did ye no’ do this last night or the one before?” Tearlach asked with frustration. He’d still been strong and capable then. He could have got them out of there if she’d done this before the torture. After losing so much blood and strength, however, he wasn’t at all sure he’d be anything but a burden to her now.
“I needed something to work the locks with,” she said, her breath soft and warm against his arm. “I slid this bit of metal from the guard’s pocket when he unchained me. You did not really think I meant it when I said mayhap to whether I was now willing to marry Wymon, did you?”
Tearlach grimaced at the question. He had actually believed it. After his suffering he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d said yes on the spot to avoid any similar torture herself. He didn’t say as much now, however, but merely asked, “What is the bit of metal ye’re using?”
“I am not sure,” she admitted, pausing to pull it from the second lock and peer at it. “It looks like part of a broken pendant or some such thing. Whatever it is, we are lucky he had it on him.”
Lucy returned to working on the lock and Tearlach watched her with a combination of admiration and regret. He had known she was courageous from the way she’d set aside her grief the night they were taken and set out to keep both their minds off the coming torture by telling him tales of her childhood. The tales she’d told had revealed a good deal of her character, and her ability to laugh at some of her memories despite their grim circumstance had told him more. He already knew she was strong, smart, and light-hearted by nature...and she apparently didn’t think he was a monster after all, for surely she wouldn’t be trying to free him were she afraid of, or repulsed by, him?
“Stop,” Tearlach whispered and it was the hardest word he thought he’d ever had to say.
Lucy didn’t seem to hear him but continued to work at the lock another moment before releasing a relieved breath as this lock too clicked open.
“Stop,” Tearlach repeated as his arm dropped to sag at his side.
Lucy paused and glanced at him with confusion. “What?”
“Stop. Ye’re wasting precious time,” he said quietly.
“I am working as quickly as I can,” she said apologetically and he realized she thought he was criticizing her efforts.
“Nay. I do not mean—” He stopped to take a breath, only to let it out on a sigh before saying, “Ye waste yer time with me, Lucy. I am too weak to make it out o’ here with ye. I shall just slow ye down and get ye caught. Ye’re better slipping out o’ here on yer own.”
She started to shake her head at once, and he quickly added, “Ye can send back help. Send a message to me people telling them where I am and they will come free me.”
Lucy snorted at the very suggestion as she went to work on the chain at his neck. “Oh, aye, and by the time your people got here, you would be long dead from Carbonnel’s tortures. I think not, my lord. I could do naught to save my brother from Wymon, but I will not leave you here to die at his hands too.”
“Carbonnel will no’ kill me. He wants information and needs me alive tae get it,” Tearlach said quietly and then added, “Lucy, I do no’ think I can even stand let alone walk, and ye surely have no’ the strength tae carry me oot o’ here.”
“We will deal with that once I have freed you,” she insisted firmly. “I have a plan.”
“What plan?” he asked with interest and even some hope.
Lucy did not answer, but merely smiled with satisfaction as the lock at his neck snapped open. “I am getting better. I have not used these skills in so long they had grown rusty, but I am picking them back up quickly.”
He smiled faintly at her pleasure, but repeated, “What plan?”
“I shall explain shortly, sir. Please be quiet now, I need to concentrate.”
Tearlach opened his mouth to insist, but then let the question die on his lips as she knelt to work at the chain at his waist. The pose was very suggestive. At least to his mind as he stared down at the top of her head and watched her hands raise to his waist. He watched her test the tension of the chain. Seeming to realize it was helping him stay upright, instea
d of unlocking it, she left it for now and turned her attention to the chains on his feet instead.
Tearlach began to breathe again once her attention moved to that area, but left her to concentrate on her work rather than persist in questioning her. His own attention turned to watching the play of torch light on her hair. He had noted on first spotting her in the inn that she was a pretty woman, something he’d noted again on first awaking here in the dungeon, but in the time that had passed since then somehow that prettiness had turned to beauty in his eyes. The big eyes that had merely caught his attention had come to fascinate him as he watched the play of intelligence that ran through them and the emotions they spoke of. Her eyes were expressive, lightening with laughter, darkening with grief, sparkling with secret amusement, clouding with thought.
And her mouth, which might seem perfectly normal on first glance, stretched into sheer beauty with her smiles and laughter. But it was her spirit that attracted him most. She had seemed ready to cave in to grief after Wymon had left them the first night, but then had rallied. She was an exceptional woman, and he was grateful that if he had to be captured and chained to a wall, that it was she with whom he was captured and chained up.
“There.” Finished freeing his feet, Lucy straightened and cast one of her glowing smiles his way as she shifted to set to work on the chains at his second wrist. “We shall be out of here in a trice.”
Tearlach smiled faintly at her assurance and then inhaled deeply as the scent of blood struck his nose. She was working on his left wrist now, her own left arm closest to his face and the scent of blood still weeping slowly from her wound was strong and intoxicating. Tearlach’s abused and weakened body clenched instinctively at the scent of what he needed to help heal and regain his strength.
Closing his eyes, he forced himself to remain in place when what he truly wanted to do was bend his head just those few inches necessary to run his tongue hungrily up her arm, licking away the blood now being wasted.
Highland Thirst Page 16