by D. K. Combs
“Harold,” she whispered, wrenching away from him. “You kidnapped me. What was I supposed to do?”
“Be a good little girl and wait until we could deliver you to Charles, you bitch. All that would have happened was a marriage. Instead, you went and destroyed…everything.”
A marriage… Delivery to Charles. She swallowed thickly, emotion choking her. Gertrude, bless her soul, had been telling the truth. Not that she hadn’t believed her in the first place, but this confirmed that the deeper, darker suspicion wasn’t true—Gertrude hadn’t led her into this trap.
That made her all the more sad. There was little to no chance that her friend had made it out of the keep alive.
“Gertrude was right,” she murmured.
“Gertrude? That red-haired bitch that Charles went after… I should have killed her when I had the chance,” Harold snarled, pulling away and stiffly pacing in front of her. “She ruined everything by revealing our plan to you. I bloody hope that Charles finishes out on his threat this time.”
“Threat? What—what do you mean?”
The question came before she could stop it. The second the last word was out of her mouth, she knew for herself exactly what he meant. Charles was going to kill Gertrude, the very woman who had loved him and done everything in her power to save him.
Her heart dropped to her stomach.
“He’s taking care of the problem, once and for all. Not that it’s any of your concern, my dear,” he sneered. “Soon, you won’t have to worry about a thing.”
“You’re going to kill me,” she said, lifting her chin. She wasn’t going to be afraid of it—no, she refused. She had to. At this point, that was all she had.
“I’m going to do more than that, lass, don’t you worry. Charles will be upset, but alas… I do not care. He does not need a wife to own his lands any more than I need to let you live. You will suffer, you will die, and the world will go on without the both of us.”
The tone of his voice told her that he was as resolved to his death as he was to killing her. Was it really revenge that kept him alive at this point? Looking at him, she knew he should be dead. The wounds, the infections… They should have done him in, yet here he stood.
Ready to kill her.
And there was only one person who could prevent this from happening.
Her eyes flipped to Angus Callahan. When he noticed her staring directly at him, his brow rose and a slow, easy smile graced his handsome face.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said, nodding his head to her. He spoke as if he hadn’t just heard a threat to her life. As if there wasn’t a demon standing in front of the two of them, talking of death and revenge. What in the world had happened that he had turned his back so easily against her? Against her family?
They both knew Kane Shaw would find out about this. They both knew he would have The Callahan’s head for this. So why did he not free her and aid her?
She asked him as much, fury and betrayal lining every breath of those words.
“It’s simple, really,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position with a sigh. “Charles and I have come to an agreement that two forces are better than one. Simply put—If I help him claim his land and his people, he will then help me destroy my enemy.”
She inhaled, fighting for patience. “Charles has the rights to his father’s lands, if he would only make himself known to the people. I denounced all holdings to anything of my late husband! Angus, please—you cannot go through with this. It will mean the death of hundreds of men—including you.”
He chuckled, waving a blithe hand her way. As if her words meant nothing. As if she wasn’t important enough to be seen or heard.
Frustration boiled in her gut.
“Unfortunately, lass, this is a matter you wouldn’t understand. You’re a pawn—and your father will respect that when the time comes.”
At that, she snorted. “Oh, please. He’ll sooner have your head on a spike than have any amount of respect for you. You betrayed him, Callahan—all for a power thirsty man.”
“A man that shares that same thirst with me,” he pointed out, winking. “And that’s all that matters—the return on my investment will surpass any fear your father ever instilled in me.”
“That’s all that matters?” she echoed. “Lord, are all the men I know dunces?”
The smile fled from his face and she laughed in exasperation, the frustration giving way to helplessness.
“What makes you think he will give you anything once he rises to his own power? His father was a sick man, and I can guarantee that Charles is just the same. You will get no ‘return’. You have no investment. Everything about this…this is ludicrous.”
“So says a woman, who knows nothing of the way the world works,” he spat.
“A woman who has more common sense than you,” she retorted. Harold surged forward just as the door behind her creaked open. He paused, his hand suspended at his waist.
Reaching for something? A knife?
She tried to peer underneath his hand, but the new presence drew her attention.
The man that strode into the room seized her breath.
This…had to be Charles.
That was the only explanation for the likeness of her late husband striding past her.
He had the same broad shoulders and thin jaw; the crow-like nose, the piercing blue eyes that were small and close together. His lips were puckered in the same way his father’s had been when he was displeased with something, and his gait… There was an air of pure arrogance as he became the sole focus.
“Hold off on her,” The Callahan said, waving a distracted hand at Harold as Charles met him at the throne. The two of them had a hushed conversation, words being spoken that she strained yet failed to hear—for the most part.
As the two men spoke, two words jumped at her.
Revenge…and kill.
Her blood went cold.
There were three things they could be talking about.
The deed that Charles had just done by chasing after Gertrude, what they were about to do with her, or both.
Going by the curl in Harold’s lip, she was guessing the latter.
Time ticked by slowly. When Charles pulled back from his whispered conversation with The Callahan, reality seemed to crash to a near stop. Watching the two men discuss her fate, with the executioner at the ready with his hand at his waist, was indescribable.
There were no words she could come up with to describe the way her heart seemed to suddenly stop, like a bird’s wings tucked to their body when they swooped in for a drop. There was no way to describe the sense of resolution yet desperation that clung to her mind, that kept her eyes wide and alert, still searching for a way out. There was no way to describe the pure, unfiltered whisper of instinct as it rose inside of her.
“Do your worst.”
Harold advanced, Charles’ words were the gate that had been holding back her end. The latch had been opened, though, and now she was searching for a way through it while her maker stalked her.
“You know,” he said as he came down the dais, the words filtering through her mind like they’d been said into a thick pillow. They were fuzzy, something she barely heard in the background of all the desperation and panic, in the background of the gut feeling that had started as a stream and grown into a raging river.
The knife gleamed as Harold drew it from around his waist.
“I had originally planned to marry you, take the lands back in a less…gruesome way. But, I find that death is much more fitting for a whore that can’t keep her legs closed.”
Some part of his speech broke through the haze, and her eyes left the glint of the blade to latch onto the blue eyes of her late husband. No, she told herself belatedly. Not her husband, but a monster just as great. All of the men in here were monsters.
“Oh, don’t look so horrified,” he said, chuckling. The sound was cruel and dark, an underlying hatred making the words heavy as they fell from
his lips. “I know of you and that bastard Alec McGregor. And unfortunately…I don’t like soiled goods.”
Yet you were going to marry the same woman your father did? The hypocrisy of the situation wasn’t lost on her, even if there was a fog wrapping around her mind. Should she be grateful for it? That the truth of what was about to happen to her was dulled by the cool blanket wrapping around her shoulders?
The embrace came at just the right time, and she found she was grateful for it.
Harold finally came within inches of her. With a trembling hand, he drew the knife against her neck. The pain and fury on his face was not lost on her. She couldn’t imagine it, being in so much pain, needing to move, and yet barely having the strength… She understood his fury. Even as the cold steel pressed against her neck, she understood.
“Killing you might take the last of my strength, but at least I’ll have my vengeance before I die,” he hissed. The knife dragged up her neck, leaving a cool trail in its wake. If her hand had been free, she would be able to drag her finger in the exact path he had made.
Killing you.
He was going to kill her.
And that’s when the blanket constricted her. It took away her breath, her reasoning, her rational. It took away her resolution to simply die, and that unfiltered whisper of instinct came back with a fury.
She acted at just the right moment.
Tossing her head to the side, with his grip so weak on the blade, had it careening out of his hand and clattering onto the floor.
He screeched, diving for it.
“Bitch!” he cried, the echo bouncing from wall to wall. The blanket protected her from the fear. The constriction calmed her. All of it prepared her for either of two outcomes—death, or freedom.
She wasn’t going to die without a fight, and if it turned out that she didn’t make it out alive…at least she had tried. At least she hadn’t just let him take her life.
Charles took a step forward from several feet back, as if to put her back in her place, but Harold shook his head at him to stay still, before he rounded back on her.
In that split second that it took for his feet to carry him toward her, time stilled—and for a much better reason this time. The plan formed in her mind as if someone had shown her exactly how to escape. It came effortlessly, and quickly—which was good. Her next three seconds decided whether she lived or died.
One.
Two.
Three.
She bent her knees. Bound ankles made it hard to get any momentum, but somehow, like an angel had lifted her and aided her leap, she found herself slamming head first into Harold’s nose. His screech was automatic, as was his physical reaction.
The knife slid from his grasp and she focused on it, knowing he was in too much pain to think of it as it fell to the floor. He reared back, stumbling several feet, giving her just that right amount of room to grab the knife.
The hilt was hot in her hands.
Yes, she thought, savoring the heavy weight of it.
Charles and The Callahan both leapt to their feet, but she acted quickly. They were too far back to stop her before she leaned down and sliced the ropes that bound her ankles.
God, yes, she thought. The relief was short-lived. Bent as she was, it left her vulnerable to them as Harold screeched and held his face. Charles and The Callahan pursued her, trying to stop her before she could free her arms from the rope tying them to her body.
They were too late.
She pushed herself to her feet and flipped the dagger around, holding it with both fists at the two men. Though she had never directly killed a man in this manner, nothing was going to stop her from escaping.
“One of you will be hurt by this, and I don’t care which,” she threatened, adjusting her grip so that it was tighter. Her hands were still bound at the wrists but that was fine. She could still hold the dagger, and she could still back away from them.
“One of us will be hurt, but at least the other will capture you again,” Charles pointed out coldly.
“Aye, but which one of you is willing to risk your pretty little face?” She held the knife up higher, backing away. They met her step for step, until her back was pressed against the oak door. Just beyond that there was one last door—then freedom, if she could just make it past all of the men she knew would be waiting for her, and then chasing after her.
The cloak of instinct stayed in tact, urging her to flip the blade around to quickly cut through the ropes. Charles and The Callahan progressed, taking that window of opportunity, but she was quick. Seconds later, she had the blade aimed at their faces, one hand on the hilt and the other reaching behind her for the door. The rope fell away from her completely, giving her the mobility she needed to escape.
The Lord was on her side, she thought, fingers finding the latch on the door. Her eyes were locked onto her aggressors, leaving her no room to turn and look for the easiest way to get out. She had to do this all by feeling, by sliding her fingers along the door—and that took too much time.
“There are people waiting to kill you, should you try to escape,” Charles warned her, laughing.
She ignored him, tugging on the latch. It opened with a low thunk and then the stiffness of the door under her hand gave way, the heavy wood just as heavy as the weight on her shoulders, the fear in her gut. Though she knew death waited on the other side, she still had no other option than to attempt an escape.
Blayne wasn’t just the daughter of the Lion. She was a fighter herself, and not even with her dying breath slipping between her lips would she let herself die a coward in front of these bastards.
The door opened with just enough leeway for her to slide through. The last look she had of the room would have been comical, had the situation not been so grave. The two men who were able to reach her lunged, anger etched into their faces, hands reaching for her. Harold was still on the floor, clutching his face, shoulders heaving as if he’d just vomited.
And her?
Well, she closed the door in their faces! And to top it off, there was a plank right next to it to seal it off. She grabbed it and shoved it between the door handles. Seconds after the plank had been pushed through, the two men collided with the door on the other side. It shook against her, and she heard the muted curses.
For a moment, she was safe. The need to revel in that was almost greater than the need to escape. She knew that the second she turned around, she would be faced with another battle.
She leaned her head against the door for a split second, and in that exact same moment, movement came from the corner of her eye. A slight rustle, then pounding feet, and then—
Dagger at the ready, she whirled around—and gasped.
“Lass—“ Alec grabbed her wrist before the blade could do any damage. Before she could react, before the shock of seeing him had fallen, he dragged her against his chest. “Lass, good God, I— Are ye’ alright?”
He pulled back from their embrace to search her over. She was too shaken, too shocked, to react to his touch besides the warm swell of security that rose inside of her. While she had been prepared to die if it came down to it, the relief she felt at seeing him, at feeling his arms around her… It was overwhelming.
Belatedly, as his hands ran over her stupefied body, she realized the rest of the men in the hall beyond her were all slain. As his hands took her jaw in his hands to tilt her head up to meet his gaze, men surrounded the two of them.
In front of everyone, he bent to kiss her. It was full of fear, relief, and pure, male intensity—and despite everything that had just happened, she wanted to melt into his chest. Lord, for a second, she did. She savored the feel of his lips against hers, savored the way his arms came around her waist and held her as if he’d never let her go.
She savored all of it until she heard another bang on the door behind her.
And, as Alec slowly pulled back from her, his body becoming as tense as a rock, he must have heard it, too.
“No, Alec�
�don’t go in there. We can leave and regroup. We can come back with a plan—“
“No time for that,” he snarled, walking past her, hand on his hilt. “They thought to hurt ye’, and they’ll pay for it, lass.”
“Please, listen to me, Alec! They’ll kill us—“
“I’d like to see them try,” he said calmly, right before grabbing the plank, pulling it out, and then tossing it aside. The tension in the door went slack, as if the people behind it knew what had been done.
Charles and Harold were the first ones she noticed. Charles, standing amongst men donned in green, yellow, and purple plaids. Harold, hiding in the shadows… The Callahan had returned to his chair, now surrounded by men she could only assume had come from the open door behind the throne. Behind them, men she knew were from The Callahan’s met them; caging them in, making it so they had to fight their way out.
She only had a second to watch the complete fury take over Alec’s face before she realized everything was going to happen quickly.
“Alec, please, no—“
He ignored her, lunging forward with a soul-shattering roar as the men from around them closed in just as quickly.
“This is the last time ye’ll do me wrong,” she heard before he surged through the fray and went right for The Callahan. He’s not the one you should be after right now, she wanted to cry. But the words were stuck in her throat.
Where else were they going to go? Her heart had climbed to take their place as she watched Alec, a man she had made love to, a man she had started to care for, butchering men before him. He swung his claymore in an arc, handling it as gracefully as an artist used their brush to paint.
Though he might not be an artist, paint he did.
Blood splattered him. Splattered the walls. Splattered everything within reaching distance as he hacked his way through men. If her father was terrifying on the field, then Alec was…a nightmare.
He tore through the men with a precision that left her raptured. He tore through them with a purpose, as if every move was calculated and planned, as if he knew each step a man would take toward him before they themselves knew it.