He should have known.
He should have seen it, should have recognized it for what it was. He’d sensed something from the first but he’d charged it off to the groomsman, Rauf.
Fool.
He should have known.
And because he hadn’t, he could well have the lives of six innocents hanging over his soul for all eternity.
Thirty
THE MIST OF sparkling lights gave it away.
Dani felt as if she floated, but surely that was only because it was too dark to see where her feet touched the ground. She’d begun to think she’d wandered off from the others and lost herself in an inky black forest, but then she’d seen the mist up ahead and she’d known.
She’d entered a dream.
Not a regular dream. Not like being naked on test day or thrown into a restaurant with customers screaming for orders she couldn’t find. No, this was entirely different.
She was aware that this was a dream. And more than that, she knew she’d come here with a purpose.
Up close the sparkling mist was more like a river made of millions of infinitesimally tiny creatures, writhing and splashing in unison against its banks, tossing up a multicolored living spray into the black void around her.
It beckoned her and she took several steps toward the flow until she remembered she’d come here for a purpose.
“Malcolm?”
He wouldn’t be in the waters, so she turned her back to them, searching for the black door within the black world.
“Malcolm?”
A spray of the tiny creatures followed after her, winging their way around her head, around her body, and off to her left. She hesitated, unsure which way to go, and the lights buzzed down on her again. A circle around her head, a circle around her body, and then they dashed to the left, hovering there.
“Like Lassie leading me to Timmy in the well,” she murmured, and followed the lights.
There were more now, coalescing around her, darting and twisting, twinkling in every color of the rainbow. They lifted her from her feet and carried her forward, invisible winds blowing her hair as they flew.
And then they were gone.
Alone, she stood in front of an enormous black door, larger than it had been before. Malcolm had been putting effort into keeping her out, it would appear.
As she reached out toward the door, a small silver circle appeared. It grew as she watched, morphing from one object to another, expanding with each change until at last it reached its final shape.
A doorknob.
It felt warm under her hand, more like skin than metal, and she turned it, slowly, half expecting it to be locked.
The door gave way, opening slowly, silently, a sliver of width, barely enough to allow her to see inside.
A mighty stench slammed into her, turning her stomach, causing her to gag. She covered her face with her arm, fitting her nose and mouth into the crook of her elbow, and pushed the door open farther. Far enough to step one foot inside a pit of unbelievable filth and death.
A figure crouched across from her, face buried in its hands.
“Malcolm?”
His head snapped up and their eyes met.
“No!” he roared, launching his body toward the door.
“Tomorrow,” she cried out as the door slammed shut. “We’ll be there tomorrow.”
The crash of the door threw her off-balance and she stumbled backward, losing her footing to fall weightlessly into the black void.
Down and down she fell, gathering speed, until her eyes flew open.
She lay on her bed of furs, gasping for air, heart pounding, the stone at her feet gone cold.
Her stomach roiled with the disgusting odor that lingered in her nostrils, and she pushed back her covers to climb out of her warm little nest and make her way out of the circle and through the brush to a stream that ran nearby.
At its bank she dropped to her knees and leaned over it, splashing icy water onto her face. After a moment or two, she began to feel enough better that she no longer feared she’d lose her dinner.
That had been maybe the worst nightmare she’d ever had. Even now her heart still beat much faster than normal.
Another splash of water to her face and she looked up in time to see the figure of an enormous bird silhouetted against the moon. Round and round it circled overhead, in tight, silent loops, almost directly above her.
She couldn’t take her eyes from the creature as it dipped and soared like it rode its own personal air current. It was enormous and absolutely mesmerizing, beautiful and scary, all at the same time.
“He hunts.”
“Rauf!” Dani all but squealed the man’s name, he’d scared her so badly when he spoke. “Lord, man. I had no idea anyone was even awake, let alone out here with me.”
The groomsman smiled, offering a hand to help her to her feet. “Sorry for any fright, my lady. When I saw you’d left the camp, I worried for yer safety.”
“I had a bad dream, but I’m fine now. I was just watching that bird up there. Look at him. It’s so eerie to see him flying across the face of the moon with his wings spread out that way. He’s beautiful.”
“He’s lethal. Hunting this night, I’d say,” Rauf repeated his earlier assertion. “The great owl. From his flight, I’d guess he had targeted his prey and begun to move in for the kill, though it would appear as though the victim may have eluded him this time. It’s best we return to the others now, my lady.”
“You’re probably right. We do intend an early start tomorrow.”
Dani cast one last look up at the big bird, still circling directly overhead, and a shiver ran down her spine. He’d targeted his prey, had he? Obviously, it was the way of nature, but it didn’t make her feel any better for the poor little creature here on the ground. She rustled the plants on both sides of her, making more noise than was at all necessary as she followed Rauf back to their campsite. Hopefully anything around here would be frightened into hiding.
As for her, she needed her rest. Tomorrow, just like that owl, she would be on the hunt. Except that she intended her hunt to end in success.
HE’D DOZED OFF again but a scraping noise from above him brought him wide awake.
Malcolm squinted his eyes against the light as the wooden cover slid away from the opening to the oubliette to reveal a maliciously grinning guard.
“Awake, are you? That’s good.” The guard picked up a basket and turned it upside down, allowing its contents to fall freely into the hole.
Malcolm had learned this lesson. He was quick this time, launching to his feet to catch what he could of the table scraps as they fell.
“Wouldn’t want our good laird’s guest to go hungry, now would we?” The guard’s laughter disappeared only when the wooden cover slid back over the opening.
Malcolm clutched the soggy chunks of bread he’d caught, tearing into them as a starving dog might. Especially appropriate since these were the scraps normally cast out to the strays roaming the castle grounds. At least, they had been used for that purpose when his father had been laird.
Knowing Torquil, any castle strays had starved to death by now.
Much as Malcolm had expected he would.
And yet, after what felt like days in this hellhole, the cover had slid away and food had rained down on him. He hadn’t been ready that first time and the bounty had scattered around him, landing in the wet slime of waste and straw that covered the floor.
He needed food to rebuild his strength. Even food such as that had been. In the dark he’d managed to find a few pieces, convincing himself as he choked it down that it was only leftovers from the table that soaked the bread.
His lesson learned, when the cover had moved this time, he’d been ready.
Resting his head against the wall, he finished the last of what he’d been able to catch.
Thanks to the scraps, and time, he had healed. His strength had returned, a fact that Torquil must have anticipated.
&nbs
p; Which led him to only one conclusion: His brother had some reason of his own for keeping him alive. If he could only determine what that reason might be, perhaps it would give him the advantage he needed to escape when the time came.
One other possibility haunted him. A thought he’d have preferred to avoid, but with nothing to do but think, his worry would not be denied.
As he’d slept, Dani had often come to him in his dreams. At least, he thought she had.
In this hole bereft of light to mark the division between day and night, he’d begun to wonder whether his mind might not be playing tricks upon him.
Still, each time had seemed real. Real enough that he’d forced her away, blocking her entry to his world, determined not to allow her to experience the abomination of his hell.
He’d been successful at it, too. Until the last time she’d come to him.
Exhaustion had taken its toll and he’d slept soundly. So soundly that he’d not heard her approach. He’d not heard her at all until he’d looked up to meet her gaze, her eyes reflecting her revulsion from what she saw.
He’d quickly closed off that part of himself and forced her back, shielding her from the horror of his existence.
But not before he’d heard her voice. Not before she’d said the words that drove terror deep in his heart. Not before she’d claimed she was coming to him, not in the dream, but in the real world.
“Tomorrow. We’ll be there tomorrow.”
Surely Patrick had more sense than to allow Dani to travel to Tordenet Castle in search of him. He’d made a point of stressing to his brother the importance of keeping Dermid safe. But he’d never considered the need to order Dani’s safety. It had seemed a given to him at the time. It still did.
And yet, the worries lingered, eating away at the edges of his sanity.
If Dani were to fall into Torquil’s hands, if Torquil were to recognize her importance to him, it would grant his elder brother the power to access whole new levels of hell for Malcolm.
It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. Patrick would never have allowed it.
“Tomorrow. We’ll be there tomorrow.”
He might have been able to push the worries turned to fear aside if not for one unanswerable question.
Why had Torquil kept him alive?
Thirty-one
AT LEAST SHE didn’t have to pretend to be a nervous and worried new wife.
The feelings were all too real as Dani waited for the massive gate of iron bars to lift and allow their party entrance to Tordenet Castle.
They rode forward, into the mouth of the long tunnel separating freedom and the castle grounds. Dani fought the desire to turn her head and watch when she heard the heavy chains clanking behind them. She had no need to confirm with her own eyes what reason told her. The iron portcullis that had allowed them entry now barred their exit.
“Like a rat in a barrel of rainwater,” Elesyria muttered from her left.
Goose bumps spread over Dani’s arms at the analogy. She’d plucked too many dead, swollen rats from rain barrels back on the farm not to understand its meaning.
She swallowed hard, fixing her eyes straight ahead of her.
The tunnel through the castle wall had been strategically placed, framing the entrance of the keep so that anyone arriving might be properly intimidated. The keep itself, as well as the castle walls, had been covered in whitewash. Sunlight reflected off the whole, allowing Tordenet Castle to be seen long before it was reached, a shining beacon in the distance.
Rauf rode at the head of their little procession, leading them through the long tunnel. She couldn’t help but notice that Eymer drew his animal up beside hers as they passed out of the confinement of the wall’s tunnel. At the same time, Guy came forward to a spot on the left and, with Hamund close at their rear, the guards had formed a protective circle around her and Elesryia.
Any comfort she might have taken in their action was lost with one look at the numbers of armed soldiers surrounding them on their way across the courtyard. No wonder Malcolm had thought he needed the might of the MacKilyn on his side.
At Rauf’s signal, they drew their animals to a halt while he slid off his mount and hastened forward, dropping to one knee at the foot of a great flight of stairs that led up to the castle entrance. There he waited, head bowed, like a reverent statue.
Dani’s horse pawed the ground nervously. Whether it was because the animal felt hemmed in by Eymer on one side and Elesyria on the other or something else altogether, she couldn’t be sure. She only knew that she and her horse shared a similar choking apprehension.
After a few minutes’ delay, a man appeared at the top of the stairs. He paused, obviously surveying those who waited below, and, as impossible as it was to determine from this distance, Dani could have sworn he stared directly at her.
Nerves.
“A fine specimen of manflesh, that one is,” Elesyria murmured approvingly. “The elder brother, do you suppose?”
One and the same, Dani guessed.
He was beautiful, all right. A romance-cover version of Dermid. But where the younger brother was cherubic in his blond good looks, the elder was seriously heartbreaker handsome, with a come-hither confidence in his stride that could easily knock a cowgirl right off her horse.
If she needed more proof of who he was, the obsequious way Rauf followed after him as he passed down the stairs and headed toward their group of horses was it.
He paused not five feet from her horse, definitely staring directly at her now.
“You’ll do the honors, Rauf?”
She mentally added a voice like honey-coated candy to her description of him.
Rauf stepped forward, head still bowed. “Our lord, Torquil of Katanes, laird of the MacDowylt, chosen son of Odin. My lord, may I present yer brother’s wife, Mistress Danielle MacDowylt, of the MacGahan and her companion, Mistress Elesyria MacGahan.”
Three of the soldiers placed their bodies between Eymer’s mount and her own, pressing him back and away from her as Torquil approached.
He stopped beside her horse and held up his arms to help her down.
“Welcome to Tordenet Castle, my lady,” he said as he gripped her waist and lowered her to the ground.
It seemed to Dani that he held her a bit closer and perhaps a bit longer than absolutely necessary. Long enough that she began to feel the others watching. Long enough that she tilted her head up to meet his gaze.
Her breath caught as she realized how wrong she’d been about Torquil’s looks. No amount of external beauty could ever make up for the internal ugliness reflected in this man’s cold eyes.
At last he released his grip and backed up a step.
“Allow me to escort you inside,” he offered. “My people will see to it that your things are delivered up to yer bedchamber and then perhaps you and yer companion would agree to join me in my dining hall.”
“If that’s what you’d have us do,” Dani answered, deciding for the moment to play it low-key.
“It is indeed,” he confirmed, catching her hand in his and placing it on his forearm, his free hand covering hers, to lead her up the stairs and into the keep of MacDowylt Castle. “It’s always best, I say, to leave yer business discussions until after a good meal.”
His touch felt every bit as cold as his eyes had looked.
Two more sets of stairs and a long hallway led to a door where he at last stopped.
“I hope you’ll find these accommodations to yer liking.”
He still hadn’t released her hand.
“I’m sure they’ll be just fine. Elesyria will, of course, be nearby?”
There was no way in hell she wanted to be separated from the Faerie in this place. It gave her chills just thinking of the possibility.
“But of course. I’ve taken the liberty of having the chamber adjoining yers prepared for yer companion. This is satisfactory?”
“Yes, thank you.” As if she had any choice in the matter.
“I’ll leave two of my men outside yer door to . . . watch over you and see that you find way to the dining hall.”
He paused, as if waiting for her to catch up with his meaning. He didn’t need to. She understood quite well that she wasn’t exactly free to go exploring in the castle.
“And the men who saw me safely here?” The laird’s wife would surely want to know about her people. “You’ll see that they’re taken care of, as well?”
“Without a doubt, dear lady. They will be taken care of as well. Is there anything else I might send up for yer comfort?”
She smiled and pulled her hand from his grip, covering the obvious move by reaching out to push open her door.
“You could send up my husband. That would be nice.”
His laughter echoed through the stone hallway. “I begin to suspect it’s no just yer beauty that attracted my brother to you.”
With an almost imperceptible dip of his head, he turned and walked away, leaving his two stone-faced guards behind.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as the old saying went.
Dani slipped inside her room, pushing the door shut behind her to lean against it.
Nothing felt right about this place. God, but she hoped they hadn’t made a horrible mistake in coming here.
When the door between her room and Elesyria’s opened, she very nearly screamed.
“It’s only me,” the other woman said.
“So how weird was all of that?” Dani asked, crossing over to climb up on the bed her friend leaned against. “And what do you think of him?”
“It was all perfectly normal.” Elesyria began to pace the length of the bed. “In fact, if anything was unusual, it was how very normal it was. We were greeted as relatives arriving for a long-expected visit. He’d even prepared our rooms. Our rooms,” she repeated for emphasis.
“Maybe he’s not easily surprised?”
Though he certainly should have been surprised at having two women show up instead of his younger brother.
“And did you notice that he never even questioned Dermid’s not being with us?” Dani shared her concern. “I’ll admit that after that little poop had his total hissy fit about being forced to stay behind, I was sort of worried that it might be a problem when we showed up here without him.”
Warrior’s Redemption Page 19