by Emma Prince
She stood before him, her heart laid bare, and waited. Yet to her horror, his surprise-slackened features slowly began shuttering once more.
“Nay, dinnae say that,” he said, shaking his head. “Dinnae confuse things. We agreed to keep matters simple between us.”
Standing before him in only her chemise, she suddenly felt far too exposed. She hurriedly scooped up her discarded dress and pulled it over her head. Once she’d covered herself, she tried to regain what was left of her dignity, but the threat of tears burned behind her eyes.
To stop from further embarrassing herself, she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. “As I said, I am likely a fool. But I cannot change what is in my heart.”
“We never made any promises to each other,” he continued, his voice hard and flat. “We are both grown. We both ken pleasure doesnae equal love. And that is all that lies between us—lust. Naught more.”
He might as well have slapped her.
Behind her closed eyes, the room spun precariously. Distantly, she imagined that this must be how a tree felt when it was struck by lightning—splintered and singed to the roots.
Mon Dieu, it was happening again. It was as if she were seventeen all over again, being humiliated by the man she’d given herself to. Just as before, she had fallen in love with a man who could never love her in return.
Somehow the blow felt even lower this time, though. Guy had used her as a plaything, but as a heartbroken seventeen year old, she’d tried to comfort herself with a lie—the only thing keeping them apart was the fact that Guy had a wife.
But with Kieran, there was no hiding from the truth. His wife was long dead, yet he was just as unavailable as Guy. Some part of him had died with Linette all those years ago. He was a shell, a walking ghost, unwilling to join the living and let himself love again.
And she couldn’t fight a ghost, nor could she change the past.
She dragged in a breath that burned her lungs. “I-I cannot stay here.” Doing her best to scrub the tears from her eyes, she slipped past him and snatched up her boots, shoving first one foot and then the other into them.
Kieran’s brows dropped. “Ye cannae leave. It is past nightfall and we are in the middle of the Highland wilds.”
Vivienne grabbed her cloak from beside the door and swung it over her shoulders. “I cannot be in this place with you. I-I need to think, to clear my head.”
He strode to the door and stomped into his own boots. “Yer life is still in danger. Besides, who kens what animals lurk beyond the clearing. Ye cannae go out there alone.”
She fought the urge to scream at him, to burst into tears, to shout that she had been outside countless times without him in the last five days, but none of that mattered. All she knew was that she had to escape before she lost her threadbare grasp on composure and dissolved like the weak, foolish woman she’d proven to be.
“Please,” she rasped. “Leave me alone. I ca-cannot breathe.”
It was true. Her lungs burned, her eyes stung, and every inhale felt like hot sand in her throat.
Before her, Kieran frowned. He sniffed, his eyes going to the fire. “It isnae just ye,” he said. “Something must be wrong with the chimney. It is smoky in here.”
Confused, she followed his gaze to the hearth, but the fire had burned to embers and didn’t seem to be putting off smoke at all. Yet now that he pointed it out, she realized her tight lungs and burning eyes weren’t just caused by the ache in her heart. The cottage was filling with smoke.
Kieran strode to the hearth, examining it closer, but as his eyes traced up the length of the stone chimney, he froze.
“Bloody hell. It’s the roof. The thatch is on fire!”
Vivienne looked up to find fingers of smoke slipping in through the thatch. In the one heartbeat it took for her brain to understand what was happening, the fingers had turned to hands of thick black fumes. The air inside the cottage was rapidly becoming hazy and hot.
“Open the door!” Kieran barked, striding toward her.
But just as she turned to reach for the handle, a heavy thunk sounded from outside. Something had just fallen against the door.
Or someone had just barricaded them inside.
Chapter Thirty-One
At the sound of a bar falling across the door from the outside, Kieran’s pulse spiked sickeningly. There could be only one explanation for the roof catching fire even in these damp conditions. Someone had done it intentionally. And now that the door was barred, he knew exactly what they intended.
Vivienne turned wide, frightened eyes on him. “The window,” she offered, hurrying toward it.
“Nay, lass, dinnae!”
She froze, her face drawn with confusion. “But if we stay in here—”
In two steps, he was to her. He dragged her down to the ground where the air was slightly less smoky. “Someone did this, lass,” he said, his throat already growing raw. “And they are waiting outside for us, hoping to smoke us out. If we go out the window now, we’ll be walking straight into their trap.”
Her lips parted in shock. “De Soules’s men?”
He nodded. He wouldn’t know for sure until he went outside, but he had little doubt it could be any other besides that bastard’s lackey. Or lackeys. That was just one of their many mounting problems—he had no idea how many men he would have to face.
“But what are we to do?” she asked. “Stay in here and let the flames take us?”
Kieran glanced at the roof. The thatch was wet enough that he only spotted the occasional orange flare of fire, but the fact was, the smoke would be what killed them—and in only a few more minutes, too. He didn’t tell Vivienne that, though, for she was already frightened enough.
Bloody hell and damnation. Besides the door and the window, there was no other way out of the cottage. He couldn’t simply thrust Vivienne out the window and straight into the grasp of those who would see her dead, but if they lingered much longer, it wouldn’t matter, for they would be dead anyway.
At least if they went outside, he stood a chance against whoever had lit the roof on fire. Aye, even with his sword arm injured, the odds were better against an enemy he could face rather than the thick smoke.
He crawled over to the far corner of the cottage, where their saddlebags lay. His sword still protruded from one of them. He yanked it free of its scabbard, ignoring his shoulder’s protests, and moved back to Vivienne’s side.
“Stay behind me no matter what, ye understand?”
She nodded, smothering a cough with her hand. He crawled closer to the window, Vivienne dragging herself after him. But just as he was about to rise and barrel from the cottage, she grabbed his arm, snagging his attention.
“My book!” she cried. Her red-rimmed eyes frantically darted to where it lay halfway across the room beside the bedstead.
“Leave it,” he ordered. At the look of desolation that crossed her face, he captured her chin and forced her to look at him. “It isnae worth yer life, Vivienne.”
She swallowed hard, giving her treasured book one last look before nodding again.
“Be ready,” he said, tightening his grip on his sword. Drawing a deep breath of the relatively less smoky air closer to the ground, he jerked to his feet. With a powerful kick, he sent the window’s shutters flying open.
He thrust his sword out first, preparing for a direct attack. But when none came, he wedged himself out the narrow gap, keeping his blade raised defensively.
The cold, fresh air outside hit him like a welcome slap. He dragged in a lungful as his boots hit the dew-damp grass beside the hut. Behind him, he heard Vivienne, too, suck in a breath as she slipped from the window and huddled at his back.
It wasn’t until he knew she was safely out of the burning cottage that he truly took in the scene surrounding them.
More than a dozen men sat on horseback in an arc around the cottage, their drawn swords dully reflecting the weak flames on the thatch roof.
Kieran mutt
ered a curse, but when his gaze landed on none other than William de Soules himself, it turned into a feral, rage-filled growl.
“How the bloody hell did ye get free?”
De Soules, who was the only man without a sword in his hands, gave Kieran a slow, smug smile.
“Does it matter? I am here now. If ye hand over the woman without trouble, I’ll give ye a swift death.”
In response, Kieran spat on the ground and raised his sword.
“Kneel like the Highland dog ye are,” de Soules snapped, some of his humor vanishing.
“Try and make me, ye cowardly, traitorous bastard.”
With a hissed curse, de Soules motioned for his men to dismount. “Remember, take the woman alive,” he said, his dark eyes flashing with hatred as his gaze landed on Vivienne. “I want her to suffer before she dies.”
Kieran backed up a step, nigh pinning Vivienne against the cottage’s stone side. He gripped his sword in both hands as de Soules’s lackeys began advancing on him, the surge of battle lust dulling the pain in his shoulder.
With a shout, one of the men suddenly charged, his sword driving forward. Kieran blocked the blow, then thrust, quickly putting an end to him. Even as the first man fell aside, the others rushed in.
Kieran swung wide to deflect several attacks at once. But he didn’t have time to strike at them himself, for their sheer numbers were enough to nearly overpower him at every moment.
While he was beating back four attackers at once, one of the men tried to dart around him and reach for Vivienne. Kieran whirled and brought his sword down, slicing the man’s hand off. The man fell, writhing and screaming as he clutched his bleeding, severed arm.
Kieran began to turn back to the others, but by spinning to stop Vivienne from being grabbed, he’d left her other side vulnerable. Another man shot forward, grabbing Vivienne’s arm and yanking her from behind Kieran.
Vivienne screamed, and Kieran’s mind went blank except for the overpowering, all-consuming need to save her. He turned wild, hacking and slicing at the men closing in around him like a berserker from Viking legend.
“Enough, ye incompetent fools!” de Soules shouted. “We have her.”
Through the haze of battle, Kieran realized de Soules’s men, whose numbers he’d severely depleted, began retreating from the deadly arc of his blade.
But Kieran didn’t stop attacking until his gaze landed on de Soules, who held a dagger at Vivienne’s throat. He froze, his eyes locking on the point where the blade edge pressed into the creamy, delicate skin of her neck.
“I dinnae wish to, but I will kill her here and now if ye dinnae kneel, Highlander!” de Soules cried.
Kieran barely heard him over the rush of blood in his ears. Vivienne. Oh God, he’d failed her.
Numbness descended over him like a cold, thick fog. He was out of options. Slowly, he sank to his knees.
Around him, de Soules’s lackeys stepped cautiously forward and dragged their wounded away from Kieran, leaving the dead. Four bodies surrounded him in the grass, and another three were badly injured.
If Kieran were alone, he would have taken his odds against the remaining five able-bodied men to reach de Soules. But de Soules was a ruthless coward. He would slit Vivienne’s throat before Kieran had dispatched even one man.
“Drop yer sword,” de Soules ordered as his men began to mount. Even before Kieran could comply, he pressed the blade into Vivienne’s throat, making her whimper.
Kieran tossed his sword aside, spreading his arms wide. “I am unarmed and on my knees, de Soules. That is what ye wanted.”
“Oh, nay,” de Soules replied, his eyes blazing. “I want so much more than that.” He shoved Vivienne into the arms of one of his men, a giant with dark hair and thick features. “Bevin, tie her to the saddle,” he commanded. “And keep yer sword on her at all times.”
As the man did his bidding, de Soules turned back to Kieran, pointing the dagger at him as he slowly stalked forward.
“What I want is to drink yer precious Robert the Bruce’s blood, his head lying at my feet. What I want is to make ye and all the other members of his inner circle pay for what ye did to me—especially Jerome Munro and the English bitch Elaine. But most of all, what I want is to make Vivienne suffer the way she made me suffer.”
He halted before Kieran, staring down at him with wild, dark eyes. Firelight reflected in his gaze, and Kieran could feel the growing heat of the blaze behind him. A spark must have fallen from the roof into the dry interior of the cottage, catching on the wooden table, the bedstead, the cupboards.
“Making ye sink before me like the barbarian ye are and taking yer life is only the extra gilding on top,” de Soules said with a slow smile. “Ever since ye dragged me back from France to Scone and forced me to kneel before the Bruce for judgment, I have thought on this moment, MacAdams.”
Cold realization seeped into Kieran’s heart. There was no more time, no more options, and no more hope. He was about to die. And Vivienne would likely suffer terribly before dying, too. He could only pray that after de Soules killed him, Vivienne would find a way to escape. If de Soules intended to draw out her suffering, it meant more time for her to get free somehow.
As de Soules droned on about having his revenge at last, Kieran let his gaze slip beyond him to Vivienne. Her hands had been bound with coarse rope to one of the dead men’s saddles, and the giant of a man de Soules had spoken to before had his sword trained on her.
Her wide, frightened eyes shimmered with the glow of the growing fire. Her gaze was fixed on Kieran where he knelt on his knees in the grass, her whole body straining toward him as much as she could given her bound hands and the blade pointed at her.
God help him, he loved her so much. He’d been such a fool before, wasting the precious time they’d had together trying to fight against his heart.
His worst nightmare was coming true all over again. He would lose the woman he loved, and there was naught he could do about it. Yet it was so much worse this time than it had been ten years past.
At least he’d had a year and a half of happiness with Linette. Time had dulled the memories, but he’d known peace and contentment for a short while.
With Vivienne, it could have been even more than that. The love that lay between them was deeper, richer, more intense than aught he’d ever know. But he’d made a terrible error in denying his feelings.
Damn it all, why had he pushed her away in the few remaining moments they’d had together in the cottage? She’d been right about everything—about his fear of letting himself love again, of losing someone he cared about—but he’d been too much of a coward to admit it.
He’d told himself for ten years that all he wanted was to be left alone—long enough that he’d come to believe it was true. But it was a lie. What he wanted deep in his bones was to feel again, to love—and he had, thanks to Vivienne. Even his best defenses and his greatest fears couldn’t keep his love for her at bay.
Yet instead of telling her all that, he’d lashed out at her to protect himself. But the result was the same—he was going to lose her anyway, just as before, only this time, she would never know what was in his heart.
“I love ye, Vivienne,” he blurted.
De Soules halted abruptly in the middle of his tirade, blinking in confusion. Vivienne’s eyes rounded, then her face crumpled with emotion.
“I love ye, do ye hear me?” Kieran said again.
She nodded, tears streaming down her face. “Oui. I love you, too.”
“Shut yer mouth,” de Soules snapped, pointing the dagger at Kieran.
But now that he had spoken the words, he couldn’t stop. De Soules would kill him regardless, but he needed Vivienne to know the truth.
“Never forget that, lass,” he shouted. “And dinnae give up. Ye are stronger than anyone I’ve ever kenned. I love ye, Vivienne. I love—”
Without warning, de Soules plunged his dagger straight into Kieran’s chest.
“Kieran
!” Vivienne screamed. “Non, mon Dieu, non! Please, non!”
De Soules viciously yanked his dagger free, and Kieran saw his own life’s blood dripping from it.
The air rushed from his lungs. He grunted and slumped forward, toppling onto the wet grass along with the bodies of the men he’d killed. He coughed, and warm blood dampened his lips.
From where he lay, he watched de Soules stride back toward his horse and mount. He took Vivienne’s reins and called an order for his men to ride out.
Vivienne twisted in the saddle, fighting to keep her eyes on him, but soon she was forced to break their gaze. Her cries grew distant as the band of men were swallowed by the night-dark woods.
“I love ye,” Kieran wheezed before she disappeared forever.
Chapter Thirty-Two
A few hours’ ride from the cottage, de Soules ordered his men to stop to allow the horses some rest.
One of the men had gagged her not far from the cottage to keep her cries from alerting someone to their presence. Vivienne had run out of the strength to sob any more, but tears still leaked from her eyes unchecked. She sat hunched in the saddle, staring silently at her bound hands, but inside she had shattered into a thousand shards of pain.
Kieran was dead. Kieran, her love, her heart, her soul, was dead.
She felt as though a part of her had died on the ground beside him. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the image of de Soules’s dagger plunging into his chest, and then him slumping forward and collapsing, kept flashing over and over in her mind’s eye.
And his words of love for her had been on his lips as he’d died. A fresh wave of anguish slammed into her, and she moaned against her gag.
Her very bones reverberated with gratitude that she’d gotten to hear his declaration of love before his death, but a wild, broken part of her wanted to scream for all that had been lost between them. How could a love like theirs be ended so cruelly and abruptly? If there was any goodness left in the world, they should have had more time together, more happiness. Instead he had been stolen from her thanks to the petty vengeance of a would-be traitor.