Caelen barely held back the curse as he hit the ground. Pain speared through his shoulder, spreading agonizing flame until he had to close his eyes and grit his teeth to remain silent.
His hands were tied behind his back, making the wound in his shoulder all the more painful. Gregor McDonald had torn the arrow from Caelen’s shoulder without care and Caelen had steadily bled on the rough journey to Duncan Cameron’s keep.
“I’ve brought you Caelen McCabe, Laird Cameron,” Gregor called.
Caelen opened his eyes to see Cameron standing a short distance away. Hatred was bitter in Caelen’s mouth. That the man was so close and yet Caelen was helpless to do anything but lie there made bile rise in his throat. If he could manage the feat, he’d spit in Cameron’s eye.
“So you have,” Cameron said.
He walked over to where Caelen lay on the ground and kicked at his wounded shoulder. Caelen grimaced but stared up at Cameron, allowing the full breadth of his hatred to show.
“You’d like to kill me, wouldn’t you, Caelen?” Cameron taunted in a low voice. “You hate me more than even your brothers do. ’Twas your foolishness that brought low your clan. My cousin is bonny, is she not? I haven’t seen her in some time. She’s likely spreading her legs for some other poor besotted fool.”
Caelen continued to stare at Cameron until Cameron fidgeted uncomfortably and then booted Caelen in the shoulder again.
“I wonder if given a choice between saving his brother’s life or protecting his lovely wife and daughter, which would Ewan choose? Surely not the brother who once cost him everything. Tell me, Caelen, how would it make you feel to know you destroyed all your brother holds dear a second time?”
Cameron knelt beside Caelen’s head, wrapped his hand in Caelen’s hair, and yanked upward so their faces were just inches apart.
“He won’t have to choose, because I plan to have both. You’re of no consequence to me. I’ll not blink an eye over your death, and then I’ll destroy your clan and the king you’re so loyal to.”
As he stared into Cameron’s eyes, the question that Rionna had posed floated back into his mind.
“Why?” he asked. “Why did you do it? If you’re going to kill me anyway, then tell me why you destroyed my clan eight years ago. We were no threat to you.”
Cameron rose and took a step back, a hatred that mirrored Caelen’s own reflected in his gaze.
“You’d never heard of me until that day, had you?” He shook his head. “How like your father to have never mentioned me or my father. You aren’t the only one with reason to hate, Caelen. Your father took what was mine. I returned the favor.”
“You’re daft,” Caelen said hoarsely. “My father was a peaceful man. He wouldn’t wage war against anyone. Not unless provoked.”
Cameron pressed his boot to Caelen’s throat, pinning him to the ground. “Oh aye, he was a peaceful man. Do you want to know why? He made a vow after my father’s death. His guilt was too much for him to bear. He swore on my father’s grave never to pick up arms again. I know. I was there. I heard his vow. I heard his apology to my mother. He patted me on the head as he walked away. Patted me on the head as if that would bring me a measure of comfort when my father was in the ground. If I’d had a sword, your father would have died that day and bled to death atop my father’s grave. I would have seen to it.”
“You lie,” Caelen ground out. “My father never spoke of you or your father.”
“Your father was a coward. He fought alongside my father and when my father was felled from his horse, he left him to die there. He turned his back on the man he called friend, and he ran from the battlefield. And do you know, just before your father drew his last breath, I reminded him of that boy he patted on the head at my father’s grave. Do you know what his last words were, Caelen?”
Caelen swallowed against the rage knotting his throat. His blood pumped so furiously through his veins that he feared exploding.
Cameron leaned down again so that he was close to Caelen’s ear. “He said he was sorry again. And then he begged me to spare his grandson’s life.”
“And so you murdered and raped the boy’s mother instead,” Caelen snarled.
“If I could have found the brattling, I would have spitted him on my sword. My only regret is that you and your brothers were not there the day I attacked. It would have brought me great satisfaction to have destroyed every last McCabe.”
“I’ll see you in hell for what you’ve done,” Caelen vowed.
Cameron straightened and motioned toward his men. “Take him to the dungeon. I cannot bear to look upon his face a moment longer. Killing him now is too good a fate. I want him to suffer as my father suffered when he slowly bled to death on that battlefield.”
Three of Cameron’s men yanked Caelen to his feet and dragged him toward the small entryway with the steps leading into the darkness below. A fourth man bore a torch down into the cold, damp corridor.
At the end of it, a yawning hole opened in the floor, and without warning Caelen was shoved down. He pitched forward into the blackness and was suspended momentarily in the air before landing on the stone floor below. His injured shoulder took the brunt of the fall and he cried out as agony tore down his back and arm, numbing his hand.
He sucked in deep breaths as he battled unconsciousness. He tasted blood and realized he’d bitten his lip.
As he lay there shivering, pain his only companion in the darkness, he closed his eyes and conjured an image of Rionna’s smiling face. He imagined he was home, in the privacy of their chamber, as she thought up some new way to drive him mad with lust.
He imagined tracing the swell of her belly and talking with her long into the night of their hopes and dreams for their child.
“Protect her well, Ewan,” he whispered. “For I have failed her. And you.”
Rionna was near collapse when she ordered her clan to surround Duncan Cameron’s holding and remain in hiding until she gave the order to attack. If God was with them, Ewan McCabe would arrive with reinforcements before her clan was forced to take action. But if not, she and every one of the McDonald warriors would go down fighting.
She prayed for strength. She prayed for God’s guidance for what she was about to do. She had to be convincing or she and Caelen would both die.
Gathering the reins of her tired horse, she started forward, her heart pounding as she broke from the cover of the forest, and rode down toward the gate of Cameron’s fortress.
’Twas an imposing sight of stone, wood, and metal. The walls were tall and she only prayed that her men could scale them rapidly enough to avoid detection.
Her plan had to work. If God truly sided with the righteous, her clan would win the day and she would return home with her husband.
Still, she prayed, for perhaps God needed convincing on the matter.
When she reached the gate, the watchman called down to her. Rionna surveyed the top of the wall and found at least three crossbows aimed in her direction.
She pushed down the hood of her cloak and then called up. “I am Rionna McDonald and I wish to see my father, Gregor McDonald.”
There was a long wait and then Duncan Cameron appeared at the top of the wall, her father beside him.
“Tell me, Rionna, have you come to beg for your husband’s life?” Cameron called down.
She fixed him with a haughty stare and twisted her lips in scorn. “I’ve come to see if what my men have told me is true. And if ’tis true, and my father has felled the McCabe warrior, I want to claim the right to kill him if the task is not already done.”
Cameron arched his eyebrow in surprise and Rionna held her breath until she nearly swayed from the horse. Oh God, let him still be alive. They couldn’t have arrived with Caelen too awfully long ago. She and her men had ridden without stop and they’d picked up a fresh trail halfway here and followed it until they reached the keep.
“Open the gate,” Cameron shouted.
A few moments later, the wood creaked and groaned and the heavy gate began to swing open. She remained atop her horse and waited for permission to enter.
Soon enough, Cameron and her father appeared at the entryway and one of Cameron’s men came forward to assist her from her horse. When her feet hit the ground, her knees nearly buckled, but by sheer force of will she remained standing and allowed her horse to be led away.
“ ’Tis an interesting tale you spin, mistress,” Cameron said as he stared at her. “You have my attention.”
Rionna looked at her father, wondering if he was too cowed by Cameron to offer words of his own. He stared back, his expression flat, and his eyes glittered with suspicion.
“Is he dead yet?” she demanded.
Finally Cameron shook his head and she went weak with relief. “Nay, not yet. He’s only just arrived. Tell me, how did you come so quickly?”
“When my men bore me the tale of what occurred, I refused to believe my good fortune until I laid eyes on him myself. If ’tis true that my father captured Caelen McCabe, then ’tis my thanks I must offer.”
“What is this nonsense, daughter?” Gregor finally demanded.
Cameron held up his hand. “ ’Tis only one way to solve this riddle. Come, my lady. ’Tis cold and you’ve traveled a great distance.”
Rionna slid her hand through Cameron’s outstretched arm and smiled gratefully up at him. “My thanks, Laird Cameron. ’Tis the truth I’m weary, but my relief was so great, I would not stop until I begged sanctuary at your door.”
“Sanctuary? My dear lady, what would make you cry sanctuary?” he asked, as he guided her through the courtyard and up the steps to the keep.
A warm blast of air hit her as did the stench. Her nose curled and it took everything she had to keep her stomach from rebelling.
The tunic she wore disguised the swell of her belly and she wasn’t far gone enough for her condition to be evident. The last thing she wanted was to reveal that she was carrying Caelen’s child.
“Aye, sanctuary. Think you that I would be safe from Ewan McCabe once it was learned a McDonald took his brother?”
“Why do you want to kill your husband?” Cameron asked bluntly.
He gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs in front of the fire, and it was with great relief she did so. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could remain standing.
“Does it matter?” she asked in a level voice.
“I find it hard to believe you left the protection of your clan in the dead of winter so that you could be the one to kill a man who is for all practical purposes already a dead man.”
“I hate him,” Rionna spat. “I hate all of the McCabes. They have run roughshod over my clan. ’Tis the truth, I had no great love for the leadership of my father, but at least he was a McDonald. I have been humiliated by the McCabes at every turn. If you won’t allow me to do the killing, I would at least like to witness it. And I would seek your protection until this matter with the McCabes is done.”
“You are an odd woman, Rionna McDonald. Or should I say McCabe?”
Rionna bolted to her feet, drew her sword, and leveled it at Cameron in a show of bravado she hoped impressed him or further convinced him she was just daft enough to want her husband dead. She was so desperate at this point, she was grasping for straws and she well knew it.
“I’ll not be called by that name,” she hissed.
He pushed aside the blade of her sword as if it were nothing more than a pesky fly. “And I’ll not have a female brandishing her sword at me in my own home.”
He motioned her back to her seat and then turned to glance at Gregor McDonald, who stood on Rionna’s other side.
“You have me curious, Rionna. What did Caelen McCabe do to draw your ire?”
She glanced at her father, knowing that it was here that he would be convinced and he would lend credibility to her tale, no matter how absurd it sounded to Cameron.
“He insisted I act and dress as a female. He took my sword from me and forbade me to pick it back up. He mocked and humiliated me at every turn. He … He sorely abused me.”
Cameron chuckled and then glanced at her father. “What manner of woman did you raise, Gregor?”
“She thinks herself a lad,” Gregor said in disgust. “Nothing I ever did made her act and dress as she should. I washed my hands of her years ago. ’Tis the truth he probably bedded her and this is the source of his ‘abuse.’ ”
Cameron’s gaze swept lingeringly over her body in a manner that made her grateful she’d bound her breasts. He looked for sign that she was indeed womanly, but in her current manner of dress, she looked lean and shapeless, just as a young lad would.
She shivered at the lust in his eyes. In spite of, or perhaps because of, her eccentricities, Cameron looked upon her like he’d like nothing more than to tumble her to the ground for a quick rut. Or perhaps ’twas because he coveted what Caelen had already had. Trying to discern the mind of a man was impossible.
But he turned instead and waved an arrogant hand to one of his men. “Bring Caelen McCabe up from the dungeon. His wife seeks a reunion.”
The knot in her belly grew and fear nearly paralyzed her. She would have to act quick in order to convince Cameron and her father that all she’d said was true. It hurt her to do what she must. It would be the hardest thing she’d ever do, but she had to convince Caelen that she loathed the very sight of him and wanted his death.
All the while she waited, she steeled herself for the sight of her husband. She knew he was injured. He might be near death even now. She couldn’t react, not as a horrified wife.
Rionna wanted to weep. She was beyond exhausted and she was more afraid than she’d ever been in her life.
When they shoved Caelen into the hall, he fell to his knees and she could see his hands were secured behind his back. Before he could look up, she was on her feet. She stalked across the room but just as she reached him, he lifted his gaze to her.
Shock registered in his eyes and he parted his mouth as if about to speak. So she did the only thing she knew to silence him.
She reared back and slapped him as hard as she could across one cheek.