Marsaili lay curled in a ball, cold iron pressing into her cheek, along with pebbles of sharp rock and gritty sand. She was too tired and hungry to move or even care about the discomfort of those minor things. She trembled almost violently with chill and fatigue, and the pain in her stomach had turned piercing. Her every nerve throbbed as she struggled to press her palms over her ears to block out a loud clanking noise that now filled the air.
Despair weighed on her, stifling and immovable. She could not think of a way to let Callum know that he—they—had a son. She could not shout it across the courtyard and chance any of the Gordons hearing her secret. She had no doubt Robert Gordon would hunt down their son and kill him simply to hurt Callum. And she feared she would not be making it out of this alive.
God’s above, she had to rise and find a way to tell Callum of his son. Maybe she could bribe one of her guards. But with what? She glanced down at her hand and the ring she wore that had been her mother’s. It was the only thing of value she possessed, but she would gladly relinquish it to save her son. She took a deep breath and struggled to push herself off the floor. The clinking and shouting now seemed to be coming from everywhere, hitting her eardrums with painful, almost deafening beats. Pressing up to her hands and knees took so much effort that she was panting, sweat beading on her forehead, and the cage seemed to tilt precariously. She had no notion if it was really moving or if she was simply feeling unstable. Either way, the result was the same. She had to gulp air to fight back the sick feeling roiling through her.
With her cheek dragging against the cool bars of her cage, she pulled herself slowly up, her sensitive skin sliding over the chilled iron and her body screaming for her to simply release her hold and drop back down into a heap. Thoughts of her son kept her going until she gained her feet and slowly opened her eyes.
Her cage dangled from an iron hook fashioned into the castle wall. On one side of her, blackness swirled with white fog, taunting her. And beyond the endless black was a rocky, steep drop to the frothy waters of the loch below. She shoved away from the bar as the salty wind sprayed the first drops of rain across her face to sting her chaffed skin. She turned slowly toward the castle. Torches lined the walls, illuminating the stone structure, but what else she saw shocked her speechless for a breath. “Callum!”
Robert Gordon and Callum both stood on the narrow ledge of the passage at the top of the wall, and Robert swung his sword perilously close to Callum’s face. Callum jumped backward and, to her astonishment, turned his back on Robert to race toward her.
“Callum, watch out!” she called, fear making her voice weaker than she wanted.
Robert charged toward Callum, sword raised once again. As Robert sliced his sword down toward Callum’s left shoulder, a deep voice called out, “Left!” and Callum lunged to the left, making Marsaili’s breath catch with the fear that he would plunge over the edge to his death. He teetered for a moment before he righted himself, ducked another oncoming blow, and turned back toward her.
She blinked in shock at the sight of Broch, a big, burly MacLeod Highlander, who was visible for one brief moment when Robert ducked an oncoming blow from him. Though she knew Broch had been pursuing her to return her to Dunvegan, she was glad to see him. He’d fight for her life with Callum, and as close as the Gordon land was to Inverurie, she felt certain that if they did rescue her, Broch would help her find her son or, as fate may have it, aid Callum in the quest.
Callum came toward her with such force he almost barreled into the cage. As it was, he grabbed at the iron bars, which made the cage sway backward and knocked Marsaili, weak as she was, to her bottom. The fall jarred her entire body, and she let out a deep groan.
“I’m sorry, lass,” he murmured, followed by a loud curse and then several hits of his sword to the lock that had been fashioned to keep her in. “God’s blood!” he roared, kneeled, and reached his arm through the bar. “Give me yer hand,” he demanded, his tone harsh, but the worry in his gaze was a gentle buffer.
She complied immediately, and his fingers gripped hers tightly. “Dunnae fear. I will get ye out of here.”
A horn sounded loudly, and she knew enough about castle defenses to know that meant the Gordon men had been alerted to intruders. Though had she not known, Callum’s string of curses would have told her the situation had just become even more dire. Shouts rose from the inner courtyard, and fear, along with a certainty that if he stayed he’d die with her, stabbed at her heart.
“Leave me!” she ordered him and tried to tug her hand away from his, but it was impossible. His grip was like a steel vise.
“I will nae ever leave ye from this day forward.” His words vibrated with the intensity of his emotion and made tears come instantly to her eyes. “I will retrieve the key and return. Dunnae fear!”
When he released his grip and stood, she felt momentary panic. If he could not return, if she died—
“Callum!” she called, as he had already moved several steps away. He turned, and behind him, she saw a wave of advancing men. She scrambled clumsily to her feet and gripped the bar, the cage now rocking in the wind. “We’ve a son,” she blurted. There was no time to ease into telling him the truth. He had to know. It had not been right to keep it from him, no matter her fears; she understood that now.
When he simply gaped at her, she repeated herself. “Ye have a son—our son. My father took him from me and told me he died at birth. That is who I’m looking for.”
She flinched at the raw hatred and rage that swept his face. She had no notion if the black anger she saw in him was mostly directed at her. He turned with a guttural war cry and raised his sword above his head, then advanced straight down the line of enemies, swinging his weapon side to side, cutting men down. He appeared crazed and unstoppable, almost frightening in the destruction he was leaving in his wake. Near the end of the passage, Broch joined him, and a woman, who Marsaili recognized instantly by her hair. How Maria and Broch had both come to be here, she could not guess.
The nausea and fatigue hammered her relentlessly, and helpless to offer aid or to even escape, she slid to her knees, deciding the best thing she could do was conserve her strength in the unlikely event that Callum was able to free her from this cage. When nausea twisted her stomach and rose in her throat, she doubled over her knees and pressed her head to the cold iron floor as she inhaled long, slow breaths.
A rattle came from above her, and she shoved herself up with shaking limbs. Callum stood outside the cage, covered in blood with his sword at his feet, gripping an iron ring of keys. He did not speak, did not lift his eyes to hers; he simply kept methodically trying the keys. With each failed try, his curses grew louder and fouler, and her hopes dwindled. When he got to the last key, he finally looked up, and the stark fear glittering in his gaze made her throat ache with the need to cry.
As he brought the key to the lock, he said, “I’ll die with ye before I leave ye. Dunnae mistake it.”
Hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she nodded, knowing well that to fight him would be useless. He inserted the key, and with a click that reverberated through her entire body, the door swung open. But as she stood and he reached for her, Robert appeared behind him, and she could not get the scream out soon enough to warn him. Robert plunged his sword through Callum’s left shoulder and then kicked out at Callum’s stomach. Callum caught Robert’s foot, and with a twist of his wrist, he sent the man over the ledge and likely to his death.
Something greater than nausea consumed her. Her stomach cramped, and she was instantly hot, then cold. Her vision blurred, the cage tilted, and then she felt herself falling as everything went black.
As Callum jerked the sword from his shoulder with a hiss, he decided that he was glad Marsaili had fainted because there was no way to get out of the castle other than jumping from the ledge into the loch below. He’d studied it and judged it deep enough, but without going into the water to check, it was only a guess. Yet to stay on this ledge with the Gordon warriors advancing on them was certain death.
With Broch steadying the cage, Callum retrieved Marsaili, gripped her around the waist, and prayed for God’s mercy on their souls in case this was the day he brought them to him. But as Callum locked eyes with Broch, who stood hand in hand with a very frightened-looking Maria, he also prayed that God would judge this day a bad one for taking them. Then, with his shoulder screaming in protest, he scooped Marsaili into his arms and jumped.
They hit the water within seconds, the impact taking his breath and jarring Marsaili into him as if he’d hit a wall with his chest. He lost his grip on her legs but grasped her wrist as the force of the water pulled her violently from him. As he recovered his grip, hands suddenly clawed at him. Her panic pierced him through the cold, dark water as her nails scraped him, and then she was pummeling and kicking him. With a jerk, he managed to turn her around and grab her around the chest, effectively pinning her arms so at least she could not hit him anymore.
She kicked out, though, as he swam toward what he hoped was the surface. When he broke it moments later, he sucked in one large breath of air before pressing his lips to Marsaili’s. It was the quickest way he could think to reach her through her panic. She stilled after a second, and he pulled away, aware they had to flee and put distance between them and the Gordons who would be pursuing. He’d almost certainly killed Robert, and that would not be forgotten, nor forgiven.
Even in the cold water, the burning heat of her skin caressed him. Fear twisted around his heart at the fever that raged in her. “I love ye,” he said, keenly aware there was not time to say much more. Later would be the time for anger, forgiveness, questions, joy—please, God, that there was time for joy. Callum had a son. A son. His heart swelled with an almost-choking sort of love.
“I have been a fool to try to turn away from ye. What we have kinnae be denied. We will find a way. Do ye hear me? I love ye,” he said again and kissed her full on the mouth, tasting her salt, her heat, her tears.
“Ye can kiss the lass later, if we live,” Broch called from the dark beside Callum.
“Maria?” Marsaili asked weakly.
“I’m here, dunnae fash. A bit bruised, but I’ll live. And ye will, as well. I managed to keep my medicine bag.”
“That’s good,” Marsaili said, her voice barely above a whisper.
A tight knot of fear formed in his throat. He’d be damned if he was going to let her die on him after everything they had been through and all that they had left to experience together. He surged toward the shore on his back, with her resting against his front. At first, she kicked with him, but after a few strokes, she went limp in his arms. The knot in his throat seemed to shoot out darts of pain and fear to his head, his heart, and his chest. He could not reach the shore fast enough, and when he did, he laid her down, straining to see her face in the little bit of moonlight. Rain drizzled down, he realized suddenly, as he pushed her hair back from her face and leaned in to see if she still breathed. Her chest rose in shallow breaths, but it was enough.
Maria and Broch came to kneel beside him. Maria placed a hand on Marsaili’s head and hissed. “She burns with fever.” She dug in her bag. She produced a small bottle and motioned to him. “Lift her head.”
He immediately did as commanded, dismayed at the way her head lolled and she did not stir. Maria pressed the bottle to Marsaili’s lips as she opened them and slowly poured in a liquid. Some dribbled out of Marsaili’s mouth, but she seemed to immediately swallow most of it.
“What did ye give her?” he asked.
“A potion of coriander for her fever. We need to bring it down. If it rises any higher, she could have a fit, which can affect the brain.”
He clenched his teeth. “How can we ease the fever?”
Maria looked at him steadily. “There’s nae much we can do. The potion is our best defense. Other than that, we need to keep her warm, though it may sound odd. Soon, the fever will make her cold and miserable,” Maria explained while running her hands about Marsaili’s head, raising Marsaili’s limp arms to check them for broken bones or cuts, and then sliding her hands along Marsaili’s body. “She dunnae appear injured. I believe perhaps exhaustion, and mayhap hunger, made her weak and more susceptible to fever.”
He thought of the rabbit he had cooked, but they’d been captured before being able to eat it. “Aye. I dunnae believe she has eaten much since leaving my home.”
“We have horses tethered just on the other side of the loch,” Broch said. “We’ll ride toward Inverurie, which is a two-days’ journey from here if ridden hard—four if we need to stop often, which we might.”
Callum nodded. “Once we’re safe, I’ll hunt for food and feed her.”
“I’ll hunt the food,” Broch said. “I’m her clansman.”
“And I’ll be her husband,” Callum shot back without thinking.
Both Broch’s and Maria’s eyes widened, and he could feel their gazes still on him as he scooped Marsaili into his arms, wincing at the shooting pain in his shoulder. He set a clipped pace to the other side of the loch. Above him, torches began to flicker on the cliff, and he ran, stopping only when he reached the horses.
Broch was directly behind him. “Take the one on the left,” Broch said, indicating the white destrier. “The other is mine. Maria can ride with me.”
Callum nodded again, and as he shifted Marsaili to swing them both into the saddle, Broch laid a hand on Callum’s arm. “Have ye asked Marsaili to wed ye?”
“Nae yet, but we’ve a son,” he said, the truth still hardly seeming real. “We will be wed, whether she wishes it or nae.” Though he prayed to God that she did wish it. Now that he had come to realize how futile fighting his love for her was, he hoped he did not have to fight her.
Broch chuckled. “I’ve been privy to a fair amount of courting of stubborn lasses by the MacLeod brothers, and I can tell ye, if ye approach Marsaili with directives of what she will do, she will likely do the exact opposite.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” Callum replied as the sound of shouting grew louder, coming closer. Without another word, he swung onto the horse with Marsaili, situated her in front of him, and took off toward Inverurie, where he prayed they would find the Summer Walkers. He had no notion what they had to do with finding his son, but that is where Marsaili had been heading, so that was where he would go.