One

1361

Scotland

Three years later…

The dagger in Marsaili’s hand felt like freedom. Pressing it to her evil stepmother’s fleshy neck filled her with a sense of empowerment. Marsaili shifted her weight forward onto the balls of her feet so she’d be harder to throw off balance if Jean decided to fight back. Never again would she be the dog for her father and Jean to abuse. Marsaili was the fox—sly, wily, and impossible to catch. Or at least she hoped so since her father’s men hunted her and her MacLeod half brother, Iain, had sent a man after her, as well.

Nearly three years earlier, she’d discovered that Jean was not her true mother, and Helena and her brothers had been her half siblings. Never had she been more relieved about it than at this moment. She detested Jean, and she had detested her sister and Campbell brothers until the day they had all met their makers. She detested her father, as well, but unfortunately, he still lived—and his blood flowed in her veins—whether she liked it or not.

Her father, no doubt, wanted to find her so he could finally fulfill the plot he’d concocted three years prior to marry her to the Earl of Ulster. She’d managed to evade her father’s clutches for a long period by taking shelter and refuge with the MacLeod clan, whose laird she recently discovered was her half brother Iain. But her father had lured her out of that protection carefully and methodically by revealing to her that the child she’d borne from one night of passion with Callum Grant was not dead as her father had claimed. The child had survived the delivery, and her father had merely sent him from her.

Pain briefly gripped her heart as she thought of her bairn. Rage quickly followed for how she had been deceived by her father, and her anger at Callum, the deceiver, flared, as well. He had made vows to her that he had broken, and the result was that he had never known she was with child. That child, her child—not Callum’s, hers—had garnered her a year’s reprieve from being sent off to become the earl’s mistress. Well, that and the fact that the earl’s wife had not died as quickly as the earl had hoped, and she had refused to leave his side. Yet, Marsaili had known that her reprieve would come to an end at some time, so she had plotted to escape once her son was born.

“Marsaili,” Jean hissed, startling Marsaili back to the task at hand. “We can make a bargain.”

“I dunnae make bargains with devils,” Marsaili growled. Her mind raced, considering all her options and all who hunted her. Broch MacLeod, one of Iain’s fiercest warriors, was the warrior also tracking her. She would have turned to him for aid when she realized he was trailing her, but she was uncertain if she’d find a friend or foe. He had been a friend for two years, as had her four MacLeod half brothers. The only person she was certain remained her friend was her half sister, Lena MacLeod, now Lena MacLean. Before Marsaili had ever learned that she was half-MacLeod she had known Lena, as she had been married to Marsaili’s brother Findlay. Lena was loyal, even though Marsaili had been forced to betray the MacLeod clan. She was uncertain if her other siblings—and most importantly, Iain—would be so understanding. She had betrayed King David, who was not only Iain’s friend but a man to whom Iain had sworn political allegiance. Marsaili knew that Lena had written to Iain on her behalf to explain the situation, but Marsaili had no doubt Iain intended to drag her back to the MacLeod stronghold to take responsibility for her actions. But she could not go back to Dunvegan yet.

She tightened her grip on her father’s prized dagger, which he displayed in his bedchamber but never used. More the fool was he. Having taken it renewed her courage. It had faltered when she’d returned to Innis Chonnell Castle under cover of darkness. She had lived nearly her entire life in her father’s home, and it had been sheer torment. This was the last place she’d ever thought to willingly come back to, but here she was. It was by choice, but only because she’d not seen another option.

“Yer father will have yer head for taking his most prized possession,” Jean snapped.

She attempted to back away, and Marsaili nudged the dagger a bit deeper, pricking Jean’s skin and eliciting a hiss from her stepmother. “We both ken that’s nae true,” Marsaili replied with a snort. “He needs my head on my body. I doubt the earl is so obsessed with me”—as the man was obsessed, which was surely goaded on by her father—“that he would be willing to wed me headless.”

“Ye, ungrateful wench! Ye—”

“Shut yer trap, Jean,” Marsaili commanded, unable and unwilling to stop the grin that pulled at her lips. She’d wanted to say that to Jean for years, but she hadn’t dared before, for fear of retribution. There was no fear now. It had been replaced by a hatred so strong that her throat burned with it.

“Where is my son?” she demanded, the words hollowing her gut. Her son. Joy bubbled in her belly, but a swift tide of fear, loss, and regret stopped the warm feeling. She still could not believe that the child she’d birthed was actually alive. Her heart pounded so hard that her fingertips pulsed where she pressed them against her father’s weapon.

Her father. He didn’t deserve to even be thought of as such, but her blasted mind continued to do so. He was the Devil’s spawn, that’s what he was. Any man who would lie to his daughter and tell her that her son had died simply because he wanted to be able to use her in marriage was despicable. She ground her teeth against her wandering thoughts. The lack of sleep over the last sennight was weighing upon her, making it hard to keep her mind on task, yet she had to do so. She knew she didn’t have much time before her father’s men overtook her. She was mayhap a day’s ride ahead of them, but if they found her, she’d never escape.

Time was passing quickly. “If ye dunnae tell me where ye and Father sent my son, I’ll slit yer throat,” Marsaili rasped.

“Ye dunnae have the stomach for murder,” Jean snarled.

Marsaili answered with a flick of her wrist that sent the sharp blade sliding across her stepmother’s neck lightning-quick. Jean gasped and her hands flew to the surface cut, but Marsaili swiveled the blade to dig the point back into Jean’s flesh.

“That was a warning,” she growled, swallowing down a wave of bitter disgust that filled her mouth when Jean’s warm blood trickled onto her fingertips. “Ye are wrong about me, Jean,” Marsaili said, meaning it. “I may nae have had the stomach for killing before I fled here, but I have the will to kill ye now. And nae just ye, do ye ken me? I’ll strike down anyone who stands in the way of me getting back the son ye stole from me. Now, where…is…my…son?”

The desperation and anger in her own voice sent gooseflesh up her back and prickled her neck. She didn’t want to be this person. She didn’t want to be violent. She didn’t want to be a woman who betrayed her honorable brothers, men who had come to mean so much to her, but her father had left her little choice.

Jean shook her head. “I dunnae—”

Marsaili pressed the dagger deeper. “Dunnae spew yer lies to me.”

Jean gasped. “I’m nae lying. The Ceàrdannan had been traveling near the castle when ye gave birth, and yer father sent the bairn with them. Told them it was a castle castoff from a kitchen wench.”

Despair made Marsaili’s knees weak. She hadn’t thought she could hate her father more than she already did, but she had been wrong. The black rage she felt toward him in this moment frightened her. Her father had sent her newly born child with the Summer Walkers. They were a people without a clan, without any allegiance but to themselves and their leaders. They did not believe in possessions; therefore, they had no homes and traveled constantly. How would she ever find her son?

Tears clogged her throat and shot an ache to her thumping heart. She had no one to turn to for help, least of all Callum. He was the child’s father, but he had betrayed her in the worst way. He’d stolen her heart and she’d given him her body, and in return, he’d given her a bairn. Unbeknownst to him, of course, which was entirely the Devil’s doing. She’d learned she was with child after he had left with a vow to return for her as soon as he spoke to his parents. She had not known, however, that he had been promised to another since childhood. In the two fortnights they had spent together, he had never once mentioned it, not even when she had told him of her father’s plot to marry her to the earl.

She pushed thoughts of him away as an anxious feeling stirred deep in her gut. She’d learned not to ignore those feelings. She glanced quickly at the window. She’d made a critical error in determining how much time she had before daybreak. It had been dark when she’d slipped into the castle, but the sky was already lightening, and once the inhabitants of the castle stirred, it would be near impossible to escape unseen. A tremor of fear coursed through her.

Her father would be crazed to capture her. King David still did not have a legitimate heir, and the earl’s brother, John of Gaunt, might still be named heir presumptive to the Scottish throne if David were to die without one.

Even as her father continued to secretly support the Steward, he still wished to forge an allegiance with the earl and, subsequently, his brother. She could not imagine why the earl still wanted her. Perhaps he had created a fantasy of her in his twisted mind. “Ye can tell my father that even if he hauls me back here, I will inform the earl I am nae an innocent. Father will nae ever use me.”

Jean smirked for a long, silent moment. “Simple, foolish girl. The earl kens ye had a bairn and have lain with a man.” Marsaili hissed in a breath of surprise, which made Jean’s smirk grow. “He had yer chambermaid reporting to him about ye, and the blasted, loose-tongued clot-heid wrote that yer belly had swollen with child.”

“Brianna?” Marsaili croaked, thinking of the chambermaid who’d been found drowned the morning after Marsaili had given birth.

“Aye.” Jean averted her eyes, and Marsaili feared that her father had killed Brianna or had one of his guards do the deed. She pinched the skin between her brows, trying to sort out what Jean was telling her.

“I dunnae ken. If the earl kens I’m nae an innocent—”

“He dunnae care,” Jean snapped, looking at Marsaili once again. “He has the fever for ye and will have ye as his.”

Marsaili felt her mouth drop open. “I’ll nae marry that man, nor become his leman. Ever.”

“Ye will,” Jean said. “If ye ever wish to see yer bairn again.”

Marsaili stiffened. Even if she cooperated with her father, he wouldn’t tell her how to find the Summer Walkers—if he knew at all. Jean’s smirk grew wider. Jean knew it, too!

Marsaili wanted to scream, but she dared not for fear the guards who roamed the castle halls would hear. Instead, she flipped the dagger in her hand and used the hilt to knock her stepmother on the brow, in the very spot her father had long ago knocked Marsaili when she had displeased him. Her father’s treatment of her had taught her two valuable lessons: never stand too close to him once he had been angered, and all it took to knock a person to sleep was a hard hit right above the eye with just the right curve of the weapon after the hit.

Jean crumpled to the ground and her stepmother’s eyes fluttered shut. Marsaili gazed at Jean for a long moment before stepping over the body that was blocking her path to the door. She threw the door open and halted, her heart dropping into her stomach. Her stepmother’s personal guard, Torquol, stood there. His gaze widened in recognition and then flew past her to where Jean lay prone on the floor. Marsaili tried to dart to the right of him to escape, but his hand clamped on her arm as he easily took her dagger from her.

“Marsaili Campbell,” he said, his mead breath washing over her and making her stomach twist. “I see yer troublemaking ways have nae changed.”