Caden huddled in a dark, damp corner, the moldy bread they’d tossed down to him earlier clutched in his lap. He forced himself to take another bite. He had to keep up his strength.
He had to be ready to seize any opportunity that came along. He would be free of this place. He had to be. Too much depended on it.
Once he was free, he’d deliver the ransom for Blane and Colin, and then he was coming back here. Coming back and finding Steafan.
He wanted answers.
Why would Steafan betray him? The man was his best friend, had been as a brother to him for as many years as he could remember.
Why, why, why?
It had become a litany singing through his mind for the last few days. It held the wounding sting of betrayal at bay.
He wanted revenge.
An invisible scratching in the inky dark corner caught his attention.
Rats.
Damn, but he hated the vermin. He pushed aside his loathing, thinking instead of Ellie’s grin the day she had accused him of fearing the little beasties.
He filled his mind with her as he had over the past days, escaping the rotten food, the smell of sewage, even the rats. He held on to that image as long as he could. It was this that kept him going.
He would admit it now, though only to himself. Only here.
More than answers, even more than revenge, he wanted her.
The wooden slats covering the hole they’d thrown him into were lifted and a pale shaft of light flickered through the opening, invading his cocoon of darkness.
Caden sat very still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light, watching as a ladder snaked into view.
“Come on with you, MacAlister, out into the light. I ken yer there. Our laird has some entertainment prepared special just for you.” A dirty face peered down over the edge.
Slowly Caden rose to his feet, battling back the dizziness. This was it. His chance had come at last. He had to be sharp now.
One foot after the other, he made his way up the rungs until his head and shoulders breached the opening. The men waiting there grasped him under his arms and dragged him out to his feet.
Up a set of narrow stone stairs where the flickering torch of the dungeon gave way to smoke-filtered daylight. Down a hallway and toward a door at what was presumably the back of the keep.
The frightened screams hit his ears before he made it through the door.
A crowd of perhaps fifteen men gathered, blocking his view, but the stench of blood curled up his nose and straight to his stomach even as the screams pierced his heart.
The guards pushed him forward and the mass parted, allowing him to see a mockery of a throne and Symund MacNab, the so-called laird, sitting there.
“Ah, just in time.” MacNab signaled with his walking stick and Caden’s guards shoved him forward again, toward the chairs where MacNab sat.
Caden steeled himself. This was good. When he took that stick from MacNab’s hands this time, it was MacNab himself who’d feel the brunt of it. Caden’s vision tunneled, focusing on the false laird, readying his strength, planning his move.
Until he passed in front of the chairs.
Then his view of what they all watched opened and his footsteps slowed as his horror grew.
There in front of him was a massive pit, perhaps four feet deep and larger than the great hall of this keep. A pole, taller than the height of man, had been driven into the far end. A chain extended from the pole, the end clamped around the wrist of a man who worked desperately at trying to free himself from the manacle, his fingers digging at the iron band.
In vain.
He was the source of the screams.
Two huge dogs stealthily circled him, each dodging in to snap their massive jaws. They were the reason for his screams.
Caden couldn’t tear his eyes from the man’s bloody hands as he frantically, hopelessly clawed at the band binding him.
One of the guards pushed Caden into the chair next to MacNab and he turned his gaze to the monster sitting there.
“What is this grotesque torture?”
MacNab smiled, affecting a look of innocence. “But surely you must have heard of the sport, MacAlister. It’s all the rage with the nobility, I’m told. They call it bear baiting. A vicious bear is placed in the pit and the dogs are turned loose on it. The contest is whether the bear or the dogs survive.”
“That’s a man, no a bear, down there,” Caden grated, the horror of the situation settling over him. “He’s no a chance against those beasts.”
“Aye, so it is.” MacNab shook his head, lifting his hands in a helpless gesture. “And a man you know personally, if I’m no mistaken.”
Caden’s head snapped toward the man in the pit and he strained to see the poor wretch’s face. The set of his shoulders did look familiar, but his back was turned.
One of the dogs dove in, latching his teeth onto the man’s leg. The poor wretch fastened his arms around the pole, kicking, stomping at the beast’s head with his other foot. The dog let go and backed away and the man turned, just enough to reveal his face.
“Gilberd? You’ve my shepherd chained out there?” Caden surged to his feet, and was quickly shoved back to his seat by the men surrounding him. “He’s hardly more than a lad. Get him out of there!”
The guards dropped a coil of rope around Caden, tying him to the chair.
“Ah, but that’s where you come in, my friend. Only you can save the lad now.”
The dogs circled again, round and round, tightening their arcs, coming closer with each pass.
“Anything. Tell me what you want of me.” He couldn’t see one of his people murdered in front of his eyes and do nothing. He’d gladly change places with Gilberd.
“Unfortunately, to continue our sport, we’d need a real bear and they cost dearly. So all you have to do is tell us where to find the silver you carried, and we’ll release the lad.”
The moldy bread churned in Caden’s stomach, threatening to travel up. He had two choices, both equally impossible. If he turned the silver over to MacNab, Blane and Colin would die. If he didn’t, it would mean Gilberd’s life. Either way, he failed his kinsmen.
A scream ripped through his thoughts accompanied by a roar from the men ringing the pit. Caden looked up, knowing before he did what he would see. Gilberd’s body lay on the ground, his head twisted at an odd angle, his throat ripped away by one of the beasts.
What had he done? The blame for Gilberd’s death lay at his feet. It was his responsibility. He should have decided faster, acted faster.
“What a pity. Too late to save that one.” MacNab made a tsking noise as he patted Caden’s arm. “Just as well. He was naught but a dirty little traitor anyway. Brought word of your journey to us, he did. Told us exactly where we might find you so we could escort you here as our guest.”
Was it not enough they murdered the man? Did they take some special pleasure in defiling his memory as well?
“I dinna believe yer lies. That’s no possible. Gilberd had no idea I traveled this route. He was in the high fields when my plans were set. He could no have done what you say.” Caden clenched his jaw. He would speak no more. They’d done their worst.
“What you say may be. Unless, perhaps, someone sent him. Someone who did ken what you planned to do. Someone bent on yer destruction. A man who’d intentionally expose yer animals to disease and then sell you out to the likes of me.” MacNab grinned, the few teeth left in his slimy mouth all showing. “You help me by giving me the silver and I’ll help you by eliminating yer traitorous kinsmen.”
“What?” The strangled words escaped Caden as though he no longer controlled his own will. “I’ll hear no more of yer lies and accusations. And now that you’ve murdered Gilberd, you’ve no a hold on me. You’ll never see that silver.”
“I’d no be so hasty to say that if I were you.” MacNab leaned over the side of his chair and motioned somewhere behind him. “Bring him!” he called, even as his attention was distracted by the arrival of one of his men leaning in to whisper in his ear.
He sat up, beaming. “’Tis perfect timing for our celebration. Escort them to me at once.”
Again Caden’s stomach churned, and he strained against the ropes that held him as he watched two guards drag another man out to the pole even as others hauled off what was left of Gilberd.
A man with a cloth sack over his head.
“Who is it?” Caden’s words trickled out, barely more than a breath, as a sense of recognition fell over him.
“Patience, my young friend, patience,” MacNab counseled.
In the pit, the man’s arm was fitted into the manacle, even as he struggled against the process, and the cloth was yanked from his face.
“You can’t do this to me!” Steafan screamed. “We had a deal.”
A deal?
May the Fae help him, MacNab didn’t lie.
Well, it wasn’t four-inch spike heels and hot pants, but it would do.
Approaching the gates of the hellhole where Caden was held, Ellie felt a grim satisfaction as she considered their handiwork. Both she and Alycie had pulled and tugged and rearranged until they looked sufficiently sleazy, their shoulders and considerably more of their cleavage bared than was customary for this time. Only her lace bra straps covered her shoulders now, and those should be novel enough to entice the raggedy bunch they waited to attract.
She had to smile as she thought of their preparations. Dair’s eyebrows had climbed up his forehead as she’d rearranged her laces and lowered her shift, baring the top of the odd mark on her breast—the rose shape Rosalyn had told her was her Faerie mark.
He’d quickly recovered his composure and grinned at her, nodding his head as if in approval when he turned away. What she wouldn’t have given for the ability to read human thoughts in that moment!
Waiting outside the gates, she exchanged glances with Alycie, noting how the woman nervously chewed her bottom lip while Dair carried on a conversation with one of the men standing guard. Ellie adjusted her skirt one last time, making sure to flash some thigh and was pleased to see Alycie follow suit.
Remembering she’d read somewhere how ‘good’ girls got color into their faces back in the old days, she bit down on her lips and let go her reins long enough to pinch her cheeks. It might not be the makeup counter at the corner drugstore, but it would have to do.
Dair motioned for them to join him, and the three of them waited as the portcullis lifted, their screeching protests music to Ellie’s ears.
They were inside!
The gate lowering behind her gave her only momentary pause. They’d come this far. She wouldn’t allow herself to doubt their ability to get back out.
A large man, ragged and filthy as though he’d never even heard of washing, helped her down from her horse, his hands lingering unnecessarily long on her bare leg.
That was good. It meant their plan was working.
She gave him a smile she hoped was appropriately encouraging and allowed her skirts to slide down her legs to where they belonged. Slowly. Very slowly.
The man licked his lips and swallowed hard.
This was going to be easier than she’d imagined.
“Here now, what’s this, darlin’?” He pulled at the knife belted around her waist. “You’ll no be having any use for this wee weapon so I’ll be taking it for a time.”
He reached around her body, pulling her much closer than necessary to remove the belt, but she leaned into him. Might as well let him think she had no problem with what he did.
The man squatted in front of her and she realized with a start that he planned to pat her down like in some horrible cop movie. She glanced around to find her companions undergoing a similar procedure and tried to relax.
She could play this game.
Ellie lifted her skirts, baring her leg to midcalf and the guard on the ground in front of her sucked in his breath. He latched his hands around her ankle and slowly began to slide them upward.
Somewhere around her knee, she’d had enough.
“Has this man paid for my services?”
His hands froze in their search as she’d hoped they would, and she turned her head in Dair’s direction, working to keep her face blank.
“He has not,” Dair responded haughtily, playing his role to the hilt. “Kindly take your hands from the merchandise, good sir. Unless yer prepared to hand over the appropriate compensation, that is.”
“I’m only checking for weapons, as I must,” the man muttered, his hands rising uncomfortably above her knee now.
“Weapons? You took my weapon, you great oaf. And I don’t give my favors. I sell them.”
“No wee whores are going near the laird what I dinna check for weapons,” he insisted stubbornly.
“Oh, very well.” Ellie hoped she’d covered her fright with irritation as she jerked back from the guard and lifted her skirts, clearly displaying her thighs for his inspection.
His and the three other guards’ as well. The one in front of Dair wiped a hand over his mouth and nodded his appreciation.
“How’s this? Convinced I hide no other weapons?” She dropped her skirts and smoothed them with her hands.
“And you?”
The guard in front of Alycie waited and slowly she lifted her skirts as well, quickly dropping them.
Ellie had to admire the woman. For a medieval nun, she was pretty damn gutsy.
Satisfied the party was defenseless, the guards led them forward to the side of the crumbled stones that passed for a building.
Ellie’s heart pounded while they were escorted around the keep toward a mass of men. Caden was in here somewhere. She could feel him.
As they approached the group, heads turned their direction and conversations came to a halt, all eyes on them.
“Bring them to me,” a barrel-shaped man called from a gaudily decorated chair that had been placed up on a wooden dais.
Apparently the man in charge.
Exactly the man she wanted to get her hands on.
Ellie narrowed her gaze, focusing on him as she strutted forward, holding his attention with the swing of her hips. This was going to be easy.
He held out a hand and she reached for it, allowing him to pull her up onto the dais. As she stepped up, she glanced past him and her heart started pounding, threatening to burst through her chest.
Or perhaps it stopped beating altogether, she couldn’t really tell.
There, next the grubby man who held her hand, in a smaller chair, sat Caden, a rope looped about his body tying him into the seat with his arms at his sides, his face a mask of horror as he stared straight ahead.
Her vision tunneled on him as she fought to catch her breath, searching every exposed inch of him for injury. Her focus was so intent, she barely noticed when Alycie was lifted up next to her.
Only Alycie’s strangled “Holy Mother” drew her attention from Caden. The woman’s face had drained of all color.
Ellie allowed her eyes to track the direction of Alycie’s gaze and found the source of their dread.
Steafan was chained to a pole in the center of a massive pit.
As she watched, the onlookers cheered and two enormous mastiff-looking dogs were brought forward and released into the pit with Steafan. His clawing, panic-stricken attempts to free his hand from the manacle that bound him sickened her.
“Stop it. Stop it now, MacNab.” Caden’s voice was barely more than a whisper as he faced the monster who still held Ellie’s arm. “You must…” The words died in Caden’s throat when his eyes met Ellie’s.
“Pardon, yer lairdship, but this is hardly fit sport for a lady’s eyes.” Dair somehow managed to control his tone, relaying none of the alarm he must have felt at his brother’s predicament.
“I see no ladies,” the laird responded. “But I fancy I’ll have quite the appetite for what I do see after our sport here is finished.” He pulled Ellie’s arm to his mouth and ran his tongue from her wrist to the inside of her elbow. “Are you ready to turn over yer silver now, MacAlister?”
“I’ll see you dead by my own hands for what you do, MacNab,” Caden growled, his eyes sparking with hatred.
Ellie fought down the revulsion she felt and stroked a fingertip down the monster’s cheek, sliding her arm from his grasp and moving behind his chair. “Let me work on that appetite, your lairdship. I’ll help you relax while you enjoy your games.”
She placed her hands on his head, threading her fingers into the greasy clumps of his hair and massaged. At his sigh, she transferred her attention down to the pit and the man struggling there.
Opening herself to the thoughts of the beasts in the pit was as gruesome as watching them circle Steafan, darting in to nip at his legs while he screamed and kicked. These creatures were trained to kill. They were crazed with hunger and a thirst for human blood.
Still, she had to try. Steafan might be a lying toady, but even he didn’t deserve something this terrible.
She communicated with her dogs easily enough. There should be no reason she couldn’t use that same skill with these animals.
Leave the Hu-man alone, she ordered silently, intentionally using the same inflection she’d heard her dogs use. The larger female swung her muzzle around, as if searching for the source of the noise invading her mind, but with a shake of her head, she quickly turned back to her prey, her need for the kill overriding all else.
Ellie sensed this was the dominant female, the one she needed to convince.
Leave the Hu-man alone, she repeated more forcefully, directing all her attention to that animal.
A snarl of derision was her only answer.
“You want to play rough? We’ll play rough.” Ellie muttered.
“That we will, lass, if it’s what you want,” the old laird grunted, his eyes closing with pleasure as she continued to massage his head.
Something. She needed to think of something that would frighten the animal so much she would stop her attack.
As she tried to come up with any idea, she watched the scene below in horror. The animals leaped at Steafan. He raised an arm to protect his face and the alpha female closed her jaws around it as the other dog latched onto his leg, biting, tearing into his flesh.
Now! Whatever she did, it had to be now.
The memory of Missy’s fear in the graveyard flashed through her mind. That was it! If she’d been able to send those sounds and pictures to Missy, she could do the same here. It was simply a matter of combining sounds and pictures into thought. But it would have to be truly earth-shattering sounds and pictures to distract these beasts.
What sounds bothered normal dogs?
Ellie pictured row after row of speeding fire trucks, lights blazing, racing directly at her. She added the sirens, thousands of them, pitching the sound as high and as loud as she could possibly imagine. Faster, louder, bigger.
Then she transferred the thoughts to the minds of the beasts.
The animals let go immediately, dropping to the ground, howling.
The men watching went silent.
“What’s wrong with the damned beasts?” MacNab demanded, sitting up in his chair, dragging Ellie forward into the wood of the back. “Bring out the other pair!” he ordered before lolling his head back against Ellie’s breasts.
She froze, her mind a momentary blank. The mind trick had worked on the first two dogs, but she didn’t know if she was strong enough to hold off four.
Once again she forced herself to smile and massage her fingers through the muck of his hair, promising herself that if even one louse crawled out of that slime and onto her skin, she’d find a way to make the bastard pay for it. Big-time.
“Before the fresh beasts arrive, I’ll give you one last chance, MacAlister. Will you give me the location of yer silver now?” MacNab kept his eyes closed, pressing his head into Ellie’s breasts, rubbing from side to side.
“The only thing yer ever getting from me, MacNab, is yer own death.” Caden strained at the ropes, leaning as far toward the laird as possible.
MacNab sighed. “Well, then, lad, since I’ve no need for that, I suppose I’ve no more need for you. Yer friend down there tells me you had the silver the morning we captured you. It’s more work than I wanted, but we’ll scour yer path from yer last camp to the place we trapped you. We’ll find that silver, even without yer help.” He lifted his hand and motioned to one of his men. “Take him to the pit and chain him there with his friend.”
The hand MacNab held aloft fisted onto Ellie’s shift, pulling her toward him as his men passed by to take Caden away.
Her mind raced as she leaned in toward his face. She had to think of something. Quickly.
MacNab’s eyes were little beads of greedy desire. He opened his mouth and his foul breath wafted up, stinging her nostrils just before he latched onto one of her breasts, his tongue wet against the material of her shift.
When all hell broke loose around her, it only seemed fitting she should take advantage of it.
When he’d seen Baby outside MacNab’s hideout, Caden had been convinced the animal hadn’t understood his instructions to go for help. Perhaps he’d been mistaken and the animal had simply followed to see where to bring that help.
None of that mattered right now. How Ellie had gotten here, or why, was beyond Caden’s reasoning. He knew only that she was here and in danger. Rational thought beyond that one point wasn’t within his power any longer.
A haze of red fury clouded his mind, his only desire to get his hands on MacNab’s throat and squeeze the very life from his body. Caden watched as the blighted bastard’s mouth came down on Ellie’s breast. She lifted one hand toward the sky and arched into him.
The red haze around Caden exploded.
The growl emanating from the depths of his soul was more animal than man but he could no more control the sound than he could stop his body from leaping toward MacNab the moment the ropes were lifted.
He surged from his chair, pulling at the arms attempting to hold him back. The elbow to his face wouldn’t have stopped him, any more than the hands grabbing at him. His anger was too great to be controlled by mere men.
But the grim smile on Ellie’s face, that brought him up short.
He suddenly felt as if he watched what happened from somewhere outside his body. Time slowed down, stretched out.
From somewhere she’d gotten her hands on a long, thin dagger, so much like the one he’d given Sallie years ago he would swear it to be the very same one. And she held it poised at MacNab’s throat.
Caden watched as the man’s eyes narrowed and tiny beads of sweat broke out across his forehead.
Dair had disarmed the guard closest to him. He carried a sword in hands now and at least one of the men was down as he made his way toward them.
None of MacNab’s people moved, all of them waiting to see how the drama on the dais would play out.
“You tell those men to get their hands off Caden and back away from him. Now.” Ellie tightened her hold on MacNab’s hair, pulling his head closer, into the blade.
“‘Caden,’ is it? Are you his woman, then?”
“Now,” Ellie repeated through clenched teeth, ignoring the question. “Or I slice you a new opening.”
“Yer no serious.” MacNab’s hand slid from his hold on Ellie’s shift to his own lap.
“Oh, I’m serious as a heart attack, mister. Now do as I say or you die.”
“I’ve no plans to be dying this day,” he answered, his eyes narrowing as he stared out at his men.
The twitch of MacNab’s shoulder was the only outward sign.
Caden shouted out her name in warning, but it was too late. MacNab’s stick shot up, catching Ellie in the forehead, knocking her head back, loosening her hold on him as a wicked dagger flashed up in his other hand.
Caden clearly heard the ring of metal as Dair advanced, but he couldn’t turn to follow the knight’s progress. With an almost superhuman effort, he broke free of the men holding him and surged across the narrow space separating him from MacNab, his arms outstretched, reaching.
He hardly felt the metal of MacNab’s weapon slice across the arm he threw out to deflect the weapon’s path. Closing his fingers over Ellie’s, he jerked her hand hard, pulling her dagger up and into MacNab’s throat, cutting through the skin and bone under the blade they held jointly.
MacNab’s eyes rolled up and a dark red line formed on his neck, but Caden didn’t have time to worry about the fake laird. It was the shock on Ellie’s face and the swelling pink knot on her forehead that had his concern.
He kicked the arm of MacNab’s chair, sending it tipping over the side of the dais. The brigand’s body landed with a thud, his head flopping back from his body as a pool of blood formed around him.
Ellie stared at the body, her eyes huge round saucers.
“Oh, shit,” she breathed.
“Look at me.” Caden grabbed her shoulders, giving her a little shake when she wouldn’t look away from the body. “Look. At. Me.”
Slowly her head swiveled his direction, her eyes still wild. She gazed down at the knife still clutched in her fist, the blade red with the brigand’s blood. “Holy freakin’ shit. What did I do?”
“You dinna do anything.” Caden grasped her chin and gently forced her face back up to meet his gaze. “Do you hear me? I did that. No you.” He wouldn’t have that on her conscience. He’d kill the fiend a thousand times over again if given the chance, especially since it had been a matter of MacNab’s life or Ellie’s. Still, he wouldn’t have her blaming herself for the act.
“Let go of me.”
“Ellie, dinna do this to yerself. You dinna…”
“Let go!” she shouted, pulling away and dropping to her knees.
He couldn’t stand that she blamed herself for the villain’s death. He was fully prepared to shoulder the responsibility. He was used to that. But her look of horror as she pushed away from him ripped into his very soul.
He dropped to his own knees in front of her, reaching out to grasp her shoulders. “Ellie, listen to me.” Caden leaned close, horrified at the fear he saw in her eyes.
She tried to shove his hands away but he was having none of that.
Instead he pulled her closer. “Speak to me. What is it?” he demanded.
In response, she promptly emptied the contents of her stomach down the front of him.