“I’m goin’ tae find her. Now.”
“I’ll come with ye. Should I bring?—”
“Nay. Keep them celebratin’. If I’m wrong, I dinnae want tae ruin the night over a faither havin’ a difficult conversation with his daughter.”
But Erik didn’t think he was wrong. And from the look on Aksel’s face, neither did he.
Suddenly, Liv burst through the hall entrance, her face white as bleached linen. She pushed through the celebrating crowd with uncharacteristic haste, her eyes locked on Erik with an intensity that turned his blood to ice.
“Erik.” She reached him, breathing hard. “I went tae check on Claricia—thought she might want company after whatever row she was havin’ with her faither… but I cannae find her. I’ve looked everywhere. The solar, yer chamber, the kitchens, the battlements?—”
The hall seemed to tilt. “Where’s Finnian?”
“I dinnae ken. He’s nae in the hall either, and… Erik, the guard at the garden gate—young Leif—he’s unconscious.”
The world went very still. Very quiet. Even the feast noise faded to nothing as Erik’s mind crystallized around a single, terrible certainty.
Me wife’s been taken.
Erik was already moving, taking corridors at a run, Aksel and twenty warriors falling in behind him like an avalanche. The garden. That’s where Finnian had taken her. To the gods-damned garden with its hidden gates and?—
The eastern gate stood wide open.
Young Leif lay slumped against the wall, blood matting his hair, his chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths. Alive. But unconscious, and from the look of the wound, he’d been struck from behind without warning. Erik knelt beside the boy, checking the injury with practiced efficiency. Then he stepped through the gate into the garden, and fury roared through his veins like wildfire.
There were scuff marks in the dirt near the eastern wall—signs of a struggle. A piece of torn green fabric caught on a low branch, the same shade as the dress Claricia was wearing. Still warm when he touched it. Fresh.
And there, barely visible in the moonlight, boot prints leading away from the hidden gate Erik had shown her weeks ago. Multiple sets. Heavy. Men wearing mail.
The rage that flooded through him was clean and cold and absolutely perfect. No panic. No fear. Those were luxuries he couldn’t afford. There was only purpose. Only the hunt. Only the absolute certainty that whoever had taken his wife would die screaming before dawn broke.
“Aksel.” His voice came out perfectly calm, which was more terrifying than any shout. “I want fifty warriors ready tae ride in five minutes. Full battle gear. Trackin’ torches. Weapons sharp.”
“Aye, me jarl.” Aksel disappeared back through the gate, already bellowing orders.
“And find Finnian MacKenzie!” Erik continued, his eyes still on those boot prints. “I want tae ken if he’s missin’ along with me wife, or if he’s bleedin’ somewhere because he tried tae stop this.”
Though Erik already knew. The desperate look on Finnian’s face when he’d asked Claricia to walk with him. The guilt. The resignation.
The fury threatened to consume him, but Erik forced it down, channeled it into cold calculation. Rage was useful. Rage kept him moving. But rage unchecked got people killed, and he needed everyone alive and functional if he was going to get Claricia back.
Liv appeared beside him, her face grim. “The secret gate,” she said quietly.
“They’ll have had boats waitin’.” Erik’s jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. “Duncan’s been plannin’ this. Probably since the moment Finnian arrived. Used the old fool’s love fer his daughter tae get inside me defenses.”
“Then ride fer the shore.” Liv’s hand found his arm, squeezed once. “Track them. Bring herhome.”
“Aye.” Erik turned toward the keep where his warriors were arming themselves with grim efficiency. “And I’ll paint this entire bloody island red with the blood of every bastard who thought they could take what’s mine.”
Within minutes, fifty mounted warriors thundered through the castle gates, torches blazing against the night. Erik rode at their head on his war stallion, his mind coldly calculating distances and possibilities.
Hehadto find her.
Because a world without Claricia in it was not a world the Wolf could inhabit.
The thunder of hooves carried across sleeping Skye like war drums. Behind them, the castle blazed with light as every torch was lit, every guard roused, every soul woken to the crisis.
They crested a low rise, and Erik’s sharp eyes caught movement below—figures near the water’s edge, torches bobbing like fireflies in the darkness. A camp. Hidden in a cove he knew well from his youth, one with a natural harbor perfect for concealing boats.
