Murtagh seemed caught off guard by the question. "Are ye tryin' tae bribe me intae not sendin' ye?—"
"Nae. I just want tae ken how much was a price steep enough tae be worth yer honor as a man," Cailean taunted. He laughed, seeing the glint of rage again in Murtagh's eyes. "Is the gold worth it?"
Murtagh turned and walked away, then returned moments later with a key. He inserted it into the lock and the cell door flew open. He rolled up his sleeves threateningly, a knife glinting in one hand. "As I said, he wants ye alive. That doesnae mean I cannae teach ye a lesson."
This would hurt, and Cailean knew it. But he closed his eyes and thought of Maeve, calm flooding through him despite the circumstances. Let Murtagh do as he would. Cailean knew that his enemies thrived on fear—and he would not give it to them. Not a drop.
Maeve had spent a lifetime hiding, and while she had found a way to break free from that shell over the past months, it was a skill that came in handy now. She found a way to hide herself neatly away between a couple of trees and a large boulder just on the outskirts of McKenzie Castle, enough that she could see the outside of the stronghold and even witness who was coming and going from the main entrance. The guards who were patrolling the perimeter even came close enough occasionally that snippets of their conversation could be overheard, though Maeve, of course, shrank back further into her hiding place each time to avoid detection.
At first, her determination blazed fiercely. She was sure that she'd find a break in the guards and be able to flit across the night, unnoticed, until she'd found a way inside. Then, she'd break into the dungeons, and break Cailean free.
But it didn't work out that way. As Maeve waited, her fear grew. The guards patrolling the perimeter did not have gaps; in fact, to her horror, she watched as they doubled, then tripled in number. The number of guards just kept growing, and with a sinking, sickly feeling, Maeve realized that there was no way she'd be able to infiltrate the castle now. Not without being recognized. Not without being caught. And while she didn't really care what happened to her right now, she knew she would be no use to Cailean as a prisoner herself—nor would she be able to provide the light that the remaining rebels needed to see them through.
She stayed crouched in place, frozen in indecision. What should she do now? Should she wait here until morning, hoping that the large number of guards would shrink? Maybe she would be able to sneak in at the change of guards? But guilt gnawed at her at the thought; she had snuck out without letting Darren or the others even know where she'd gone. What would they do if she was gone for so long without a word? Would they assume she had been captured too?
She could not allow them to come find her. Perhaps, even though it went against everything that her heart told her to do, she should retreat for now. Eoin and Darren had both seemed certain that getting reinforcements was the better plan, so maybe…
Her mind raced with this circular thought, her desperate worry for Cailean warring with the massive responsibility that now weighed on her shoulders and the reality of the situation in which she found herself.
It was pitch black, but she would estimate it was morning now, just pre-sunrise. She thought she should feel exhausted, but instead her whole body felt alight and more awake than she ever had. She felt that the adrenaline coursing through her could have kept her going for days or even years.
Just as the first rays of sun started to shine over the horizon, though, Maeve, still torn in indecision, saw something that made her whole body turn rigid in shock and terror.
New people were arriving at McKenzie Castle through the main gates. A whole troop of soldiers, fully armed, marched into the castle and waited in the front courtyard, staring at the door as though they were expecting something.
The arrival of the men themselves was not what made Maeve so scared, though. It was the sight of what adorned these men—the unmistakable tartan they wore, noticeable even in this dim light and from this distance. It was a sight that Maeve would have recognized anywhere in the whole world, because it had been haunting her dreams for as long as she could remember.
Those colors. Her father's colors. These men were O'Sullivan men.
Maeve's heart rushed at the realization, the sudden panic choking her and making her dizzy as she struggled to remember how to breathe. How were they here? Why were they here?
She knew it was irrational, but her first instinct was that they were here forher—or for Breana. Could her father somehow know that both sisters were here? Had he come to reclaim his wayward widowed daughters and bring them back under his thumb? She would rather die than allow such a thing to happen again.
No. There was no way that he could know. She forced herself to breathe, forced herself to understand the rational truth that whatever the O'Sullivan men were here for, it had nothing to do with her or Breana. Slowly, her heartrate began to return to normal.
But it didn't last long. The doors opened, and several of the McKenzie guards came out to meet the approaching O'Sullivan guests.
Maeve watched in horror, paralyzed, as some part of her understood what was about to happen even as it did. She could not move as the worst part of her most dreadful nightmares unfolded before her very eyes.
The McKenzie men dragged a figure in their midst, a tall man being pulled along the ground on his knees as though all of the fight had gone out of him. Maeve knew that wasn't the case; she knew it was Cailean she was seeing, and she believed in her heart that he would have fought every second until his last breath. She felt sick to see him so vulnerable, obviously unconscious, or…?
No, he couldn't be dead. Not only would her heart know it, but if it was a corpse the men were dragging, she was sure that there wouldn't be so many of the guards around. A flicker of pride warmed the ice in her veins only briefly—Cailean was such a threat to these pathetic monsters that they sent a fully armed escort over his unconscious form.
But the pride soon froze out into deeper horror as she understood the full extent of what she was witnessing. Helpless, she watched as Cailean was handed over to the O'Sullivan men, his limp body carried by three of them into a waiting carriage.
Every cell in her body screamed at her to reveal herself, to run across the short distance between them and fight every last man until Cailean was free. She had thought that having him captured by McKenzie was the worst-case scenario, but this was worse by magnitudes.
Her father. The living monster who had been the direct cause of every horrific moment of her life until Senan, Cailean, and the rebellion had set her free. The man who had sold both her and Breana off to be manhandled as pretty little birds in gilded cages with awful men who had been unafraid to hurt them. The same Laird O'Sullivan who had betrayed the McNairs and been part of causing the whole country to collapse in the first place.
And now, he had Cailean. Maeve might have been free of him, but now he had her heart, her soul, in his possession. And she could do nothing about it.
Tears ran down her face at the extreme effort it was taking to stay put as she watched this travesty unfold before her. It felt wrong, more wrong than anything else in her life, to just stay rooted in place while the door was slammed shut and the carriage began to move away. But she knew that if she allowed herself to act on what her gut was screaming, she would be killed in an instant.
It tore her to pieces, but she stayed where she was and watched while Cailean was taken away from her, maybe forever. She stayed while the McKenzie men retreated back into the castle. She stayed there, frozen as a statue, as the sun completed its rise above the horizon.
And then the ice cracked, and she turned and ran back into the forest, back toward the farmer's house, back toward help. Because no matter what, there was no way that Maeve would be helpless, not when he needed her, not when the world needed her. Never again.
11
