“Ach, you were worse,” Lachlan jeers.
As Dougal pulls away from me, I grab his big, warm hands, holding him with me for a moment. “You be careful, husband.”
“Of course,” he says, bending to kiss me again. “I have someone to come home to.”
Chapter Thirty-One
In which Isla does not have candy for the children, but she does have a lot of guns. Not for them, of course. Don't be ridiculous. They're five years old.
Isla…
“You’re my auntie, aren’t you?”
There’s a little person standing in the doorway to the great room, looking at me quite seriously.
“Aye, Catriona. We met for just a moment at dinner last week.”
She and her twin brother are five, with sweet, round cheeks and her mother’s eyes. There’s a stubborn intelligence that gleams from them. “You’re new. Will you be having babies too?”
I’m startled by this question, a little horrified at the thought but deeply aroused on a primal level, which is not something I want to examine right now.
“Not right away,” I smile weakly.
Catriona nods. “Do you have any candy?”
Trying to conceal my amusement, I ask, “Is that required to enter the room, Lady Catriona?”
She squirms. “No,” she admits. “But it should be.”
“I’ll remember next time,” I promise. This girl would be an excellent Chieftain for the MacTavish Clan one day.
Mala and Morana both greet me warmly, which still makes me feel a bit shy. “Now that it’s just us,” I ask softly, “how bad is this?”
They look at each other. “To corral all the families at the estate is the Clan’s version of a Code Red,” Mala admits. “There’s other groups of women and children scattered throughout the mansion.”
“Do we have any idea of who’s attacking the clans yet?” I ask, “My family’s been targeted, too.”
“The list of suspects is long,” sighs Mala. “Two powerful clans are perfect targets to try to trick into going after each other, and failing that, attack them both.”
“And the problem is, everybody they’ve caught have been mercenaries, they can’t find a specific allegiance to anyone,” Morana adds.
“It takes tens of millions of dollars to hire that many soldiers,” I muse, “so it’s someone with deep pockets. It feels like more, though. Sure, they’ve torched some buildings, stolen some inventory...”
“Killed our people,” Mala says angrily.
“Aye,” I’m ashamed, “that is the worst, though this feels like misdirection. Anyone with that kind of money would surely gather their forces for a major frontal attack. Why all this back and forth, keeping our men running around?”
Morana, who’s been swaying with her newborn son Beathan swaddled against her chest, puts her hand on the back of his head. “Distraction.”
Mala’s eyes narrow, “If you truly want to destroy a clan, you start with the family, not the businesses.”
Walking over to where I’d stashed my rucksack, I put it over my shoulder. Mala’s already on her phone, calling Cormac. The Lady Elspeth just came back into the room, her sharp eyes evaluate everyone and she walks over to me first.
“Tell me.”
She’s not frightened, her words are cold and clipped, like saying more would just be wasting time.
“These attacks are serious,” I murmur, checking where the twins are, “but we’re thinking they’re a distraction from the main event. Attacking the estate could decimate the entire clan.”
