“My lord!” the sergeant called to Alec. “We have found one of the women in the stable and she is badly injured.”
Alec nearly vomited from sheer nerves. “Which lady? What color is her hair?”
“Brown, my lord,” the soldier said, breathing heavily as a result of his run. “One of your men has sent for the castle surgeon.”
Alec thundered out of the room with the rest of the search party on his heels. Barreling across the bailey and into thestableyard, he did not slow his pace until he reached the indicated stable wing. The same stable where he had first made love to his wife.
At the end of the livery he could make out a few figures illuminated by an oil lamp. He stormed up on Pauly and several soldiers as they huddled over the still form of Thia.
Alec did not stop there; he shoved one of the soldiers aside and knelt beside his sister.
“Moppet,” he whispered. “What happened? Where’s Peyton?”
Thia twitched and moaned, rolling her eyes open. “Alec?”
In spite of his wildly surging nerves and shaking hands, he touched her head tenderly. “I am here, love. Where’s Peyton?”
Thia closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Her entire head was sticky with blood and Alec wondered horrifically if his wife had had a hand in her injury. He simply wasn’t thinking rationally.
“He…. he was going to kill her,” she whispered. “I couldn’t let him do it.”
Alec clenched his teeth so hard that he bit his cheek. “Who, love? Where is she?”
She opened her eyes again, her expression dazed and open. Pauly waved a hand in the midst of her line of sight; her eyes refused to focus. He did it once more and still received no reaction. Passing a glance at Alec’s ashen face, he moved toward his medicament bag.
“Answer me, Thia.”
Thia swallowed again. “Where are you, Alec?”
Consuming grief and anguish clutched at him, claws of pain ripping his soul to pieces. Brian, his massive body quivering with the agony of his child’s fate, knelt beside Alec and placed a hand on his daughter’s bloodied head.
“Alec is here, darling, as am I,” Brian murmured through his tears. “Where’s Peyton?”
She closed her eyes wearily. “C….Colin was going to kill her. I tried to warn her.”
Alec was visibly jolted. He rocked back on his heels and leapt to unsteady feet. Before he could issue commands, Ali was already in motion and within seconds, Toby and several soldiers were racing for the castle.
“Colin is under guard,” Alec mumbled, like a man losing his mind.
Ali’s gaze was full of concern. He’d never seen Alec come remotely close to an emotional breakdown and was deeply distressed. Thia was dying, Peyton was missing, and Alec was on the brink of collapse. Edward, exhausted and unkempt, put his hand on Alec’s shoulder.
“We will find her, Alec,” he mumbled. “Have faith.”
Alec did not have any faith left. Nor did he possess hope, or joy, or feeling of any kind. He was only able to feel a degree of grief he hadn’t felt since the very moment he realized that he had killed his brother. Deeper, even.
Colin was gone. The soldier on guard informed them that Thia had escorted her betrothed to the grand dining hall earlier in the evening and, considering the man wasn’t technically under house arrest, the soldier had no choice but to let him go. Thia had assured the man that Edward had requested Colin’s company.
Alec was nearly overwhelmed with the growing clues that, mayhap, Thia had been a party in Peyton’s disappearance and not simply an innocent victim. But he couldn’t dwell on the growing evidence, not yet; he had a wife to find.
Before he could draw another breath, Alec was at Nigel’s door, into the room, putting his massive hands around the man’s neck as Edward and Ali attempted to pull him free. Thegrunting, the sounds of struggling emanating from the chamber, filled the castle.
Nigel was turning blue as Alec hovered over him, not the least bit concerned with the man’s discomfort. “Your son has abducted my wife. Tell me where he has taken her.”
Nigel could barely breathe much less speak. “I…. I do not know! I wasn’t aw…. aware of his p-plans!”
Alec squeezed harder and Nigel gurgled loudly. Ali had stopped trying to pry the man’s hands free; it was an impossible feat.
“If you kill him, you will never have your answers,” he murmured into Alec’s ear. “Bargain with him, man. Deal with his greed.”
