“Colm, please don’t do this…”
“Geordi?” The guard swept the knife up to the boy’s throat, holding it there as the child trembled and his mother sobbed.
Willa saw that she had no choice. She saw it, and she hated it. She would not risk the life of an innocent, and the bastard knew it. But there would be a way to win this game even after she became Colm’s unwilling bride. She would kill him herself if needs be.
She turned to the priest, her face a mask of defiance. She had a plan. Marry Colm. See him dead. Find Drust somehow and do anything in her power to convince him to let her stay with him… she wasn’t going to think about her overall odds of success.
She steeled herself for what had to be done. “I’m ready.”
The ceremony only took a few minutes. Before she spoke her final vow, Willa glanced over to where the child was still held with a knife to his throat.
“As soon as I say the words, I want that boy released to his mother.”
Colm rolled his eyes in impatience, but nodded to the guard.
Then it was done.
Willa wanted to sink to the floor in despair to think she was now the wife of a man she hated to her very core, but at least he had released the boy. She saw him run back to his mother as she was being led away toward the tower stairs. The woman in the doorway flashed her a look of thanks, quickly followed by one of pity.
Colm pushed her forward into the laird’s solar and turned to the guards at the door.
“See that we are no’ disturbed on our wedding night,” he gave her a crooked smile laced with pure cruelty. “No matter how much the lady screams.” The door slammed shut.
Willa stood tall with her head held high, fixing her new husband with a glare that wished him dead by way of the most painful means possible. She bravely stared him down, but her knees trembled and her heart beat with the staccato rhythm of a frightened rabbit. She had somehow, in her panic to put together a plan, forgotten to consider that there would be a wedding night. Now, she tried hard not to wish herself dead.
Think of Drust… his kiss… his scent… I have to make it through this so I can find him. But will he still want me? No! Don’t think of that…
Colm was slowly circling her, watching her.
“Tell me, wife”, he said in a deceptively even tone, “are ye still untouched? Do ye come to yer husband’s bed a virgin still? Or will I have to kill another man’s bastard before ye bear me a son? Tell me!”
He shouted the last words and she jumped in spite of herself.
“Tell me, Bitch! Do ye come to me pure, or do I chance another man’s bastard?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “No. I’m… untouched.” Though she wished more than anything that she wasn’t. To have this be her first… Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think!
He stopped directly in front of her and reached for the collar of her dress, grasping it on either side and tearing it down the front with a hard tug. “No matter. We shall soon see whether ye lie.”
He spun her around and ripped the rest of the dress from her body, leaving her in a thin shift. She swallowed hard. Time was running out and she could not see any way to escape her immediate fate. She was going to lose her innocence to Colm Mac Tierney, after all. Instead of the beautiful experience she had always imagined, her first time was going to be hateful and violent. Driven by the lust for power, not desires of the flesh. Despite her resolve to be brave, a single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. Colm laughed and pushed her back onto the bed, following her down. As he shoved her shift up out of the way and wrenched her legs apart, something inside her mind snapped, and Willa let go a scream of pure rage and terror.
Chapter 15
With the messenger dispatched, all they could really do was watch and wait. James ensconced Maura safely in the cottage of a widowed woman she had a previous acquaintance with, and he stayed nearby to guard her. Drust understood that James didn’t want to leave his wife unprotected by his own hand, but he was being pulled by his own need to protect Willa. And so, cloaked in a spell which would prevent others from sensing his presence, he ventured closer to the castle. He had intended to go inside, to find Willa and make sure she was safe, but he had been met by a surge of power and he knew he could go no further. The power felt oddly familiar, dark and insidious. He could not risk fighting it alone, not when Willa’s life was in danger. He paced, angry at his inability to act. All thoughts of right and wrong were gone. All self-denial a thing of the past. He wanted this woman with every fiber of his being, and everything else could go to hell. If you had to lose something to know how much it meant to you… well, he had lost big time. His body was humming with tension, his muscles flexed and ready to fight, but he had to wait for his brother if he was to get her out alive.Hurry Bren.
As if in answer, he at last heard Bren’s voice in his mind.
Drust, where are ye?
He could communicate mind to mind with his brothers only if they were close enough. Bren had come, and the waiting was over. He let out the breath that he had been holding.
I’m here, just outside the castle’s north wall. In the copse of oaks.
It took them no time to find one another, and Drust had never been so happy to see his Bren, or so happy that his eldest brother commanded a large number of well-trained and loyal men. Quickly and without preamble, he filled Bren in on what had happened.
Bren’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the fortified walls of the castle.
“Aye, I feel it too. Something isna right here. It feels almost as if… Mored has had a hand in this.”
