Then an idea came to her. A desperate, last-ditch idea, but once they locked her away somewhere, she might just be completely out of second chances. Moving carefully, she pressed the palm of her hand against the edge of the blade. Luckily it was sharp, and it cut easily into her flesh. Now as she stumbled along, she could feel the slow but steady drip of blood from her palm onto the forest floor.
***
Eian stood in the middle of the standing stones, not far from where he’d just been when Dirc had used the charm to send him through time to Allia. Strange, but everything looked exactly the same, except that Dirc wasn’t there anymore. He had expected that in another time, things would look a little different. Or at leastfeeldifferent. He turned in a slow circle, wondering where to start. He closed his eyes and reached out with all of his most primal senses and a touch of magic, letting them lead him. It was not long before he knew exactly which way to go. Allia had been here, and not long ago.
As he moved into the forest, he quickly saw that someone had gone this way very recently. The signs were subtle, but like all lads raised in the highlands, Eian had learned to track at an early age. A bent stem here, a broken twig there, a drop of blood… His breath caught in his throat. Blood? Several hours old, at least. He reached out and swiped at it with a finger, holding his hand up and rubbing finger and thumb together, watching the blood smear red across his skin. He knew then, just whose blood it was. Allia.And she was hurt. A panic the likes of which he had never felt rose swiftly in his chest.Oh, god, please don’t let me be too late!
Allia woke in a room with walls of stone, and realized that she must have passed out at some point. Her ribs were sore, and she vaguely remembered being thrown over someone’s shoulder, bouncing along as he walked over the uneven ground. They must have drugged her somehow, or maybe even hit her over the head… Damn it! Now she hadnoidea where she was. She stood on still-shaky legs and looked at her surroundings. There was one window, high up on the wall, where the pink light of dawn was just beginning to show. She ran to it and grabbed onto the metal bars that covered it to pull herself up. She winced at the pain from the partly healed cut on her palm, but managed to peer over the edge. She could see the ground just above her head, which told her she was in a cellar of some sort. Dropping back down to the floor, she looked to the door on the opposite wall. When she tried the latch, it wouldn’t open, which was no big surprise. There was nothing else in the room except the single cot she had been lying on, with a woolen blanket laid across it. She went back to the window and reached up to test the bars, on at a time. None of them were the least bit loose, nor were any of the stones that held them in place.
All right, what now? She had to think… had to keep from panicking, because she wasnotgoing down easy. She began to pace the narrow room from window to door, again and again, back and forth. Who had taken her? It had to be some enemy of her uncle’s, who else could it be? Unfortunately, she didn’t even know enough about the man to guess who his enemies might be, let alone which one was likely to have kidnapped her. A faint hope pierced her chest when she realized she could very well be ransomed back to him. She knew that kidnapping for ransom was exceedingly common in the highlands. But would Uncle Leon pay? Was she worth enough to him if the price was high? Allia realized that she really didn’t know the answer to that. Besides, he might be so angry at her for running away that he could care less what happened to her.
She gave up pacing after what could have been either minutes or hours, and collapsed onto the cot, staring up at the ceiling as if her salvation might be written there. Lying there, it wasn’t long before her thoughts drifted to Eian Mac Coinnach, and she wondered where she would be right now had she given in to what was between them. To distract herself from falling into further despair, she let herself think about him. What would it be like, to have a man like that? All of him… She imagined peeling off his shirt, to reveal all of that firm, golden skin. She wondered how it would feel, to touch him and kiss him. And feel him moving inside of her. She was suddenly annoyed that she was still a virgin, and wished that she hadn’t followed that particular rule, after all. How archaic was it, anyway, that a woman should remain a virgin while a man could be with as many partners as he wanted? She really felt like she should have more experience before being with a man like Eian. Too late for that now. If she ever got out of here and ended up sleeping with him, he would be her first, whether she liked it or not. She felt a shiver of anticipation at the prospect.
Oh how she wished he were the kind of man a woman could just marry and settle down with, because she wasn’t sure she could settle for anything less than all. She wanted him to be entirely hers. She wanted toownhim, body and soul, and that was just never going to happen. God, she had it bad.
Footsteps outside the door had her abruptly sitting up and holding her breath, jarred suddenly back into a most unwelcome reality. She heard the slide of a bolt and theclickof the latch lifting, and the door opened. Even in the dim light, she knew immediately who it was.
“You!” she hissed, instinctively raising her knees and pushing herself back farther against the wall. It was Murdo McDermont, or whoever he really was. The man who had kissed her in the garden… and tried to put a spell on her. She should have known he would be back.Andthat he was as dangerous as her instincts had been trying to tell her. She made a mental note not to write off her inner voice ever again.
“Aye, lass. So glad I am ye remember me. I was afraid ye wouldna.” He spoke as if this were just another casual encounter, a chance meeting of two acquaintances. He shut the door, and the two of them were alone in the small room together. This wasnotthe man she had come all this way to be alone with, damn it!
Suddenly more frustrated and annoyed than afraid, she dropped her forehead into her hands and shook her head before looking up at him again. “What do you want with me?” She asked, not really expecting him to answer.
The man actually grinned at her, and he was as handsome as ever. Probably made it all the easier for him to do bad things to people, she thought.
He was coming closer, one slow, deliberate step at a time. “It’s quite simple, lass. Ye’re the last piece of the puzzle; the key to it all. And I canna believe how verra easy it was to take ye. I was certain he would have been guarding ye more carefully by now, keeping ye with him at all costs. I certainly would have, if ye were mine.” He gave a little laugh. “Och, but yearemine now, and I shall guard ye verra closely indeed.”
Keeping me with him at all costs? He must mean Uncle Leon. And he had tried to keep her safe, but she had felt like a prisoner at Lochain. She had disregarded whatever danger he had warned her about and run away from the turn her life had taken. Then she had run back again. Just look where that had gotten her.
Murdo came to the side of the cot, reaching down to place his hand flat on her lower stomach. She froze for an instant, uncertain what he was about to do. She felt a tingling heat where he touched her, and she had just begun to struggle when he took the hand away and stepped back with a satisfied smile. “Yer womb is still empty. Good. I feared Mac Coinnach might have gotten his seed into ye, because I didna want to kill ye. Now all I have to do is putmybabe in yer belly first, and the prophecy will be null. An easy task, aye lass? And a most pleasant one at that.”
Allia stared at him in horror for a long moment.What? Then her brain slowly started working again. Rape she might have expected, even death, but… Put a babe in her first? Before… Uncle Leon? Ew… no, he must have been talking about Eian Mac Coinnach then…but wait, what prophecy?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, she told him with a tilt of her chin that was far more defiant than she felt.
“That doesna matter, lass. Ye’ll ken soon enough.” He turned back to the door. “I have to go out now for a bit, but ye will be here waiting for me when I return, and we’ll get down to the business at hand.”
He left with a self-satisfied smile, and she heard the heavy bolt slide home on the other side of the door. Trapped. She slumped back against the cold stone wall. Prophecy? Could she be part of a prophecy that involved a child? And Eian too? Who the hellwasMurdo McDermont? All she knew was that she needed to get the hell out of here before Murdo came back, and that Uncle Leon and perhaps Eian too owed her one damned good explanation.
She went to the window to try the bars again. Then she tried to loosen the hinges of the door. No luck. With nothing else to do, she began checking the walls for loose stones.
***
“Where is she? Where are they holding her?” Eian’s heart sank, even as his fist tightened around the man’s throat as he held him suspended inches above the ground. The stone fortress not far in the distance was a known Dark stronghold. Or at least it had been? He was still confused as to where andwhenexactly he was. He was starting to think he had travelled through space, but not through time, which would mean Allia had come back on her own. A small part dared hope she had come back forhim. She was close, and he was going to find her, and for now that was all that mattered.
The guard that was dangling from Eian’s fist managed to draw a knife from his belt, despite the lack of air to his lungs, and Eian was forced to pull his own dagger and slit the man’s throat. Dropping the dead guard to the ground with disgust, he went to find a hiding place for the remainder of the daylight hours. When nightfall came, come hell or high water, he was going to get his woman back. And then all he had to do was convince her that she wanted him above all others, which could very well be the most difficult part of all this. That was all right, because he wasn’t giving up.
The waiting was horrible, the worst hours he had ever endured, by far. The instinct to protect his mate had come on full force the moment he realized she was in danger, and it was taking all of his willpower not to charge into that fortress and kill anyone who tried to stop him from reaching her. But if he failed, if he died, her fate would be sealed. And so he forced himself to wait.
He could not imagine why she had been taken by a follower of dark magic, except that perhaps Leon had made the wrong kind of enemies somewhere along the line. He hoped she was only being held for ransom, because any alternatives were too horrible to think of. No matter, he was going to get her back, and then she would belong to him alone. He would keep her safe for the rest of his life. He would wed her, and they would have children together, just like in his dream. The thought just felt so… right. He regretted now that he had fought so hard against what his body and his heart had been telling him.Fool…
Finally,finally, the sun sank below the horizon, giving him enough cover to cloak his form in a deeper darkness and slip unseen into the fortress. Letting his instincts lead him, he found his lass in no time. He leaned down and peered into a cellar window. He couldn’t see her, but he knew she must be in the room below.
“Allia?” he called softly, holding his breath in terror until an answer came.
“Eian!” came the exuberant reply. He heard the shifting of fabric as she stood and ran to the window. “Oh thank god it’s you.”
He grinned at her through the bars, wishing for all the world that he could sweep her up in his arms. Her beautiful face was limned in moonlight, and she had smudges of dirt on her cheeks. “Those are words I thought I’d never hear from ye, lass. Are ye hurt?”
