He didn’t trust himself to look back as he wheeled Glendragon around and thundered from the glen, concentrating instead on the rhythmic beat of his stallion’s hooves. This first battle for the amulet might be lost, but Gavin MacDonell was his. For years he’d imagined the pleasure he’d get from running a claymore through the man’s heart; now that the moment of reckoning was here, the thought filled him with nothing but a grim sense of purpose. He was counting on the act to ease some of the pain that ate away at his heart…pain from his own brother Colin’s betrayal, pain from the memory of Mairi’s lifeless body—pain from his constant feelings of helplessness and rage.
Revenge would surely bring balm to the bitterness in his soul. When every last guilty MacDonell had been made to pay, he would find freedom from the tortuous memories. He had to.
It was the only means of salvation left open to him.
Aileana watched Duncan storm from the glen, and she shuddered. Her limited knowledge of the man told her that Gavin’s confrontation with him was going to be much worse than what she’d just endured. Still, she felt a wild flash of joy in knowing that her brother lived. And he might remain unharmed, if she could just reason with the MacRae. With a yank she tied the ends of her plaid, voicing no protest when Kinnon helped her astride a horse. The sooner she got to Gavin, the better.
Soon the rounded turrets of Dulhmeny’s outer walls loomed over the hillside. The keep rose square, straight and tall from the center, jutting proudly in the afternoon sky. Without pause Kinnon motioned for his men to follow, and in single file they rode through the castle’s massive, curved gatehouse and into the yard beyond.
Aileana maintained her silence until they reached the great hall. It looked as it always had, the crimson wall hangings impressive under vaulted ceilings, fresh rushes on the floor, clean and sweet smelling. An ache settled in her heart. How could everything appear the same when their lives had changed forever? Father would never again preside over the annual festivities here. The familiar rhythms of her clan and her community were vanished forever beneath the MacRaes’ brutal carnage.
A movement at the end of the hall caught her gaze. Duncan sat in the banquet seat of honor, his muscular legs jutting from beneath his tunic, his leather-covered feet resting on the table with casual disregard. Her hands tightened to fists. The insolent wretch thought nothing of defiling everything he touched.
“You and your kind might favor the habits of beasts, Duncan MacRae, but my clan does not,” she snapped from across the hall. “Kindly remove yourself and your filthy boots from the head of our table.”
“It is all right, Aileana. I invited him to sit.”
Gasping, Aileana swiveled in the direction of the voice; a shock of relief thrilled to the ends of her toes. Robert! Both of her brothers lived. With a stifled cry she ran to him.
“You’re safe! But where’s Gavin? I worried that you might be on the field like Father…” Tears overwhelmed her, and she cupped his face in her hands. Robert smiled, his eyes tired, his cheeks still smeared with the dirt and blood of battle.
Taking her hands in his own, he gently pressed them to her sides and indicated that she should face the MacRae. She argued against it with her expression, but Robert’s calm won out, and she finally clenched her jaw and turned to the hated intruder.
Duncan remained in the same infuriating position as before, feet up and relaxed, seemingly oblivious to the affront she’d offered him and his people; he even rocked a little in the chair. But when he saw that he had their attention, he eased his legs from the table and stood with slow, arrogant grace.
Though his gaze bored through her, he directed his comment to Kinnon. “When I told you to bring the woman to the castle, I should have mentioned that you’d be wanting to gag her. She has the annoying habit of harping like a shrew, with no wit for when to be silent.”
“You’ve no need to insult my sister, MacRae,” Robert grated.
“If she’d keep a civil tongue in her head there’d be no need to say anything to her at all,” Duncan retorted.
Aileana bit her lip until she was sure it bled, held back by the gentle pressure of her brother’s hand on her arm. A familiar, impotent fire filled her chest. She wanted to wipe the smirk from the MacRae’s face and to put him in his place—preferably in the vat of pig swill out in the yard where he belonged. But she quelled her emotions as she always had, masking them behind a blank expression.
“But insulting your sister isn’t why I’m here, as well you know,” Duncan said, nodding to two of his men near the door, and they exited, only to return shortly with another man between them. Aileana’s stomach dropped at the sight. Gavin looked more dead than alive, half-standing between the two MacRaes. Blood ran down his face to soak his plaid.
“I’ve a score to settle with your brother. I’ll be taking him now, and I’ll return to finish what remains between us when the deed is done.”
“Hold, MacRae, in the name of peace,” Robert said, taking a step forward as if to forestall him. “Take a share of what is in our coffers. Take that portion of land which abuts your own holdings. But leave Gavin with us. He’ll do you no more harm, I promise you.”
“His is a blood debt and cannot be satisfied with such things.”
The cold in his voice tingled through Aileana like ice.
As the MacRae started to exit the hall, she lunged forward. “Hold, please! At least allow us to prepare ourselves for a moment before you take our brother out to be slaughtered.”
Duncan stopped, suspicion clear in his stormy gray eyes.
“It cannot hurt you to wait another few minutes, man,” Robert added, picking up on her lead to stall for more time. “You’ve waited thirteen years already.”
With a scowl, Duncan finally nodded his acquiescence.
Moving with Robert to a place out of everyone’s hearing, Aileana took his hands in her own, almost too overcome with grief to concentrate on anything else. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would he want to harm Gavin so? It’s a cowardly thing to fight a wounded man when the battle is finished!”
“There is much you do not know, Aileana…much we kept from you.” Robert’s expression darkened. “In truth the MacRae has cause for dispute against Gavin. Our brother joined Morgana those many years ago when she attacked his clan. You were but a wee lass, and I was away, getting schooled in Edinburgh when it happened. Can you recall any of it?”
Vague memories flickered in Aileana’s mind. They’d always troubled her enough so that she’d pushed them away when she happened to think of them before. Now she wished she’d been more vigilant.
“I—I recall bits of what happened.”
