Angus caught his laird when Kate took a step toward Brodie and Callum teetered on his feet.
“Look him in the eye, you say?” she asked quietly, her voice seething with emotion. “Do you take that much joy in killing that you want to see your victim’s last breath?”
“If they’re Campbells, aye.”
Kate shook her head with disgust. “I see now why my uncle’s hatred for your clan is so profound. Why he always warned us about the MacGregors. You defy kings and kill earls for little reason other than you enjoy it.”
“Little reason?”
They all turned toward Callum, who was hanging over Angus’s shoulder and looking more lucid than he did a moment ago. His eyes glittered against the firelight when they locked on Kate. His nostrils flared with anger. He did not blink. He seemed not to breathe. “Did I hear ye right?”
The forest went deathly still; even the crickets seemed to hush awaiting Kate’s reply. She looked at the other men around her. Each wore the same expression of cold, hard contempt. Her heart leapt with fear. She did not doubt in that moment that should she say the wrong thing, they might just kill her after all. “I didn’t mean . . . I know it must be difficult to lose the right to bear your name, but surely you understand that—”
“Nae, ye dinna know anything aboot losin’ yer name,” Callum cut her off. He pushed himself off Angus and closed the distance between them in two strides. “Ye know nothin’ aboot us save half-truths that took place over half a century ago. Ye have no’ lost yer land, or yer—”
“I lost my family.”
His jaw tightened around something more he wanted to say. The fury in his eyes faded, leaving him with a resigned look as his gaze dropped to the pulse at her throat. Kate had the urge the lift her hand to shield her flesh from him. For he looked as if he could stop the beating of her heart if he but thought about it.
“Then ye have good reason to hate us, Katherine Campbell.” He began to turn away. “Try no’ to ferget it.”
“You make the task easy, MacGregor,” she hurled at his back. “If I had my sword I would show you.”
“Ye’re a Campbell.” Callum tossed her a dry smirk over his shoulder. “I wouldna expect anything less from ye. Angus,” he snapped. “Come here.”
The largest of Callum’s men took a step forward just as his laird’s knees buckled under him.
“Ye fokin’ poisoned him,” Brodie accused the burly warrior while Angus dragged his unconscious laird back to the tree.
“’Tis the whiskey,” Angus defended. “Auld Gillis said ’twas stronger than any man. I’m guessin’ he was right.”
Kate watched Callum slump to the ground and begin to snore. Even in his dead stupor he appeared to be brooding. By the saints, his conviction to hate her was even stronger than her uncle’s was to hate the MacGregors. She wanted to hate him, too. She did hate him! But when he let out a low moan, she found herself moving in his direction. She almost reached him when Brodie stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
“Ye’ll be away from him now.” His voice was low, warning her not to argue.
“But I—”
“Sleep over there.” He pointed, then cupped her elbow to move her along.
“Let her be, Brodie. She’s not going to stab him in his sleep, are ye, lass?”
Kate looked up into Graham’s warm gaze and shook her head. He smiled, revealing a dimple as devastating as Callum’s sword.
“Callum could use a woman’s gentle touch during the night,” she heard him tell Brodie as he led the grumbling Highlander to the fire.
Kate turned back to their laird. She had no intention of touching him. She simply wanted to make sure his wound had been closed properly. Savages, she thought, cringing again at the memory of his sizzling flesh. Sitting beside him, she carefully lifted the edge of his plaid off his thigh, then nearly retched. The skin was black and blistered, but the wound was sealed. Her gaze drifted over the rest of him. Heavens, he was big, his legs well muscled and long. She blinked away, covering his thigh, and looked at his hands instead. She remembered how skilled they were at wielding his great claymore against the McColls and, she realized now, her uncle’s men. She’d been so busy praying for her own life, she hadn’t even looked up to see who he was killing. They were born enemies, but she could not forget the strength in his arm or the murderous glint in his eyes when he stopped a McColl blade from cutting her down the middle. He had the look of a savage, garbed in his plaid and leather wrist cuffs instead of clean breeches and polished boots like her uncle wore. But he hadn’t tried to ravish her. In fact, his touch was so gentle when he held her in his saddle, the very thought of it drew a sigh from her lips. She closed her eyes and settled against the tree beside him, thanking God that it was Callum MacGregor who found her, and not the monster who had murdered her father.
Chapter Seven
DUNCAN CAMPBELL SLOWED his mount as he approached Kildun Castle. Something was amiss. Silence clung to the land like scum on a pond. Beneath clouds of rolling charcoal, the high battlements stood empty. He looked around and wiped the sheen of sweat from his brow. He was alone. He’d cursed his men the entire way back to Inverary for falling so easily to McColl blades. He hadn’t been there to see how it had happened. Why should he have risked losing his life to raiders? But now, with a growing sense of panic knotting his innards, it dawned on him who his men must have fought. He had feared the MacGregors would go to Glen Orchy to take revenge on his niece for what he’d done to one of their women a fortnight ago. He wanted to get Kate away before they found her, believing she would be safe in Kildun. The rebel chieftain would never return here. He had been so sure of it.
When he reached the lowered drawbridge, he dismounted and drew his sword. The wind howled through the deserted entryway, sending a chill over his flesh and the acrid scent of blood to his nostrils. Images of another day much like this one flooded his memory. Fearing what he would find when he reached the bailey, and fighting the urge to run the other way, he stepped cautiously past the gatehouse.
Over a hundred of his men scattered the bloodstained ground, flies swarming around their hewn bodies. Dread and fury produced a faint groan from the back of Duncan’s throat. He had seen this kind of destruction six years ago—when the Devil had left Kildun. Duncan had never forgotten that day. It was forged in his memory, branded into his dreams.
Alerted by the screams of his comrades, he and twenty of his men had rushed down the narrow stone stairs that led to the dungeon. When he arrived there he wanted to flee back up the way he had come. He had covered his mouth to keep from retching. Dismembered bodies littered the stony ground, all of them ravaged by a single sword. Duncan’s eyes followed that blade, glinting red in the torchlight, as it descended on Donald Stuart, his father’s first in command, and near cut him in half.
At first, Duncan had feared God had finally sought vengeance against his father’s sins and had set Satan loose upon Kildun. Blood dripped from the creature’s long, limp hair barring his face. His eyes shone beneath like brimstone against the torchlight, striking terror in the hearts of the men around him. The beast’s shoulders were slightly hunched forward and massive, providing him with unearthly strength.
