“Love? What do you know of love?”
“I know it’s nothing like they say out there. It’s dark and miserable and it hurts and I miss its caresses. We vowed to free your father. Did we not?”
He nodded, trying to resist punching her smiling face. “We did.”
“It was an ancestor of the MacGregors who made the key that holds your father to this day.”
“I know that. Why are you telling me that?”
“Because you seem to have forgotten what the MacGregors are capable of. You underestimate them every time you set forth into the highlands.”
“How could I forget? I watched them bind him and lock him away a thousand years ago, those druids mouthing their obscene verse all the while. I saw them melt the key, leaving him trapped with no way out. I watched with my own eyes as they melted the key down and made six more.”
“Six keys into the hands of the druids.” She was muttering to herself. “Six keys. Six chances to free him.” She looked up, her watery eyes fixing on him,some of the old power flashing outward, sending sparks into the air. The effort drained her and she slumped downward. “You threw away three chances for him to come back.”
“You should be more grateful. I helped the MacCallisters, like you said. I scattered the MacGregor Clan like you desired. Within a generation they’ll be wiped out.”
“They’re like cockroaches. They’ll hide and multiply and they have him on their side. What do we have? An incompetent son who can’t get hold of one small silver key no matter how many chances he’s given.”
He’d heard enough. His fist flew through the air in a blur. She was already gone, vanished back into the shadows. He was alone in the cave. Far below him, he felt more than heard a deep growl. The floor shook once again.
“You will soon be free,” he said, placing a hand on the cave floor. “It was their bloodline that did this to you. It will be with spilled MacGregor blood that you are freed. Either the fleet will catch him or he will bring me the key willingly I have made a deal with him to give him back his father. He knows not that I have no intention of honoring it.”
He laughed and though the only sound was hisown voice, as he left the cave, he could have sworn he heard someone else laughing. The laughter came from deep underground. It was a sound to chill the blood of the bravest man.
It made the barefoot man smile.
10
Natalie went looking for Wallace. He was somewhere on the ship. Injured. But alive.
He had climbed onboard first, disappearing through a door while the captain readied the sails. “Anything I can do?” she asked.
“Can you sail?” the captain replied.
“Nope.”
“Then go make sure he’s not bleeding to death. I’ll get us to the mainland.”
“I’m Natalie by the way.”
“Captain.”
“Captain what?”
“That’s my name. Captain. Confusing, isn’t it?” He turned and began slackening off the sail.
Natalie left him to it, heading to the closed door and pulling it open. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom inside. Wallace was in there with his back to her, trying to reach around his back to the head of the arrow.
She watched him for a moment. He had removed his top and he seemed more muscle than man. There was a splash of dried blood around where the arrow had emerged but already she could tell it wasn’t as serious as it looked.
“Can I help?” she asked.
“I can handle this fine,” he replied.
“You’re sure? Only you look as if you’re flailing about like a beetle on its back.”
He turned his head to scowl at her. “I dinnae need help from a MacCallister.”
