Cut. Aye, he’d give the bastard some of his own medicine before he ended his miserable life. The dirk lay where MacGregor had dropped it. Jamie scooped it up and cut MacGregor’s clothes away, baring the front of his body, intending to make good on his earlier threat to unman him. In his fury and haste, he left shallow gashes in MacGregor’s skin, from neck to crotch.
“Jamie, nay!” Caitrin’s horrified plea barely penetrated the rage that ruled him.
She rolled to her side and reached out to him, but his outrage blinded him to everything but the man before him and he didn’t heed her. He knelt with knife point poised to castrate MacGregor, but what he saw there stopped him.
Scars. Old scars. Some long and deep, others around them short, shallow flicks, in tracks from his sack down his thighs. This was what Alasdair had meant? His father had done this—to his child? Horror supplanted Jamie’s rage long enough for him to drop the dirk. Caitrin crawled to him, screamed and clapped a hand over her mouth when she saw the damage her attacker had suffered so long ago. “Oh my God.”
“God had naught to do with this,” Jamie answered her. “Or with what this made him become.” He rolled MacGregor over to shield his body, and then he stood and helped Caitrin up. “He deserves to die for what he did to those women in St. Andrews, and to ye. And to Ewan. But no’ for my sister. The bastards who did that are long dead. I’ll no’ unman him. His father did enough of that years ago.”
He went to the door and shouted for Kyle to bring some men, then Jamie turned back and wrapped Caitrin in his arms. “Are ye well enough to ride? The healer must see to ye.”
“I am. What about him?”
“We’ll throw a plaid over him so he doesna frighten small children, and let Toran exact Lathan’s justice on him for his crimes. I’ll no’ take him as far as St. Andrews, and dare no’ return him to MacGregor, where he has allies aplenty.”
“Perhaps no’. Has it occurred to ye he may have treated his own people the same way he treated me? Or worse, the way he was treated?”
“Nay. Else he would be dead of a knife in the back long before now.”
Kyle approached the door with another Lathan and one of the MacGregor prisoners.
“What happened?”
“He’s no’ dead. Find a plaid to cover him and get him out of here.”
A feral growl was the only warning Jamie got as MacGregor sprang at Caitrin with the dirk Jamie had carelessly left near at hand. Jamie shoved Caitrin out the door at Kyle and pulled his own dirk. MacGregor managed to slash his arm as momentum carried him past Jamie, but Jamie grabbed the tatters of his clothing before he could carry his charge to attack Caitrin, hauled him back around and buried his dirk in his chest.
MacGregor went down without another sound.
Jamie glanced from him to see to Caitrin’s safety. She held her knife before her and the expression on her face told him she’d been prepared to use it. Good lass. She’d had the presence of mind to scoop up the blade MacGregor had knocked out of her hand, though the reach of Kyle’s dirk outmatched hers by a foot. One way or the other, MacGregor had sealed his fate. But Jamie saw it done.
****
Caitrin didn’t know whether to be pleased or relieved as MacGregor’s body collapsed into a heap on the floor, Jamie’s dirk in his chest. Twice more, he had attacked her and Jamie had saved her.
She’d never seen Jamie like this. Out of control with anguish and fury. He had a beast in him she’d never suspected, one he’d kept hidden from everyone around him. Her childhood friend, the man she thought she loved, was terrifyingly out of control.
Should she fear him? She backed up a pace, her gaze going from MacGregor’s body to Jamie’s tense form, looming over the man he’d just killed, breathing hard, every exhale nearly a growl, every muscle locked tight, blood dripping from the cut Alasdair had inflicted on his arm. She heard Kyle and the others standing behind her shuffle and mutter, but she paid them no heed.
Caitrin now understood why she’d been sent home so suddenly, all those years ago. The manner of Jamie’s sister’s death had compelled the Lathan to send her away for her own safety.
Jamie’s chest heaved and he doubled over.
Caitrin feared he was going to be sick, but quickly realized he was sobbing and fighting it. Surely not because he’d been forced to kill the monster at his feet. Because of what he’d learned about his sister’s death? Ewan’s? Or because of what had been done to the young Alasdair that made him into a monster?
“Jamie…” She kept her voice soft and low, hoping to reach him through his anguish, but he didn’t move except to shudder. “It’s over,” she told him and moved toward him.
“Stay back.” His voice cracked, a ragged cry torn from somewhere deep inside him. “Kyle, take the prisoner back with the others. Caitrin, go with him.”
“Nay.” Caitrin froze where she stood, still out of reach, as Kyle and the other men moved away. “I want to help ye.”
“Ye canna.” He shook his head, or maybe his shuddering strengthened, making it more visible, more pronounced.
“I can if ye will let me.” She took another step toward him, but his hand shot out, blocking her.
“Dinna come near me. I…I still want to…kill something.”
“It’s no’ yer fault.” Caitrin backed up a pace, taking Jamie’s warning seriously, but she refused to leave him in this state.
