Page 75 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

She’d been a fool. Mayhap the protection that her brother had smothered her with for so long was for good reason. She’d thought she could manage on her own, but what did she truly know about the world?

“Nay say a word,” a deep whisper murmured beside her ear. She didn’t recognize it, couldn’t think to place it with her mind running rampant! “I should thank ye for going to Inverness today. I’ve a message for ye, Lady Brighde. Make sure ye take heed.”

What was he talking about?

Oh God! He wasn’t going to force himself on her, was he? She panicked. Squirmed, kicking his knees behind her, bruising her heels as her fingers tangled in the armband upon his wrist, and her hand ripped futilely at his.

“Speak no’ a word to Laird MacLeod about me, or I will ken that ye did. One MacDonald woman has already been sacrificed. Ye need nay be another. Abandon this pursuit with Laird MacLeod and nay return to Inverness, lest he make the same mistake as his brother.” What had Owen’s mistake been? “The Great Peace will be dead soon enough.”

The Great Peace? This man knew! “Why should it be?” she managed to murmur as she finally pried a finger away to free her lips…when she remembered.

Tormund’s blade.

At her waist.

“Who are ye?”

One hand still tangled with his, fighting for freedom, she found the hilt with her other. Gripping the comforting leather around the bejeweled hilt, she whipped it free.

“Are ye the one who nabbed my sister?”

He snarled, “Aye, Owen left me no choice. And Tormund does the same. A shame ye’ll ride into a trap on the morrow, or should I say he—”

She sliced the blade backward.

The man wheezed as she did it again. Warm liquid coated her fingers. He shoved her forward as if to disorient her and bolted, leaving the scent of whiskey to linger in her nose and the memory of his forearm pressed to her cheek. She stumbled and braced a branch to stop her downward momentum as he receded, her hands scraping the bark and tearing her skin, whirling around to see only unassuming gray trews and tunic vanish behind a tree.

Trembling like a winter leaf on the wind, she couldn’t think. Couldn’t cry. Then propelled herself to run hard toward the sound of fire, brambles slicing at her ankles and cutting her skin, hands clenched in fists, aching and sore, when her fingers felt tangled in something.

The band!

Her eyes dipped to the bloody knife in one hand, and the man’s wristband tangled in the other, having ripped loose in her clutches when he’d yanked away. The tanned leather was ridged and grooved, words pressed into it.

She wet her lips and slipped the sullied blade into her girdle, staining her beautiful lavender damask. Nothing like this had ever happened. James had shielded her from the darkness in the world. James had wanted her escorted everywhere, and she’d defied him. What Tormund had said resonated like kirk bells at a coronation. Any woman of mine would wear a target upon her back. Did this mean someone considered her his woman? Had the mistake Owen made been marrying a MacDonald?

Her mind an eddy, her hands shaking, she read the words upon the leather:

Hold Fast.

Her hand crept up over her mouth. “Tormund’s clan motto,” she whispered. “Mon dieu.” Tormund had a wolf among his flock!

Someone close to him. Someone he would keep council with. Someone ranking who knew of Marjorie and her fated babe. Someone who would lose their autonomy if Tormund’s bloodline secured the Earldom of Stornoway. Her visit to the monastery and all that she’d learned washed over her. Whoever was guilty of her sister’s and Owen’s deaths…was here. And mayhap always had been, living out his own life from his shadow of secrets.

She clenched the piece of leather hard, never once stopping her determined jaunt, even as her fingers grew sticky with the man’s blood. The pungent odor intensified, as did the roar of the fire and the ringing of the bells, when she burst from the trees into the swarming MacLeod campsite, a horror meeting her eyes.

“…going to set the woods on fire!”

“…more water…”

An inferno raged so angrily she could feel the sizzling heat bake her skin from where she stood.

…

Tormund threw water upon the hay cart. He tossed the bucket aside and grabbed the next one from down the line. Splashed it again. Again. Again. Fiery fragments floated onto the air, hissing. His men had managed to save several bundles that hadn’t yet caught flame, but it wasn’t enough. He took the next bucket thrust into his hand, sloshed it. Watched with a tight jaw as every remaining grain went up in smoke and the maddening bell tower tolled and tolled like a damned smithy pounding in his mind.

The heat burned. His skin, smoke-blackened, stung.

Bodies swarmed as the row of men from every clan continued to hoist buckets from the river and pass them toward the fire.