Dark Side of the Laird (Highland Bound) (19 page)

T
hough daylight was waning, the men of Logan’s clan wasted no time in preparing to travel to Falkland. We were on horseback within the hour, and rode through the night. Not used to riding, my legs and ass ached, burned, and I was sure that the skin between my thighs had been rubbed raw. I nodded off, nearly falling off my horse a dozen times, but somehow found the strength to remain awake.

And every so often I was haunted by Isabella’s words. Were they true? She seemed so confident Logan would confess to me that he’d slept with her… It was enough to shake me, but I kept my nerves in check. She’d probably just said it to rile me up, knowing her words would scratch away incessantly in my mind. A slow kind of torture.
Besides, I trusted Logan implicitly. He’d never do anything to hurt me.

When dawn broke over the horizon, we rested the horses for no more than two hours—and I slept like the dead during that time. Then we rode again, arriving
that night at the edge of the forest, Falkland Palace just ahead.

After seeing Isabella locked into a cell, I’d taken the dagger to the secret stair, lit a torch an
d walked all the way down, fearful of demons and ghosts ready to take my life. Then I’d followed the runes on the doors until I reached the one with the design just like the one on my hip—a half moon.

My hands shook so bad it took me
four times before I was able to push the key into the lock. But it clicked, easily opening and I jumped back, expecting bones or something nefarious to leap out at me, but all I saw was a black, ornately carved box, sitting on top of a velvet covered table, cobwebs and dust covering it.

I sheathed the key, snatched the box and ran like hell up the hundred stairs, so much so that my legs gave out when I reached the top. They still burned
deep in the tissue from all the activity.

The box was now in a satchel tied to my horse, and anytime anyone got near me, I became frantic with panic. No one could have the box.

When we reached the castle, it was in an uproar. Men shouted, ran back and forth. Horses loitered unattended and there was shit everywhere—tipped over barrels, dumped supplies. Like people where just dropping their crap and leaving it there. Utter chaos.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

Logan’s men shrugged. Finally a man in livery approached. “The king is dead, long live the queen.”

“The queen?” I asked, searching my memory for any bit of history I could recall. Oh my God! The baby! Mary, Queen of Scots…

Holy shit, was this for real?

I swallowed hard and glanced toward my guards who all looked suddenly stricken.

“We’ve come for our laird, the Guardian of Scotland.”

The man shook his head, looking dastardly. “Not seen him nigh on a sennight.”

He was lying. But he ran away before we could question him further.

I glanced around. How in the hell would we be able to find
Logan in this utter mess? There was no one to show us the way, either. On the other hand, with the place being in chaos, we’d likely get in and out unseen.

An older woman standing by the stables
caught my attention and when our gazes connected, she nodded her head at me. I stared back at her, was she looking at me? She nodded again and gave a little wave of her hand, but looked about her frantically as though she hoped no one had seen her signal to me.

I climbed off my horse, securing the satchel containing the box onto my back.

“What are ye doing, my lady? Ye must remain on your mount. ’Tis not safe,” Logan’s guard called to me.

I came around the side of
Gregor’s horse and motioned for him to come down.

“This place is in an uproar, no one will notice if I slip away. There is an older woman by the stables motioning to me. I think she might know where Laird Grant is. You all
find out what happened to the men who traveled with him.”

He shook his head vigorously. “Nay, I canna
let ye go alone. ’Tis not safe. I’ll come with ye, and have the men search for our warriors.”

I shook my head.
“Wait for me here.”

He hesitated, then slipped a dagger up my sleeve.
With a final, long stare, he nodded. “Dinna engage with anyone, but in case ye need it.”

I squeezed his hand.
“Thank you. Be ready to depart.”

I don’t know why I was so confident. Maybe it was the visions, or just plain stupidity, but my blood rushed with
adrenaline and excitement. We were in the right place. I knew it deep in my soul, just as I knew I could break Logan free of whatever bound him here.

I rushed to the stables and the woman grabbed hold of my arm, her long bony fingers biting hard through the fabric of my cloak and gown.

“He is dying,” she said.

I nodded, knowing this. Accepting it. And eager to reverse it.

Her eyes locked with mine. “Ye must take him away from here.”

I nodded again. She pushed a scroll into my hands. “Take this.
Afore the king died, I encouraged him to sign it. ’Tis Laird Grant’s title and lands. He is to be a free man, but none of the guards have let him go. Revenge, I think.”

My stomach did a litt
le flip and I shoved the scroll into the satchel. “Take me to him.”

Chapter Twenty

Logan

“
H
ere he is, lass.”

The words barely registered in my mind. Sounded sort of like the old crone.
But the candle in my cell had long since burned out.

There was a scratch, a hiss and spark and then light glowed eerie.

Was I having another vision?

“Logan!” Emma’s voice sounded so real, loud. At any moment I expected fog to fill the room and her to walk through it.
But instead, the candle light came closer.

Should I answer her, so she could find her way to me?
Tell her to come closer? To let me see her face?

I opened my mouth, but my ton
gue was swollen once more, likely split and cracked from dehydration and the latest beating. All of my skin appeared to be in tact so at least I’d been spared the brutal warden’s twenty-two cuts.

Even still, speaking was too painful.

I groaned, my eyes closing. I was having a vision, I was almost certain and keeping my eyes open to disappointment was simply too much.

“Oh, darling, I’m her
e. I won’t leave you. Stay with me,” Emma said.

Soft hands fluttered over me.
A woman’s hands. I kept my eyes closed, waiting for the hallucination to leave me. I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear to see her and tell her we’d never be together again.

I was dying.

Only reprieved from execution when my torturer was called away. But he would return. He’d promised to. And then he’d resume what he’d started, and hopefully, I’d lose consciousness before he really gutted me.

Sawing sounds came from my wrist. Good God, the man had chosen to dismember me first. Not woman’s hands at all, but my mind
’s way of coping with the pain of my new reality. I felt the pressure, waiting for the blade to begin its cut into my flesh.

But the waiting was too much.

I did open my eyes then, turning to the side to witness what he was doing. To meet his eyes with defiance as he attempted to unman me. I wasn’t going down like that.

But it wasn’t the man!
Emma
, I shouted in my mind what I couldn’t say aloud as only a grunt passed my lips.

“Shh,” she crooned as she cut away at the leather straps, freeing my hands.

It was working. That could mean only one thing—she was actually
here
. How had she made that happen?

A rush of painful tingles centered in my palms and fingers once the leather snapped open. So tight had the bindings been, it was an amazing r
ush of relief to feel them gone, enough so that I was able to ignore that sudden rush of agony.

I flexed my fingers, wincing in pain at the few that had been broken.

“We’ll get ye out of here and then I can work to bind your wounds, my laird.” The old crone spoke that time. I flicked my gaze to find her sawing at the bindings near my ankles. The women whispered in hushed, panicked, tones.

“I dinna… want it,” I growled at the old woman.

They stilled their motions and she flicked her gaze up at me. “Ye dinna want to be free?” she asked.

Emma, too, looked completely stricken.

“I dinna want to be king,” I somehow managed to say, though it sounded foreign to my ears.

“As ye wish,” the old woman said, then continued
to help Emma with the bindings, and I didn’t resist, trusting that even if the old woman didn’t want to hear my desires, Emma would.

The same familiar and painful tingle rushed up and down the arches of my feet when she finally got them free.

“We must hurry,” the old lady said. “Most of the king’s prisoners will be set free, but not ye, my laird. The executioner has his eye on ye for a treat. Come, lass, we must help him up.”

Gentle hands on either side of my shoulders tried to lift me, but though I’d been beaten and starved for nearly two weeks, I was still a large man.

The women grunted with exertion, and I did, too, intent on sitting up on my own. I tried to balance on my elbows, to use my core muscles to sit up, but nothing seemed to be working right. I was as weak as a bairn. Even a lamb could walk within minutes of being born, and I couldn’t even sit up.

The women
pulled and pushed at me gently, never failing in their insistence that the deed would be done, though I wanted to order them gone. To forget about me. At last, I was sitting.

Emma gasped at the sight of my back. I didn’t even want to know what it looked like. For they’d whipped me severely, and no one had come to tend those wounds, which were likely infected.

“His shirt, lass. Stop gawking or we’ll never get it done.”

The women tossed a shirt over my head and put my arms through it.
They swept the fabric softly over my back, and still I hissed.

Emma gasped. “Logan! I’m so sorry…”

I grunted, tried to smile, but I was afraid it came out more like a grimace.

Not bothering with a plaid, they pulled my legs over the side of the
table and stuffed my feet into braies, hose, and boots.

“Ye must gather your st
rength, my laird. Ye must stand,” the older woman said.

“Wait, hold onto my shoulders.” Emma took my arm and flung it across her back and shoulders and helped as I worked hard to hoist myself onto my feet.

Perhaps with a bit too much effort as I lurched forward, my body threatening to crush both women beneath me—my cock swaying in the breeze and my arse up in the air.

“Steady now,” the older woman said, sounding as though she spoke to a mule or some other wild animal.

I didn’t want to put all my weight on Emma. Didn’t want to seem so helpless. But I was. And I did.

I leaned on her heavily as the old bat stuffed my twig and berries into the braies and tied the garment closed.
Embarrassment had long since left me. They slipped a hooded cloak over me and then the old lady took the lead, ushering us forward.

“With all the chaos, ’twill nay be too difficult for ye to escape
unseen by Garbhan, my laird.”

“Garbhan?” Emma asked.

“His torturer. The man has it set in his mind to…keep Logan for some time.”

I shuddered, having a good idea of what Garbhan had in mind. None of which would be pleasant whatsoever. “What c
haos?” I asked, my mind still buzzing. It took every ounce of strength I had not to collapse. Every muscle screamed out in agony. My skin felt flayed.

Even though they’d rescued me, I’d still be lucky to make it out alive.

“The king is dead,” Emma whispered. “Long live the queen.”

My mind froze and I couldn’t take another step forward.

James was dead?

The torment
er of my life no longer existed in this world? And I’d not been the one to run him through. Disappointment was an understatement. I was devastated.

I collapsed to my knees,
my hand sliding down Emma’s arm. Drained of energy and now of my soul, I’d never be able to face him. Never be able to seek vengeance on the man who’d tortured me for so long. The man who wanted me dead. Garbhan be damned, James was my true enemy.

Why the hell did he have to go and die?
I
deserved to kill him. It was my right to put him in his grave.
I
deserved to take back my life. My shoulders slumped, hands down on the ground. There would be no closure for me in this. How could I move on after being treated like an animal when I couldn’t face the man who put me there?

Emma dropped beside me, her soothing hands on my face and she turned me to look at her.
Her fiery hair framed her face in wild disarray. Porcelain skin was pale, lips a perfect red bow. Her green eyes flashed knowing as she pressed her palm to my cheek. I turned my lips into her hand, kissing the tender flesh there, and breathing in her lemon scent. She understood how I felt. She didn’t pity me for it, she just offered herself as comfort.

My eyes burned with long held in tears, and even now I refused to let them leak.
To do so would be showing how weak I felt, and I refused to let that be seen. Not even when I was broken.

I leaned toward her, pressed my face to her breast and breathed in her sense, the familiar sense of calm I felt whenever she was near coming over me. I wrapped my arms around her middle to hold her tight, every possibility I would never let go.

“What’s this?” I asked, feeling the hard box within the satchel at her back.

She looked at me, her eyes wide, and she didn’t speak.

Instantly, I knew what it was. “We must burn it.”

Her throat bobbed and she gave a single nod of agreement.

With the evidence of who I was burned, there would be only one other thing I required. “I…need…to…” My throat was so tight, I could barely make the sound come out. “See him.” I managed.

Emma shook her head. “You can’t, Logan. There’s no time. We have to get you out of here before they kill you.”

I gazed at Emma, her brow crinkled with fear and worry, and I hated that I was the reason for her distress, but in this I would not back down. “Let them. I will see… his body.”

Speaking made my throat ache, and I licked my cracked lips.

Emma chewed her lip, making me regret the growl of cruel words. She glanced up at the old woman who handed me a flask.

I took a long draught of whisk
y, feeling it burn a painful, then numbing path all the way to my stomach.

“Ye canna, lad. There are guards surrounding the place. They’ll capture ye before ye get close.”

“Let them,” I said on a breath, then took another long pull from the flask.

I wasn’t going to back down.

The old crone growled and I thought for a moment to feel a wallop on the back of my head like my nurse had done when I was a child.

“What is your name?” I asked her.

“Hilde.”

I grunted and took another sip of whisky.

“Will ye be satisfied with a hole in the wall?” she asked.

I nodded, knowing anything more than that would mean my death and possibly Emma’s and the old woman who was determined to help me.

The two women whispered as I crawled to the wall and worked to stand, using the stones to balance me. Emma rushed over and put my arm around her shoulder again. Then they scurried me along, stopping anytime they heard a noise. The corridors in the king’s dungeon were short and windy, and we quickly came to a damp stairwell lit with a single torch and covered in rats.

“The warden sees fit to keep the critters around for the benefit of the residents,”
Hilde said with a short, bitter laugh.

Having worried they’d climb the table to nibble my toes, and fairly certain one or two had, I was not amused. Emma stifled a sound I knew was close to a scream as she meandered the steps with me adding to her weight. When we reached the top,
Hilde held her hand up, stilling us both.

“All right, now ye go,”
Hilde said and scurried round the corner to the left.

Emma and I
followed her into a darker corridor, only the light from the top of the dungeon stairs guiding our way. Moments later we were pitched into dark, as she grabbed hold of my hand and led us through a door and up a narrow, equally dark, stairwell. Servant’s stairs most likely.

“Step lightly, now. We’ll come to the top and then I’ll take ye to a place to look in.”

At the top of the stairs, she opened a door and our eyes quickly adjusted to the new light of a well-lit corridor. A dark green, woven carpet lined the corridor, silencing our footfalls.

V
oices called to and fro, and Hilde stopped moving, issuing us a, “Shh…”

I took the reprieve to catch my breath. My heart pounded, blood rushed and breath was labored. So many stairs and so little strength to surmount them. I felt weak, cowardly.
This wasn’t me. I loathed my brother all the more for bringing me so low.