Behind the Plaid (18 page)

“Aye,” he whispered against my ear, nipping the lobe. “Oh, aye.”

Logan ground his hips against mine, and of their own volition, my hips ground back.

“See? Ye do want me. Your body does.” He skimmed his lips over my jaw, stopping by my lips. “Your mind does, too.”

I shook my head, feeling the wall scrape my scalp.

“I’ve never wanted a woman, like I want ye,” he murmured. “There may have been others in this gown, in the other ones, too, but none of them compare to ye. None of them do to me what ye do. None of them have possessed me so wholly.”

I was speechless. I affected him that much?
Wholly?

P
ower curled in my belly and spiraled outward. He was just as moved by our connection. Bound to me in some strange, out of this world way.

His mouth slid over mine, sealing in any response I might have had. I resisted touching him, kissing him back, but only for a few moments. I was consumed by him. I let myself melt against him, just as I’d fought not to do.

Chapter Thirteen

Logan

R
aking my hands through my hair, I backed away from Emma, even though her bemused expression made me want to whip her lavender skirts up around her hips and devour her on the stone floor.

How could she say n
ay to me?

Why was I so disturbed by it?

“I shall see ye this evening.” I stormed down the corridor without looking back.

The way she moved me was too much. Never before had a woman consumed me as much as Emma. Never had a woman made me want to bend down on
one knee and offer her the world. And it all made no sense. I barely knew her. But the pull was there. A bond that seemed to hold us together.

Ballocks!
I didna need the distraction. Not now.

I blew out a breath and made my way down
three flights to the dungeons. Questioning the prisoners would be a good distraction. The dungeon was dark, dank and smelled of piss and blood. Only a few torches were lit in the sconces. Moans echoed off the stones. My men nodded to me.

“Bring me the ship captains,” I ordered and entered one of our interrogation cells.

The floor was dirt-packed, the stone walls damp. There was no window in this place as it was carved from the earth. Two torches lit the room and a battered chair and bucket sat in the corner. The room was cold, and puffs of my breath showed before my lips.

A few moments later the men returned with four shackled prisoners.
Two of the ships had belonged to the Sutherlands who’d trailed the MacDonalds on their way to Gealach. Their captains had met with Ewan on the beach and after a short discussion, had been sent back up the North Sea with a bag of gold for their laird.

My warriors shoved the shackled captains to their knees. Each sported various MacDonald plaids, and all
of them glowered at me like I was the devil. One even had the ballocks to spit on the ground near my feet. I walked a line in front of them, ignoring the insult.

“Who sent ye?” I asked, knowing the answer already.

None of them spoke.

“Why are ye here?”

Again, not a word. I stopped at the second man, stared down at him. There was fear in his eyes but also obstinance.

“Ye’ve the look of the MacDonald,” I said, a cruel smile splitting my lips.

The man’s throat bobbed, he blinked, but said nothing. I had a fair idea that the prisoner before me was a direct relation of my enemy. They shared the same shape of eye, and hawkish nose.

“Think ye that he’ll send a ransom should I demand one?”

The man’s eyes widened ever so slightly.

I nodded to the guard holding him in place, and he tightened his grip on the man’s arms, bringing them up enough to cause discomfort.

“Mayhap I should remove the arms that steered ye here.” Taking the dirk from its sheath at my hip, I scraped it over his shoulder, slicing the fabric of his dirty shirt, but not his skin. “This is
my
castle. No one will take it from me.”

The prisoner on the far end snickered. “Not for long.”

I laughed at that. “Strong words from a man at my mercy. Ye shall be the first to die.”

“I fear not death, only the wrath of my laird,” he said proudly, even though he trembled.

“Then I shall be sure to send him after ye in hell,” I answered. Nodding to the guard holding the mouthy one, he yanked him upward to standing.

“Any last words?” I asked, holding the dirk at his neck.
The vein in the man’s thick neck throbbed, ready for me to slice into it.

“Not to ye, ye bastard.”

“Wait!” the MacDonald relation shouted.

I didn
a pull the dirk from the man’s neck but I did turn my head enough to eye the prisoner on his knees who looked up at me with pleading eyes.

“I’ll talk to ye, if ye let these men go.”

I shook my head. “Not going to happen.”

“At least put them back in their cells.”

Again, I shook my head. “I dinna negotiate with prisoners. As Laird of Gealach, guardian of the loch in his majesty’s name, I have the authority to kill all ye and your men without questioning ye first. Dinna think ’tis courtesy I give ye. I want information.”

I could see the struggle on the man’s face. His lips thinned, eyes looking from the other three captains, to the floor and then back to me.

“If I give ye the information ye want, what will ye do with us? How do I know ye willna kill us anyway?”

I shrugged, liking the power I held over them. “Ye dinna know.” My ploy was two-fold. A man who has nothing to lose, has no reason to speak. A man who fears for his life may be forced to lie to live.
A man who knows not, speaks the truth.

“Tell me your name,” I demanded.

The man swallowed, his eyes glued to the dirt-packed floor for several moments, then raised his gaze to mine. A fierceness in it proved he was indeed of some importance.

“I am Allan.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Allan o’ the Wisp?” The bastard was known for setting fires to cottages in every village he raided and for violently plundering women. I was more than glad to have him in my custody.

At the mention of his name, Allan’s lips twitched, but he didn
a confirm it. “Allan of the Orkney Isles. Cousin to the MacDonald.”

My suspicions in his connection to my gravest enemy were true.

“Tell me what I want to know.”

“I dinna presume to guess what ye must know.”

I backhanded him for that. The crack of skin against bone echoed eerily in the room. Allan’s head snapped to the side with the force of my blow. Just because he was a notorious villain did not mean I would tolerate his inflated sense of self-worth. Allan wiped a trickle of blood from his lip onto his shoulder and glared up at me.

“My cousin would not be pleased to see how ye treat me.”

I laughed heartily at that. “Then why did he not come here himself? Why send ye? Dinna be a fool, Allan of the Orkney Isles. MacDonald is well aware that I would have captured ye.”

Allan smiled then, cruelly. “Are ye so sure
that was not his plan?”

MacDonald was a tricky bastard, there was no telling
what his plan was or if Allan simply wanted to put fear in me. “Ye tempt with your words, Allan, but who is the one in shackles?”

I nodded down a
t him and the guard holding him tightened his grip, causing Allan to yelp in pain.

I hoped my men were already melting the iron shackles I’d found on the ships.
With the sword forged from the pool of metal, I vowed to slice through MacDonald’s heart.

“Tell me your purpose. I’ll not ask again.” I pressed the tip of the dirk harder into the bare flesh of his shoulder, nicking it.

“I came to capture your people.”

“And?”

“No other purpose. Our galleons were to carry your clan back to the Isles for the MacDonald’s pleasure.”

“And me?”

“Ye were to be left here.”

I raised a questioning brow, digging just a little harder with my knife. Allan yelped.

“I wasna to do anything to ye. The MacDonald says he already has that taken care of.”

“How?”

Allan shook his head, pain etched around his eyes. He appeared to be telling the truth. “I know not, only that he said we were nay to harm ye, that he’d already made sure of your death.”

“Why does your master want Gealach?”

“Gealach is Scotland. The MacDonald will rule. Our bastard king has no place—”

I stopped him short with my fist slamming into his chin. No man would talk about my sovereign that way.

“Lock them back up. Dinna open their cells without my permission—I dinna care if they are killing each other.”

Allan’s words pointed toward Emma. I’d wondered at her purpose for coming here, so timely,
so convenient. She was sent by the MacDonald to seduce me, to murder me. There was no other reasonable explanation. Had she somehow poisoned me? Was there a way for a woman to put poison on her lips or her sex so that I lapped it up like a lust driven lad and then fell into her embrace? When would she strike out at me?

The facts
must be laid before me, but I couldna see them. Something wasna right. Emma was no killer—or else she was very good. And her cunny had been as sweet as a ripened fruit, no poison on either set of her lips.

Exiting
the cell, I was more uneasy than when I’d entered. I went straight to my library and penned a letter to the king, to the Sutherland laird and several other allies informing them of the MacDonald’s intent and his latest attack. I kept the fact that there was an assassin in my midst to myself. I’d have to be extra careful.

Leaning back in my chair, I pulled a flask of whisky from my desk, popped the cork and took a deep draw. Ever since the day of my father’s death… the visit from the king… my life had been irrevocably changed. Violence had taken on a new level. Buried twenty feet below the castle was a treasure even I
was not privy to the contents of. Buried in my heart were the secrets of my true blood line and a deep-seated pain at having been rejected.

I
had honor. More than any man I knew. I wouldna bow to the danger, let it pass me by and take all I knew, plunging me in to the dark. I had a duty. A duty to my country. A duty to my king. A duty to my dead parents. A duty to my blood.

Honor. Duty. The two words I repeat
ed to myself a hundred times a day. That was why I must remain strong. An indomitable force.

I took another long sip, swirling it on my tongue, and leaned my head back agai
nst the wooden headrest. My hearth was empty—I preferred it that way. A chill always helped me to think, to focus.

If anyone were to find out the truth, to steal the treasure, the entire realm would explode in unrest.
The dark secrets I guarded over were world changing. Questioning the prisoners only made it more apparent that the Lairds of the Isles, MacDonald in particular, were out to tear my hold from Gealach. The king was unaware how deep the unrest was within Scotland.

But thoughts of Emma kept crowding my mind.
The obvious facts about her appearance, made even more plain by Allan, and then the way I actually felt. In my heart I didna want her to be an assassin, didna believe it could be true. Foolish, aye. Disturbed by political intrigue from dawn to dusk, I found myself looking forward to being in her presence, when I could lose myself in teaching her all there was to know about passion and pleasure.

With her
, this world of treachery disappeared and I could be myself. Lose the façade of a man I created in the face of all that had been laid before me. With Emma, I could be the man I was destined to be.

But then I must also
wonder why wasna I good enough to be the man I was born to be? Why was I thrust aside? Why was I not ever brought back into the fold?

I want
ed harmony, peace. A desire almost laughable if it weren’t a need so intense within me. Emma seemed to bring that to me—despite my fears of her coming here. I was tormented by my dark past, by the secrets I harbored. Only she could set me free.