Highland Dragon (24 page)

The smell had to be coming from the decaying carcass bound to the rock wall by all four limbs.

Akira held the wool of her skirt over her nose and mouth to deaden her senses. The odd heat thickening the air ripened the stench that had been gagging her for nearly an hour now. She questioned how the dungeon of Brycen Castle could be so hot with no sign of a fire.

The eeriness of this evil place filled her with dread, but she remained hopeful her husband would arrive soon. If only he could have caught them before Laird Kinnon’s warriors burned the bridge. She prayed Laird Kinnon would stay occupied while Calin traveled around the mouth of Loch Ceardach. Ten lifetimes wouldn’t be long enough for her to be free of the man’s appalling presence.

Remembering the way he’d lifted her skirts to inspect her birthmark made her shiver. Though grateful the moment of humiliation passed quickly, what disturbed her more was Laird Kinnon’s reaction to her. She expected him to order her burned straightaway, but he looked at her with the light of recognition in his demon’s eyes. The Beast’s expression of delight made her recoil in fear.

Could his curious smile have stemmed from some perverse excitement he received from torturing his captives? Or did he know she was sister and wife to the men who sought his destruction? The chilling questions were too horrifying to pay heed.

She had to escape.

The iron clasp around her ankle chaining her to the stone floor would prove to make that goal unachievable. A single torch lit the bottom two stone steps leading to freedom. The slightest illumination reflected off the damp floor where a woman lay curled into a ball. Soiled bare feet peeked out from what remained of her bloodstained chemise. Her hair had been hacked off close to her scalp with the exception of a few straggled locks hiding her face and neck.

Akira had touched the woman’s back only moments earlier, but the simple show of affection caused her to jump so intensely Akira regretted startling her.

Was it possible the woman weeping beside her had been accused of witchcraft, as well?

Akira shook her head, answering her own question. This woman was no witch. Though her woeful mumbling could’ve just as easily been a plea to the Pagan gods, Akira knew those words. They were not of black magic. They were of prayer. The woman begged forgiveness for her adulterated sins and pleaded with her Maker to take her away from such an evil world. With her hands folded piously beneath her face, her body convulsed and rocked back and forth.

Akira called out to her again. The woman’s only response, a woeful repentance.

The baritone voice of another prisoner hollered from the darkness. “Your God cannae protect ye in here. Now, cease your weepin’, else they’ll cut out your tongue.”

Placing a protective hand over her stomach, Akira feared what might happen to the child Calin didn’t know about and quite possibly never would. Her situation seemed hopeless. There was no way out of this dungeon. With hot tears rolling freely over her face, Akira flattened her palm on the warm floor beside the woman. “Lend me your hand, and we can try to help each other.”

The woman’s hand crept out from underneath her. The tip of her pinkie finger had been cut off at the second knuckle and then burned to seal the wound. Akira’s heart jolted at the sight. Bruises and cuts circled her wrists where she’d been bound and grime filled the tips of chewed-off nails. Akira swallowed hard and accepted the mangled hand drenched with tears.

“Are ye a witch?” Akira asked, part of her hoping the woman possessed the power to free them from this sweltering prison.

The woman’s head shook against the stone floor. “I am my father’s whore.”

“Please, come to me.”

She crawled across the floor, her heavy chain scraping with the action. Her cheek fell against Akira’s plaid, and her fingers twisted around the folds of Akira’s kirtle. “Pray forgive me, m’lady, for the sins I have committed against you.”

Though confused by her words, Akira brushed her thick chunks of hair then raised her chin to comfort her.

Akira recognized Catriona’s gray eyes in the pale glow of torchlight. The single breath Akira inhaled tightened like a shard of glass in her throat. She released Catriona’s chin. Her breathing intensified tenfold. Her sympathetic heart had ached for the woman who cried to her father and cursed him at the same time. A woman who asked God to reunite her with her dead mother. The same woman who set out to ruin her life now clutched at her waist, sobbing and begging for forgiveness. She’d been tortured and probably raped, and part of Akira wanted to believe she deserved it.

With her mind a deluge of whirling emotions, Akira questioned why God would couple them in such a horrific place. Then the answer struck her like a revelation. God. He was testing her, and she would not fail Him.

Akira wouldn’t deny Catriona. Enemy or not, no one deserved such animalistic cruelty. She pushed past her hate and gripped Catriona’s shoulders to embrace her. “If my forgiveness is what ye seek, then ’tis yours, but we must work together to leave this place alive.”

Catriona raised Akira’s hand to the side of her face. “I have nothing to live for. I can only pray for a merciful death.”

“How can ye say such a thing?” Akira forced Catriona to sit beside her and dried her cheeks.

“The elders have agreed to banish me from Clan MacLeod. My fate lies at the hands of your King James. If he chooses to spare my life for crimes against kin and country, he will return me to England, to my father and my king. I am barren and am no worth to any man. ’Tis why King Henry gifted me to Calin. My father knew I would never produce an heir. When Calin didn’t accept me as his wife, I feared my return back to England.”

“Why would ye not want to return to your home?”

Catriona’s face fell into her hands. “My father is greedy and cruel. He will not part with his monies or lands for my dowry because I cannot provide my husband an heir. He saves his wealth for his sons and prostitutes me to his gentry. I’d rather die than return to him. I have never known love or compassion from him or any man.”

Akira couldn’t stop herself from empathizing. Catriona had been sold by her own father and abused in ways more brutal than a man’s fist. “Then mayhap ’tis time ye knew compassion from a woman.”

“But I am the reason you are here. I told Laird Kinnon where to find you.”

“There are many things I struggle to understand about ye, Catriona. But hear me when I tell ye, I would have given up my enemy if someone took a blade to my finger.”

Catriona gave an unladylike snort, revealing the side of her that probably kept her alive. “I am not worthy of your flattery, m’lady. Do not think me so strong. I forfeited your location after they cut off my hair and placed a blade to my breast…then they raped and tortured me anyway.”

“They’ll not hurt ye again. I promise ye,” Akira assured her, not yet knowing how she would keep that vow.

Catriona’s brow stitched together. A hopeful glint almost brought color to her eyes. “Then you
are
a witch. Might you conjure white magic?”

“Nay.” Akira wiped the sweat from her brow and wondered briefly how the air could have possibly gotten hotter, then a shadow moved in the darkness. Glowing feline eyes winked at her from black folds of emptiness. Her heart flittered.

“But ye have the power to convince the laird ye
are
a witch.” A hushed voice spoke to her from the pitch.

Catriona jumped and sidled up beside Akira, trembling.

“Who are ye? Show yourself,” Akira demanded.

A figure garbed in a dark wool rounded the rock wall. Cats circled around deerskin boots. Most of the figure’s face hid behind a hood, but when the person squatted in front of them, Akira realized he was a boy. Mayhap even a man, but no taller than she, and gangly. He absently scratched the gray ears of a purring cat with a hand puckered from fire. When he pushed back his hood, she gaped at his appearance. A long scar drew a pink line from his temple to his chin. Dark, thin hair laid flat against his scalp, yet didn’t hide the fact that he was missing an ear.

He stared at Akira with glowing green eyes and then smiled. A childhood memory burst into her mind.
Darach.
This man had worn the same wicked smile just before he’d pushed the cart of boulders that had crippled Isobel down the hillside.

Catriona whimpered at Akira’s side and gripped her upper arm with unyielding fingers. He reached out and stroked Catriona’s head slowly, the same as he had the cat’s.

“Shh,” he cooed, seemingly seeking her trust. “I am not here to hurt ye.”

One of the tabbies reared up on its back legs to rub its nose against his chin. His face smoothed, and he returned his attention to petting the three cats now mewling between them. Akira tried to summon the hate she felt for him. He’d ruined Isobel’s life, and she truly wanted to despise him, but one only had to look at him to know he’d paid his penance. She couldn’t begin to envy the life he must have lived in this loveless castle. But Darach was the last person she would have expected to help her.

“Why have ye come here?” Akira asked, unafraid of the man he’d become.

“I have come to help ye.”

“To escape?” Catriona perked up.

“Nay. There are warriors at every entrance. The laird has positioned the Lowlanders on the Donald’s borders and the Kinnon warriors guard the western crag.”

“Lowlanders?” Akira questioned, certain she’d misunderstood.

“Aye. Hundreds arrived by vessel a sennight ago. The laird sent out a plea for aid when he learned of your brother’s rebellion.”

“Crivons!” She swallowed hard. “Does Laird Kinnon know I am Kendrick’s sister?”

“Aye. And the MacLeod’s wife.”

Akira turned to Catriona.

“I swear to you, I did not tell the laird you are Calin’s wife. I did not,” she protested, shaking her head. “You have to believe me.”

Akira suddenly felt as if a thousand insects crawled beneath her skin. Scrubbing the sensation from her arms, she feared a fate worse than death. Laird Kinnon would use her to get to both Kendrick and Calin. The same as he had Papa. The same horrific fate The Beast had forced on Mam and Neala. Akira’s mind became paralyzed by the thought of that monster’s hands on her. She cupped her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes.

Several heavy breaths later, she felt Darach’s warm hand on hers. Opening her wet eyes to him, Akira wanted to weep. Wanted to cry out for help.

“I will help ye,” Darach said, as if reading her thoughts.

“Why?”

“Mayhap to right a wrong.”

To right a wrong?
Did he mean Isobel? Could she trust him? Did she really have a choice?

“I wish for freedom from these haunted walls,” Darach supplied. “I wish to ride a stallion beneath the sun and know the pride of my brethren.”

Catriona sat up tall and clasped Akira’s hand, giving her strength. If she intended to survive and give birth to her child, she needed fortitude. And her damnable pride wouldn’t dissuade her from accepting their gift. “Tell me what I must do.”

Darach smiled and nodded. “Ye must prevent Laird Kinnon from realizing ye are of nay value to him. Ye must convince the laird ye are a witch.”

“I cannae! ’Tis blasphemy. I am nay witch. Ye place much trust in abilities I dinnae have nor wish to portray falsely.” Akira had spent her entire life denying the accusations. God would punish her for such a sin.

“’Tis not blasphemy if the pagan words arenae spoken. God would see the right of it. Ye are saving his people. ’Tis a matter of war, of survival. I will be your eyes, and ye will be Laird Kinnon’s.”

“And I can be your voice,” Catriona said in a deep rich timber that sounded much like a man. “I have been able to change my voice since I was a child. I used my skill a time or two to trick my father. I’m verra good at it, lass. Think ye I sound a wee bit like your kinsmen?” The last of her words came out with a thick Scottish burr, and Akira believed they might actually be able to trick the old laird. But they needed time to devise such a plan.

“I can tell ye what to say, and the laird will believe it all because ye will use his fear against him,” Darach said.

“Fear?” Akira asked trying to fathom what she could possibly do to scare a man of his demented mind. “What does he fear?”

“
Her
…ye. I saw it in his eyes when he entered the dungeon.”

“I dinnae understand.”

“Can ye not feel it? The heat?” He reached out and wiped a rivulet from her temple. A tabby’s pink tongue licked the pearl of sweat in one swipe.

“Aye.” She wiped sweaty palms down her kirtle. “I fear God has abandoned me and placed me in the fires of Hell.”

“Nay. ’Tis not Hell in the Highlands.” He chuckled and blinked his green eyes slowly in time with the cat’s. “If God wanted to punish a mon in the Highlands, he would set him down in the middle of a frozen loch. The warmth ye feel is the presence of good, nay evil. Dinnae fear it, for ’tis her. I have seen her, and ye are her likeness. I followed her into the shadows when I was just a boy. She weeps in the nursery for the deaths of her daughters. She, and she alone, reaps a fear in Laird Kinnon he would never admit to. And ye must use that fear to gain an advantage.”

Darach had obviously lost his wit over the years, which was understandable, but he spoke in riddles and Akira’s mind struggled to make sense of his words. “Who is she?”

“Laird Kinnon’s wife.”

How could that be? The laird’s wife died years ago in childbearing. The clan never spoke of her, and Akira knew nothing more about her other than the cause of her death. Akira felt her entire face contort in confusion, then her senses came alive. Her cheeks burned, her pulse beat like a thousand drums in her ears, and a hum traveled through her body in a flash.

Suddenly, one of the cats arched, its fur ruffled. Another hissed a chilling sound of warning. Feline growls escalated until the cats scattered.

Darach stood and stared into the darkness, searching. “He is coming. Be brave, lass. Make demands of him. If he strikes ye, raise your chin to him. He feeds on fear. Dinnae let him see yours. I will find ye.”