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She scooted back and the pain threatened, ready to explode, like a flame divining a whiff of kerosene. She stilled, the stabbing in her chest lending truth to her charade. “I don't have the gun, if that's why I'm here. I locked it up before you took me. ”

They stared at her dumbly and she chattered on. “Get it?  The gun's locked up. I don't have it. I know you want to ride some more, but can I please just lie down and rest for a while?”

The need for sleep had grown critical. The binding around her chest  had dulled her pain, and Haley felt the hysteria draining from her, leaving limp, exhausted shock in its wake. She realized her hands were freezing, and she held them before her, watching dumbly as they trembled.

The man muttered some curse under his breath. Black

spots swam across her vision, dispersed just as quickly,  then came again, slowing and growing into a cool darkness  that swallowed her back and down.

Haley heard him issue some order to his sister, followed at once by the snap of branches. Felt his hands on her shoulders, then the rough ground at her back. There was the weight of fabric over her. Then blackness.

* * *

“Royalist or Covenanter, brother?”

“Hm?”
 
MacColla watched the strange woman as she slept.  It would be time to rouse her soon. He was desperate to be  on his way, but he kept getting waylaid by the needs of  these two women. He should be ravaging Campbell's lands  in Argyll, not making camp.

He needed to push south, getting Jean to safe harbor with his family in Kintyre as soon as possible. But he'd realized

in frustration that the women would require a day of true  shelter, with rest and hot food, if they were to keep up his

pace.

Lately, allies bled from Campbell's control as if from a ruptured vein, and MacColla knew of a place in Argyll where they might find sympathetic refuge on the way.

“Fincharn Castle,” his sister replied testily. The return of  his gaze over and again to the sleeping stranger seemed to  make Jean peevish, her waning patience putting questions  on her tongue for which she'd normally have no concern. “I  ask of the residents of Fincharn. Do we find a friend there,  or a castle full of Covenanters residing in Campbell's  pocket?”

MacColla spared a smile for his sister. He had to admit, she was dogged in her efforts to  split his attentions from the stranger. “We find both,” he said. “It was once a  MacMartin stronghold, but Clan Scrymgeour holds the castle now. And though the father was a Covenanter, his son John is the one awaiting us now. He supports the king, as we do.”

“And when is it we return to our own home, on Colon -say?”

Her chin trembled now.

“I know not.” He looked at his sister in long silence, then  said somberly, “Don't fret, girl. The Campbell may have  robbed our lands, but I will take from him more than th at.  I'll exact the heart and the spirit of all Campbells, if the  cost is my own cold body.”

Jean shrank, looking horrified, and MacColla laughed. “My apologies, sister.” He leaned over to chuck her chin. “All you need concern yourself with is visions of j oining our family in Kintyre. That's home enough for now, aye?”

He took a stick from the dirt and stoked the fire. “For the

nonce, we find Royalist allies at Fincharn. And bowls full of

good, hot stew, God willing.”

He inhaled deeply, as if getting a lungful of air might quell his gnawing hunger. He needed to fill his belly with cooked meat for a change.

MacColla let his attention drift once more to the lass. He

registered the faint
 
tsking
 
of his sister as she gave up  attempts at conversation, choosing instead to stab testily at  the sputtering flames.

Despite her deep sleep, the woman lay stiffly, her arms wrapped about her torso as if she could cradle the pain in her hands.

No woman had ever stood up to him as she had. Few men either, and even fewer who lived to tell about it. But rather than make him angry, her verve had excited him, kindled some long-snuffed spark back to life.

He realized he didn't even know her full name. He'd

somehow neglected asking about her father's name, her

clan, her origins.

But watching her sleep, he'd given it much thought. He found it curious that, as they'd fled the castle, Campbell's

men had attacked her ruthlessly. And so it was unlikely  she was a family member. Or, if she was, she'd somehow  crossed the clan in some way.

And yet Jean claimed to have been the only prisoner held at the castle.

The woman was a puzzle. Who could she be, and more importantly, on whose side?

Her questions about James Graham alarmed him. Only a very few knew of the ruse that had spared Jame s from the gallows. Painstaking subterfuge and smoke screens on the part of only his closest friends kept his survival a secret.  That a stranger had struck at the truth was deeply troubling.

Could she be a spy for Campbell? If so, why would his men try to kill her? Was the attack on her merely a charade, some sort of trap to trick MacColla into taking her into his care?

That she was strong and determined he had no doubt. He studied her, asleep but far from peaceful. Furrows were etched on her otherwise smooth complexion, around her mouth, at her brow, her pain written on her skin. But the experience contained on her face couldn't rob her of her beauty. It perhaps even contributed to it.

Her features weren't delicate. Taken separately, they were sturdy, like her body. A square face, wide nose, full lips.  Proud, unapologetic features that asserted themselves.

But, put together, those features underwent some mysterious alchemy, transformed by her luminous skin and black hair and unsettling gray eyes into som e exquisitely feminine creature.

The corners of MacColla's eves creased as he considered

her.

Fierce. Robust. Yet unmistakably lovely.

In the way a lioness is all the more magnificent for her size and the power she wields.

He'd do well to fear this woman. As any wise man would

such a creature.

Chapter Seven

Campbell eyed the man at his left. Major Nicholas Purdon had spent time fighting on the side of the Parliamentarians and Protestants in Ireland. Average height, average build, and flat hair the color of dishwater rendered him

nondescript among men, and an unimaginative nature

made him a tractable one too.

Two of the traits Campbell valued most.

He nodded at Purdon to swing the bucket, and cold water doused the blood and stupor from his clansman' s face.  Shuffling tight past each other, they traded places.

Campbell looked down, intent on the sleeves of his ivory shirt, and creased a careful fold along each cuff. Finally ready, he looked back up and stared with disgust. The clansman's head lolled,  and the only thing keeping him upright was the rope that tied him to his seat.

“You'll not die on me yet,” he snarled and slapped the man.  The wet smack made a sharp sound that reverberated off  the cellar walls. “Tell me who took her.”

“I-I told you… ”

Another loud crack of skin on skin.

“Then tell it.” Campbell bit out his words, fighting to keep

his patience. “Again.”

He'd returned to Inveraray only to discover that his prisoner had been rescued by MacColla with the aid of, of all things, a woman. “Tell me how it is you fools let  MacColla in. Let him best you.”

He'd worked so hard to capture MacColla's sister. The most valuable of all prisoners, gone like vapor in the wind. He landed another slap. “Then you let him escape. MacColla and… ” The loose flesh of his jowls turned purple with rage.

“
Two
 
women.”

“
 
Unh
… ” A strangled sound escaped the man's throat, and  he stilled, seeing the terrifying calm steal over Campbell's  features.

“I will ask you just once more,” he said smoothly. “And  then you will s ee what happens when my patience is tried.”  He pulled a dagger from the belt at his waist. Candlelight  caught the superfine blade, flashed up it like lightning.

Campbell smiled to see the man eye it nervously. “You like this? I call it
 
the needle
.” He flicked it down hard through the air, and the thin blade made a sound like a bird chirp.

He drew it to the man's face, and the point kissed just below the clansman's eye, tugging and misshaping the delicate skin there. “Now you'll try once more to recall this other woman before you are the scrap in need of stitching.”

“It was the one.” The whisper came from the darkness

behind him.

His hand slipped and blood trickled down his captive's face like a lone red tear.

“Finola.” Campbell spun to face the witch. He'd forgotten  she was there. She seemed to be always there now,  watching. It chilled him. “What did you say, woman?”

“Forget not to whom you speak.” She stepped from the

shadows, serene, her eyes dead pools.

Campbell glared in response, schooling his features into an impassive mask.

“I am not your clansman,” she warned.

Finola studied the bound man walking a tight circle around him. He was frozen in place, except for his eyes, which rolled and jerked between his chief and the sorceress. She leaned in toward him, shutting her eyes and flaring her nostrils wide. She wore her long hair loose, and a thick hank of it slipped from her shoulder and swept toward him like a great crimson veil.

The man's whimper echoed through the chamber, and she smiled.

“I am  not yours to speak to thusly.” She placed a bony  finger on the man's cheek. “Unlike this one.” She traced  the track of blood with the point of her long, yellowed nail.  “You would all be wise not to forget.”

The witch pursed her lips and gave the man a coy smile. A hollow tap-tapping filled the room. The sound of a thin

trickle of urine dribbling to the ground. The witch shrieked

a laugh and stepped back.

“He tells the truth, and I tell you, Campbell”  - she spun to  face him, her eyes suddenly glittering, alive with evil  - ”she  was the one. This mysterious woman. It was she with the  power to shatter the MacColla. The one I called forth.”

It took him a moment to register her words. Could she be speaking the truth? He bit the inside of his cheek to silence his anger.

“I bade you bring her through time to
 
me
.”

The muscles in his legs trembled with bottled -up rage that he dare not spend on the witch. “Not to my enemy.”

“I did bring her back to you, Campbell.” Her voice was  cavalier now, effortless. “And you were not there. I cannot  pay the price for your incompetence.”

Campbell chuffed, fisting and unfisting his hands in frustration. He wanted that woman, whoever she may be.  And now she was with MacColla. If she had the power to destroy his enemy, did she have the power to destroy Clan  Campbell as well?

He stood once more before the bound clansman.

Unsheathed his “needle.” Campbell scraped it lightly back up the bloody smear on the man's face, and the clansman's feet began to skitter, as if he could push his  chair back and somehow flee his chief.

Purdon instinctively came to his aid and stood behind the chair, bracing it at his thighs, holding the man's shoulders in his hands.

Campbell gave him a nod. The young soldier was eager to please. And better, he appeared to be enjoying the work.  The days ahead would require such men.

He looked back down at his clansman. With one swift twist

of his blade, Campbell sliced the man's eye. “A reminder,”  he growled over the breathy, erratic screams that filled the  chamber, “to take greater care the next time you stand

watch.”

He'd summoned this woman back in time to
 
him
.

It was
 
he
 
who'd paid much. Risked much. Sullied himself with witchcraft. This woman was
 
his
 
property, like a misplaced weapon. And, like a lost item, he would find her and reclaim her.