“Wait!” Callie shouted down to the Englishmen below.
She saw Henry kick his horse forward. “What say you?”
“Why do you take my husband?”
Henry arched a regal brow. “He has proclaimed himself to be The Raider from last night and as such he is to be executed for his attempt on our life.”
His words ripped her heart into pieces. Nay, this couldn’t be real. It had to be some horrible nightmare. And yet she knew it wasn’t.
She glared at King Henry. “Sin didn’t do it and well you know it.”
“He says he did.”
“He lies to protect...” her voice faded off as she caught herself before she betrayed her brother.
Henry leaned forward in his saddle, very interested in her words. “Tell us, my lady, whom does he protect?” Then he said the cruelest thing of all. “Caledonia, if you have any love in your heart for your husband, then give us the name we need to save his life.”
She stiffened her spine as she looked to where Sin sat on his horse with his spine rigid, his shoulders proud and determined. She would never betray Dermot, nor did she intend to see Sin suffer for a crime he hadn’t committed. “I want my husband released. Now.”
Henry smirked at her. “Then offer us another to die in his stead.”
She looked to Simon, whose face had gone pale. “What can I do?” she asked frantically.
“Nothing. Henry must have a scapegoat. It’s either your brother or your husband, milady. There’s no way around it.”
With a fetid curse ringing out, Ewan grabbed Dermot and moved to toss him over the wall.
Lochlan and Braden grabbed their brother and pulled the squirming Dermot from his hands, then stood between the two of them.
“Nay!” Ewan roared, reaching for Dermot who was now cowering behind Braden’s back. “I won’t see Sin killed for a stupid lad who has no more sense than a leek pea.”
Lochlan grabbed his brother and hauled him back. “Calm yourself, Ewan. None of us want to see Sin dead.”
Tears fell down Callie’s cheeks as she watched the king withdraw from her castle and give the order for them to leave.
Oh Lord, nay! The protest choked her as she watched them leading her husband away. To die.
All his life, Sin had been sacrificed to save others. He’d lost his innocence, his childhood, his freedom, his very soul, and now he would lose his life.
And for what?
“Oh Sin,” she breathed.
Callie turned around on the parapet and looked to the people who stood along the walls with her. The people gathered in the bailey below. These were her people now that Aster was gone.
She would be leader. There was no one else to take the seat of power over the MacNeely clan.
What is your first act of duty?
It was her father’s voice she heard in her heard. Her father’s philosophy that came back to her with an alarming clarity.
Safe by my strength. ‘Twas the motto of her clan. The motto she and Dermot had been raised with.
For the first time in her life, she truly understood those words.
No one threatened a MacNeely and she would die before she saw her Sin sacrificed in protection of her brother.
Her heart fired by an inner strength and peace she didn’t understand, she pulled back from the wall.
