“Elise,” he whispered to the waves. “I’m coming.”
*
Jamie knew longbefore the ship reached Dun Mallach’s harbor that something was very wrong. It wasn’t obvious on the surface. There were no enemy ships in the bay, no smoke rising from the village or the keep, no sign of disturbance.
But Jamie knew it in the creeping sense of dread that roiled in his stomach and raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
As the ship pulled into the quay, he paced up and down near the rail, hardly able to restrain himself from diving into the water and swimming for shore. It seemed to take an age before the ship docked and the boarding plank lowered.
His feet thudded onto it before it was even properly in place and he pelted onto the quayside, grabbed a horse from the group of stable hands who were waiting for them, and had vaulted into the saddle before anyone else had even disembarked.
“Jamie!” Cailean shouted behind him. “Wait! Ye canna just go haring off! We dinna know what’s waiting for us!”
Jamie didn’t care what was waiting. There could be a horde of king’s men for all he cared. He would cut his way through them and through anyone else who got in the way of reaching her.
“Yah!” He kicked the horse into an urgent gallop, shocked stable hands scattering out of his way as he shot up the road towards the keep.
He heard hoofbeats thundering behind him and knew that Cailean and his men were hurrying to catch up but he didn’t spare a glance for them. He couldn’t. All his attention was taken by the way his heart was racing with fear and with keeping his gaze fixed on his destination.
Still there was no sign of any attack and he began to wonder—to hope—that he might have misread the situation after all, when the gates of Dun Mallach opened and Arran, Jenna, and Rose came hurrying out to meet him.
Elise was not with them.
His heart seemed to freeze in his chest. He peered beyond them to the gate, hoping to see her emerge, but she didn’t.
Jamie thundered up to the group, pulled the horse up so sharply that mud showered over the track, and leapt to the ground almost before the beast had come to a halt.
“What happened?” he demanded. “Where is she?”
All three of them looked pale and shaken but it was Arran MacLeod who stepped forward.
“It’s my fault, Jamie. Ye charged me with seeing to Dun Mallach’s defense and I failed. If I had—”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” Rose snapped, cutting him off. “You couldn’t have stopped her if you tried. Nobody can stop her when she gets something into her head!”
“Stopped who? Stopped what?” He strode forward urgently, taking hold of Rose’s forearms. “What happened? Where is Elise?” He found himself yelling without meaning to, his voice rising into a panic-filled bellow.
Rose’s eyes filled with tears. Jenna turned to Arran and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder. Dimly, Jamie was aware of Cailean and his men arriving, but he had eyes only for Elise’s sister.
“They came right after you left,” Rose said, her voice shaky. “They’d landed a boat at the base of the cliffs so they couldn’t be seen until they were on us. Cat gave us some warning but even so…” She broke off, unable to go on.
Cailean strode up to his wife. More gently than Jamie could have managed he asked, “Who were they? What did they want?”
Rose glanced at her husband then back at Jamie. “King’s men. They wanted Elise. They set a trap for her, and she fell right into it.” A sob escaped her. “They took her! We tried to stop them but there were too many. They took her back to Islay.”
For one, two, three heartbeats, Jamie stood frozen. He didn’t seem to be able to take in what Rose was saying. Elise was gone? She’d been taken from him? No. That couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t.
In the next instant, he was moving. He was barely aware that he’d begun striding back towards the harbor, barely heard the cries of alarm and warning from those gathered behindhim. Urgency boiled in his blood, an instinct that overrode all conscious thought.
Elise was gone. He had to get her back. Nothing else mattered. Nothing.
Someone caught his arm, yanked him around, and Jamie lashed out without thinking. Cailean ducked the punch swinging for his head.
“Jamie, stop!”
But he couldn’t stop. Rational thought vanished, replaced by anguish and fury. Roaring, he swung at Cailean again, all his fear and anger putting vicious strength into the blow. Cailean blocked it with his arm and then hammered his fist into Jamie’s chin hard enough to snap his head to the side.
“Get a hold of yerself, man! This willnae help Elise!”
