Morag hummedto herself as she opened her bedroom door, but the music died on her lips the moment she saw what was waiting for her inside. Her father stood there, tall, dark, and imposing, his expression twisted with a dark fury the likes of which she'd only seen a few times in her life.
Terror washed through her, the child in her screaming and retreating even when she remained calm on the outside. She entered the room and closed the door, glad she had thought to put on her gloves over her bandages, careful not to make any sudden sounds or movements. Her father watched her the whole time.
Once the door was closed, he spoke. One word in a deadly, threatening tone. "Morag."
Her name sounded like a death knell. At once, horrifying flashbacks to her childhood filled her mind, dark memories she'd worked hard to forget or ignore. A bleeding lip. A broken arm. Night after night spent crying, screaming, begging behind a locked door, too young to understand, but already knowing that nobody was coming to comfort her.
Nausea swooped in her stomach and her muscles grew tight. Her lungs suddenly seemed incapable of retaining air, and her blood grew cold beneath her skin. Swallowing a few times, lips dry, she turned to face him.
"Father?"
Caindach's furious silence broke and suddenly he was shouting. He crossed the room in a few raging bounds and brandished something in her face.
"Traitor!" he screamed, spittle flying from his lips. "I kent ye were a useless whore, but now I find ye're aviperas well!"
The pain of her father referring to her with such words bounced off Morag, drowned into inconsequentiality as her eyes focused on what he was waving in front of her eyes. The large paper, the intricate plotting, and the worn edges flashed in front of her, and as she realized what she was looking for, her knees almost gave way.
It was the map she had covered and hastily snuck away the night she caught Christopher snooping in the war room library. She had stashed it under her bed, always intending to return it when she got a chance.
But now her father had found it. He grabbed her arm roughly, yanking her close, his fingers digging painfully into her arm.
"Why do ye have this?" he snarled. "Choose yer next words carefully."
But there were no words to be chosen. It was over.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Traitorous mare!" Caindach howled.
He shoved Morag hard, and she stumbled back, hitting her back hard against the wooden door. Her head bounced off the iron-enforced oak, sending a splitting ache through her skull and a ringing in her ears. He stormed closer and grabbed the front of her dress, yanking her forward.
"All this time ye acted as though ye were servin' me, but the whole time,yehave been the spy. Nae Campbell's blood, but me own!"
He threw her backward again and she slammed against the door once more. Prepared for it this time, she was able to prevent hitting her head again, but the impact still hurt her sore muscles and it took everything she had not to cry out in pain.
"I should slay ye here and now," Caindach told her, his eyes wild.
He reached for her throat, his one hand easily circling her neck, though he did not press down with his fingers yet. Morag's legs gave out, but with his free hand, he yanked her upright.
"Give me a reason nae tae crush yer throat for yer betrayal."
Morag could not speak nor think nor breathe; everything in her was lost to panic and horror. She did not think her father would truly kill her, but that would not stop him from hurting her in every way he knew how, and that possibility seemed worse somehow. She almost wished hewouldact on his threat. Death of the body would be quick, but living under his tyranny would destroy her soul.
His eyes, dark and merciless, bore into hers, and Morag saw no love, no sympathy there. Yes, he was going to hurt her, and very, very badly, unless she found an escape.
There was a way out. She could tell him a version of the truth. She could explain that Christopher had been lying the whole time and that she had taken the map from him; she could expose that 'Murdoch Campbell' trulywas there to destroy everything that Alistair Campbell was planning and she could claim she had only been trying to stop him.
But the thought of Christopher warmed her freezing blood and lessened the pain in the bruises that were blossoming over her skin. She could still feel the gentle touch of his skin as he bandaged her hands, see the bright gleam in his eyes as they sparred, and hear the blissful sound of his laugh. For a brief second, she imagined the scent of woodsmoke that seemed to follow him everywhere he went, and her lips tingled with the memory of his taste.
Not Murdoch.Christopher.
If she turned on him, she knew what Caindach and Campbell would do to Christopher. She knew how they would hurt him, how they would torture him. It wouldn't be as simple as killing him, oh no. He would be made a public example, stripped of everything that made him who he was, physically, mentally, and emotionally broken to show the Kincaids, the Murrays, the McKenzies, and anyone else who dared stand against Campbell that there would be no mercy.
Morag understood then that she couldn't do it, no matter what it meant for her. She could not, would not, betray Christopher. She would never, even if she lost everything as a result.
A strange, warm courage filled her then, like an early spring breeze suddenly appearing in the darkest of winters. She almost heard Christopher's voice in her ear and felt his strong arms around her waist, and she used that as courage to say the things that she'd been biting back for so long that she had almost denied their truth even to herself.
"It isnae a betrayal tae stand against a monster. It isnae a crime tae work against a cruel, greedy eejit who thinks himself a king among men when he's worth less than the dirt on the shoes of those he oppresses," Morag declared.
