“Nay!” Alan cried and leaped forward, bringing up his blade in a wild sweep.
He’d never killed a man, never imagined doing so. But Annista’s gaze still clung to him and he knew he would do as he must for her sake.
“Ssst!” Evan hissed at him. The knife came up and the blade pressed to Annista’s throat. “Back off, I say, or she dies. Believe me, brother, I will no’ hesitate to spill her blood.”
“Wha’ d’ye want?”
“All that belongs to me.” Evan glared at the man in the bed. “I want to hear fro’ his lips, before he dies, I’m still heir to Kallan.”
Was that all? “O’ course ye are.”
Evan gave a snort. “Are ye certain? Ye always wanted to snatch it all awa’ from me, didn’t ye? Somehow ye loved the place.” Evan sneered the wordlovedas if it were an expletive. “Looking and hoping I’d step wrong. When they ga’ this bitch—” he tightened his grasp upon Annista and she gasped again—“to ye instead o’ me, I saw my danger. But no one—no one takes wha’ is mine!”
“Verra well so, it is yours. All o’ it. Put down the knife and we will talk about it.”
“Talk!”
“Send for father’s lawyer, if ye will. Put it all down in writing. Anything—” Anything to get Annista away from him.
“Aye, ’tis yer way, is it no’? Talk and whining. But I will ha’ the old man’s promise—fro’ his lips, mind.”
Alan did not know if his father would speak ever again.
He said, “Wha’ if I gi’ ye my promise instead? That I will ne’er tak’ Kallan fro’ ye while yet ye live.”
Annista’s gaze, still fastened to his, fair glowed at that. She had learned what this place meant to him. Could she believe that she meant far more?
If he could only get her away from Evan, he could stop with talking, with placating, with hiding, and take his brother on, man to man.
“Am I to believe ye?” Evan scoffed. Not waiting for an answer, he glanced at the bed. “Is he dead? Mother,” he flung at the woman still on the floor, “get up and tell me.”
Mother scrambled to her feet and flung herself onto the bed. The posture was agonized and protective. But when she touched her husband’s face she began to weep.
Evan took it for an answer. His stark face twisted in what looked not like grief so much as fury.
Ah, and was Father dead? Alan wondered. Had he passed even as his two sons stood arguing above him?
No time for grief.
“Ye will ha’ to deal wi’ me now,” he told Evan. “Put aside the weapon and let the woman go. We will talk it out and ye will ha’ my promise.”
****
Annista struggled to breathe. She must fight back the fear that ran rampant—difficult though it be—with the help of the rage that filled her. Rage and hate.
She hated the feel of Evan’s hands upon her body, hated being so close to him. He fair stank, and she could feel his emotions as if they ran through his body to her own—the blistering anger, the madness.
Just as she could feel what filled Alan—could see it in his eyes. Agony. Fear on her behalf.Love.Love and courage. He would expose his own throat to his brother, sacrifice himself if he thought it would assure her safety.
She thought the chances were fifty-fifty that it would. One could not reason with a madman.
Again, she gasped for air. Blood welled on her stomach where the tip of the knife had pricked her, and she could feel the sharpness of the blade now pressed to her throat. If she breathed too deeply, if she moved at all, it would pierce her skin.
She did not want Alan to witness that—not if he loved her. And aye, she believed that he did.
So she spoke. In a squeaky voice she did, that did not sound like her own.
“Ye be a coward, Evan MacKallan.”
