Page 60 of Leila’s Legacy

She didn’t need to ask what he meant by his taunting. She already knew.

“With the morning comes yer death.” His voice was low and icy and more terrifying than Leila wanted to admit.

“Niall?” Leila whispered. Warmth tingled along the back of her neck and hummed through her veins.

Alban smirked. “My da has something special for him.”

The icy water splashed over her feet, her ankles, so frigid it burned her skin.

Leila fisted her hand. Not now.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” Leila asked through gritted teeth.

Water washed over her shins to her knees, churning at her thighs. The shock of its chill sucked the breath from her lungs as a shadow fell over her. The Lion.

“’Tis no’ my place.” Alban’s voice was distant, a shadow in the corner of her fear. “Ye saved Davina. It’s why I’ve no’ touched ye. But my gratitude willna go as far as to rescue ye.”

Hands shoved at her shoulders, holding her down. That face she loved was no longer soft, but hard and determined as water filled her nose, her mouth, her lungs.

Shrieking hinges tore her from the vision and men filled her small cell.

“’Tis time,” Alban said.

Rough hands grasped her by the arms as she was broken from the grip of her vision and yanked to standing. She was pushed hard in the lower back, forced forward, her steps awkward with a stiff gait from knees that ached in protest at the abrupt change in position.

Leila was not given a fine gown for her walk this time. Nay, she wore the same red trews and shirt she’d been arrested in as she was led up the stairs, through the castle and into the dazzling daylight. The wind was merciless with no cloak to stop its wrath as it whipped at the thin linen of her shirt.

The guards led her to the gate as she shivered with cold and fear and anticipation.

And though she knew he would kill her, that she would die this day by his hand, everything in her yearned to see him. The Lion.

Niall.

She longed for him with need that wrenched at her heart with every thundering beat. A knot of emotion tightened in her throat until she could scarcely swallow. She wanted his hazel eyes fixed on her, loving and tender. She wanted his wonderful cedar and leather scent filling her senses. She wanted his beauty and strength, to see how the sunlight played upon his golden whiskers and how his wavy hair rustled in a subtle wind.

It would be her last time to see him.

Her only time to see him.

The clansmen led her through the streets, though this time they were absent the angry villagers. Her feet slipped in the sucking mud. Icy wetness seeped through her leather shoes and left the soles of her feet numb and clumsy.

The guards made her walk through a small bit of forest on the outskirts of the village, where the naked winter branches and brittle brambles caught and cut as she pressed her way through. It opened up into a clearing dusted with white snow and a racing river with chunks of ice bobbing about on frothing waves.

The water roiled against itself as it swept down to the right with rapid currents, as beautiful as it was chaotic. This was a view someone looked over to welcome a new day, not end a life.

Her breath quickened, evident in the frantic puffs of white billowing in front of her mouth and nose as panic threatened to consume her. Seeing her own fear warmed her eyes with tears, but she forced them away. She had spent a lifetime terrified of this moment.

Now that it had arrived, she would be brave.

The villagers had gathered on the shore’s edge in a clustered group. This time, they had the decency to at least appear somber. None seemed to have brought with them their abundant food stores to toss her way. She would take her small mercies where she could.

But the villagers did not hold her attention long.

A dais was raised beyond the people. Lord Armstrong stood proudly at its head with Alban and Lady Davina at his side. Niall’s man, Brodie, was visible, as was a girl with dark hair. A guard held her in place with a hand on either shoulder.

“Leila Barrington,” Lord Armstrong’s voice carried through the crisp early afternoon air. “Witch. Whore. Bastard.”

Leila jerked at the last word, for it struck her more deeply than the first two. She was indeed a bastard, a child who did not deserve the love she’d received. Her chest ached with a pain she wanted to curl around. She would not see Father again to tell him she loved him. Nor her sisters, or anyone.