Page 74 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

“Torm.” Brighde ran to him, gripping his thigh and a rein, her face pale with alarm.

“Stay here and away from the fire, Brighde!” he barked at her. “Niall! Men!” He dragged the reins around to rally his men—

“Laird.” His guard gripped his forearm. “When I smelled smoke, I didna ken at first where it was coming from and inspected the campsite. I found this.” He pulled a shred of red wool from his sporran, then turned a murderous glare upon the sea of MacDonald clansmen. “’Twas stuck to the ladder at the back of the hay cart where the wood was splintered…”

MacDonald red. Tormund’s fist clenched around the clue. His skin felt numb and his heart…ached. “James,” he growled.

James’s brow pleated tightly. Brighde’s ghostly face dropped. “Brother. What have ye d…”

He nudged Nykr hard, bolting into the woods and away from the enemy camp. The only one who’d ever burned his crops, the only one who had ever played such nefarious games with him, had been a warrior bedecked in a red tartan, a devil. Convenient that the fire had started right after the bastard had found out about his nephew. Whether Brighde had meant to or not, she’d released the Devil’s hellhounds when she’d told James about Goraidh, and once more it was his people who would suffer for it.

Nykr blazed over the underbrush. Toward his people’s livelihood. He barely registered the sound of Niall and Reaper thundering behind him.

Fok these notions of peace.

James would never understand. Owen had been right, and he’d been a goddamned eejit to think solidarity could ever be sown between them.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Stay here?” Brighde fretted as the bell tolled alarm from Kilravock, as Aileana tried to coax her to a chair to sit. Her brother and his entire retinue had run toward the fire. It was only her and Aileana and the illness brewing within her for company. “And do what whilst this horrible deed transpires, content myself with needlepoint?”

She extricated herself from her sister-in-law’s grip, paced, and eyed the thickening smoke chugging a pungent odor into the air, as she wrung her finger mercilessly in her necklaces. The faint roaring and crackling was increasing. Running, distant shouting, the clattering of royal guards echoed as all available men dashed to help fight the flame. Pandemonium. All of Tormund’s hard-fought efforts were for naught!

Pray it hadn’t been her brother’s men. She gritted her teeth. She’d known James had silently commanded them to grab their blades while she unleashed about her excursion to Inverness, but had he, in sooth, sent someone to punish Tormund in the worst way? Her heart twinged to think it, and the knot in her belly wouldn’t relent.

“Sister, there is naught we can do—”

“Of course there is. Ye must stay here and keep yer babe safe. But I am going to help.”

She snatched up the cook’s bucket for food scraps and dumped them out for water.

“Brighde, no!” Aileana cried, but Brighde hoisted up her skirts and dashed into the trees, to the shortcut she’d seen Tormund take toward the chaos.

This type of fighting couldn’t continue. This couldn’t happen to him. Alone in the woods, she ran. The entire faire was consumed with the fire, and the trees muted the noise, enshrouding her in a deceiving peacefulness, when a twig snapped.

Likely an animal fleeing the fire…except there were definite footfalls growing louder, louder, crashing through underbrush. Was something following her? She dared not look behind her! She increased her pace, felt her boot catch on a bramble and tear through the soft lambskin, gouging her foot.

“Ah!” she cried out, limping off step and catching her balance upon a trunk, heard breathing huffing, in and out, in and out.

Her own? Someone else’s? Then silence.

Panting, she froze, her foot throbbing. Was someone in these trees? Or was her imagination running as wild as she had just been doing?

Her skin prickled. She’d been so wrapped up in her panic, she’d failed to remain vigilant.

Carefully, she continued down what seemed to be a deer path, quietly this time and listening, quickening her pace in increments. Rolled out her shoulders when she heard nothing more, for obviously it had been her imagination—

A rustling sound. She froze again. “Tormund?”

Eejit, she chastised herself. He might be the only one to seek her in the secrecy of the woods, but he was far too preoccupied to give her any thought right now. Yet something felt dreadfully wrong. And then she remembered the lurkers, never found. No one knew she was out here. Anything could happen, and nobody would know. Tormund’s warning so long ago echoed: The world’s nay a bonny place, lass. Innocents are swept up in others’ wrongdoing all the time.

Her blood began to pound as the silence grew stronger, as once more her imagination sprang free to gallop. Once more she ran until her skirts tangled in the brambles, snagging on spiny twigs. She attempted to extricate herself from the tangles—

A hand gripped her arm. “Torm—”

Another clamped over her mouth as her bucket clattered and warm breath dropped to her ear from behind. Whiskey assaulted her nose, not sea breeze and sagebrush. She tossed in the foreign grip, flailing to no avail, knocking against a firm chest and yanking upon a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t breathe! Couldn’t speak!

His forearm was bare in the light blinking through the leaves. No tattoos of sea serpents and waves, but bands of leather encircled his wrist and arm. Nausea roiled. She clawed at the hand, her attempt to scream muffled.