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“I missed ye,” Caelan murmured, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the top of her head.
“Ye saw me at breakfast,” Mabel reminded him softly, her hands smoothing over the muscles of his chest.
“Aye,” Caelan agreed, his voice dropping into a dark, intimate gravel. “And it was hours ago. Far too long.”
Mabel pulled back slightly, her blue eyes shining with a mixture of profound love and fierce, unyielding amusement. “Three days, Caelan. Ye only have to survive Duncan for three more days.”
Caelan looked down at the beautiful, stubborn woman who had dismantled his defenses. He felt the phantom weight of his past slipping further and further away.
“Three days,” Caelan agreed softly, leaning down to capture her lips once more. “I can survive anything for ye.”
26
The freezing edge of a steel dirk pressed hard against Mabel’s windpipe.
She jolted awake, a scream rising in her throat, but a leather-clad hand clamped brutally over her mouth before she could make a single sound. The sheer force of the grip pinned her head back against the linen pillow. The sharp edge of the blade bit just deeply enough into her skin to draw a thin bead of warm blood.
“Make a single sound,” a harsh, raspy voice hissed directly into her ear, the breath reeking of stale ale and chewing tobacco, “and I will slit yer throat before anyone even hears ye choke. Do ye understand me?”
Mabel stared up into the pitch-black darkness of her bedchamber, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs. She could barely see the man leaning over her, only the dark outline of a woolen hood obscuring his face. She swallowed hard, feeling the deadly pressure of the iron blade against her neck, and gave a sharp, frantic nod.
“Good lass,” the intruder grunted. “Now, ye are going to get out of the bed. Slowly. Move.”
He removed his hand from her mouth but kept the dirk pressed securely against her throat. He hauled her upward by the thin fabric of her sleeping shift. Mabel stumbled out of the bed, her bare feet hitting the freezing stone floor. The biting chill of the drafty chamber cut straight through her thin linen garment, but the paralyzing fear kept her silent.
She needed to think. She needed to buy time. Caelan was asleep in the opposite wing of the fortress, and Duncan had stationed two armed guards at the end of her corridor. If she could just reach the door and pull it open, the guards would hear the commotion.
She shifted her weight slightly toward the main door of her chamber, but the intruder seized her upper arm, his thick fingers digging painfully into her flesh.
“Nae that way, ye stupid bitch,” he snarled quietly.
He wrenched her sharply to the left, dragging her away from the door and toward the far wall of the chamber. He reached out with his free hand, pressing his palm flat against the intricate wooden paneling behind the heavy tapestries. There was a soft, muffled click, and a narrow section of the wall swung silently inward, revealing a pitch-black, hidden passage.
Mabel’s breath caught in her throat.
“Move.” The intruder shoved her hard into the darkness.
The air inside the hidden corridor was thick with dust and ancient cobwebs. Mabel stumbled blindly forward, the jagged, unpolished stones of the floor tearing at her bare feet. The intruder stayed right behind her, his heavy breathing echoing in the tight, claustrophobic space, the sharp point of his dirk constantly pressing against the middle of her spine to force her forward.
Mabel’s mind raced as they descended a steep, winding set of narrow stone stairs. This was not a random raider. This was not a desperate thief looking for silver.
This man knew exactly where he was going.
He was navigating the hidden servant passages of Blackthorn Keep in complete darkness. He knew about the hidden door in her chamber, a door Mabel herself had never even noticed. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, the man suddenly grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to stop. He pressed her hard against the damp stone wall, holding his hand over her mouth once more.
Less than two feet away, straight through the thin wooden paneling, Mabel heard the heavy, rhythmic clanking of chainmail and the deep voices of two MacCarron guards patrolling the main corridor.
“Cold night for a watch,” one of the guards muttered.
“Aye,” the other replied. “Duncan has us doing double rounds until the wedding. Keep moving.”
The footsteps slowly faded down the hall. The intruder waited three full seconds before shoving Mabel forward again.
A sickening, horrifying realization washed over her, chilling her blood far more than the freezing air of the passage. The intruder was avoiding every single patrol. He knew the guard rotations. He knew which corridors were heavily guarded and which were left empty during the night shift.
Someone inside Blackthorn Keep had betrayed them. Someone who knew the fortress’s defenses intimately had sold them out.
The intruder forced her down another set of crumbling stairs, the air growing damp and smelling heavily of moss and old earth. They had reached the foundation of the fortress. He pushed an iron lever hidden behind a pile of old timber, and a rusted iron grate swung open, revealing the dark, unforgiving wilderness beyond the castle walls.
