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“She’s just a lass,” Rogene said with a fake Scottish accent. Faking—so badly!—the voice of a man.
They all glanced at her, looking under her hood.
“And who are ye?” said another one.
“Who’re all of ye?” said a third.
“Ah, lass, who asked ye to interfere?” cried Raghnall, drawing his dagger and throwing back his hood. “I said I was going to talk.”
“Tullach Ard!” the Mackenzie men cried and drew their weapons, and Raghnall started the battle by launching himself at the nearest warrior. One stab and the warrior fell dead.
Around Rogene, a fight started. It was mostly a fistfight, as there was little space. Small blades of knives and daggers flashed in the dim light of the torches. The room filled with pained grunts, thuds, and cracks. Someone launched at Rogene. Bared white teeth flashed before her. Panicked, she stepped back, but Raghnall grabbed the man by the collar of his leine croich and pressed the edge of a dagger into his throat.
“Where is Angus Mackenzie?” he growled.
“Go to hell,” the man replied.
Raghnall grabbed him by the throat, his fingers digging into the man’s neck, and raised him up. “Where. Is. He?”
The man grunted in pain as he struggled to breathe.
Raghnall let him stand on the ground and pressed the edge of the knife into his beard.
“Ye think I am jesting?”
A shiver ran through Rogene as she saw yet another version of Raghnall. The Raghnall who was death. “I will slit yer throat if ye dinna say where the Mackenzie prisoner is.”
The man’s mouth twitched.
Raghnall pressed the blade into his neck, and a thin trickle of blood crawled down the man’s throat. “Now.” Raghnall pressed harder.
The man’s eyes widened in horror, in surprise, and he closed his eyes in panic.
“Third story, Lord. Second door to the right.”
Raghnall glanced back at Rogene. “Hear that? Go!”
Rogene stood frozen a moment, not quite believing they really had gotten the information out of the man. On wobbly feet, she turned and took the only flight of stairs leading up.
As she looked over her shoulder, she saw Raghnall open the man’s throat in a fountain of gore. Rogene suppressed a shocked scream. Who was Raghnall? A rogue or a noble knight?
She went up and up. The floors were empty. From each landing, two corridors ran, one to the left and one to the right, with doors on either side. Torches illuminated the way, and the higher she climbed, the dryer the air was.
Finally, on the third floor, she stopped, breathing heavily, her heart drumming.
To the right. Second door. She walked to the right wing of the landing, stepping softly against the wooden floors. The sounds of a battle came distantly from down below.
There it was, the second door. Nothing distinguished it from the rest. She laid her hand on the massive door, pressed the heavy wood, and entered.
Chapter 27
Angus couldn’t believe his eyes. Was he dreaming or was she really standing there, in the door to his prison?
Her eyes were as large as pound coins.
Yes, his wrists hurt and were bruised from being cuffed for days, and he was still naked—though Euphemia had graciously covered his lower body with the blanket after she fed him his dinner yesterday. He pushed himself up to sitting. Goddamn it, he hated being seen by her like this… Helpless… Naked…
His face was burning from embarrassment and humiliation, anger thundering hotly in his blood.
