Released (12 page)

Kationa screamed at him again.  “Touch him and you die,” she threatened. 

No one turned to look at her. 

“Kathryn, release me,” Rory ordered, his muscles straining and bulging, but not moving one whit.  He eyed his sword belt lying helplessly against the far wall as though salvation rested with it.

“Did I not tell you that my presence keeps you hidden from them?” The Queen asked. 

“Please!”  Katriona begged.  “Do something.”

Cliodnah shook her head.  “This is none of my concern, I’m here to collect you.”

Kathryn was pouring the wine into the two goblets.

The night sped toward the witching hour and Katriona knew she was running out of time.  “Leave me until eleven.  Give me long enough to scare them away.”

Cliodnah pouted.  “But I’m curious to see what unfolds.”

“
Please!
” Katriona shouted.

The Queen held her hand up as though to silence an unruly child.   

Kathryn pulled a vial out of the long sleeve of her lovely lavender dress.  With a sickly sweet smile, she poured it into the goblet closest her.  “I took a risk prompting father to let me marry you on the mere rumor that you were
An Dioladh.
”  She stirred whatever foul concoction she’d added to the deep red liquid.  “Imagine my delight when your survival of your Banshee confirmed it.”

Rory bared his teeth in a snarl at a taunting Albert, who bravely nicked his skin with the point of a sharp dirk.  “’Tis a small man without honor who would wound an opponent who couldna defend himself.”

Albert returned his sneer, opening up a small cut on the meat of Rory’s shoulder.  “Men with honor are rarely men with power,” he countered.  “And I owe you blood for each time you touched
my
woman.”  His next nick to Rory’s shoulder was only deep enough to draw a welling of blood.  Rory didn’t so much as flinch, but his eyes burned with promises of retribution.

Helpless panic raced through Katriona.  Each wound on Rory’s flesh was relatively small, and still they stung her. 

“I beg of you, my Queen!” she dropped to her knees.  “Intervene and I shall do whatever you ask.”

Cliodnah barely spared her a glance.  “You’ll do whatever I ask, regardless.  And I am enjoying the spectacle.”

“Aye, but… but…” Katriona quickly flipped through her childhood memories, trying desperately to find anything her father had said about the Fae and their mysterious ways.  “Have mercy upon him, I love him.  Dear Gods I love him so much, I can’t bear to see this.”

The Fae Queen’s eyes softened on her.  “I am sorry, but I promised another long ago that I would not interfere in the matters of mortals here in the Highlands.  If I do, I’ll owe him a boon.”

“Interfere?  But what about
us
?  You turned us into Banshees,” Katriona argued.

“Ah, but that was a deal struck by your mother who summoned me.  A different situation than this.”  She motioned to the bed.

Katriona rushed to Rory, reaching for his straining hand but grasping onto nothing, a gut-wrenching, helpless fear overtaking her.  “Then I must merely watch them kill him?” she sobbed. 

Cliodnah shook her head, but did not move.  “Maybe the nether will be kind and take you before then.”

Chapter Ten

“I doona understand.”  Rory fought to stay calm, but frenzy crawled like a wild thing through his veins.  He’d hated and feared being bound more than anything, even as a child.  This was worse, for no mortal bounds held him, but some kind of treacherous magic.  “Why do this to me?”

He gritted his teeth as the blade-happy bastard sliced into his chest.  Luckily, Rory had a high tolerance for pain.  But that tolerance didn’t extend to traitorous Lowlanders, and if he ever managed to free himself, he was taking Albert’s head and displaying it on a pike in the great hall.

And maybe his
sweet
wife’s too.  Perhaps there was more of his father and brother in him than he’d first thought because the idea of choking the breath from her delicate throat was making him hard.

“That’s enough, love,” Kathryn chided, clinking the spoon against the side of the goblet and setting it on the tray.  Turning toward him, she eyed his naked chest with interest.  “You are breathtaking.  It is a shame I didn’t have the time to lie with you as wife just once before I do this.”  She reached out and ran her hand over the grooves of his stomach.

His gut roiled with disgust.  He’d rather get another slice from Albert than a caress from her. 

“Kathryn!” Albert growled. 

“Do shut up, Albert,” Kathryn ordered softly.  The large man complied with a sullen frown. 

“As for your question,” she continued.  “As you’re now aware, I’m a dark and powerful witch, and becoming a powerful witch often creates powerful enemies.”  She stroked the flat of Albert’s dagger with her finger, and then sliced the pad at the tip.  “Among my enemies are quite a few different castes of Faerie and you, my love, possess something that can eternally protect me from them.”  She drew her bleeding finger down his torso, creating a runic symbol. 

Everywhere she touched burned like acid. 

When she pulled back, she stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked at the wound.  The flesh came away healed, as though she’d never cut herself to begin with. 

“Ye were behind all of it,” Rory hissed.  “Weren’t ye?  The curdled milk, the diseased herds, the dead fish, and the sudden plague, that was all yer doing!” 

“Perhaps you should reform your pagan ways.”  Kathryn turned back with an ironic smile and picked up both goblets, handing the one closest to her to Albert.  “If you had a priest to read you your bible, you’d have recognized the omens of dark witchcraft.”

The terrible accusations he’d flung at Katriona came back to haunt him.  Of course she wouldn’t punish the innocent for the crimes of his family.  His clan was her clan.  She’d lived among and loved them all.  He’d watched her do tiny extra kindnesses for all those she and her mother served. 

Gods he wished he would see her again.  That he could tell her he was sorry.  That he knew better now.  That he should have known all along. 

“This potion will separate your soul from your body, husband.”  Kathryn nodded to Albert.  “And then it will pass to this amulet,” she took a necklace from the bodice of her dress, and the rune shone silver despite the golden glow of the fire. “I’ll speak the words
róin m'anam
and then I’ll become
An Dioladh
.”

Rory strained with all his might against the strength of whatever spell she used to incapacitate him.  “Think of what ye do!” he warned.  “Ye leave my clan without a Laird.  How will they survive?”

“As your widow, I’ll have
de facto
rights over the clan.  It will pass to my father, I imagine.”

“I’ll die before I let a
Lowlander
have them,” he vowed. 

“Aye.”  Kathryn’s lovely eyes flared with an azure fire as she took a long sip of her own goblet.  “I rather expect you will.”

Albert shoved his neck back and plugged his nose, dumping the wine into his open mouth.  Rory did his best to close his throat.  But it burned in his lungs and clogged in his sinuses and, in the end, his body betrayed him.  The muscles of his throat contracted in a swallow and despair threatened to overtake him.  

He even inhaled some and was racked with chest-rattling coughs as he tried to choke up whatever he could.  He spat it in Albert’s face, and received an elbow to the jaw. 

Well worth it. 

Kathryn laughed, a merry, musical sound so contrasted with her dark soul and all the more chilling for it. 

A deep, primitive rage welled within Rory until all he could see were violent images of their slow and torturous deaths.  Despite his carefully cultivated humanity, Rory was still a MacKay, Son and brother to two of the vilest warlords the highlands had yet seen.  All of his heritage culminated into one pulsating burst of hate and violence.  He couldn’t voice threats, because words wouldn’t be able to properly express the debauched fantasies he harbored.

All his life, Katriona had kept him decent.  Without even knowing it, her kindness, her work ethic, the way her family conducted themselves toward one another had set an example which he’d striven to emulate, despite his upbringing.  She’d
taught
him how to love.  How to put the needs of his clan above his own.  

But now she was gone.  And lessons in humanity could be quickly lost to a man stripped of options. His sputtering quieted, but his eyes still watered as he watched Kathryn lift her goblet in a mocking toast, and tip her head back to drink deeply. 

“I’ll wait until morning to call for your men and play the confused, grieving widow” she taunted.  “Albert and I will share our wedding night while your body cools on the stones.”  Picking up her amulet, she rolled it in her lovely fingers, letting it catch the firelight.  “I wonder… How aware will you be trapped in my—”

Her eyes widened, a dawning realization was followed by frantic panic that didn’t have time to manifest before her breath hissed from her throat and ended in a disgusting gurgle before her body crumpled to the floor. 

“Kathryn,” Albert whispered, and lunged for her, crouching over her lifeless body.

Rory couldn’t believe his luck.  After all her calculating, could she do something so ridiculous as to drink from the wrong glass?  But he could swear she hadn’t.  He’d watched her put the potion in the goblet closest to her and force that very one down his own throat. 

As abruptly as the spell had taken him, Rory’s limbs were released, flowing with unspent ferocity. 

Luckily, he had a perfect outlet.  Honing in on Albert, he stood, testing his strength and balance, pleased to find no residual effects from her evil magic. 

Albert noted his movement and slowly straightened to his formidable height, dirk still clutched in his hand. 

“Make no sudden movements.  I stand between you and your sword,” he threatened.

Rory made some quick mental calculations of his opponent.  Shorter than him, less brawny, but his lean, muscled body was likely adept at speed and accuracy.   This man knew how to kill and had done so many times.

But so had he.  “I doona need my sword to kill ye.”

“Don’t underestimate me, Laird, I’m the hero of Stewart.  I’ve killed more English than you’ve seen in a lifetime.”

Rory scoffed, “And I’ve killed many stag, but I wouldna be braggin’ of it.  The English are easy to kill.” Advancing on Albert, his eyes tracked the dirk.  “But there exists no world wherein the likes of
ye
would best a Highlander.” 

Albert moved with even more speed than he’d credited the man, and Rory barely dodged the slash to his throat.  As they danced in a slash and parry, Rory kept his hands loose in front of him, quickly learning the Lowlander’s movements.  He took a nick to the forearm but counted it as a victory because he watched as Albert’s eyes foreshadowed his next attack.  He feinted high, but slashed low, aiming for the lethal vein in Rory’s thigh.

Aye, the man was fast, but Rory was faster, and he caught the fist in which Albert held the long dirk in a viper grip, and landed a devastating punch to his throat.

Albert’s eyes bulged, and he clutched at his throat while he fought for air. 

Using the Lowlander’s momentum to turn him and shove him against the wall, Rory’s other hand smashed into Albert’s elbow, forcing it to bend, pointing the dagger toward the traitor’s neck. 

Trembling and straining, much in the way Rory had against his magical bonds, Albert desperately fought Rory’s superior strength as Rory inched the dagger toward flesh.

Their eyes locked and the dark part of Rory’s soul rejoiced in the defeat he read in the other man’s gaze. 

“I do ye a favor,” he growled.  “I’m sending ye to join yer woman in the afterlife.” 

Rory didn’t find the man’s hand covering his throat much of a barrier as he slid the dirk between two knuckles and didn’t stop until the hilt met flesh. 

Wet gurgles escaped Albert’s opened throat, but his skewered hand blocked the spray of any blood. 

Rory let him drop to the stones.

Katriona felt physical pain for the first time in nigh on a year.  Her shoulder and the side of her head throbbed from impact as she pushed herself from the stones.  Holding her hand to her forehead, she groaned and accomplished a somewhat steady sitting position.

The first thing she registered was Rory standing proud and victorious over the treacherous Albert’s dead body.  At her sound, he spun to her, the gentle, umber eyes she’d come to love had been replaced with hard, sinister intent.  He stormed to her with long, predatory strides, seized her by the shoulders in a bruising grip, and dragged her to her feet.

“Rory!” she cried.  “You’re alive!”  Thank the Gods.  He was her living, breathing miracle and now they could be together. 

“Aye,” he hissed.  “And I’m deciding whether to kill my first woman with my bare hands or to let my clan burn ye alive.”

Fear sliced through her.  “Rory!  It’s
me
, Katriona.”

He shook her roughly, doing no good for her already pounding head.  “Ye have no right to even
speak
that name to me, witch!”  He shoved her toward the door.