Warrior Untamed (3 page)

When he’d first approached the old merchant, something about the man’s attitude had warned him this wasn’t the place to present all the treasures he planned to sell.

He’d shown the old merchant one single jewel
and one ancient scroll, claiming they were all he had left in the world to support him and his poor family of orphaned brothers and sisters.

And still the old man cheated him.

Mathew had no doubt the merchant was, at this very moment, cackling in glee over the bargain they’d struck, knowing he’d fetch a much higher price than what he’d paid for Mathew’s lovely bauble.

But the transaction hadn’t been a complete loss. The coins in Mathew’s sporran were enough to provide him with a mount and the provisions he would need to reach Dunvegan Castle.

Besides, he was more than ready to have that blighted ruby out of his hands. Let the merchant deal with the vengeful spirit dwelling inside it. It would serve him right for his cheating ways.

Freed of that burden, Mathew was ready for his next step. Although the merchant had had no interest in the scroll he’d hoped to sell, he’d told Mathew that the laird of the MacLeod was said to desire such things, willing to pay good silver with no questions asked. The great laird was also rumored to harbor a particular interest in Magic and the Fae.

Once the merchant had assured Mathew that the markings on the scroll were none he’d ever seen before, Mathew had determined that Dunvegan would be his next destination. With a story already brewing in his mind, it should take little effort to convince the MacLeod laird that he’d discovered the scrolls lying on a tuft of grass just outside a Faerie
Circle, as if the Fae themselves had accidentally left the scrolls behind.

Mathew’s mood lightened as the tale seemed to take on a life of its own, weaving itself ever more intricately in his imagination. Perhaps now that he’d left his pipes behind, he should consider becoming a troubadour, weaving stories to delight the crowds.

That or any other future would depend upon how successful he might be when he met the MacLeod laird.

He needed a good horse underneath him, so he’d look less like a boy on the run and more like a man worthy of an important business deal. His body might be that of a sixteen-year-old, but the last few days had aged his mind and soul far beyond his years.

With a fine mount, a story such as he’d invented, and the MacLeod laird’s penchant for Magic and Faeries, Mathew would be a wealthy man by the time he departed Dunvegan.

With wealth came power, and power was exactly what he needed most desperately.

Power would enable him to find his cousin, Eleyne, and take her home where she belonged. Power would enable him to stand up to his uncle and demand his rightful place at Castle Glenluce.

Such worthy goals should certainly override the tang of dishonor that clung to the way the treasures had come into in his possession. After all, the things he’d taken from Tordenet were no more than the
just payment he deserved for what the evil laird there had done to his brother, Hugo.

He shuddered at the memory of his brother’s mutilated body, struggling to push it from his mind’s eye.

Wealth was what he needed now. Wealth and power.

Perhaps with enough wealth, with enough power, he might even drive away the nameless fear that haunted his every dream.

B
RIE
’
S HEART POUNDED
in her chest as the Tinklers’ wagon lumbered under the open portcullis and through the long, tunnellike gate at Castle MacGahan.

She spotted him the instant they pulled into the bailey.

Her brother had returned! At last she would have a partner in her quest to avenge their father’s death.

Jamesy stood at the top of the great stairs, flanked by two men she didn’t recognize. Hands on his hips, his long brown hair ruffling in the breeze, he looked the very image of everything she’d ever imagined in a Pictish king.

Thank the Seven he’d returned. For the first time since her father’s death, she felt as if she weren’t alone.

Next to her, Eleyne gave her a little shove as she tried to push in front of Brie.
Tried,
but didn’t succeed. It would take more strength than the tiny blonde possessed to move her out of the way.

“Who is
that
?” Eleyne asked, peering over her shoulder, her gaze clearly fixed on the stairs where the three men stood.

Brie ignored her, intent on climbing down from the slow-moving wagon. She hit the ground lightly, but stumbled as she started forward.

“Bollocks,” she grunted, recovering her balance and gathering up the layers of skirts that composed the Tinkler costume she wore.

The dress might be pretty, but pretty was hardly practical.

Jamesy met her halfway, wrapping her in his arms, hugging her close, and lifting her inches off the ground just as their da had always done. If she closed her eyes, she might almost believe her da had returned.

Though it wouldn’t surprise her if she and Jamesy had themselves a fine, rowdy argument before the sun set on their first day together, it was beyond good to have her big brother home again. He, like no other here at Castle MacGahan, was true family.

“You’ve been gone too long,” she proclaimed, returning her brother’s embrace. “You canna believe how I’ve missed you.”

“What I canna believe is how you’ve filled out in just a year’s time. No wonder they tell me the castle’s larder is low.”

Her older brother had always had the ability to annoy her more than any other person she knew.

Though the big warrior Halldor O’Donar was running a close second of late.

“Those look to me to be curves,” one of the men who joined them commented. “And none too excessive to my way of thinking.”

“Did I forget to mention how it would be best for you to keep yer eyes—and yer thoughts—to yerself?” Jamesy growled, completely ruining the effect of his threat by giving her a wink as he ended their embrace.

“Once or twice, mayhap,” the other responded, his voice reflecting his lack of concern over his friend’s bark. “But it’s yer own fault, Jamesy MacCulloch. When you spoke of a little sister, we all imagined a wee bit of a bairn, no a full-grown beauty such as this. You should introduce us.”

Jamesy grinned down at her before turning to face his companions. “Well, then, Finn, you imagined wrong, did you no? And while we’re about it, I’ll thank you to keep my sister out of any further imaginings you might have, aye? She’s no meant for the likes of you.”

“Friends of yers, are they?” she asked, studying the face of each of the men. They had to be, or Jamesy would have taken the mouthy one to the ground by now.

“Aye,” her brother agreed with a roll of his eyes. He wagged his thumb to indicate the man who’d spoken. “The noisy one with the ragged dog at his side is Finley MacCormack. And the quiet one back there is Alexander MacKillican. I couldna shake the two of them from my heels when I left Edinburgh, so I’d no choice but to let them follow along. Like lost sheep, they were.”

“Allow us?” Finn snorted his disbelief. “We couldna trust this brother of yers to stay out of trouble
without us. It’s we who had no choice in the matter but to leave our studies and trail along after him. Am I no telling the God’s honest truth, Alex?”

Alex shrugged. “We’ve a bond, for a fact. Harm one, harm us all.”

Brie acknowledged the two men with a dip of her head, then turned to her brother, catching up his hand in hers as the four of them made their way toward the great stairs.

She had so many things to tell Jamesy, so many plans to finalize. Chief among those things was determining when they would leave to find the sword they needed to confront their father’s killer.

Jamesy stopped, his gaze scanning the wagon and riders in the courtyard. “Patrick dinna return with you?”

She shook her head. “He and Halldor continued on after they met up with us.”

Continued on their own merry way, leaving her behind as if she weren’t every bit the warrior they were.

“Halldor?” Her brother turned a hard, questioning gaze her direction. “That would be O’Donar? He’s the one who managed to spirit you out of Tordenet in one piece, is he no?”

He’d gotten her out of there, but he’d failed as miserably as she had in her original purpose in being there.

“He is. But my escape from the castle came at a price. Torquil MacDowylt still lives, Jamesy. I missed my opportunity to kill the bastard.”

All traces of humor left her brother’s eyes. “So Malcolm has told me. And now I hear that, thanks to some mythical beast, the MacDowylt laird is even more powerful than he was before.”

Though she felt no trace of rebuke in what her brother said, she felt the guilt of having failed more sharply than if he’d accused her in plain words.

She’d been in the room while Torquil slept. She’d stood over him, that fancy sword of his within arm’s reach. It had called to her to take it up, to use it as her own, but she’d lacked the nerve. Had she but plunged the weapon into his heart then and there, she might have prevented the battles that were to come. She certainly would have had her revenge.

But she hadn’t. What she had done was take the coward’s way out. She’d tucked tail and run from his castle like nothing more than a frightened—

“Did you hear me?” Jamesy pulled at her arm. “It was foolish beyond measure, what you did, running off to Tordenet like that. No one had any idea where you’d gone or what peril you faced. And then you tried to gut the man with naught but a wee dagger at his own table in his own hall, surrounded by his own men?”

It had been the best plan she could come up with at the time. And it might have worked, too, if not for the strength of the Beast inside him. All too well she remembered the evil red glow shining from Torquil’s eyes as he’d pinned her to the table and gone for her throat. If not for Halldor’s intervention on her behalf . . .

“Are you listening to me? Yer no to ever put yerself in such danger again. With Da gone, it’s me you’ll need to answer to now, and on this matter, I will accept no quarrel. You’ll do as I say.”

She could hardly believe what she’d just heard. Jamesy’s voice oozed with entitlement, and for the first time ever her brother’s words sounded more like those of their uncle than of their father.

Bridget MacCulloch was no delicate maiden to be hidden away before some hearth and protected by men far weaker than she. Warrior blood coursed through her veins, just as it did through her brother’s. She was the last daughter of the House MacUlagh, descended from the Ancient Seven who ruled the land when not even the Roman invaders dared challenge all the way to the Northern Sea.

Yet Jamesy spoke to her as if a year away had caused him to forget that.

She pulled her hand from his and stepped back to glare at him. “Yer hardly in any position to be telling me what I can and canna do, Jamesy MacCulloch. You forget yerself. You forget who and what I am. When you leave here to go after the MacDowylt, it’s me what will be riding at yer side, weapon at the ready.”

“No,” he said, matching her glare. “I forget nothing, little sister. And dinna you be giving me that face. I’m all too familiar with the look yer wearing, and I’ll no be having any of it. Torquil MacDowylt is far too dangerous a quarry for me to give you yer head on this one. I dinna begrudge the way Da allowed you
to grow up, acting as if you were as much a brother to me as a sister, but this is no the time for such pretense. If Da were here now, he’d say the same.”

“If Da were here now, there’d be no need for me to go after the murdering bastard what killed him, now, would there?”

The hurtful words were out before she thought. Jamesy flinched as if she’d landed a physical blow and a tremor of guilt ebbed over her. The loss of their father had to be as difficult for him as it was for her, but she couldn’t afford to backstep. One sign of weakness and he would pounce, declaring it reason enough to leave her behind. She must present her strongest side to convince him otherwise.

“You need me in this quest, Jamesy. You need the knowledge I have to find the sword.”

“Do I? And what knowledge might you hold that would be so dear to me?” He crossed his arms in front of him and waited, the familiar stubborn expression she recognized from childhood hardening his features.

“I’m the only one here who’s seen the sword. I’m the only one who can easily recognize it.” Her gaze lit on the Tinkler wagon and the blonde perched on the seat staring curiously at them. “And I ken that the lad who’s taken it is too close to his cousin not to come looking for her.” She pointed toward Eleyne, feeling confident she’d made her case.

“Perhaps you have a point, Brie,” her brother acknowledged, a smile breaking over his face as
he reached out to tug on her braid. “And now that you’ve shared yer knowledge with us, it seems that wee golden-haired lass looking in our direction might be the one we need at our sides to help us capture our thief, rather than you.”

Brie stood rooted to her spot in disbelief, her mouth open, watching as her brother and his friends left her behind in their haste to reach the Tinkler wagon.

Damn him! Damn them all if they thought she’d give up so easily. If this was how it was to be, she didn’t need them. Not any of them. If she’d learned anything from her harrowing experience at Tordenet, it was that she was much stronger than any of them knew. Stronger even than she had known.

With a deep breath, she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders before starting toward the keep.

Jamesy’s rebuke was but a minor setback, of no more importance than Halldor O’Donar’s refusal to take her with him. She didn’t need either one of them. She could do this on her own. Once she was rested she’d figure out a plan, and then she’d be on her way to find Mathew and retrieve the sword.

And if doing that meant going it alone, so be it. She’d show them that she wouldn’t be left behind.

The fact that it was Halldor’s face, not her brother’s, that she saw in her mind’s eye as she stomped up the stairs to the keep of Castle MacGahan was something she refused to waste her time worrying over.