The Highlander’s Accidental Wife (Queen’s Edict #3)

Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

Mayhem filled the yard, shouts of his men and the pounding of hooves as the search parties swept out. Word had spread like wildfire, and womenfolk huddled in the doorways, some weeping, lamenting, and calling out prayers of strength.

Damien heard none of it. Everything had gone quiet inside his head. All he could focus on was each next step, each next breath, even though it all hurt. His breath burned, and his chest felt as though it were cracking in two. All he could picture was Helena, trussed to some beast, with Lachlan laughing in the distance.

As he swung himself onto his horse, he tightened his gloves and felt the familiar weight of the blades, trying to pull himself out of his fears. Somewhere inside of him was that warrior who fought his way off a ship after endless torture, who took back Morighe after losing his father, and who would face this next battle much the same.

The alternative did not bear thinking of. He could not think of it.

Or he feared he might finally break.

Urging his warhorse forward—a snappish and temperamental young beast that was fast as the wind—Damien was about to ride out the gates when a rider burst in. For a moment, his heart soared, thinking it might be good news, but then his heart fell twice as quickly.

Hair in disarray, a bleeding wound on his shoulder, and a frantic look in his eyes, Orrick’s gaze swept over the crowd until it landed on Damien. Agony flitted across his face, and Damien’s heart stopped, his hands loose on the reins.

Everything felt unreal.

“Damien, Damien .” Orrick rode up and grasped his shoulder, shaking him. “Her braither wasnae there. The foolish man sold her out and led Lachlan here—I was too late.” He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m so sorry.” He pulled in a breath and shook himself. “But the villagers are canny. They searched wide and found tracks that led north.”

That jolted Damien out of his stupor. For a moment, he’d believed that all was lost, but now fresh energy surged through him, and he gripped Orrick’s arm, giving him a grateful look.

Then, he tensed. “ North ?” He shook his head. “But there’s nothing north but our folk and the wilderness…” He sucked in a breath. “That bloody fool.”

“Aye, ‘tis the only thing that makes sense—and why they kept appearin’ in the north.” Orrick gave him a grim look as he straightened and nodded toward the gate. “Lachlan means to barter his fate with the Reaper and Helena’s in the Shipmaw.”

Of all things, Damien did not think he’d have to fear his cousin harming Helena out of vengeance and foolishness. All he could hope for was that their constant presence in these waters meant that one of the pirates had somehow figured out the tides.

The only problem was that the tides could change in a heartbeat and swallow a ship whole.

Damien had seen it happen—and nearly every soul lost with it.

He was waiting in a shadowed copse of trees, eyeing the road ahead, and waiting for Orrick. As though summoning him, Orrick appeared and reined his horse in. His face was grim, drawn in hard lines, but his eyes shone with battle lust.

“The men say that there are pirates all along the coast, lying in wait,” Orrick whispered. “We shall clear the way for ye, Milaird.”

Damien nodded and pulled out his father’s dirk—the last thing he had from the former Laird after the blade had shattered. Orrick’s eyes went wide as Damien handed it over.

“Keep it safe for me—and use it well,” Damien instructed.

Orrick started to shake his head, and Damien gripped his arm.

“After this battle, ye are to go home and do whatever Gwennie asks of ye. Start a family.”

Orrick huffed a breath and muttered, “Ye bastard.”

“Ye’re welcome,” Damien said. “Now, go.”

With a sharp nod, his man-at-arms turned his horse around, but then he glanced back. “Damien… thank ye.”

His throat tight, Damien nodded and then watched Orrick vanish into the shadows.

Ye better live .

Listening hard, watching every shadow, Damien urged his horse forward at a slow walk. Then, shouts and cries sounded, and he urged his horse forward faster. They shot through the woods, catching glimpses of distant fighting, until they came to a ridge not far from the beach. It looked down on a small hollow ridged with trees, and while Damien could glimpse the water, he did not see the ship.

Forcing himself to take slow breaths, he brought his horse to a stop and then jumped down. He stroked the nose of his horse in thanks and then urged him to a dark patch of trees.

“If I dinnae return in an hour or so, ye go back to Morighe, ye hear?” he whispered.

The horse gave him a slow blink which he took as an aye .

Slinking down the ridge, Damien went from tree to tree. A few had arrows sticking out of them, but he didn’t hear or sense any archers. Nor did anyone shoot at him. Taking that as a good sign, he continued forward, and then his breath caught as he finally saw the beach.

There, in the dark waters, bobbing on the choppy waves, was Lachlan’s foul ship, the Revenge.

“Foolish name for a fool,” he muttered and nearly grinned, for he’d never sounded more like his father.

Just as he crept forward, he stilled, as though a hand had caught his shoulder and gently squeezed. A chill went over him as three pirates suddenly appeared—three pirates who would have had ample time to injure him or worse.

Barely breathing, Damien watched the gleam in their eyes as they scanned the woods. Then, there was a shout in the distance, and they ran toward it, vanishing.

Damien let out a long, harsh breath. He straightened and then jolted, spinning around, his arms strangely slack, to see that there was no one behind him.

He took a step forward and glanced around again, so sure that he’d sensed someone. But someone who wasn’t a threat.

Faither.

For a moment, Damien felt his father as he had not since he’d lost him, and then it was gone in a rush of wind. He lifted his head then and turned back to the way to the beach, noting the fitful manner of the trees.

Setting off at the fastest run he dared, he did not glance back again. But he had the strangest sense that his steps were watched—protected. Nothing else happened until he made it to the beach and noted that the choppiness of the water had changed. By the shore, it was more agitated, but the water by the ship seemed too still.

Glancing around, Damien was surprised that no one was guarding the beach. Or perhaps his men had lured them all. Then, he pulled up short and nearly groaned.

There were no bloody boats left.

Huffing a sigh, Damien admitted to himself that he should’ve anticipated this. And besides, a boat was a dead target in the dark water. A skilled archer could easily dispatch him.

With a sigh, he secured his blades, shrugged off his cloak, and then took off his boots. Gritting his teeth, he walked into the water, the cold so sharp and biting that it almost felt like a flame. When he dived in, though, it stole all the breath from him.

Forcing himself to picture Helena’s face, he cut through the water, praying that the tides or some foul sea beast did not kill him. As he bobbed in the cold water, shoving his hair out of his face, the wind changed again. The horizon lit up, and he flinched back, thinking it was cannon fire.

Instead, forked lightning lit up the sky.

“Are ye feckin’ jestin’ wit’ me right now?” he blurted out, and a wave slapped his face.

Spitting out salt water, Damien growled and cut through the water faster, trying to suppress the tension rippling up his spine.

But flashes of his uncle’s ship, the hold he’d been tortured in, tugged at the back of his mind. Breathing harder than he should have, Damien nearly lost his bearings, and his mind reeled.

The old gods have a terrible sense of humor, whispered a voice in his head, and his body relaxed. Helena’s voice, something she’d said the day of their picnic, warmed him.

And then the ship was there.

Whether it was because of the swimming or because the water was not as cold, thanks to the storm, Damien found that his hands were not too numb. Finding a slimy rope hanging down, he crawled up the side until he managed to find notches that made a sort of ladder and made it to the deck.

Swinging himself over the side, gratified that he was near the prow, in a shadowed space behind some nets and crates, he flexed his hands and blew on them. He shivered a bit, but it was not bad, all things considered.

Perhaps me anger and hate are keepin’ me warm.

Then, there was a flash of Helena looking up from a book with a smile, her eyes bright and dancing behind her glasses. And his heart seemed to burn in his chest.

Och. It’s her. And I shall tell her so.

Taking out his blades, he took a deep breath, again with that sense that he did not step out alone. The weight of his responsibilities seemed to drape around him, and he stood tall, ready to finally end this.

Thunder rolled, and his stomach clenched. Again, the Viper sank its teeth into him, memories rising and his gut churning. For a moment, he thought he might be sick. He felt the lash of the whip, the hot irons?—

“Truly, there would be no fate more insulting,” said a sharp, clear voice. “To be wed or killed by a pathetic worm such as yourself. I would eschew Charon’s passage. I would turn away from Elysium and the Meadows just to come back and haunt your days, you feckless, wretched waste of a man.”

A laugh escaped Damien, drowned out by the other laughter that rang out.

“I will gag ye, woman,” Lachlan warned.

“Oh, go ahead,” Helena said. “I assure you, though, you will know by my face what I am thinking. You should not be troubled that I would haunt you, since you already cursed yourself.”

At that, there was a ringing silence, and Damien slunk forward.

“You dance to the tune of your dead father, do you not? Tell me, what is it like to be the offspring of a false laird? Do you hear his cries from where he paces on the shores of the Styx, without coin or respite?”

“What of yer husband? I mean…” Lachlan blustered, and Helena laughed. The sound made Damien smile for the first time since he’d realized she was gone. “I mean, Damien does much the same.”

“No,” Helena said in a soft and deadly voice. “And the fact that you think such a thing tells me everything I need to know. There is legacy, and there is lunacy.” She paused, and again, Damien had the sense that the entire ship was listening to his wife-to-be. “Even if, somehow, you managed to take Morighe, you would never be Laird. Just as your father never was.”

There was a sound of a slap and a soft grunt of pain. Damien’s blood surged, and he burst onto the deck. His blades flashed ruby as he cut his way through the pirates, most of whom seemed more intent on scrambling away to save their own skin than fighting him.

For all that Lachlan heeded his father’s ghost, he could not command that strange, mad loyalty. He only drew up short when he came upon a squeaking Englishman, holding up his hands and saying something about being brothers.

Damien realized this had to be Bartholomew, Helena’s foolish stepbrother, who’d betrayed them all. Much as he wanted to run him through, he merely punched him in the face and kept moving.

“ Damien .”

His entire body seized, and he stilled, his heart thundering in his ears. A thundering that got worse as the thunder overhead grew louder and lightning flashed again, illuminating the blade held to Helena’s throat, a cruel twin to Lachlan’s wicked grin.