Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
The man has me trapped. I freeze, muscles locked, mind fogged and useless.
His hand braces against the door beside my head. I stare at it, dazed, waiting for this to stop. Willing him to vanish.
This can’t be real.
Then his other hand moves, sliding around to grab my breast. The violation jolts through me like an electric shock.
This is happening.
Words burst from me, tumbling over each other as I shove at him, nails scraping skin, cloth, anything. “Stop. Get off. Don’t.”
He laughs. Low, smug, like I’m something small and beneath him.
His fingers dig in harder. Then he’s—oh God. He’s pressing his hips into me, grinding.
Revulsion shears through me. With a strangled cry, I twist and buck backward, all instinct and fury.
He stumbles. Loses his grip. For a breathless second, I’m free.
But he steps in again, closer now, breathing harder. Silent. I feel his intent. A predator fired up from the chase.
And then another hand slams down, pinning his to the door. My whole body jerks. For one horrifying second, I think it’s another attacker.
“Let her go, and you keep your hand.”
Callum. His voice is low. Lethal.
He came for me.
The man starts to protest, but a knife flashes into Callum’s free hand. He presses it to the man’s throat. Suddenly, I’m stumbling free.
The guy sputters, “Och, lad, she’s your girl, is it? I can see that. I ken you. You ken me, aye?” He talks fast, desperate. “From the stables. I meant no harm. Just wanted a bit of fun. Didnae ken she belongs to you.”
Callum releases him.
The man bolts, tripping down the hall, disappearing down the stairs.
But Callum’s grip shifts to me, holding me tight. Too tight.
I claw at his arms, mind spiraling from what just happened. “I’m not ‘your girl.’”
“His words. Nae mine.”
The man’s touch still clings to me—his hands, his stench, the way he trapped me against the door. I can’t shake it. My throat tightens, ragged, animal sounds escaping me. “I do not belong to you.”
Callum turns me to face him, holding firm. “Be still, lass.” His voice is strained, tight with frustration.
“Get your hands off me.”
“Hush. You’ve put us both in danger coming here.” Another squeeze, firmer now.
My skin burns from before. Too many hands, too much touching.
I lash out, slamming my palms against his chest. It feels like I’ve hit a wall, but he stumbles back, eyes wide with surprise.
I duck past, spinning to face him as I back away. “Next time I aim lower.”
My head’s spinning. I need to get out of here. Now.
He shakes his head, looking gratifyingly thrown. But then his eyes snap back into the moment, and he lunges for my wrist and drags me down the hallway.
I try to wrench free, but this time, my struggles do nothing.
“Let me go or I’ll scream. I swear I will.” I dig in my feet. Suck in a big breath.
He twirls me, and I slam into his chest with an oof, quickly muffled by his hand, which he’s pressed over my mouth. The second his palm touches me, something cracks inside me.
Too much. Too much.
“Wheesht. You don’t understand the danger you’re in.” His arms cage me in. I’m immobile.
Fear floods through me, disorienting me. A small, broken whimper rises in my throat. I feel helpless. For the first time in my life, I have the bone-deep sense of just how vulnerable I am against someone this size.
I jerk my head back to look at him.
He startles, dropping his hand, eyes flashing with something like horror. “Och, lass. Be easy. Please.”
“Don’t hurt me,” I plead.
His eyes widen with alarm. “Nae. I’d never.” This time, his grip is featherlight. An apology in touch.
He guides me into an empty room.
Panic hums in my bones, but I force myself to see the moment clearly. I stand quaking in the shadows, waiting for what he’s about to do. Scanning the room for anything I can use to defend myself.
“Please, quiet yourself. I’ll nae hurt you. Never that. I swear it.”
His voice softens, thick with guilt. He carefully pats my shoulders like he’s found an injured creature and doesn’t know what to do. “Do you not see? I’m trying to help.”
Help. Wasn’t he just dragging me down the hallway?
He looks vulnerable, like he’s as scared as I am.
It makes me braver.
“You have a weird way of showing it.” I wipe my face with my sleeve. “Fine. You want to help? Then tell me where I am.”
A strange look crosses his face. “This is Campbell land, lass. ’Tis 1622.”
Dread coils tight in my gut. I shake my head, vehement. “No. No, this…” I gesture wildly around me. “This isn’t possible.”
Callum watches me carefully. “Aye,” he whispers. “It is.”
The room seems smaller, the walls pressing in.
“No,” I say again, but the word is weaker now.
I try to edge past him, feeling cornered. He blocks me.
“You dinnae understand. You cannae just walk out of here.”
“Why not?” Silence stretches thick between us, pressing against my skin like the air itself is closing in. I try again to get around him. Again, he stops me. Frustration flares, but underneath it, my fear grows.
I alter my tone. “Please.” It’s a whisper now, stripped bare.
Something about my pleading flips a switch in him, and he snarls at me like he’s the one with a right to be angry. “Hush for one moment,” he hisses, “and listen to me. There’s nowhere for you to go.”
Nowhere to go.
“Then send me back.”
“I cannae—”
“Not that again.”
“I’m sorry, lass. But you’re here. For good. And here you must stay.” He’s using the same slow, patronizing voice I use with my mother. The realization hits wrong. I am not Janet. I’m a perfectly reasonable human being.
“There must be an explanation for this,” I snap.
“You’re in your past.” He enunciates each word carefully, deliberately, like he’s speaking to someone too fragile to grasp reality.
The floor feels unsteady beneath me. “Why are you doing this? Why won’t you just help me?”
There’s a crash downstairs. The answering sound of voices down the hall. Callum freezes, on alert. He peeks out, quickly looks right and left. “I’ll explain everything. But we must go. Now.”
Rowdy banter erupts from the pub downstairs, and it startles me into silence. The fight drains from me. Callum looks nervous, which is enough to make me nervous, too.
His grip eases, and I let him guide me down the stairs. We make it to the ground floor. He pops his head around the corner to check before guiding us down the hall. The exit is in sight. He walks us rapidly toward it. The front door creaks open, and Callum ducks us into an alcove.
My pulse kicks up. We’re in the hotel reception area—or at least what was the reception area.
With a sweep of his arm, he presses me behind him, using his body to hide me. And I let him. What else can I do? It’s too surreal for me to do anything but let this riptide carry me along.
A man is shouting in the other room, switching between English and Gaelic.
Your mum. It’s always good to hear the old tongue.
My mother spoke Gaelic to me, sang it to me, when I was young. The memory helps me pluck familiar words from the babel.
The man shouts again. The pub goes silent, and it’s more menacing than the sound of chaos.
Callum curses under his breath. He looks back and catches my eye. I can tell he’s not sure what to do. That makes two of us.
I open my mouth to say something, but he touches his finger to my lips, eyes intent on mine. I freeze, utterly disoriented.
His touch is featherlight, but it might as well be an iron brand. The moment hangs between us, so intimate I can’t look away.
“It’s the Campbell.” He speaks in the barest whisper, looking like he’s struggling with a decision. I don’t have time to ask more before Callum’s body tenses, lurching into action. He grabs me by the hand, and I let it happen. “We must hide. This way.”
His fingers close around mine, warm and firm. A fresh wave of panic surges, but I don’t yank away. Why am I letting him do this? Who is this person whose hand is curled around mine? It’s large, his grip steady and sure, almost possessive, yet I don’t let go.
Clocks start tolling—the same disturbing, funereal moan of the grandfather clock, followed by the same eerie chimes, in the same dank hallway.
It’s all the same. But utterly, impossibly, not. I’m completely unmoored, no longer able to do anything but move where Callum leads me.
The door slams behind us in a small pantry, sealing us in damp, suffocating darkness. That wakes me up, and I cry out as I crash back to reality.
Too small. Too tight. No way out.
He puts his hand over my mouth to silence me. “Enough. ’Tis too risky.”
Enough with the hand on the mouth. I bite down hard.
He gasps and lets go, and it’s deeply satisfying.
“And sitting alone with you in a closet isn’t a risk?” I whisper, furious. I don’t know if it’s something about hiding here in the dark, or because I trust him more than I want to accept, but I keep my voice down.
“Aye. You’ve my word.”
“Your word that you’re taking me back to your demented lady friend, you mean.”
“No, nae back to her.” He sighs. “Donag’s suffered much, and it’s made her cruel. I thought I could protect you, but we must get you away from here. This place is a danger to you. ’Twill take time, but I’ll find a way. I’ll get you out.”
I really am back in time. I bite back a manic giggle. “Where will you take me? 1776?”
I feel him hesitate in the darkness. There’s rustling as he shifts, moving carefully not to alarm me. Slowly he reaches out, and a cautious hand ghosts over my sleeve.
“I know,” he says inexplicably, even though he can’t possibly know anything. “I’m afraid too.”
He gently slides an arm around me and guides me to the floor where we sit scrunched together in the dark. I should shove him away. But his presence is solid. A strange anchor in the chaos.
There’s a soothing quality to his silence. His every muscle is tensed but he’s warm along my side. Not invasive. Just there. True to his word, he hasn’t tried anything.