Chapter Twenty-Four
Dawn approached.
Brianna had been tied to the chair all night without food or water. She had made no progress on getting her wrists free from the ropes. After numerous attempts, she had given up finally. Her hands were slick with what she could only imagine was blood and sweat.
She fought fatigue. Her eyes grew heavy. Her head drooped. When she realized it, she snapped it back up, trying to remain awake.
The shuffling of feet in the room caught her attention. Her senses went on high alert as she sat straighter in the chair.
The man stepped in front of her. The shadows concealed his features, but she had a sneaking suspicion she knew who it was. The question was why he had come to her. To taunt her? Threaten her?
He moved into the pale light enough so that she saw his face. John MacDonald peered back at her with his glittering, terrifying eyes. Eyes that bored into her. He clutched his hands in front of him and regarded her coolly.
“I bet you’re wondering how I ended up here, aren’t ye?” he said, his voice low and dark in the gloom.
She tipped her head up and peered at him. Though she couldn’t quite make out his face, she tried on her best glare.
“No,” she said, her voice flat.
She admitted to herself she was interested in how he’d ended up in the past, but not enough to want to have a conversation with him about it. Truthfully, she wanted him to go away and leave her alone.
He chuckled at her response as he circled her. Like a predator.
“When the portal closed, I thought all was lost. Ye left me there on that terrace with burns on my face.”
He stood behind her. She sensed his presence close. Too close. The warmth from his body radiated outward, cascading over her in a way she didn’t like one bit.
Even so, she smirked at the memory of that day. When she had thrown her hot tea in his face to get away.
“Yes, you screamed like a girl.”
She didn’t know why she’d taunted him back. It was likely going to get her hurt. Or dead. Neither of which she was interested in. A hot hand landed on one of her shoulders. He leaned down, his face a breath from hers.
“Ye think ye’re funny, aye?”
Her mouth went dry at his furious tone of his voice. His hot breath whispered over her ear, sending a shiver of revulsion through her.
“I wouldna be here if it weren’t for my brother.”
His brother, Bruce. She remained silent with her eyes forward as he continued to hover over her in a threatening manner.
“Rory used his powerful great axe to bring me back. Because he needs me.”
“Does he?” She tipped her head to one side to see the outline of his profile a breath away from her.
“Aye.” His acrid breath whispered over her.
She turned her face away and peered once again into the depths of the shadows. She didn’t know this man well enough to despise him, but she despised him.
Finally, he straightened and walked around to face her, his arms folded across his thick chest.
“Don’t ye want to know why he needs me?”
“Not really,” she replied. “But like any villain who wants to drag this out, you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”
Even in the darkness, she saw the annoyance flicker over his face. Good. She wanted him annoyed. She wanted him angry. Being angry would cause him to make wrong decisions. Wrong decisions could lead to her escape.
“He needs me because once we have the Realm of Chaos open, it’s up to us to use the keystone to control all of Time.”
“Is that so?”
She had serious doubts they would get the keystone to work. But she pressed her lips together and said nothing more.
“Aye and you’re going to help us with that.”
“And how am I going to do that?”
He bent forward and pressed his face inches from hers. “You will use your blood magic to activate the keystone and then the two of us will take over from there.”
Confusion settled in. How did they think activating the keystone for them would give them what they wanted? That was never the intended purpose of putting the keystone back together—it was keeping the Realm of Chaos sealed.
“You think it’s that easy?” she scoffed.
“Isn’t it?”
She didn’t know but she was going to continue this ruse for as long as possible.
“If ye don’t help us,” he continued, “then we choose one of yer sisters to help. We will spill all her blood to activate the magic in the keystone. Maybe the pregnant one.”
Brianna surged forward against her bonds. The ropes burned through her wrists.
“You stay away from her, you son of a bitch.” The searing anger heated every word as she punctuated it.
“Ah, so ye do care about them. Good. We’ll start with her. Unless, of course, ye want to cooperate.”
Panic pounded through her. The last thing she wanted was for him to do something to one or both of her sisters.
And where were the MacLeod men? Likely locked up, too.
Her heart pounded so hard against her chest she thought it might burst through.
She clenched her jaw until it ached as she looked up at him.
“I’ll cooperate,” she said at last.
An oily smile creased his face. “Good.”
She pressed her lips together in a thin line.
The last thing she recalled before she passed out was handing Jamie the keystone.
The stone was hot when she pressed it, wordlessly, into his hand.
Right now, this MacDonald assumed she still had it.
She was going to let him continue to assume that.
They couldn’t force her to use the stone if she didn’t have it in her possession.
She realized, though, that put her sisters in a terrible, dangerous position. Once the MacDonald realized she didn’t have the stone, they would go after them. She had to think of some way to escape.
He walked around behind her. She stiffened as she waited, holding her breath.
She felt the cold steel of a knife as he sliced through her bonds.
She was free. Her arms had been pulled behind her for so long, when she was released and she was able to drop them to her side, the blood rushed to the tips of her fingers.
The tingling sensation was so sharp, she winched.
Glancing down at her wrists, she saw they were raw and bleeding. Her cut palm still oozed.
John didn’t wait for her to get her bearings. He grasped her arm and hauled her up from the chair, practically dragging her out of the great hall through the splintered doorway.
Outside in the bailey, the MacDonald clan had set up a crude camp.
A campfire blazed brightly against the pre-dawn sky.
The men were sitting around it, talking, laughing, drinking ale and whiskey from the MacLeod cellar.
She heard the soft whicker of a horse. And smelled the acrid tang of cooked meat in the air.
Her gut clenched tight as he led her toward the circle of men.
“She’s ready,” he announced.
Rory MacDonald, the clan leader, rose to his full height from the circle and turned to her. His piercing eyes met hers. Fear shifted through her. A shiver of dread skipped down her spine.
“We ride for the mountain, then.” As he spoke, his gaze never left her face. “She’ll ride with ye so ye can keep an eye on her.”
“I can ride my own horse,” she snapped, the ire rising through her despite the fear.
He lifted a tawny brow. He stepped forward, closing the gap between them. “Ye will ride with him.” He jerked his head toward John MacDonald. “I cannae allow ye to have yer own horse. I think ye ken why.”
Hope died right then. She thought if she got her own horse, she would be able to ride away from the group. Maybe even find Jamie and the others.
“Ye are no’ so canny as ye think, lass.” He reached for her then, taking her chin in his sweaty hand. “Even if ye are a bonnie one.”
She jerked her head free. “Keep your damn hands off me.”
Brief surprise flickered over his face and then he laughed. It was a deep rumbling sound in his broad chest. “And a fiery one, too, aye? Take her away.”
John’s hand tightened on her arm, his fingers digging into the fleshy part of her biceps. He dragged her away from the group toward the stables where the MacDonald clan had decided to use it for their own horses. He went directly to a large black warhorse that was already saddled.
There was a bustle of activity behind her. As John mounted the horse, she cut a glance behind her to see the other MacDonald men mobilizing to ride and leave behind the castle. Her heart thundered as she thought of Jamie and the others still locked up in the dungeons.
“Come, lass.” John held his hand down to her.
A flash of defiance went through her and for a brief moment, she thought about making a run for it.
But to where? Anywhere she went, she’d be captured and punished.
As her pulse raced, she knew she had no choice.
She reached her hand up and placed it in MacDonald’s.
And then she was mounting the horse behind him.
Moments later, they galloped away, leaving behind the ruins of Dundale Castle.
*
The group made it out of the dungeons and headed for the armory. There was an eerie silence that hung in the air. The hair on the back of Jamie’s neck stood on end and he knew something was wrong.
Instead of going to the armory with the others, he headed for the tapestry room. There was something he had to see. He was aware of the weight of the stone in his sporran, as if it had become heavier the closer he got to the tapestry room.
“Jamie, where are you going?” Evie called.
He ignored her, though. He had one thought only—get to the tapestry room. He had a feeling that something was different, that something had changed. That feeling tingled in the middle of his palm where the stone had burned him.
The great hall was destroyed and deserted. Outside, nothing but silence. MacDonald and his camp had moved on, taking Brianna with them.
When he arrived, the door was slightly ajar.
He pushed it open and stepped inside, the light from the corridor slashing across the threshold and sliding up the wall of woven wall hangings.
In the half-light, they shimmered with their enchantments.
Something was different about one of them. Something he was terrified to see.
As he approached, his heart in his throat, his gaze fixed on the one that was of the three women. The one where Brianna stood in the center, flanked by her sisters, wearing the white gown with the wind billowing through her hair. The one where she held the whole keystone as it pulsed and glowed.
The image shifted. Now, it was only Brianna standing on the top of a flat boulder in the center of castle ruins with a glistening sea in the background.
He recognized those ruins—Castle Caelnar was not far from Dundale, perched on a cliff overlooking the water.
Her fisted hand lifted to the sky. Light seeped through her fingers, indicating she held the whole keystone.
Her sisters were no longer in the wall hanging as before.
Instead, she reached with her free hand for someone else.
Someone whose appearance began to slowly emerge.
He watched, mesmerized, his heart thudding like a war drum, as he waited for the fully formed image. A hand reached for Brianna’s. And then the shimmering threads shifted as a man emerged, reaching for her outstretched hand.
That man was him.