Claimed by the Highland Heir (Daughters of the Glen #3)

Prologue

Alittle girl staggered down the corridors, sobbing.

Smoke hung in the air, ash clinging to everything, including her.

She blinked, trying to get the gritty feel out of her eyes. When she wiped at her eyes with her fingers, the stinging of the smoke only seemed to get worse. The heat, too, intensified until it prickled over her skin, a low and angry warning.

Isobel had told her to stay where she was, that she would get help and be straight back, but the smoke had gotten worse and worse until it was almost impossible to breathe.

A pair of men ran past, smoke curling around them. They carried heavy buckets, water slopping over the sides.

“Can ye help me?” she cried, her voice croaky.

The first man didn’t even glance at her, but the second skidded to a halt, peering down anxiously. More water slopped over the side of the bucket. She wondered if she should tell him that the fire was too bad for all of that, that only two buckets of water wouldn’t do anything.

“Matthew, man, there’s a wee lassie here,” the man called down the hallway after his friend. The first man did not even slow down.

“Leave her be, there’s no time to waste,” he called back, his voice tight with panic. “If we don’t get this fire under control, we will lose the Keep anyway, regardless of whether we can fight off the invaders.”

Invaders? She shivered, her thin nightgown sticking to her skin.

Surely nobody could break into the Keep, not through the walls they had.

Didn’t Da guard the Keep himself? Big, strong Da, nobody could get past him.

And she’d seen how thick the Keep walls were; thicker even than she was tall.

All four of them could lie down head to toe and the walls would still be thicker.

She thought briefly of her sisters—Alyth, Fiona, and Isobel.

Were they safe? Yes, they must be. Catriona was the youngest of them all, and her big sisters would surely have the matter in hand.

Something had clearly happened to delay Isobel, but at any moment one of her sisters would appear through the smoke, take Catriona’s hand, and drag her to safety.

“Is it because of me?” Catriona blurted out.

The man paused, squinting at her. She wondered briefly if he could see her properly through all the smoke. He hadn’t called her Lady Catriona, so maybe not.

“What?” he queried.

She swallowed and held out her hand, opening her palm.

In it sat a silver circlet, a ring with a small polished stone sitting in the middle.

She wasn’t entirely sure what the stone was, only that it was black and very pretty and shiny.

It was too large for her now, of course, but she’d grow quickly, and then surely it would fit.

The man blinked at the ring. “What are ye talking about, lassie? We’re under attack. The Keep is aflame, so our choices now are to be killed, taken prisoner, or burned. Ye need to flee. If ye keep following this hall, ye will step out into the open air.”

Catriona let out a shuddering breath. “We aren’t meant to have them till we are nine.

But Alyth has her earrings—though she hasn’t gotten pierced ears yet—and Fiona got her brooch today.

Isobel and I thought we could just have a wee look at our things from Ma.

I snuck into Da’s chambers and took them, just for tonight.

But Da said there’d be trouble if we took them. Is this my fault?”

The man’s eyes widened. He turned, bellowing down the hallway.

“Matthew! Matthew, man! It’s wee Catriona, the Laird’s lass! Matthew!”

There was no response. His friend had vanished into the dense smoke.

Before long he’d reach the wall of flame, the one Catriona had encountered when she tried to go tottering after her sister.

The smoke had engulfed her room long ago, driving her out, making her cough so much she thought she might be sick.

The man swore to himself when his friend did not respond and dropped into a crouch before Catriona. Carefully, he took her small, grubby hand and folded her fingers over the ring.

“Ye take good care of that, lass,” he murmured, smiling encouragingly. “None of this is yer fault. Everything is fine, aye? But ye have to go down the hallway now. This smoke is only going to get worse, and there might be dangerous men about.”

“Dangerous men?” she repeated, swallowing. “Are my sisters safe?”

“I am sure that they are. Laird MacAlpin wouldn’t suffer any of his wee lassies to be hurt, now, would he?”

“Isobel said she would go to get help, but we were afraid of being caught with Ma’s things. We aren’t meant to have them yet! Da will be angry.”

“I promise ye that he will not. He’ll only be pleased that ye are here and safe.

Now, listen to me carefully. Ye go on down this hallway, and ye will come out into a courtyard.

There might be people there. Go to them and ask for help.

If there’s fighting, or they wear a tartan ye do not recognize, then go around the courtyard to where the well stands.

There’s a wee door set deep into the wall.

It’s been left open so that folks can escape if they need to.

Slip out, if ye can, and find somewhere to hide in the woods. Ye will be safe there.”

A hot tear rolled down Catriona’s cheek, leaving a clean line in the grime. She sniffled miserably, wiping at the tear with the back of her hand.

“B-but how will Da and my sisters know where to find me?” she blubbered.

He smiled at her, awkwardly reaching out to pat her tangled hair.

“I shall tell them where to find ye. Just stay there, aye?”

He seemed so certain. More certain than Isobel had been when she told her sister to stay where she was and wait. Why hadn’t Isobel come back?

In the back of her mind, it occurred to Catriona that perhaps something terrible had happened, fire or smoke or maybe a long, gleaming sword. But she put those thoughts aside. It couldn’t be true, it wasn’t true. They were safe, and everything would be well. Da would make sure of it.

“Now go,” the man continued, getting to his feet and seizing the bucket once more. “I’ll tell them where to find ye. If I live, of course.”

That last part was muttered hastily, almost offhandedly, and she couldn’t help but feel that she wasn’t supposed to hear it. It didn’t matter, because she put the thought away at once.

The man scurried off into the curling smoke, and she watched him go until even his silhouette had vanished. The man didn’t turn back to look at her even once.

But he’d promised to tell somebody where to find her, so she was safe, surely. Clutching Ma’s ring to her chest—the last memory she had of her—Catriona turned and scuttled along the hall, chasing fresher air.

She found it.

The smoke grew thinner and less choking the further along she went, until the air was almost clear but not quite. Abruptly, she came to a door, the one the man had mentioned. Catriona wished she’d asked his name. Too late now.

Stumbling out through the door, she hacked and coughed. When she sneezed, she brought up blackish snot which made her gag. Was she ill, or was it the smoke?

Da will know, she reminded herself, and staggered on. The night air wrapped around her, painfully cold after the heat and smoke of the hallway.

At first, she thought that the dark courtyard was empty, only with a few lumps lying here and there, perhaps abandoned sacks. Then one of the lumps stirred, groaning brokenly, and she realized with a sickening rush that it was a person.

Before she could go to them, a shadow flitted across the courtyard, the shape of a man with a great kilt wrapped around him. In the weak glint of moonlight, Catriona found that she did not recognize the tartan.

It wasn’t MacAlpin.

The man eyed the shifting lump thoughtfully, then lifted a pike.

He brought the pointed end of the pike down with a crunching thunk, spearing the shape straight through the middle.

Not a shape. A person, Catriona thought, bile rushing to her mouth so aggressively that she really did think she might vomit.

The person on the ground gave a stifled cry, then lay still. The figure stood over the corpse for a moment or two, then gave a nod and a satisfied grunt, pulling his pike free. He stalked off, never once glancing at the shadowed doorway where Catriona stood motionless.

I can’t stay here.

As soon as she could make her frozen legs move, Catriona scuttled forward.

Her bare feet slapped on the cobblestones, occasionally coming across patches of strange wetness.

It couldn’t be rain, since there hadn’t been any rain.

Not manure or any kind of filthiness, because Da liked the courtyard kept clean.

Probably best not to think about what it might be.

She reached the wall, feeling along it in a deathly, terrified silence until she reached a small door, barely taller than she was.

There was a handle, a latch, and it seemed entirely certain that it would not turn until it did turn, the door jerking open to reveal a rectangle of absolute darkness beyond.

Catriona hesitated on the threshold, imagining all kinds of monsters and specters in the shadows.

But then, reasoned a more practical voice in the back of her mind, they can’t be any worse than what is already inside.

With this terrifying thought, Catriona squeezed Ma’s ring tighter, threw one last hopeful look over her shoulder in hopes of seeing Da or her sisters there, and plunged into the night.

“Nay, Marion, not dead. See, she’s stirring now.”

Catriona cracked open first one eye and then another. Rushing water streamed past her face, so close that if she’d wanted, she could have reached out a hand and dangled her fingers in the water.

Damp moss pressed into her cheek, and it struck her then how cold she was, her thin nightdress sticking to her skin. Rolling onto her back—a twig poked her between the shoulder blades—Catriona blinked, memories coming back to her.

The Keep walls were not visible from here. She can’t have gone far, but in which direction?