Chapter 29
The lamp threw a narrow ring of light that made the wet stone shine. Lachlan stood inside it, calm as if they were having a quiet talk after supper. The bandit slumped against his chains behind him, his eyes bright with a sick interest.
Kristen remained in the passage, her palms clammy and her breathing shallow.
“Why?” The word scraped her throat. “Why would ye do this to yer own braither?”
Lachlan gave a soft, empty laugh. “Is it nae obvious? Because he was never supposed to be Laird.”
He looked right at her. The light cut across his face and turned his eyes to chips of iron.
“I am older than Neil. Did ye ken that, Kristen? I came first. But I came from the wrong woman. The woman our faither discarded like dirty linen.”
“So it is true,” she said, her voice thick with vindication. “Ye really are a bastard.”
The bandit barked a laugh, his eyes twinkling. “Oh, I like her.”
Lachlan turned and slammed his fist into the man’s jaw, then returned his gaze to Kristen.
“Aye, in a manner of speaking.” His mouth twisted. “Our faither doted on her. On her son. The favored one. I was the bastard in the corners. The sword on a day he needed a sword. The afterthought at every table.”
He tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling.
“Neil inherited the name, the lands, the tower. The respect. All because his maither wore a ring that mine never did. Tell me, lass, would that nae eat at ye?”
Images ran through her mind in quick flashes. Lachlan laughing with the men. Lachlan kissing Davina’s brow. Lachlan lifting Finn until the boy’s giggles echoed under the rafters.
She had thought that was his truth. She had been wrong.
“And what does that have to do with me?” Her voice shook, but she did not try to hide it. “Is that why ye were kind to me? Helping me raise Finn and Anna? Pretending to be on me side the entire time? Was it because ye were preparing to kill me? So ye can become Laird?”
His face barely moved. “Partly.”
The bandit snorted again, the sound slithering down the passage like grease.
“Ye really like being punished, do ye nae?” Lachlan shot back without turning around.
“Ye wanted me dead the minute ye saw me, did ye nae?” Kristen probed.
“Nay, ye were only a means to an end. I needed Neil unsettled,” Lachlan explained.
“Needed him tired and filled with doubts. I thought if he took a wife, he might soften and root himself deeper. So I made sure the lass sent to him was one he would never believe he deserved. A good lass with a dark past. Someone who is easy to wound.”
Heat rose in her chest.
Someone who is easy to wound.
“Ye picked me because I would bleed tidy?” she snapped. “Because a wound in me would look clean on yer hands?”
“When he left and didnae come back,” Lachlan continued, ignoring her, “I saw me chance. If Neil sent ye away when he returned, ye would be disgraced, and he would lose the one thing that made his absence forgivable.”
He lifted one shoulder, the motion lazy.
“Then Davina and I could take the children. Raise them properly. Give the people a line that was safe from the Pirate’s curse.”
“Ye hoped for me heartbreak,” Kristen said, her voice low. “So ye could steal his life from under him.”
“Ye call it stealing his life? I call it reclaiming what should have been mine.”
“Does Davina ken?” She clung to the question like a handhold on a cliff. “Does she ken that ye sent men after yer own braither? That ye have a hand in Alex’s death. In that poor woman’s death.”
For a moment, his eyes flickered. But then they hardened again.
“God, nay,” he grunted. “Davina is far too good for that. She wanted children and a peaceful life. I aimed to give her that, but I kent she wouldnae have agreed to the cost.”
“So ye lied to her,” Kristen hissed. “As ye lied to me. Ye used her kindness the same way ye used mine.”
He did not answer. He walked toward her instead. The low light drew harsh lines across his cheekbones, and his boots were almost silent on the wet floor. The corridor breathed with the slow drip of water and the faint clink of chains.
Kristen stepped back once. The stone was cool against the heel of her palm. The space between them shrank to a few paces.
Lachlan’s voice dropped. “Ye think ye matter here. Ye think folks love ye for yer soft words and yer quick help. Ye are a tool. A way to make the people forgive the years we couldnae account for. A way to keep Neil off balance. And ye will soon be nothing at all.”
Cold prickled over her skin.
“Lachlan,” she warned. “Stop.”
He did not stop.
He drew his dagger in one smooth motion.
The iron caught the torchlight, bright for a blink, before darkening.
He closed the last inches just as she drew breath to shout.
She had one beat to see the shape of his face, the face of a brother she had shared meals with for years. Then the point touched her throat.
She froze. The first press was light, a cruel promise. Then the blade pressed a fraction harder. A sting.
Warmth beaded under the edge and slid down the hollow at the base of her throat, slow as a tear.
“Ye should have stayed in yer place, lassie,” he murmured, his breath brushing her cheek. “Played the quiet, obedient wife. Then ye might have lived long enough to see what I built from the ruins.”
Her mind threw up bright images, fast and useless.
Finn’s grin with berries in his fist. Anna’s hands clapping in the morning light.
Davina’s laughter in the garden. Neil’s mouth softening when she had said she might have missed him, too.
The woman’s last breath in the courtyard.
The promise she had made over her cooling brow.
So it was true; one’s life does flash before one’s eyes when one is about to die.
She did not move anyway. The merest flinch would open her throat more. She met Lachlan’s eyes and studied just how cold they were.
They had been cold all along, and she had not seen it.
Behind him, the bandit shifted, the chains scraping. Another laugh escaped him, low and pleased, as if the knife at her neck were a story he had heard many times and always liked.
“That is where ye’re wrong,” Kristen said, each word chosen with care. “Ye willnae build anything but graves.”
Lachlan’s mouth twisted into a thin smile. “We will see.”
Kristen’s pulse fluttered against the blade, and her heart hammered so loudly she could not hear anything else.
Neil walked away from the courtyard with his blood still pounding in his ears. Kristen had vanished for a while. Had she returned to her room?
No, she wouldn’t deliberately leave the people out here to go to bed.
Did she go hiding or something?
At that moment, a guard hurried past with a lantern, and he caught his sleeve.
“Where is the lady?” Neil asked, his voice rough.
The guard swallowed. “I saw her heading for the dungeons, me Laird. She looked pale, like she meant to speak to the prisoner.”
Cold slid under Neil’s ribs. He released the guard and took the stairs two at a time. The air grew damp and cold, the sounds of the castle fading until only the drip of water and the faint grind of iron remained.
Halfway down, he heard voices. Lachlan’s, low and tight. Kristen’s, thin with a strain he had never heard before.
He knew distress when he heard it, and the sound of his wife’s anguish quickened his pace. He rounded the last turn and saw the cell door standing half open, spilling light across the floor.
He pushed through.
Lachlan had Kristen pinned to the wall, his body crowding hers. The dagger point rested against her throat, and a bright red line glistened where the steel had already bitten.
Neil stopped breathing.
He didn’t know what had happened. He just knew that the sight tore something loose inside him.
“Lachlan.”
Both heads snapped toward him. Kristen’s eyes widened with relief and terror. Lachlan’s narrowed like a man irritated by a late guest.
“Drop the knife,” Neil ordered, his voice low and deadly.
Lachlan pressed the blade a fraction harder, and Kristen hissed. A bead of blood slid down, slow and obscene.
“This was always meant to happen, ye ken that, Braither,” Lachlan snarled. “One of us was always going to die. Might as well be the one who never deserved the lairdship.”
“Ye think ye’re the one who deserves to live?” Neil barked. “After what ye have done?”
“I think it is ye,” Lachlan answered, calm as winter. “Ye and yer cursed line. Faither ruined this clan, and ye followed in his footsteps. I tried to save us. Ye should have lain down and died when ye had the chance.”
“Let her go,” Neil gritted out. “Now. I will hear every lie ye want to spit about me. But if ye touch her again, there will be nothing left of ye to bury.”
Lachlan let out a broken laugh. “Look at ye. Still protecting what is yers, even now. Even after I sent ye to hell five years ago.”
Neil widened his stance. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword until his knuckles ached. “Last chance, Braither. Drop the dagger.”
“I am nae yer braither, ye bastard,” Lachlan snapped.
His arm jerked, the dagger angling for Kristen’s throat.
Neil moved.
Steel sliced through the air as he dove forward, and Kristen twisted to the side. Lachlan’s blade grazed her skin but missed the kill.
Neil’s sword struck Lachlan’s wrist with a crack, and the dagger flew away, clattering across the floor.
Lachlan swore and fell back a step, his hand already flying to his own sword. The bandit gave a low laugh and shifted, the chains scraping the wall. The cell filled with light and shouts and damp air.
They came together with a crash that rattled the bars. There was no choreography or strength to the fight, only the grind of metal and the saw of their breaths.
And five years of rage.
Lachlan struck first, hard and high. Neil caught the blow and shoved, their blades sliding and locking. They leaned into the bind, their faces close enough for their breaths to mingle.
“Ye could have come to me,” Neil said through clenched teeth. “Ye could have spoken plainly. Ye could have asked for a different future, instead of feeding wolves with me name.”
“Ye were the future,” Lachlan spat. “And that, right there, was the problem.”
They broke apart, and Neil cut left. Lachlan parried and answered with a slash that kissed Neil’s forearm. Heat stung, but Neil did not look at it. He let his rage burn clean, keeping his feet and his breath.
Kristen pressed herself against the wall, one hand at her throat, blood marking her skin in a thin, furious line. Her eyes did not leave them.
Lachlan ducked, then dove for Neil’s shoulder. Neil met him in the middle, steel clashing against steel. He shoved forward and twisted his wrist, breaking the lock. Lachlan stumbled, and Neil stepped into the opening without a second thought.
“Wai—” Lachlan called, but it was too late.
Neil drove his sword straight through his chest, and the sound of tearing flesh filled the dungeons.
Thick silence ensued.
Lachlan’s eyes went wide, and for a heartbeat, he looked almost young, almost lost. The sword slipped from his hand and clattered on the stone. His knees buckled, before he fell to the floor, staring at nothing.
Neil stood over him, his chest heaving. “That is for Alex, for the bairns, and for me wife, who ye tried to kill.”
He pulled his blade free and dropped it. The clatter echoed through the corridor.
Then he turned.
Kristen slid down the wall, her legs giving out. He crossed the space between them in two strides and dropped to his knees in front of her.
“Kristen,” he murmured. “Are ye hurt?”
She touched her throat with bloodied fingers. “It isnae deep,” she said, though her voice shook. Tears brimmed and spilled over, smearing the dirt on her cheeks.
Neil lifted his hands to her face, then paused, hovering as if the slightest touch might break her. “I have ye,” he said softly. “Do ye hear me? Ye have nothing to fear now.”
A sound escaped her, thin and fractured. Not quite a sob, and not quite a laugh.
“Me whole world,” she whispered, her eyes drifting to Lachlan’s lifeless body. “Me whole world is falling apart.”
Neil had no answer. He could only kneel on the damp floor, with blood drying on his arm and on her skin, and stare at her.
Something shifted between them at that moment.
He reached out, slow and careful, and put a gentle hand on her head. She leaned into him, the smallest weight, as if he were merely a wall against her back.
For the first time since his return, Neil had no certainty or control to hold on to. All he could do now was face the wreckage of what his family had done.
What his brother had done.