Chapter 7
Ciaran kept his eyes fixed on the glint of light, sharp and unnatural, gleaming from the armory door. The flicker had caught his eye and his warrior’s senses—no matter how much Eilidh might choose to denigrate them—had perked up with a certainty that this was no mere trick of the light.
He crossed the yard, heading for that telltale glint of light, determined not to let whatever trouble it promised touch Eilidh—or any of these people who had so kindly taken him in, even when they’d had no reason to be anything other than suspicious.
As he slipped into the shadowy armory, though, and felt the kiss of steel against his throat, he couldn't deny that part of him regretted his choice.
“Do ye greet everyone this way?” Ciaran drawled, his unaffected tone a stark contrast to the way ice went through his veins as soon as he felt the touch of metal. “If so, I cannae reckon that ye have much in the way of friends.”
The line of fire that lit up on his throat as the hired blade dug his knife more firmly into Ciaran’s flesh was a far more pointed rebuke than the growl that came from behind him. Even so, Ciaran kept his eyes fixed ahead, on the shadows that he knew still obscured the true threat.
His body screamed at him to fight, to do something, but he knew that doing so would only end up with him reinjured. He was still not healed enough to move as he should, anyway.
“Really?” he asked when there was no immediate reply. “Are ye so bored that ye need to play games to pass the time?”
Ruaridh Black stepped from the shadows, shrouded in the black-on-black tartan of his merciless band of hired blades.
He was sneering, but Ciaran had never seen him wearing any other expression, and not only because of the puckered scar on his cheek that caused his face to perpetually slope off to one side.
He juggled a scrap of something shiny in his hand—a shard of looking glass, Ciaran realized after a moment.
That’s what the gleam had been. Black had been flashing a mirror specifically to draw Ciaran’s attention.
“Ye have quite a mouth on ye for someone who is one wrong move away from having a new hole in him,” Black observed, sounding as slimy and smug as he ever did.
Christ, Ciaran hated him. He assumed that everyone hated Black, including his own men, but damn it all, Ciaran really hated him.
“If ye were going to kill me, ye wouldn’t be playing games,” Ciaran returned.
He might be unable to kill Black, no matter how much he fantasized about doing so, but he didn’t have to kowtow to the man. Hell, he’d rather get stabbed than act subservient to the likes of Black.
Black’s smirk grew more pronounced, and he took a step closer, clearly trying to menace Ciaran. But Ciaran remained distinctly unimpressed.
“It’s funny that ye say it like that,” Black sneered.
He really only did have the one way of being. It was the kind of thing that would make certain that he never rose above his current status. Black was a hammer, not a blade; he lacked finesse, which meant he would only ever manage to lead other crude tools.
But still a hammer could smash. It could cause a great deal of destruction, indeed.
“Because,” Black went on, clearly enjoying himself, “I was just about to tell ye that Laird Gordon doesnae take kindly to his toys ignoring his calls. Especially after they slip their leash when they were meant to stay put.”
The insult smarted; Ciaran flinched slightly with the force of his rage but was stopped by another little flicker of pain from the knife at his neck.
“I’m nobody’s toy—nor anyone’s dog,” he snapped. “And Gordon is nobody’s laird.”
The man behind Ciaran, responding to a nod from Black, moved his blade away from Ciaran’s throat to press lightly at the sensitive skin just below Ciaran’s eye.
Ciaran found this to be considerably more threatening; Black might not kill him, not when Ciaran was still useful to Gordon, but he wouldn’t have any qualms about a little light maiming.
The beating he’d let his men deliver had been sufficient evidence of that.
“That,” Black seethed, “is where ye are wrong. Ye are a mutt to be brought to heel and Laird Gordon is your master and commander.” His dark eyes were lit with malicious pleasure as he regarded Ciaran, who didn’t even dare to breathe deeply, not with that blade so close to his eye.
“That is, of course, unless ye wish to have the king’s justice brought down upon ye. ”
Despite the peril he still faced, Ciaran felt his eyes drift shut at this. Because yes, Black was a hammer—and here was the hammer’s drop.
The Gunns had attracted the king’s attention once before, after the rebellion, and they’d been brutally punished for it.
Ciaran had been one of the few men who had raised his blade alongside the Jacobites and lived to tell the tale, not only following the massacre at Culloden but also in the vicious wave that followed as the redcoats had swept through the Highlands, slaying anyone who dared stand in their path.
However, the deaths had been just the beginning for the Gunns.
Because the king hadn’t just seen fit to order the slaughter of some of their best soldiers. He’d also forbidden them from distilling—the one way that the Gunns, with their limited farmland, had earned their coin for centuries. Losing that income had been a death blow for the clan.
So, Ciaran’s father, in his infinite wisdom, had played dutiful servant to the Crown right up until the king’s back was turned, and then had promptly done whatever he wanted. And it had worked, had kept the clan alive.
Right up until bloody Finlay Gordon had learned about the duplicity.
Because all it would take was one word from Gordon, and the king’s attention would promptly return to Clan Gunn. And George II was not known for his tender mercies.
The clan wouldn’t survive. They’d be obliterated, like so many other clans before them had been.
Which meant that Ciaran was stuck, caught between his duty to his people and his sense of honor.
But no matter how much he resisted the utter dishonor that was not fighting Gordon with everything in him…
His people came first. They had to come first.
He opened his eyes. Black was staring at him with the smarmy, satisfied look of a man who knew that he had won.
“What the hell do ye want, Black?” Ciaran gritted out the words through force of effort alone.
Black’s smile spread. Ciaran could smell his fetid breath, but at least Black gave a nod to the other hired blade, who finally pulled his dirk away from Ciaran’s eye.
“Well, your little flight might be good for something after all, now that ye’ve found your way into Buchanan Keep and its nest of snakes,” Black said in a thoughtful way that made unease roil in Ciaran’s stomach. “Especially now since I’ve seen ye chatting up those lasses out there.”
“They’re women,” Ciaran snapped. “They’re nae a part of this.”
Black laughed, a humorless, cruel sound. “Again ye are wrong, mutt,” he retorted. “Laird Gordon wants the youngest sister. Eilidh, I think her name is?”
The sound of Black saying Eilidh’s name was nearly as painful as all the injuries Ciaran had suffered in his beating. He could barely hear his own response over the roaring in his ears.
“There’s naught to be gained through the lass,” he said, hoping that none of his sheer terror was apparent in his tone.
Black was the kind of man who would exploit that kind of vulnerability even if he hadn’t been ordered to do so by the man who paid him.
“So long as Graham Donaghey breathes, so long as he has his castle, there’s naught that Gordon can do. ”
This should have wiped that greasy smile off Black’s face. But instead, he just leaned forward, like he was a schoolroom lass imparting a bit of gossip. A hank of dark, unwashed hair fell over his brow.
“Och, that may be true,” he said gleefully. “But Graham Donaghey willnae be a problem for much longer.”
Ciaran hadn’t thought it possible that his blood could run any colder. But these words proved him wrong.
And then, it got even worse.
“Ciaran Gunn, I have a bone to pick with ye!”
Black’s smile gleamed in the dim light as Eilidh’s voice rang through the space. He gave Ciaran a wink that made Ciaran pray that one day, he would get to put an end to this man.
“Time is ticking, Gunn,” he muttered. “Dinnae give Laird Gordon reason to be disappointed in ye, or I guarantee that ye will be the one to regret it.”
Eilidh was getting impatient.
Well, patience had never been her strong suit. But she was feeling particularly impatient. With one particular man.
Stupid, stupid, stupid Ciaran Gunn.
“What are ye even doing in here?” she called out as she approached the door to the armory. “It’s nae as though ye have stored any—”
Her words cut off abruptly as Ciaran stepped out the door, swiftly enough that her hand, extended to open the door, met his hard chest instead. His eyes were wide, almost fearful… and was that something on his neck?
She snatched her hand back down to her side and tried to hide her flaming cheeks by peering around him into the shadowy hallway behind him. She thought she saw a flicker of something and then—
Ciaran grabbed her around the shoulders, turned her so that her back was against the wall to the side of the small stone building, and pressed his lips, hard and firm, against hers.
For a moment, the world fell away. There was nothing but the press of him, the warm, distinctly masculine taste of his mouth on hers, and the racing of her heart, which thumped his name with every beat.
Ciaran. Ciaran.
He tasted like fire, like want. She felt her lips fall open, just enough that they could share a single breath.
A wildness seized her, and she followed a mad instinct to touch the tip of her tongue to the soft skin of his lower lip.
It was a gentle touch, too light to even be called a caress, but it sent a thrill through Eilidh and tore a groan from Ciaran’s throat, a deep, tortured sound.
And then he ripped himself away from her, as though she’d been the one to attack him, and not the reverse.
He stumbled away until his back hit the far wall of the corridor. It didn’t put much space between them but still made it clear that he wanted nothing more than to get as much distance from her as possible.
The rejection shot through her like a hot blade, searingly painful, leaving anger in its wake.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded, trying to push back the way that her chest was heaving, the way that she’d been left breathless by that kiss. “What—what in God’s name were ye thinking?”
Across from her, Ciaran seemed to be gasping for air himself. He looked as baffled by his actions as she felt. His eyes searched her face, and for the life of her, she didn’t know what he might be seeing in her expression.
That kiss had been… God. She didn’t even have the words, didn’t know what was coursing through her. Longing? Surely, she couldn’t be longing for him, not when he was constantly driving her completely mad.
“I—forgive me,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I was lost… in reverie.”
“What?”
Eilidh didn’t know what kind of reverie made a man hide among a bunch of mostly unused blades, emerge as though something had set him on fire, and then kiss her?
But there were no answers forthcoming, because no sooner had the question made it past her lips than Ciaran turned on his heel and all but fled.
“What in the hell was that?” Eilidh asked the empty air, slumping against the wall that she’d been pinned against only a moment before. Pinned so that Ciaran Gunn could kiss her.
Her hand floated to her lips, which felt bruised and swollen, even from the brief embrace between them. He’d kissed her like he was starving for it, and it had woken a new hunger in her, too. She wanted more. She wanted him.
She dropped her head so she could rub the bridge of her nose. Maybe, if she was very lucky, this would rearrange her brains properly.
Because she wasn’t supposed to be doing this any longer! She wasn’t supposed to be writing stories in her mind about what could be. She needed to keep her feet firmly on the ground.
And the facts were these: he had kissed her.
He had stolen her breath, made her heart race, made her knees threaten to crumple beneath her.
And yes, maybe she’d let herself indulge in a few moments of wanting to believe that there could be something between them, something more than her playing nurse before he left the keep and her life forever.
Maybe a kiss between them made that dream seem a good deal more real.
But he had left.
That was the truest part. He’d run away from her.
And men didn’t do that if they had good intentions. They didn’t do that if they intended to make a life with a girl.
They ran when they were ashamed of their actions. When they regretted what they’d done.
She clung to that idea, clutched it tight until it hurt as much as possible. She needed to remember that hurt. Possibly it would finally keep her from letting her imagination get the better of her.
She was just about to walk away from the armory when something glinting on the floor caught her eye.
With a frown, she bent and retrieved a shard of… Why was there a piece of looking glass on the ground of the armory? She glanced around, as though a looking glass might suddenly appear in a room that was packed to the rafters with weapons.
Many, many things were here, but no mirrors.
There was, of course, always a chance that it was just a coincidence. Goodness knew that plenty of clansmen trekked through this space every day.
But instinct made her wonder. Was this strange piece of glass somehow related to the equally strange reaction that Ciaran had shown when she’d arrived at the armory? Was there something more to Ciaran Gunn than he wanted his supposed allies to believe?
Unease overtook her. Was this why he’d kissed her? Because of… whatever he’d been doing in here?
She slipped the shard of mirror into her pocket, not even entirely certain why she was doing so. It was just instinct.
Or maybe it was a reminder. Because, no matter how many times she told herself otherwise, all that she could think was that Ciaran Gunn had kissed her. And no matter how rational she tried to be, no matter how many suspicious thoughts flickered through her mind.
She found that she still wanted more.