Chapter 29
Erica did not move.
Her hands remained lifted and her palms open. She put herself between the stall door and the knife at Katie’s throat.
“Easy,” she soothed. “Look at me, Calum. Nae at her.”
Calum’s voice was soft. Almost kind. “I am looking, Erica. I have been looking for a long time.”
Katie’s breath came in quick little bursts.
Erica kept her eyes on Calum’s face. The knife flashed when the torchlight wavered, but she refused to flinch.
“Let her go,” she said. “Ye daenae need her.”
“Aye, I do.” He tipped his head toward the child. “The lass keeps ye still. Still is safe.”
“Safe for who?”
“For all of us.” His smile did not reach his eyes. “Do ye ken that I sent the note?”
Erica’s heart thudded once. “Which note?”
“The one ye received at the market.” His voice stayed calm. “I tried to warn ye, but ye wouldnae heed me. Ye had already let the wolf sink his teeth in ye.”
Her jaw tightened. “Ye mean Alex.”
“Aye. Who else?” He breathed out a low laugh. “He always gets what he wants. Since we were lads. Glory. Praise. The best horse. The first sword. The loudest cheer. I worked, and he stood. The world bowed to him anyway.”
“Ye are holding a knife to a child’s throat.” Erica kept her voice level. “Whatever he had as a boy, this isnae about that. This is about what ye are doing now. Let her go.”
He ignored her plea. “Do ye ken what he did with all his gifts? He made me his man-at-arms.” The words were bitter. “As if I should thank him for it.”
“Calum.” Erica shifted a fraction, enough to catch Katie’s eye. “Breathe, love. Slowly.” Then she looked back at him. “Ye are instilling fear into the child. Into yer child.”
“Fear is a tool.” His grip tightened on Katie. “One I have been using since all of this started.”
“So this was never about MacGee,” Erica said. “Or alliances. Or the council.”
“MacGee is a fool.” Calum’s lip curled. “He thinks himself a player. He is a piece, that is all.”
“Then what is this?” Erica asked. “What do ye want?”
“To spare ye from a man who cannae love.” His answer came at once. “To spare the lasses from a faither who will choose duty over breath if ye ask him to.”
“Alex has loved them well,” she said. “Ye ken that.”
“Has he?” Calum’s eyes flicked to the child. “Has he, truly? Or did he love them because he had to?”
Erica felt the cold settle under her skin. “We arenae speakin’ in riddles, Calum. Say what ye came to say.”
“He killed Isabella.”
The name fell like a stone.
He continued anyway. “Ye ken, for a time they loved each other. Something must have happened to make him snap. To make him make me kill her.”
Katie whimpered.
Erica breathed slowly. “Please, Calum. Ye can talk about how ye tried to help Isabella all ye want. Just let Katie go.”
“I didnae just try to help her, ye ken. I ended a tragedy.” His eyes glinted. “It was mercy. She wouldnae stop till one of them died. I chose the one who set the fire.”
Erica’s stomach churned. “Are ye saying that ye killed her?”
“I am saying her fate was decided the day he wed her.” His tone stayed gentle. “The window only made it quicker.”
“Let Katie go,” she said again. “We can talk without the knife.”
“We are talking fine.” His gaze roamed over her face with an intensity that made her skin crawl. “I have watched ye since the festival. I kent since then that ye would make a fine wife for any man who can protect ye from yerself.”
“I didnae ken ye were watching me so closely.”
“Aye.” He sounded pleased. “I have learned as much as I can about ye over the past few days. Ye are the kind who would drown quietly so others can breathe.”
Katie began to cry. A thin, shaky sound. Erica did not look at the blade. She held the girl’s eyes.
“Listen to me, Katie,” she said. “Keep yer hands where they are. Stay very still. Ye are doing well.”
“Save yer calm for yerself, Erica,” Calum said. “I am helping ye. Ye daenae see it yet. Alex will crush ye without ever lifting a hand. He will say he is protecting ye while he starves ye. He starved Isabella. He will starve ye too.”
“Ye speak as if love is a loaf,” Erica said. “As if it sits on a table and one slice ends a soul.”
He blinked at that, irritated. “Ye are clever. That is why I felt drawn to ye. I thought me initial plan would work, and ye would heed me warning.”
“Initial?” Her throat tightened. “Ye had a second plan?”
“Aye.” His eyes warmed with a calm that frightened her more than rage. “If I couldnae move ye, I would move him.”
Erica’s breath thinned. “Ye would harm the girls.”
“I would never harm them.” His face twisted. “They are mine to keep safe from his hunger.”
“Release the child,” she said. “We will walk out together. I will hear ye. I will tell him ye wish to speak.”
“Ye will tell him nothing.” Calum eased the blade a hair. Katie gasped. “Because ye willnae be here. Nae for a while. Ye will rest somewhere quiet. Ye will think. Ye will see that he is incapable of love. Then ye will thank me.”
Erica knew then that words would not sway him. Reason would not reach him. He had built a church from his grievances. He would worship there to the end.
There was only another option: she had to take Katie’s place.
The hiss of a knife was the first thing Alex heard. Then Erica’s voice, low and steady, and Calum’s answer, too calm for a man wielding a blade.
He moved through the stables, every sense firing up. At the far end, Calum held Katie in the crook of his arm, steel bright at the child’s throat. Erica stood braced, hands up, body between them and the door.
“Enough,” Alex said.
Calum’s head snapped toward him. In the half light, his face was soft with something like pity. The knife lowered, and in that sliver of distraction, Erica reached for Katie.
Calum shifted fast. He let the girl slip and caught Erica instead, dragging her close, the edge of the blade kissing the line beneath her jaw.
“I willnae let ye force me children to endure another marriage,” he said, breath hot, eyes fixed on Alex.
Alex took a step closer. Then another. His hand stayed low and empty, his voice rough. “Do ye think I didnae ken, Calum?”
The knife pressed harder. A thread of red beaded beneath Erica’s chin.
“Ye ken nothing,” Calum hissed.
Alex laughed. “Isabella told me before she died. The twins are yers, nae mine.”
Silence settled between them, and in that brief moment, straw cracked beneath his boots.
“I said nothing because I thought ye would,” Alex went on, voice steady now, each word set like stone.
“I waited for ye to come forward. The longer ye kept yer silence, the more I realized ye would never speak. But tonight, I realized ye didnae slip with Isabella at the window. Ye threw her out, did ye nae? Ye grim bastard.”
Calum’s mouth tightened. The knife trembled, then stilled. “I ended what ye wouldnae fix.”
“I willnae let ye do the same to Erica,” Alex said.
They moved at the same time.
Calum shoved Erica aside and lunged, his dagger striking the air.
Alex pivoted, felt the blade catch his sleeve and burn a hot line across his forearm.
He closed, caught Calum’s wrist, and slammed it against the stall post. The knife skittered, rebounded off a rail, and spun back into Calum’s free hand.
He slashed again but dropped his weight, and the blade cut air. They crashed to the floor, and the breath left Alex in a flat grunt. He drove his shoulder forward and hooked Calum’s ankle, trying to knock him off balance.
Calum had trained with him for years. He knew the moves. He twisted clear and drove a fist into the side of Alex’s head.
Pain flared across Alex’s skull. He tasted copper. The knife came again, a tight arc for his throat.
Alex caught Calum’s forearm in both hands. The edge kissed his neck and missed. They locked, faces close, breathing harsh, old friendship turned into heat and strain.
“Stand down,” he grunted. “I am warning ye.”
Calum bared his teeth. “For what? So ye can fail her the way ye failed Isabella?”
He wrenched, broke Alex’s grip, and drove the blade for the heart.
Alex dropped his left elbow and took the thrust to his shoulder. Pain flared hot, but he did not let it stop him. He stepped into the path of the knife, head to chin, a short, brutal shove.
Calum’s teeth snapped.
Alex hammered ribs with his right, then again, then a third time, each blow placed where the bone was thin. Calum’s breath hitched.
“Ye think I was only training the men?” Alex panted. “I was training meself as well.”
Calum stabbed wildly, but the point only nicked fabric and skin. Alex drove forward and slammed him into the stall rail, and the knife clattered away.
He did not stop. He hooked Calum’s knee with his boot, spun around, and took him down. He mounted through the scramble, knees to arms, weight pinning shoulders and chest. His hand found the fallen sword lying along the straw where he had dropped it.
“Nay one comes after me children and lives to see the end of it, ye bastard,” he growled.
Calum opened his mouth to speak, but Alex drove down the blade.
The sword met flesh, then wood. Calum jerked, breath leaving him in a long, shocked exhale. His hands spasmed once against Alex’s thighs, then stilled.
Silence came hard, followed by Erica’s gasps. Alex turned to look at her. Blood had sprayed across her dress in a thin arc. It beaded along the edge of her collar, bright as berries in winter.
She did not look at it. She stared at the body beneath Alex’s knees, as if trying to reconcile two men at once.
He stood up and put a hand on the stall post in a bid to steady himself, as the ground swayed beneath him. Katie’s small body slammed into his leg and clung to it. He put a bloody hand on her head and felt her shake.
“Out,” he said, voice low. “Go on, love. Find yer sister. Find the nurse.”
Katie ran, feet loud on the stones outside the stables.
Alex looked down at Calum, then at the sword in his hand, then up at Erica. Her face was pale as she touched her neck, as if to confirm she was still here. Her eyes rose to his and held.
He knew at that moment there was no clean way back to what had been. If she truly wanted to leave now, she would have every right.