Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The horses dragged Isobel through the dark until the castle lights vanished behind the trees.
She fought them for as long as strength allowed.
Her heels struck stone, then earth, then wet leaves.
Her wrist burned where one man held it twisted behind her back, and the hand over her mouth tasted of leather, sweat, and salt.
Twice she tried to bite. Once she managed it and was rewarded with a curse and a cruel tightening of the arm about her ribs.
Still, she fought. When Ruaridh came, she wanted signs for him to follow, a torn scrap of sleeve, a heel dragged through mud, blood… anything.
At last, the trees opened into a hollow hidden between dark slopes and wind-bent pines.
Torches burned low there, their smoke creeping beneath the branches.
Men moved about with weapons in hand and the ease of those who believed themselves well concealed.
Horses stood tethered near the edge of the camp, shifting uneasily in the cold.
And at the center of it all stood Ewen MacDonald. He turned when they brought her in. The satisfaction that settled over his face was worse than triumph. It was possession made flesh.
“There she is,” he mused with a smile.
The men released her mouth but not her arms. Isobel drew in a sharp breath, tasting smoke and blood where she had bitten her own lip.
Ewen came toward her unhurriedly. “I did begin tae think MacLean would keep ye locked in his tower forever. But husbands grow careless when they think a thing belongs tae them.”
Isobel stared at him with open hatred. “I belong tae nae man.”
His smile sharpened. “That is a pretty lie. The Crown gave ye. MacLean stole ye. And now I have taken ye back.”
“Back?” Her voice was hoarse, but it did not shake. “I was never yers.”
Something flickered in his eyes. He stopped close enough that she could smell wine on him beneath the smoke.
“Ye should have been. The claim was mine before he interfered. I have waited long enough, Lady Isobel. I have spent coin, men, and patience on retrieving what was denied me.”
“What was denied ye,” she snarled, and each word was cold with contempt, “was the right tae ruin another woman.”
His face darkened. Fear moved through her then, but she would not give him the pleasure of seeing it. She thought of Ruaridh’s hand over hers, of his voice in the dark, of the way he had said no one would take her from him.
She gathered what courage remained in her and spat in Ewen’s face. For one stunned instant, the whole camp seemed to cease breathing. Ewen’s expression changed at once. The blow came hard enough to turn her head.
Pain burst white across her cheek. She staggered, but the men holding her kept her upright. For an anguishing heartbeat, she could hear nothing but the rush of her own blood. Then sound returned in the crackle of torches, a horse stamping, and one man’s low laugh cut short when Ewen looked at him.
Ewen seized her arm and wrenched her toward him. “Ye should have learned obedience by now.”
Isobel lifted her face, feeling her cheek burning, while her eyes were wet with tears. “And ye should have learned that wanting a thing daesnae make it yers.”
His fingers dug into her flesh. Then, from the edge of the camp, came a shout. A body crashed through brush. Men turned all at once toward the trees as another cry tore through the night.
Isobel’s heart leapt so violently it hurt. Ewen’s grip tightened, but she smiled through the pain, because somewhere in the dark beyond the torches, death had found its way to the camp.
And she knew whose name it carried.
Ruaridh entered the camp like violence given shape. There was no shout from him and no warning. All he offered was the sudden break of men at the tree line, the flash of steel, and the first guard falling before he had fully turned.
Torin was at his left. Brodie at his right.
Behind them, MacLean men poured from the dark, silent only until the first blades met.
Then the hollow erupted. Men shouted while horses screamed against their tethers.
Torches swayed and spat sparks into the black branches overhead.
Steel rang so sharply it seemed to split the night itself.
Ruaridh saw none of it clearly. He saw only Isobel. He saw her hair her pale face and one cheek already marked red from a blow. Something in him went beyond mere fury.
The first man came at him with a raised blade. Ruaridh struck him down without slowing. Another lunged from the side, but Brodie met him with a savage crash of steel. Torin drove forward like a storm, clearing space with each stroke. Ruaridh moved through them all.
“Isobel!” he shouted desperately, feeling her name tear through every defense he had put up around him.
Her eyes found him across the chaos. They widened, and relief broke over her face so openly that it nearly undid him. Then Ewen seized her. The man dragged her back hard against his chest and pulled a blade to her throat.
“Stop!” Ewen roared.
Ruaridh did not hear the word so much as feel the world obey it. His feet halted. Every instinct in him revolted. His sword remained raised, and his body was ready to spring, but the blade at Isobel’s throat held him more completely than chains.
Around them, fighting continued in violent bursts, but near the center of the camp, men began to notice. Torin froze first, then Brodie, both breathing hard, and both watching Ewen’s hand.
Ewen smiled. It was the smile of a man who had found the one leash he knew was strong enough.
“Another step,” Ewen shouted menacingly, “and I open her throat before ye reach me.”
Ruaridh’s grip tightened on his sword until pain shot through his hand. Isobel’s eyes were fixed on his. She was afraid. He could see that. His beloved wife’s life lay in the hands of this villain. The very idea made him tremble with rage, but he managed to calm himself down.
“Let her go,” Ruaridh spoke through clenched teeth.
Ewen laughed. “Ye dinnae command here.”
“I said let her go.”
“And I say ye will put down that sword if ye want her breathing.”
Torin shifted half an inch. Ewen pressed the blade closer. A thin red line appeared against Isobel’s skin. Ruaridh’s heart stopped.
“Dae it,” Ewen hissed.
For the first time in years, Ruaridh lowered his sword, not because he had been beaten, but because winning meant nothing if Isobel paid the cost.
“Ruaridh,” she breathed.
He looked only at her. “It’s all right.”
It was a lie. It was the only gift he could give her.
Ewen’s satisfaction deepened. “There. The Wolf tamed.”
Ruaridh let the insult pass through him. Lands, name, pride, fearsome reputation, it was all ashes. He would have put Duart into Ewen’s hands stone by stone if it meant he would be bringing Isobel back alive.
“What dae ye want?” he asked.
Ewen’s gaze sharpened with triumph. “What I was owed.”
“Then take payment.”
Brodie made a low sound, but Ruaridh did not look away from Ewen.
“Lands?” Ruaridh exclaimed. “Leverage before the Crown? A pledge signed before witnesses? Say it, and ye shall have it.”
Ewen stilled, plainly startled by how little resistance met him.
Ruaridh stepped no closer. He dared not. “Only give her back tae me unharmed.”
Isobel’s eyes followed him every single moment, and in them, he saw the terrible understanding that he meant every word.
“Ruaridh, nay.”
“Aye,” he spoke softly now, for her alone though the camp heard him. “Aye, mo chridhe.”
Ewen’s arm tightened around her. His smile returned, brighter and uglier than before, if such a thing were even possible.
“So it is true,” he scoffed. “Ye love her.”
Ruaridh felt no shame in the truth, only terror that it had become a weapon in another man’s hand.
“Aye,” he confessed.
The word carried through the camp like a vow. Ewen’s eyes glittered. He had come seeking possession, revenge, proof that Ruaridh MacLean could be made to kneel. And now, with Isobel trapped before him and Ruaridh’s sword lowered in the dirt, he believed he had found all three.
He thought he had won. Ruaridh saw it settle over his face. And still, if victory meant Isobel’s blood upon the ground, Ruaridh would have let him keep it.