Chapter 20 #2
Without another thought, his body obeyed his father’s last command.
Sword in hand, he pushed toward the road.
Da had sent her toward Lealt, toward the ring fort.
One glance at his mother’s body lying in the grass sent terror coursing through him that Freya would be just up ahead, also dead.
He couldn’t lose her. Nothing else mattered except finding her, nothing mattered but holding her in his arms. She was all he had left.
Rock came up behind him with two conrois1 of MacLean guards, moving up the road, cutting down stray caterans and rallying the villagers. Orders rang out, men scrambled, defense slowly taking shape.
The Jurans began to fall in behind Lightning.
Step by step, they followed his lead through debris-strewn paths, searching for survivors.
Dazed still, he didn’t understand. Then it began to dawn on him.
They were following because he was their chieftain now.
They were looking to him to guide them through the wreckage, through the terror, through a world that had shifted in the span of an hour.
Grufa trudged up beside him, stern-faced, pointing to a cluster of children sobbing in their mothers’ arms. “Cù Cogaidh, what are your orders?”
Lightning sifted through what he knew, scanning the chaos around him. The fires burned mostly at the edges of Inverlussa, the worst destruction left at the bay. To the south, clouds of smoke obscured the horizon where the caterans had moved on. To the north, all seemed quiet.
He gripped Grufa’s meaty shoulder, steadying himself against the familiarity of the old-order Juran.
“Take them as fast as you can to Lealt. We’re heading there now, but I need to find my wife.
Get them into the ring fort and do not come out until I arrive.
If Freya is there, guard her with your life. She is—she is the new Lady of Jura.”
Grufa’s face slackened with shock, his eyes heavy with the weight of the news. Then he gave a slow, resolute nod and turned, his voice booming toward the gathered MacSorleys at Ragnall’s fence. “Move quickly! The chieftain has ordered us to take the children to the Lealt fort!”
Without hesitation, the men tightened around the mothers and little ones, forming a shield of bodies as they hurried them up the road.
Balder followed Lightning up Ragnall’s path. “I’ll help you search.”
Lightning rushed to Ragnall’s darkened door, kicking it inward and shouting Freya’s name. The house was empty. He stood on the steps for a breath, realizing it was the only house untouched by fire.
Balder frowned. “Where’s Ragnall gone?”
Then he heard it—a scream. Distant, piercing, and unmistakable. It shot straight up his spine and urged his feet into action. It was her. He knew it in his bones, the call of his mate, echoing from the quiet Ardlussa Wood to the north.
Rock heard it too, turning toward the trees. “What was that?”
Lightning’s heart thundered. He cupped his hands to his mouth, shouting with all he had, praying she would hear. “I’m here!”
He sprinted toward the Lealt path, straining for another cry, but silence crushed in.
For a heartbeat he hesitated, wondering if she had taken the main road toward the village, but on instinct he plunged into the overgrown track arched with briar, the same one where weeks ago he had collided with her.
Please God, let her be there again. It was darker in the forest than he had anticipated, and thin branches tore at him from every side as he fought his way toward the glade.
At last the path widened and he gained speed, flying past their rowan tree, outrunning Rock and the others, unwilling to slow his pursuit.
Up ahead a second strangled cry split the night and his blood ran cold. He lingered for only a heartbeat, straining toward the sound. The clouds shifted, moonlight spilling through the canopy, and there at the far side of the glade he caught the glimmer of silver thread from her cloak.
His gaze fixed on her, he sprinted harder, scanning the scene as he closed the distance. Two men. Not caterans. Their silhouettes gleamed with continental finery: doublets, verdant hose, red chaperons, boots of polished leather. Not Islanders. Not Highlanders. Noblemen.
The men charged down the embankment toward the shore, aiming for the beach.
Lightning lunged after them, his eyes locking on a cog2 anchored in the harbor, a red insignia painted on its bow, indistinct in the dark.
Dread coiled in his gut. This was no chaotic raid.
It was an organized abduction, cloaked beneath the Wolf’s flames.
Another scream tore from Freya’s throat as she writhed, clawing at her captor’s back. The second man swung a club and struck her across the head. She crumpled, arms limp, her body jolting as they trod over the deep sand.
Something in Lightning snapped. They had touched her. They had hurt his woman. The warhound stirred in his marrow, a presence without words, only hunger. A hunger for retribution that would tear the world apart if it meant keeping her whole.
A howl ripped from him, raw and feral, the sound of a beast unleashed.
Instinct devoured thought, driving him forward in an explosion of speed.
Head low, teeth bared, he overtook them in seconds, colliding with the larger man and slamming him into the shore.
Freya fell into the sand with a moan, clutching her head.
Frenzied, Lightning hurled himself at the man who had struck Freya, ripping the club from his hands and smashing it across his face with bone-splintering force. The man toppled, bloodied and stunned.
Prey scented, the warhound surged again.
These were not men—they were intruders, carrion-beasts who had dared touch his Freya.
Every one of their movements reeked of threat.
Love sharpened his fury. She was his to guard, his to keep safe, and until every threat was put down, the warhound would not rest. Not while his prey yet lived.
The one who had carried Freya scrambled upright, dirk flashing as he slashed wild arcs through the air.
Lightning dodged each stroke with savage precision, tearing the weapon from his grip, and driving him down into the sand.
Chest heaving, wrath roaring in his ears, Lightning planted his boot on the man’s face and wrenched the sword from his side.
With one merciless thrust, he drove it into the soft hollow of the man’s throat.
Satisfied the big man would not rise again, Lightning spun, spotting the other man fleeing across the beach toward a waiting rowboat, abandoning the abduction. Chest heaving, he snatched up his sword and braced to give chase.
Overhead, the fluttery call of a crossbill broke the night. The man looked up, confusion flashing across his face at the out of place sound. A breath later, an arrow punched through his chest. He staggered, then crumpled lifeless into the incoming tide.
Lightning squinted into the treeline and caught sight of Birdy lowering her bow.
Freya clawed to her knees. “Calum?”
He stared, scarcely believing she was there and alive. “Aye.”
She wavered to her feet, eyes blank, steps unsteady. “Calum… you are here. It’s you. You’re here.”
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, tears brimming. “I’m h-hale.”
His gaze swept over her, taking in the bruises blooming on her face, the blood at her nose, the dark marks ringing her throat. “No—you are hurt.”
Her eyes darted to the dead men strewn across the beach, then to the sword still clutched in his hand. Hoarsely she whispered, “You killed him.”
Lightning followed her stare to the lifeless bulk at his feet, the man’s brown eyes glassy, fixed on the heavens.
The weight of it pressed down on him, and yet he felt no regret.
He had killed like the savage beast he kept caged inside, and God help him, he would do it again if it meant she lived.
He had vowed to give her his protection, his blood, his very body.
With a groan, he flung the sword into the sand, praying he had not frightened her more than the men who had come for her.
“There is no life for me without you, MacSorley. I couldnae lose you.”
Unflinching, she closed the distance, hurling herself into his arms, burying her face against his neck. His heart battered his ribs as she clung to him, trembling, her whole body shaking with shock.
Desperation crashed over him. He needed to reclaim her, to assure himself that she was here.
That she remained his. He wanted to thoroughly kiss her, to keep kissing her until she knew exactly what lay in his heart and mind for her, but he remembered that was not what was between them.
So he only held her tighter, breathing in the scent of her hair, the lithe press of her body comforting in his arms.
She drew a shuddering breath and raised a trembling hand to his cheek. “You killed him. You killed him.”
“I’m sorry, I had to do it,” he breathed. “I was out of my mind that I had lost you. That they were about to kill the woman that I—”
He stopped the words of his confession. He loved her. God knew it. He had always loved her, since the day he held her under their tree. The lump in his throat threatened to choke him. At last, he forced the safer words out. “The woman I vowed to protect.”
Tears streaked down her face. “Oh Calum, your mother. I failed Tyr—”
“Shh.” He gathered her close. “I saw her. There’s nothing to be done. This is what happens in an attack.”
She shook her head fiercely. “Your father will be angry I couldnae make her leave with me.”
The mention of his father cut deep, but he forced a steady breath. “No, lass. His last words were to tell me where you were. He wasnae angry.”
Heartbreak crumpled every feature of her face as she realized what he was saying. She covered her mouth and released a horrified sob.
Beside him, Birdy dropped from the trees, her fingers signing quickly. Your parents did not make it?
He swallowed hard, keeping his voice even. “No.”
Bog came cantering onto the beach, and Freya let out another sob, this one full of relief. The black dog trotted straight to her, rising onto his hind legs. Stricken, she sank to her knees, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her face into his wooly shoulder.
Birdy crouched beside her, resting a hand on her back as Rock emerged from the wood with Balder.
Balder’s face was thunderous. “It’s that cur’s son, Stewart. I’m ready, Cù Cogaidh. Ready to train. Ready to fight these cowards.”
He tightened his grip on his sword. Jura might be divided, backward in custom and thinking, but God help whoever gave them a reason to unify.