Chapter 3
“Take me with ye.”
The words hung in the damp air between them.
Murdock stared at the lass in front of his cell. Her green eyes were wide and desperate in the flickering torchlight, her hands gripping the iron bars so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
For a moment, he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t process what she’d just asked of him.
Then reality crashed back in, and with it, disbelief.
“Excuse me?” His voice came out rough, edged with pain from his wounds and confusion at her request. “What the hell are ye talkin' about, lassie?”
But even as he asked, he knew. He’d seen the scar on her wrist, the way she’d flinched when speaking of her cousin. He’d heard the tremor in her voice when she mentioned the forced betrothal.
She was trapped. Just as surely as he was, though her chains were invisible.
“Please.” Her voice cracked, and she pressed her forehead against the cold iron. “Take me with ye. When ye escape, and I ken ye will, take me with ye. Daenae let me marry him. I cannae—I willnae. I’d rather die than let Keith touch me.”
Before he could respond, she dropped fully to her knees on the filthy dungeon floor, her hands clasped in supplication.
“I’ll do anythin'. Serve in yer kitchens, scrub floors. I daenae care what. Just please, daenae leave me here with him.”
Something hot and violent surged through Murdock’s chest. Rage at the bastard who’d put that desperation in her voice. Protectiveness for this brave, foolish lass who’d risked everything to help a stranger she barely knew. And beneath it all, something he didn’t want to name.
“Get up, lass.”
The command came out sharper than he had intended, but he couldn’t help it. The sight of her kneeling in the muck of this dungeon, begging, made his blood boil hotter than any wound ever could.
She looked up at him, tears streaking through the dirt on her face. “But I need ye to understand, I cannae stay here, I cannae marry him, please…”
“I said, get up.” His voice dropped to that low, dangerous register that made grown warriors flinch. “Daenae bow to any man. Nae yer cousin. Nae me. Nae anyone. Do ye hear me?”
Slowly, shakily, she started to rise, but her legs seemed unsteady.
Murdock reached through the bars as far as his bound hands would allow, offering them to her. “Take me hands, lass. Now.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she did.
Her palms were soft against his calloused skin, small and warm and trembling. He pulled her to her feet with more force than necessary, needing her off her knees, needing her to stop looking at him like he was her only salvation.
Because he wasn’t. He was a killer, a man who’d survived his father’s brutality by learning to be brutal himself. He had nothing to offer her but more violence and bloodshed.
But when he looked into those green eyes, saw the hope warring with fear, saw the stubborn tilt of her chin even as she trembled, something inside him shifted.
“Ye willnae have to marry him,” he said, the words coming out like a vow. Like a promise he had no business making but couldn’t seem to stop. “I swear it.”
Leona’s breath caught. “How can ye promise that? Ye’re tied to a chair in his dungeon.”
“Because I’m nae stayin' in this chair much longer.” He glanced down at his bindings, then back at her. “And when I’m free, I’ll make sure ye never have to fear him again.”
She stared at him for a long moment, searching his face. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“I should go,” she whispered. “The guards should be back any minute now. But I’ll come back. I’ll help ye.”
“Aye. Go.” He released her hands, immediately missing the warmth of them. “But lass?”
She paused at the cell door. “Aye?”
“Thank ye. For the kindness ye showed me tonight.”
A small, sad smile crossed her face. “It was the least I could do. Ye’re givin' me far more.”
Then she was gone, slipping up the stairs like a shadow, the cat racing ahead of her.
Murdock sat alone in the flickering torchlight, her words echoing in his head.
Take me with ye.
He stared at the unlocked cell door, at the space where she’d stood moments ago.
He didn’t waste time questioning her motives. The unlocked door was invitation enough. Her desperation to escape Keith had driven her to this mad gamble, and she’d given him a chance.
And Murdock Lyall didn’t waste chances.
Despite the pain radiating from his stomach and the blood still trickling down his face, he worked methodically at the ropes binding his wrists. They were tight, but not expertly tied. The guards had clearly relied more on the locked door than on proper knots.
The hemp bit into his skin as he twisted and pulled, ignoring the way the movement made his wounds scream in protest.
Within minutes, the ropes fell away.
Murdock flexed his fingers, working feeling back into them. His body ached, every movement a reminder of what he’d endured, but pain was an old friend. He’d learned long ago how to push it aside, to focus on what mattered.
Getting out and getting home to Skye.
And now, apparently, helping the lass who’d risked everything to free him.
He rose slowly, testing his legs. Steady enough. He’d fought through worse.
Moving carefully to avoid alerting the guards, Murdock slipped from the cell and made his way through the dungeon’s labyrinth. The torches cast dancing shadows on the damp stone walls, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear voices. Laughter.
The guards were distracted.
Good.
He’d almost reached the stairs when a figure emerged from the shadows, and his hand went instinctively to where his sword should be. His muscles coiled, ready to strike with his bare hands if necessary.
But it was only Leona, her face pale in the torchlight, a small bundle clutched to her chest. The cat sat at her feet, tail wrapped around her paws, yellow eyes gleaming.
“This way,” Leona whispered, gesturing to a side passage he hadn’t noticed. “The guards change in ten minutes. There’s a door that leads to the kitchens.”
She pressed the bundle into his hands. His weapons. Somehow, she’d retrieved them. The weight of his sword felt like an old friend returning, solid and familiar in his grip.
Their fingers brushed in the exchange, and both pretended not to notice the spark that jumped between them.
“How did ye…” Murdock began.
“Nay one thinks me capable of standin' up to Keith, so they pay me nay mind.” She was already moving, leading him down the narrow passage. “We have to go. Now.”
They moved swiftly through the servants’ corridors, Leona leading with confidence born of a lifetime in these halls. She knew every turn, every hidden doorway, navigating the castle’s skeleton with the ease of someone who’d spent years finding places to hide.
Murdock followed, his weapons now belted at his waist, his eyes scanning constantly for threats. The castle was quiet at this hour, most of its inhabitants asleep. But someone would check the dungeon eventually, find the empty cell and the discarded ropes.
His jaw tightened. Let them come. He’d been ready from the moment they’d laid hands on his daughter.
They emerged into a narrow corridor that smelled of bread and smoke. The kitchens, just as she’d promised. Leona paused at a side door, pressing her ear against the wood, listening.
Silence.
She eased the door open, and cool night air rushed in. The outer courtyard lay before them, bathed in moonlight and empty… for now.
Just as they reached the center of the courtyard, Leona stopped abruptly, her hand flying to his arm. Voices echoed from around the corner. Angry voices. One of them achingly familiar.
Keith’s voice, raised in fury, demanding to know why the prisoner hadn’t been checked on in the last hour.
“The stables,” Leona breathed, her face pale. “Ye can take the north path, it leads to the woods. Go. Now. Before he…”
But Murdock was looking past her, his expression hardening.
Keith had appeared in the courtyard, flanked by six guards, torches blazing in their hands. His eyes swept the space and landed on Leona with immediate understanding.
For a moment, time seemed to stand still. Keith’s gaze darted from Leona to Murdock, taking in the freed prisoner, the weapons, and the way she stood beside him rather than cowering away.
Then his face contorted with rage.
“Ye dare betray me?” he roared, advancing on them. The torchlight cast his features in sharp relief, making him look demonic. “Guards! Kill him!”
The guards rushed forward, but Murdock was already moving.
What followed was brutal and swift. Years of training under his father’s cruel hand had honed his body into a weapon.
The first guard went down with a broken neck before his sword cleared its scabbard, the crack of bone sickeningly loud in the quiet courtyard.
The second guard managed to draw his blade, but Murdock was faster. He sidestepped the clumsy swing and drove his dirk up under the man’s ribs, finding the heart with practiced accuracy. The guard’s eyes went wide with shock before the light left them.
A third guard came at him from the side, sword raised high. Murdock caught the descending blade with his own, twisted, and sent the weapon flying from the man’s grip. His fist connected with the guard’s jaw, and the man crumpled.
Throughout it all, Murdock positioned himself between the threat and Leona, a human shield she had never asked for but found herself grateful to have.
She pressed herself against the wall, the cat hissing at her feet, watching as the man she’d freed transformed into exactly what they called him—the Beast of Ainsley.
Three more guards fell in quick succession. One with Murdock’s blade through his throat. Another with his skull cracked against the courtyard stones. The last tried to run, but Murdock’s dirk found his back before he’d taken three steps.
And then there was only Keith.
He stood frozen, watching his men fall like wheat before a scythe. The color had drained from his face, replaced by something that looked like dawning horror.
The bastard must have thought he would be weak, wounded, helpless after the torture. But Murdock had never been helpless. Not even when his father had tried to break him. Not even when Keith’s guards had carved his flesh.
Keith’s eyes darted around the courtyard, clearly searching for escape, for help, for anything. But there was nothing. Just six bodies cooling on the stones and Murdock’s cold, absolute certainty.
Then, in a moment of reckless desperation, he lunged. Not at Murdock, but at Leona.
His rage had made him reckless, the need to punish her for her betrayal overriding any sense of self-preservation. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her toward him with vicious force. A dagger appeared in his other hand, the blade glinting in the moonlight.
“If I cannae have ye,” he snarled, pressing the dagger to her throat, “I’ll make sure nay one can…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. Murdock’s blade speared his back and exited through his chest in one smooth motion.
The steel slid between Keith’s ribs like it was meant to be there, finding his heart with the precision of someone who’d done this a hundred times before.
His eyes went wide with shock. The dagger slipped from his fingers, clattering against the stones. His grip on Leona’s hair loosened, and she stumbled away, one hand flying to her throat where the blade had pressed.
Keith slumped forward, and Murdock caught him only long enough to withdraw his sword before letting him fall. He hit the ground with a wet, final thud.
Silence descended on the courtyard, broken only by Leona’s ragged breathing. She stared at Keith’s corpse, at the blood pooling beneath him, spreading dark across the stones. Her hand pressed to her mouth as if to hold back a scream or perhaps a sob.
Murdock wiped his blade clean on Keith’s tunic. The rage that had fueled him through the fight was already fading, replaced by the cold emptiness he knew too well.
He’d done what needed to be done. Nothing more. Nothing less.
When he straightened, he looked at Leona.
She was staring at him now, not at Keith’s body. Her green eyes were wide, luminous with unshed tears, searching his face as if trying to understand what she was seeing. Who he was. What he was capable of.
And Murdock knew, with absolute certainty, that he couldn’t let her follow him into his world. Into the darkness that had shaped him, that lived inside him like a second heartbeat.
She deserved better than to follow a man who killed without feeling. Better than trusting someone who’d been broken and remade into a weapon.
“This is where we part, lass,” he said, his voice flat. He sheathed his sword and turned toward the stables. “Told ye ye willnae have to marry him.”