24 ALWAYS TRYING TO GET FREE
“NIALL ALWAYS FEARED me. I was younger, but growing up, I was the better fighter, more popular with the warriors.” Dale—no, Darach—grimaced then.
“The favorite. Our father was the overking’s cousin.
The overking died in the North fighting the Shee.
” A flicker of something Ailsa couldn’t quite place crossed his face at these words.
“He had no heirs … and so, at only eighteen winters, Niall took the throne.”
“But he feared you’d try and steal it from him?” She was still reeling after discovering who he really was, but listening to this tale of treachery distracted her.
“He did.” Darach’s voice hardened, his eyes a deep amber in the light of the flickering flames between them. “He sent his personal guard to kill me. It was supposed to look like an accident. A drunken brawl in an ale-hall. I barely escaped with my life … and Niall has hunted me ever since.”
He went unnaturally still then, the skin pulling tight across the bones of his face in a way she’d never seen anyone’s do before.
Ailsa’s spine stiffened, and her fingertips tingled as she quashed the urge to reach for the blade that lay on the ground beside her.
There was no doubt that he hated his brother—and had good reason to—yet there was an undercurrent of something else that put her on edge.
She marked the coiled energy in him; the tension in his shoulders, and the twitch in his cheek. The way his eyes changed in the firelight.
Be careful, a voice warned softly. There’s something wrong with him.
Aye … but there was with her too.
The memory of how much she’d loved fighting that assassin was still too raw for her to deny it.
“I’ve been waiting,” he ground out. “The day I left Braewall bloodied and bruised, I swore I’d be back. That I’d bring him down. And I will.”
The hoarse edge to his voice had Ailsa believing him.
Silence fell then. It was eerily quiet here on the lonely knoll, surrounded by creeping mist. The night felt watchful. It just added to her uneasiness.
Darach pulled the grouse from the embers and placed the bird on a flat rock to cool. He muttered an oath under his breath then and stared into the fire with a haunted expression. The tendons on his neck stood out, as if he were fighting an invisible enemy.
“Is this about revenge or ambition?” she asked cautiously.
Darach’s chin kicked up, and a bitter smile twisted his mouth. “Both.”
Ailsa stared hard at him. “That’s not all of it though,” she said, marking the way his hands clenched then. His fingers dug into his knees so hard the knuckles blanched. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do.”
A long pause followed while Darach cut his gaze to the glowing fire. The anger leached from his face then, his expression growing bleak.
Ailsa’s pulse quickened. Surely, whatever he was hiding couldn’t be that bad?
“I have no army, no allies,” he began finally.
“The only way I could take Niall on was if I made myself stronger. Invincible.” His voice tightened then.
“I’d heard of the tattooist of Braewall …
the woman who’d once been a sacrificer …
and whispers of the special tattoos she inked by night.
I wanted to hire her, but I couldn’t risk returning to the fort then …
so, I found another, a tattooist in Troon.
” His face twisted. “I paid him well to give me an ‘enhanced’ tattoo, one that would make me formidable in battle. And he promised he would.”
Ailsa shifted uneasily. She hadn’t expected his story to take this turn.
Darach wasn’t enjoying telling it either.
He now looked as if he were about to have a rotten tooth extracted and just wanted to get it over with.
“The bonehead bungled it … I realized something was amiss just days afterward. Aye, I’m stronger and faster than before, but something is different.
Wrong. The beast he inked upon my skin lives within me now.
” A faint gleam of sweat coated his forehead as he concluded. “And it’s always trying to get free.”
A hush fell between them then. The grouse sat congealing. Untouched.
It’s always trying to get free.
She shouldn’t have understood how that felt—yet she did.
Aye, they both had beasts inside them.
Shoving the chilling thought aside, Ailsa cleared her throat. “Show me the tattoo.” Her command was low yet firm.
His jaw clenched. “I don’t think—”
“Show it to me,” she snapped. “I’m Kayla’s apprentice. I learned at her knee. You should have spoken of this earlier.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Can you help me?”
His skepticism needled her. However, a moment later, doubt surfaced.
“I don’t know … but Kayla was wary of letting me channel earth magic.
She bade me to watch while she worked on her special customers.
However, I had begun some lessons. You’re in trouble, and Kayla isn’t here. Looks like I’m your only choice.”
She stared him down then, daring him to defy her.
Growling a curse, he rose to his feet. Tension shivered off his strong body.
He then began to unlace his leather breeches.
And despite everything, heat flickered deep in her gut.
Damn him. Cutting her gaze away, she tried to pull herself together, to focus.
What had the fool done?
Kayla had told her about what happened if someone unskilled tried to weave earth magic into a tattoo. There was a reason that druids had forbidden common folk from using it.
Darach dropped his breeches. The tunic he wore under his leathers concealed his groin, yet he pulled it up as he turned side-on, so she could see the tattoo.
Getting to her feet, Ailsa moved close before dropping into a crouch next to him. And the moment her gaze slid over the large tattoo that covered his right thigh, she stilled.
A beast, feline with golden eyes, snarled at her. Hackles raised, long canines and sharp incisors bared in a blue-woad snarl.
“Shit,” she breathed.
Everything slammed into place then.
Every strange look. Every disappearance.
“By the Five.” Her gaze snapped back to the tattoo. “Why would anyone choose a clag-doo?”
“I asked the tattooist for Albia’s most dangerous predator.” Bitterness sharpened his voice. “And he delivered.”
Ailsa didn’t reply. Instead, she continued to study the tattoo.
The man had lacked Kayla’s artistry and attention to detail, but that wasn’t what mattered.
She marked the redness in the skin around the tattoo.
The blue lines seemed to weep faintly, as if the magic inside them were trying to escape. “Does it pain you?”
“Aye,” he grunted, “especially when the change comes … and afterward too.”
She nodded, recalling the way he limped in the mornings. Little fragments put together now formed a clear picture.
“It’s indeed corrupted,” she said finally.
“The tattooist lost control of the magic halfway through.” She glanced up at him to see him staring down at her.
His expression was stoic. There wasn’t any point in softening the blow.
This man was a warrior. A prince. He could handle the truth.
“I’ve never heard of someone being transformed by a corrupted tattoo …
although Kayla told me that some folk sicken and die.
But with you, it’s far worse. The clag-doo is taking you, Darach. ”
Darach. It felt odd to call him that. A punch to the gut. A reminder that everything about this man was a lie. Worse than that, he’d used her. This job had never been about the coin, but about getting Kayla’s help. She wasn’t sure whether to be hurt, angry, or confused.
And yet, at the same time, it was a relief to have it all in the open. So many things had mystified her about her bodyguard. So many things hadn’t added up. Finally, she understood— why his eyes had glowed that night after their kiss, and why he’d run afterward.
The knot in her chest she’d been carrying since Ardroth loosened a little.
He hadn’t fled because he regretted kissing her, but because he’d been afraid of what he might do.
He’d been trying to protect her.
“How much time do I have?” Sweat beaded on his face now. A muscle in his jaw clenched and released rhythmically. The predator fought to free itself. Now that she was this close to him, she could smell what Fern had already noticed.
A dark, animal musk swept over her.
Pulse quickening, she pushed herself up and moved backward, putting the fire between them once more.
“I don’t know … only Kayla can answer that.”
“I fight it,” he rasped. “But there are times when it’s impossible.”
She nodded. “Like now … after a fight … after you’ve killed?”
“Aye.” He yanked up his breeches and laced them. However, Ailsa marked the tremble of his hands. That was new. Until now, he’d appeared to have nerves of iron. “I must leave you for a while,” he ground out. “I’m sorry.”
She lifted her chin. “Now? What about the grouse?”
“You have it.” His breath hitched, and his shoulders jerked as if something beneath his skin were struggling to break free. “It’s safer if I go.” He edged away from the fire. “Once I start shifting, I can’t control myself. I’ll attack you.”
Ailsa’s gaze narrowed. The panic in his voice was raw. “Are you close?”
“Aye.”
Their gazes locked. She was torn. She didn’t want him to abandon her again, yet he clearly couldn’t stay.
His face twisted—nerves and muscles twitching—and her breathing caught.
Aye, the man had kept vital details from her, but she still cared what happened to him.
“Go then.” She scooped up her knife, her fingers curling around the smooth bone hilt. “I’ll keep watch here. See you at dawn.”
He nodded, even as his body shuddered. His spine bowed then, and his shoulders jerked again. Harder this time.
Panic flashed across his face, and he hissed a curse.
Ailsa’s heart started to hammer. The man was in trouble.
So was she.
Kayla was close now, but not close enough. Not for him—and maybe not for her either.
Knife clenched in her hand, she watched, wordlessly, as Darach staggered off and the mist swallowed him, leaving her alone by the fire.