37 NEVER IS A LONG TIME
SITTING CROUCHED IN the pit, Darach listened to the sound of dripping water.
It was a constant in here, a rhythmic tempo that was stretching his nerves tight.
Outside, night had fallen. As the light had faded, the aroma of bread from the nearby bakehouse had tormented him.
The pit, a bottle dungeon, lay in the yard outside the broch—a crude hole cut out of the rock with an iron grate above. He was alone down here, save for creeping insects and the odd scrabbling rat.
Head resting on the cold, wet rock, Darach closed his eyes.
He’d made a mess of things. He was finished.
He’d tried to shift earlier, when they dragged him from the hall, but the iron collar around his neck had prevented it.
Curse it, he should have listened to Ailsa; he should have changed back in that clearing.
Aye, they’d been seriously outnumbered, but death in combat was far preferable to this fate. At his brother’s hands.
Niall.
He’d failed to kill him years ago, and had paid for bungling his chance ever since.
His chest tightened then. Guilt. I should have told Ailsa.
He’d seen the shock in her eyes, her sharp disappointment.
Why hadn’t he said anything? Had he worried she’d think badly of him? Surely not …
Fuck.
He’d underestimated his brother. For years, he’d written him off as an insecure, vainglorious sack of shit.
But no, he was far more dangerous than he’d realized, his ambitions far greater.
He didn’t just want the Kingdom of Braewall to prosper; he wanted more. He wanted Duncrag, to become High King.
And he was well on the way to getting his desires.
Darach had been fucking around and making costly mistakes, while his brother had built himself a secret base in the North. Niall had recruited a rogue sacrificer and started gathering an army of warriors, which he then, somehow, magically enhanced.
The more he turned the situation over in his mind, the worse it became.
Niall had to die.
Darach should have been the one to wield the blade, but he’d messed up, and now, he was in this festering hole.
Not for long, a cruel voice whispered. Soon, you’ll be pissing yourself as you swing by your neck from a gibbet.
His pulse became sluggish at the chilling thought.
The scuff of a boot on dirt jerked him from his brooding.
Eyes snapping open, he craned his neck, staring up at the iron grate above, at where torchlight and shadow played. And there, a dark shape loomed. He knew who it was before the visitor spoke.
“Comfortable down there?”
Movement followed, and then something fell through the grate, hitting him in the face before bouncing onto his lap. His fingers closed around a hunk of bread.
“Thought you might be hungry.”
Darach didn’t answer. Instead, he started tearing into the bread with his teeth. It could be moldy, infested with maggots, or poisoned. He didn’t care. His belly was so empty it ached. Chewing, he continued to glare up at his brother’s shadowy outline.
Had he come to gloat?
Another scuff sounded, and then a flare of torchlight that made him squint.
Niall’s handsome face hove into view then. He’d lowered himself to a crouch before the pit and was peering down at him.
“You’re a difficult man to kill, Darach,” he said, his dark-blue eyes almost black in the flickering torchlight. His expression was veiled.
“Not any longer,” Darach replied with his mouth full. “You have me now.”
“I do.”
He didn’t ask Niall what he intended to do with him. Whatever the answer was, he wouldn’t like it.
“You shouldn’t have tried to kill me,” his brother said then. “We could have been allies, you and I.”
Darach swallowed more bread before answering, “Never.”
Niall’s expression chilled. “And why not?”
“You committed treason against the High Queen.”
His brother sighed. “Sanctimonious to the end.” He paused then. “Look beyond all that, Darach. Look at what I’ve achieved. Soon, all of Albia will answer to me.”
Darach snorted. “You’ll take on the Shee?”
“Aye.” His tone hardened. “I’ll make the Elk King kneel to me before I cut off his head … and then I’ll chase the rest of those goat-eyed fuckers back into their barrows.”
“No, you won’t.”
“You’re wrong, Darach … just like you’ve been wrong about everything.” Anger roughened his brother’s voice now. Goading him wasn’t a good idea, but Darach hadn’t been able to help himself. Niall was his flesh and blood, yet he hated him.
He wanted to unleash the beast right now.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t. Not while he was wearing this iron collar. Even if he could find a way out of this pit, he’d be of little good to Ailsa and Kayla.
Fuck, he’d let Ailsa down.
Her face flashed through his mind as he’d demanded, “Have you been manipulating me?”
Why had he said that? He’d done more than let her down on this mission; he’d accused her of deceiving him.
For a few moments in that shieling, he’d been sure she’d seduced him deliberately. Wasn’t that what bavaans excelled at—using their wiles to draw in lonely, desperate men?
However, later he’d realized his mistake.
He’d seen the horror on her face, the trembling in her hands as she’d stared down at her nails.
She hadn’t manipulated him.
He should have said something, should have reassured her. But he hadn’t.
Instead, he’d pulled away, treated her like the thing she feared becoming.
And now, it was too late to take any of it back.
“You’re different, you know?” Niall’s voice dragged him back to the present. “The way you resisted my warriors … you fought like an animal.”
Darach remained silent. He wouldn’t give his brother anything else.
“I should take your head off with an axe at dawn … but it seems a shame to waste such raw aggression.” Niall paused, his gaze raking over Darach’s face. “I could do with you at my side in the war to come.”
“I’ll never fight for you.” The words, hot and rash, were out before he could choke them back.
Niall huffed a laugh, although there was little humor in it. “Never is a long time … but I’ve got patience. We have until late winter … and you’ll break before then.”
Darach snarled up at his brother. “I won’t.”
Niall laughed and rose to his feet, bringing the torchlight with him. “We’ll see.”
“Is King Niall mad?” Ailsa dragged her hands along the edges of the iron door, her sharp nails scraping for purchase, for weakness. Anything that might give.
Kayla snorted behind her, and Ailsa glanced over her shoulder. Her mentor sat cross-legged on a pile of furs in her sleeping nook, watching her apprentice’s exploration. “No … he’s ambitious and looking for revenge.”
“Revenge? What for?”
Kayla pulled a face. “You remember the rumors? He asked for Queen Lara’s hand. She refused him.”
Ailsa frowned. “That’s why he’s doing this?”
Kayla gave a thin smile. “It’ll be one reason, aye.”
Her gaze turned searching then, and Ailsa stiffened under the scrutiny. “What?”
“Earlier … in the hall. Darach’s eyes … they changed. And the way he fought those guards …” Kayla’s voice trailed off, as if she lacked the words to describe what she’d witnessed.
Ailsa sighed and turned to face her mentor properly. She leaned up against the cool iron door. It didn’t budge. There was no way out of this cell. “He has a clag-doo tattoo … it’s corrupted,” she said softly. “He came looking for you.”
She remembered that evening in Farnoch in the ale-hall then.
The aloof mercenary with tawny eyes.
So much had changed since that day. She’d thought they’d bared their souls to each other, yet Darach had withdrawn from her in that shieling.
She'd seen the naked suspicion in his eyes, as even he thought she’d deceived him.
But all the while, he’d been holding back something important back from her.
“That’s how we met,” she admitted. “Although I didn’t realize he had an ulterior motive.
I needed a bodyguard, and he offered me his services.
I can’t believe he lied to me about his brother when he told me about everything else.
” Her throat tightened then. “But the moment he realized what I was … he couldn’t even look at me. ”
Kayla continued to study her, and her eyes held a knowing look that made Ailsa’s cheeks warm. She didn’t need to tell her mentor what had happened between her and Darach. Kayla knew. “The clag-doo,” she said after a pause. “Does he have control over it?”
“More than he had before. The night before last, I performed a binding tattoo, a circle of thorns I’ve seen you do in the past.”
Kayla’s eyes snapped wide. “Unsupervised?”
“Of course … you weren’t to hand.”
“And it … worked?”
“Partly. I leashed the beast … and he can summon it now at will.” She pulled a face then. “But controlling it and changing back are much harder.”
Kayla’s brow furrowed. “He tried to shift earlier … but the iron collar stopped him.”
Ailsa nodded before she turned away and pressed her knuckles against the door. Curse it. He was a devious bastard who was repulsed by her, but she still wanted to help him. However, she was locked behind this damn door.
A moment later, she heard Kayla rise from her sleeping nook. Her bare feet whispered on stone as she crossed to Ailsa and placed her hands upon her shoulders.
“Look at me, lass.”
Slowly, Ailsa lifted her chin, and their gazes met.
“It’s just you and me now.”
Ailsa’s jaw tightened. Once, those words would have comforted her, but no longer. The two of them against the world didn’t work anymore—it never really had—and Kayla knew it.
Old habits were hard to break though.
Not only that, but Kayla made it sound as if Darach were already dead. As if he didn’t matter. That didn’t sit well with Ailsa either. “Then we’re in trouble,” she muttered.
“No,” Kayla replied, her eyes glinting. “We just bide our time.”