Chapter Sixteen #2
“Aye,” Aleck gloated, believing me almost instantly; I was thankful in that moment that he was a man led by desire and ambition, and not by powers of intuition. “The marriage is not yet sealed—I confirmed it myself with the assistance of a healer. She remains intact.”
Kade had been entirely silent until this point, but at Aleck’s pronouncement he let out a low, animal growl.
I flinched from the impact of his enraged glare.
Even bound and defenseless, he looked fiercer, more malicious, and more foreign to me than he ever had.
I was almost glad for his constraints as I pulled my eyes from the icy lock of his accusations.
Campbell chuckled, studying Kade with real interest. “Is this true, Mackenzie?”
When Kade did not answer, Aleck said, “He refuses to force the lass against her will.”
As amused by this information as he might have been, Laird Campbell was not entirely convinced. “What I witnessed with my own eyes was a scene in which this lass did not appear unwilling, not in the slightest.”
I felt a light rise of heat at the embarrassment of being discovered as we had been, and I grasped for a persuasive explanation.
“I—I had been given reason to suspect that your army’s arrival was imminent, Laird Campbell, and I knew I had to keep my husband suitably distracted—and restrained.
If he wasn’t restrained here and now, all the men in this room would likely be dead. You know it as well as I do.”
Campbell was highly offended by the confidence I had in my husband’s military skill.
“Unlikely,” he said, surly at the implication that he and his men could be bested by a single Mackenzie.
To Kade, he said, with inflections of sarcasm, “Your precious ‘honor’ has cost you dearly, Mackenzie. Not only has it cost you your wife and your alliance, but it is the cause of the mutiny of half of Morrison’s army.
I know your skill, soldier. I know you could have cut them down one by one if you’d chosen to.
Aleck here has spared me no detail of your methods.
You prefer to coerce them with ‘honorable intention’ and prizes for valor and loyalty, rather than ruling with an iron fist. Your downfall, in every way, can be blamed wholly on your honor. ’Tis a pity.”
“Rot in hell, Campbell,” growled Kade, “along with your underhanded old man.”
With that, Campbell swiped Kade’s jaw with his fist and the blunt end of his knife.
Kade’s head swung to the side with the blow, and his eyes closed for a brief moment.
I had to physically restrain myself from crying out, from breaking away and running to him.
“Gladly,” replied Campbell. “But first, I’ve some business to attend to, involving you, the dungeon, and my formidable knowledge in the ways and means of torture.
For the next few days, you’re going to wish you were in hell, Mackenzie. ”
Aleck appeared to be enjoying the proceedings immensely.
It mattered little to him whether Campbell chose to kill my husband or not.
He had other things on his mind that were far more pressing to him.
He pulled me against him, and I could feel his intent in the hard lines of his body.
“Your marriage, Mackenzie, is now, therefore, invalid—or at least it will be in a matter of minutes. And you’re of no more use to us except as a bargaining tool.
Take your revenge as you wish, Campbell.
Beat him, torture him, cage him in the dungeons.
Break him until he is no longer a threat to us.
But keep him alive. It would be in all our best interests if we could hold off the combined force of the Mackenzie and Stuart armies simply by using him as a pawn.
’Tis a brilliant idea and one we should have thought of ourselves.
My bride is not as naive as she looks.” He gave me a look of proud approval and of menacing promise.
Campbell was circling Kade now, his sword lowered but still at the ready. He appeared to be giving the suggestion, or his methods of torture, some thought. Kade did not seem to notice him; his eyes were fixed on me. Coldly. With all the severing emotion of the doomed.
“Meanwhile,” said Aleck, “as you avail yourself of your revenge, Campbell, please excuse me and my bride-to-be as I proceed to finally make an honest, satisfied woman of this lass. And I,” he added, tossing a glance at Kade that I could feel as a heavy ache in my heart, even as I turned my eyes away, “will waste no time in consummating our marriage, immediately and enthusiastically. Stella, come with me.”
With that, Campbell’s men surrounded Kade, cutting his silk ties to replace them with their own restraints, made of tight leather and hard metal.
He fought them like the savage that he was, but he was vastly outnumbered.
They beat him with the bone handles of their knives.
They kicked him and cut him. His blood was astoundingly red, accusing me with its bright, gaudy hue. Tainting my soul with his pain.
But the image was blurred by my own terror and the weight of my betrayal, as I was grabbed and carried up the spiral stone steps of my mother’s turret. By a very strong and very determined Aleck.