Chapter Seventeen
THE SCENE WAS eerie and unreal, and seemed to unfold with extraordinary slowness.
My senses took in every detail as I was carried up the familiar steps to the hidden enclosure of the turret.
The light was purple, stained with dusk as day gave way to night.
We passed the series of diamond-shaped windows as we ascended.
His footsteps were quick, heavy but agile with his anticipation.
His arms were warm against my back and beneath my knees, and his chest was a solid mass of pinpointed sharpness.
I could smell the intensity of his desire, and I knew he would not be gentle or kind.
He did not have it in him. Once he might have, but compassion had long ago given way to raw ambition.
And I was the pinnacle of all that he had ever worked for, yearned for, fought for.
It didn’t matter that I would be taken by force.
I was the crown upon which he would proclaim his manhood and his victory.
I was laid down onto the ancient pink sun-bleached pillows where my mother had once slept. Aleck straddled my hips, pinning me painfully. I struggled, but he didn’t so much as budge. His finger swept down my cheek, touching my lips.
“I am laird of this keep now,” Aleck said, “My word is law, and I claim you as my wife. We will make it official before the minister tonight. But first, I’m going to take you as my own, as I have long dreamt of. You know this, lass. You know that you were destined to be mine. Isn’t that true?”
I did not answer him, and my silence angered him. His voice was brutally calm: an undisguised order. “Tell me what I want to hear.”
“Aye,” I whispered, afraid of what he might do, to make this even more gruesome than it would already be, if I did not obey him.
My gown, which had been hastily rebuttoned at the front, was torn open. My breasts were exposed and he took them in his huge, calloused hands, pinching roughly. “I saw you, you little wench. Offer yourself to me, like you did to him.”
My sorrow at the reference—to him—was profoundly painful. I thought of what they might be doing to him now. I knew Campbell would be creative with his revenge. My only cold comfort was the final agreement. Keep him alive.
My task was to make Aleck as mindless as he could be.
It would make my plan easier to carry out.
Carefully, I took his hands and held them.
He allowed this, his dark eyes heavy-lidded, questioning, dull yet hopeful.
I slid my own hands over my breasts, plumping and playing them, teasing my nipples between my fingers. “Take me in your mouth,” I told him.
He leaned down to obey me. He was too manic and ungainly to be gentle. There was pain as he sucked and bit at me, and I was glad of it. I wanted to feel pain. Any pain. As though it might link me to the torture my husband was surely experiencing, far below us.
Aleck was thoroughly distracted, and I was able to reach down and unfasten the soft leather of my knife’s holster.
I removed it entirely from my body, placing it under one of the cushions near my right hand.
My heart thudded in my chest so loudly I feared he would sense my panic and the real reason behind it.
But terror was only expected in a scenario such as this.
And this man had none of the perceptiveness of my husband; he was entirely immersed in his own agenda.
“Take off your tunic,” I said. “Let me see what a strong warrior you are.” Gouge deep—and put some effort into it. Muscle is more resilient that you might expect. I wanted easy access. A clear, unfettered strike.
He followed my request immediately, removing his weapons and his shirt.
His chest was huge and barrel-shaped, less lean than Kade’s, equally marred by battle scars.
His breathing was uneven, his weight crushing me as he laid himself over me.
He fumbled with the ties of his trews with one hand.
With his other hand, he was clawing at the fabric of my gown at my hips, yanking it up to my waist.
I felt him, hot and rearing, against the skin of my thigh, seeking, finding.
It was then that I struck.
The expertly sharpened blade of the long, thin knife sank easily, more easily than I was expecting. It was embedded to the hilt and I twisted and thrust, digging as deep as I could in one, fluid slice.
Aleck yelled out, pulling away and sitting up.
His movement caused the knife to gouge a long, gaping crescent in his torso, just below his ribs along the side of his body.
It was a lethal wound. I could sense this immediately.
The blood was profuse, gushing in a pulsing, cascading flood.
His face registered confusion, a baffled bemusement.
And then it turned. To rage. He was dying, but there was still enough life left in him to seek out his weapons.
But he was having difficulty coordinating his eyes and his hands.
And I still held my knife.
My attack was more instinctive than calculated.
If he reached his sword, I would die. I knew this unconditionally.
So I struck again, reaching up to slice the blade of my knife across Aleck’s neck, putting as much driving effort into the assault as I had the first time.
The knife cut deep and so cleanly that when it emerged there was but a thin red line across his neck.
Within a second, the blood bubbled and spat, staining his neck and his chest. I watched the life leave his eyes in a ghostly, horrific shift.
I pushed at his body with as much strength as I could, knowing he was about to slump on top of me.
The thought of being trapped beneath his big, lifeless, blood-soaked body was horrifying, and I was desperate to escape him.
Even more than I had been when he’d been alive and terrorizing me with the most profound threat a woman can face.
With wild relief, I was able to scramble out from under him. I was covered with his blood.
But I was free of him.
And I needed to find my husband.