Chapter 29
Callum never made it inside the curtain walls.
Rhea met him right outside, slipping out of a small side door that the guards often used to get up to the battlements. She was disheveled, her shoulder-length blonde hair a tangle around her face, her breath coming fast, her brown eyes black in the half-dark.
When he reached her, her hands were trembling, her left one still holding the bow she had used to take down the two soldiers. He slowly reached for it, taking it from her, and she relinquished it, though a little reluctantly.
“Is it… is it over?” she asked shakily.
Callum nodded once firmly. “Aye,” he said. “It is.”
With Laird Barclay dead, his men—or whatever was left of them—had surrendered. There was no point in fighting, no point in trying to take over the castle when their leader was gone.
Rhea fell into Callum’s arms, a sob escaping her lips. She didn’t sound terrified anymore, though. She sounded relieved, as if a huge burden had been lifted off her shoulders.
It was not the same for Callum. With Laird Barclay dead, there was nothing to distract him from the fact that Rhea had been hurt.
She had a bruise on her jaw, blooming yellow and purple.
When he pulled back from her, he could see in the dim light that there was some blood on her neck from where the blade had nicked her.
It would heal. All things considered, these were not terrible injuries. And yet his stomach tied itself into a tight knot, bile rising in the back of his throat and leaving behind its acrid taste. He could not believe that he had allowed this to happen to his wife.
He should have been more careful. He should have stayed by her side and protected her.
He had been so suspicious before the cèilidh, a part of him expecting Laird Barclay to show up, and he had made sure that the castle was as well-defended as it could be.
And yet he hadn’t done the one thing that mattered the most—he hadn’t kept Rhea safe.
He had failed her.
He had failed her to the point that she had to take lives, to the point that she had to shoot those arrows and stain her hands with blood. He had snatched away her innocence, and there was no getting it back.
I am a monster. All I do is hurt her.
I cannae be around her.
“Rhea, ye should… ye should see the healer,” he said.
It was the first thing that came to his mind, not only because he was truly worried about her, but also because it would give him an excuse to be away from her.
It was all over now. He didn’t have to leave. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to be near her.
Everythin’ I touch is ruined. And she… she will never be the same now. Nay matter how much time passes, she will never forget that she took two lives.
Callum knew the shock of it well, and even if Rhea seemed fine now, eventually she would be hit with the full force of what she had had to do. Nightmares would follow, then the soul-crushing guilt, the pain that came with having one’s hands stained with blood.
“I will,” Rhea assured him, her hand coming up to cradle his cheek.
With a sigh, Callum took her hand and pulled it away, and the look that she gave him was enough to shatter his heart into a million pieces.
She knew what he was doing. It wasn’t the first time he had pulled away from her, after all.
He had done it before, many times, always avoiding her and then falling back into the same trap of allowing himself to get too close.
But not this time. This time, he would keep his distance.
“I must… I must go and find Hudson,” he rumbled, already walking away from her. “I must check in with the council and the guards and… and make sure the prisoners…”
He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know what other excuse to give her, so he simply walked away, his slow footsteps soon turning into a jog as he tried to get away from her before she could stop him.
But this time, Rhea didn’t try to stop him at all. She said nothing. She didn’t go after him. He didn’t have it in his heart to turn around and look at her one more time, to see if she was simply standing there, watching him leave her.
Only when he made it into the keep, where the servants were rushing around to take care of the wounded, did he allow himself to slow down, getting lost in the chaos for a few moments.
It was the only luxury he could allow himself. Soon, he would have to be the Laird once more. He would have to find his men, receive reports, and make sure that the threat had been entirely eliminated and that there were no men so loyal to Laird Barclay that they would try to get revenge.
But for now, he took a few seconds to breathe, even if the task seemed impossible. Leaving Rhea had left him breathless.
“Callum!”
Hudson’s voice pulled him out of his daze and back into reality. He looked up to see his friend approach him, pale-faced and covered in sweat.
“Are ye all right?” Hudson asked.
“Aye,” Callum said, clearing his throat. “The lasses?”
“They’re fine,” Hudson assured him. “They are in Sienna’s chambers. They’re safe. Rhea?”
“She’s… she’s safe.” Callum forced the words out past the lump in his throat. “She’s safe.”
He didn’t know if he was trying to reassure Hudson or himself.
“Good,” Hudson said. “Where is she?”
“I sent her to the healer,” Callum replied.
It wasn’t exactly a lie, not when he had told Rhea to go see the healer. But he hadn’t gone with her. He hadn’t even taken her there. He hadn’t even made sure she would be seen for her injuries.
“Could ye go and find her?” he asked. “Make sure she’s all right. I need… I need to deal with all this.” He vaguely waved his hand around, gesturing at the chaos around them.
“Of course.” Hudson nodded. “Anythin’ ye need.”
“And then come back here and gather the council,” Callum added, a little more firmly. There was no time to waste. There was much to be done. “Let us make sure this doesnae happen again.”
“Do ye fear retaliation?”
“It is prudent to be prepared,” Callum replied. “Find Rhea. I’ll meet ye in the solar.”
With one final nod, Hudson turned around and rushed out into the courtyard, leaving him alone once again in the middle of the chaos.
With a deep breath, Callum steeled himself and smoothed his jacket, donning once more the mantle of the Laird. The first thing out of his mouth was an order.
What a fool I was. To think I believed that… that he could love me.
That was Rhea’s biggest mistake. The signs had all been there after all, right in front of her eyes. How much clearer did Callum have to make it to her before she got it through her skull? He couldn’t love her, not like she loved him. He wouldn’t.
The bruise on her jaw ached, her skin throbbing along with her heartbeat. The nick on her neck was hardly more than a scratch, and she barely felt it, but her fingers kept drifting to it again and again, picking at it.
Around her, people were still reeling from the attack. Many men had been wounded, and many others had died, their bodies now slowly being cleared from the courtyard. It had been fast and brutal, a battle that had lasted minutes, and yet to her, it seemed as if a lifetime had passed.
Was it the same for Callum, she wondered? Did every battle leave him holding the weight of years on his shoulders, many more than had truly passed? Did each dead man’s life measure out in time that was then felt by the one who killed him?
Rhea didn’t know. All she knew was that she had never taken a life before, and now that her hands were stained in blood, they would never be clean again.
But what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t have left Callum to die. Laird Barclay had been a coward, calling his men to his rescue, and even Callum couldn’t have taken on so many of them at once.
“Rhea!”
The sound of her name startled her out of her thoughts, and she saw Hudson running toward her, pushing through the crowd in the courtyard. She closed the distance between them, reaching him in only a few strides, her expression filled with concern.
“Hudson… Mabel… Is she all right? Is me sister all right?”
“Aye, everyone is fine,” he assured her. “But ye’re nae. What happened to ye?”
“Laird Barclay caught me,” Rhea replied, her breath catching in her throat at the memory of that vile man holding her, of that cold blade pressed against her throat. “But I’m fine, I promise. I only wish to see me sister.”
“Callum told me to get ye to the healer,” Hudson said.
Rhea was quick to shake her head. She had told Callum she would go just so that he wouldn’t make a fuss, but she didn’t see the point.
There were so many others who needed the healer’s attention more than she did.
When she looked around, she saw nothing but suffering, nothing but men in pain—and a few women who had been caught in the middle of the battle, who hadn’t managed to get themselves inside fast enough to avoid it.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “It is only a bruise. I’ve had much worse.”
Hudson didn’t seem entirely convinced. “But Callum—”
“If Callum wants me to see the healer, he could take me there himself,” Rhea cut him off, her voice dripping with venom.
When she realized what she had said, when she saw the shocked look on his face, she snapped her mouth shut, feeling her cheeks heat in the breeze of the night.
“Hudson, I… thank ye for this, but I daenae need to see the healer. I need to see me sister. Take me to her, please.”
Hudson hesitated, then gave her a nod. “Come,” he said. “They’re in Sienna’s rooms.”
The two of them pushed through the crowd in the courtyard, walking past the servants who were carrying the wounded to the Great Hall, where they had set up a makeshift infirmary for the night. There were so many wounded, and just as many who had lost their lives.
Rhea watched Hudson out of the corner of her eye—his pinched expression, the way he carried himself rigidly, the hard line of his shoulders as he walked.
He looked devastated. His eyes tracked everything, as if he was tallying the survivors, the dead, and those who wouldn’t make it through the night.
When they reached Sienna’s chambers, Rhea flung the door open and rushed inside to find Sienna, Mabel, and Lara there, huddled near the window and watching the courtyard below. When they saw her, they all rushed to her, pulling her into their arms, their faces pale, their hands trembling with fear.
“Where have ye been?” Mabel demanded, her voice carrying all the worry her hands couldn’t quell as she touched Rhea’s shoulders, arms, and face, as if she was trying to reassure herself that her sister was alive and whole. “We were so worried about ye, Rhea. Where… What happened to ye?”
She grabbed Rhea’s chin between two fingers and turned her face to the light, her eyes narrowing on the large bruise on her jaw.
Rhea could only imagine what she looked like now, how far the bruise had spread. Judging from the dull pain, she could only imagine that it looked frightening.
“It’s only a bruise, Mabel,” she assured. “Daenae fash, any of ye. I’m fine.”
“What happened?” Mabel pressed. “Were ye out there? Who hurt ye?”
“Laird Barclay,” Rhea said calmly.
Sienna let out a loud gasp, her hand flying up to her mouth, all the color draining from her face.
“But he’s gone now. It’s over, I promise.”
Rhea extricated herself from their arms and made her way to the window where they had been huddling. She stared straight ahead, into the night, into the dark, starless sky. She hadn’t noticed how many clouds there were before.
No one spoke to her for what felt like several minutes. No one even moved. It was only when she finally turned around, her gaze finding Hudson, that the women leaned forward, as if waiting to hear what she had to say, their concern etched plainly on their delicate features.
“I must go find Callum,” Hudson declared before she could speak.
He sounded careful when saying his name, as if he wasn’t quite certain whether he should mention him at all, but Rhea only nodded.
“We’ll go to the Great Hall,” she said. “There is much to do, and they will need all the help they can get.”
“A wise choice,” he agreed. “It will be a long night.”
A part of Rhea was reluctant to take Mabel there. She didn’t want her sister to see all the devastation up close. She didn’t want her to plunge her hands in blood, to see the wounds, to hear the men’s cries.
But then, she reminded herself that her sister was no longer a child, that she was the lady of the clan back home. If she were to keep that title, she had to learn about these things, no matter how much Rhea wished she could shield her from them.
But what if she couldn’t stand it?
“Mabel, if what ye see down there frightens ye—”
“I’ve seen more blood than most men have,” Mabel cut in, tilting her chin defiantly. “I can do this, Rhea.”
Rhea glanced at the three women, at the smirks on their faces as they prepared themselves, shedding the layers that would hinder them from doing the hard work required of them. She looked at her sister and saw their mother in her, the woman who had ruled Clan McAllister alongside their father.
“Aye,” she said. “I daenae doubt it for a minute.”