Page 39 of Craved By a Highland Beast

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The hallways were dimly lit, shadows flickering in and out of existence along with the flames of the torches that lined the walls. The castle was eerily quiet at that time of the night, at least in the wing which held the sleeping quarters, and every step he and Alaric took sounded like a thundering drum in Evan’s ears. His fingers, white-knuckled and stiff, were wrapped firmly around a copy of the key to Ruthven’s secret room—a key he and Alaric had painstakingly created in secret and which Evan could only hope would work.

It took them several minutes to reach the room, not because it was far from their chambers or because the maze-like interior of the castle confused them, but rather because they snuck from corner to corner, dodging the guards and keeping to the darkness that permeated those small pockets of space between the torches. This late at night, there were few men around and even fewer walking the corridors. Most of them remained outside, up on the walls, watching for any signs of danger, but Evan and Alaric remained vigilant, quiet and careful as they snuck around the castle.

Once they finally reached the door, Evan pulled the key out of his pocket and glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. His heart raced, anxiety settling heavy in his stomach. For a moment, he thought he heard a sound, but the more the two of them waited there, the more evident it became that they were truly alone and no one was watching.

Still, after the chaos Ruthven had caused when he couldn’t find his key, Evan thought it best to exercise plenty of caution. Though Ruthven didn’t seem to suspect that it had been taken from him at all after it was found under his desk the very same day, he realized he had lost it, even a hint of suspicion from his part would be enough to warrant a full investigation.

Evan couldn’t allow him to look too closely. One wrong step and the truth about him and Alaric—the truth about their goals—would be revealed.

Sliding the key into the lock, Evan turned it slowly, praying that it would work. At the soft sound of the door opening, he breathed a sigh of relief, and he and Alaric snuck into the dark room, closing it firmly behind them once more.

The last remnants of a dying fire burned in the fireplace. Evan didn’t want to risk getting caught by lighting a candle, but he had no other choice. The sky bore no sign of the moon that night, dark clouds blocking its light, and so Evan grabbed one of the candles in the room and held it near the last of the flames. One of them would have to do; any more and they risked flooding the room with light, the illumination that seeped out from the cracks in the door announcing their presence to anyone who walked by.

“We must be quick,” Alaric said in a whisper as Evan approached him, the two of them using the scant light of the single candle to look through the documents strewn all over Ruthven’s desk. Some of them Evan recognized from the last time they had searched the room, but others were new, the ink still fresh on some of them.

We barely missed him.

“Some of these are new,” said Alaric, echoing Evan’s thoughts. “How will we read all these? There are mountains o’ documents in here!”

“We’ll read as much as we can,” said Evan. Surely, there would be something they could find. Any mention of the English, any mention of Balliol or the King would be enough to point them to the right direction.

Unless, o’ course, they are written in cypher.

For all Evan knew, Ruthven and Balliol were working hard to keep their correspondence as secret as possible.

With nimble fingers, Evan looked through a stack of papers that sat on the desk right in front of him, flicking thought the pages as quickly as he could. His eyes strained to read the letters in the dark, squinting to make out the words, but no matter how hard he looked, he could not find a single reference to Balliol or the King.

What if there is naething here? What if he keeps those letters somewhere else?

If he had one secret room, then there was a chance he also had another—a room no one but him knew about.

“Here,” Alaric whispered, nudging Evan with his elbow. “Look.”

As he spoke, he held up a piece of paper and upon closer inspection, Evan saw that it was a letter from Balliol himself. His eyes scanned the words quickly, catching on the ones that seemed most damning:debt, favor, alliance. According to the letter, Balliol owed Ruthven for the assistance he had already provided, as well as for the assistance he would provide in the years to come, and he promised Ruthven not only his own support, but the King’s, as well. It was the kind of proof Evan and Alaric needed to show the clans that Ruthven was working with the English—the kind of proof that was irrefutable. Ruthven wouldn’t be able to deny it once word reached the other clans. No matter how he would try to spin this, in the end the letter would be palpable proof of everything he had been trying to hide for so long.

“We must copy it,” Evan said, rushing to rummage through the drawers for a pen and paper. He only found the latter, but Alaric handed him an inkwell and a pen he found nearby, and Evan wasted no time before he hurriedly copied the letter, making sure he wrote it down word by word, missing not a single one.

“What if they dinnae believe us?” Alaric asked, standing over Evan’s shoulder. “The original?—”

“It is far more dangerous tae take the original,” Evan pointed out. The letter must have been recent, he thought, since it was near the top of its pile and they hadn’t found it the previous time they had looked for proof. There was a good chance Ruthven would know something was amiss if he couldn’t find the letter and Evan was unwilling to risk it.

If the clans didn’t believe them, then he would have to steal the letter; until then, a copy of it would have to do.

Once he was done, he placed everything back where he had found it and by then, the ink on the paper had dried. Folding the letter, he blew out the candle, replaced it in its spot, and he and Alaric fled the room as quickly and as silently as they could, all but barricading themselves inside Alaric’s room.

Alaric pressed himself against the closed door, letting his head fall back against the wood with a thump. Evan crossed the room and all but collapsed on the bed, his heart still beating frantically, even though the worst of the danger had passed.

It was easy to forget they were in the mouth of the wolf, its fangs bearing down at them at every moment. It was easy to get swept up in other things—the normalcy of their dinners with Ruthven, Evan’s encounters with Bonnie—but through it all, the danger was ever-present. In the moments when that danger became more apparent, when its reminders were suddenly all around Evan, unease began to simmer once more just under the surface.

This wasn’t a battle. The victor would not be decided through raw strength and numbers, at least not if Evan and Alaric playedtheir roles well enough. It was only the two of them against Ruthven and all of his men, and were they to be discovered, there would be no salvation for either of them. Ruthven would have their heads and there would be nothing Evan or Alaric could do about it.

“We should make several copies,” Alaric said as he finally peeled himself off the door and took a seat at the chair by the window. “An’ I shall leave at once tae deliver them.”

“It is the middle o’ the night,” Evan pointed out. “Dinnae ye think ye will raise suspicion if ye leave now? We must wait until the morn.”

Alaric didn’t seem very pleased at the thought that he would have to wait, but he didn’t try to argue with Evan. Surely, he knew Evan had a point and that such a sudden departure would only draw more attention to them, but patience was not one of his virtues.

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