Page 4 of Craved By a Highland Beast

She didn’t have the presence of mind to knock. In her panic, she threw the door to the small room open, the words already tumbling past her lips before she even took a good look inside.

“Sir, please, tell yer men that we must turn back,” she said, voice thin and reedy and on the verge of hysteria. The longer it took her to explain, the longer it took the man to listen, the more difficult it would be for her to make it back. “I am nae meant tae be here, it was me mistake, but in me defense, I didnae ken that ye would leave right that moment! Me guards, they are back at the harbor an’ we were meant tae take the otherbirlinnbut I didnae ken that an’—”

Once again, Bonnie fell silent before she could finish her sentence, upon taking a better look at the dark room. There were no windows there. The only light came from the open door and from a torch that hung from the far wall, which shed a warm orange light on the scene before her eyes.

There was a man tied to a chair, beaten bloody and bruised. His face was smeared in crimson, drops of it dripping from his mouth on the floor below him, and his left eye was swollen shut, the skin colored a deep purple. It seemed that he couldn’t even raise his head to look at her, abused as he was.

Next to him stood another man, one who made Bonnie instinctively take a few steps back the moment she laid eyes on him. He was tall and broad, perhaps even more so than Finlay, with a mane of hair as dark as spilled ink. His eyes were just as dark, betraying nothing in the half-light of the room, and thebeard that covered the lower half of his face gave him an even more menacing appearance.

What has he done? He is goin’ tae kill him if he continues!

Could this be the captain? But why was he torturing that poor man on the chair?

Bonnie didn’t know how to ask. In fact, she didn’t know if she should ask at all, considering what the man had done. What if she provoked him and he unleashed his fury upon her?

Slowly, she began to backtrack, almost tripping on the hem of her dress as she tried to leave while keeping her eye on the man and reaching behind her for her bow and arrows. She hadn’t gotten far, though, before he began to approach her, that predatory gaze now fixed on her.

“Where do ye think ye’re going, lass?”

CHAPTER TWO

Half an hour earlier…

Evan shook his hand and flexed his fingers after a particularly vicious punch to the man in front of him. He didn’t know how long he had spent cooped up in that small room with him, trying to beat the truth out of him to no avail, but he was getting tired.

“He’s nae speakin’.” Evan looked at his brother, Alaric, who stood across from him, leaning against the wall in that awfully casual way of his, while still somehow looking murderous. He had that effect, Evan knew. Though they resembled each other very much in build and features, Alaric sported battle scars and had marked himself with tattoos that gave him the aura of a much more dangerous man.

“I can see that,” Alaric said, rather unhelpfully, in his smooth baritone. “If he spoke, he could tell us everythin’.”

“But he willnae speak,” Evan pointed out. “How long have we been doin’ this? He’s half-dead. He willnae speak afore we kill him.”

“Dae ye want me tae try?”

Evan gestured widely with his hand as if to say his brother was welcome to try, though he doubted he would bring about any better results. It wasn’t as though he could hit him any harder or threaten him in any way Evan hadn’t already tried.

Alaric didn’t move from where he stood, but instead simply watched the man as he drooled saliva and blood on the floor. “Are ye certain he kens about Ruthven’s plans?”

“O’ course he kens,” said Evan with a scoff. “He’s supposed tae be an informant.”

“Supposed tae be,” Alaric repeated. “But what if our information is inaccurate?”

Evan took a moment to consider that possibility, but then shook his head, discarding it. “Nay . . . nay, we ken who he is. Our information is correct. We simply have tae break him. He kens about Ruthven an’ Balliol, I ken he does.”

Ever since John Balliol’s accession as King of Scots, Evan and Alaric had both been hard at work, trying to bring a quick end to his reign. Evan would rather die than serve a king who was nothing but a pawn to the English. After what they had done tohis family, he wanted nothing more than to ruin them—and it all began with Laird Ruthven.

“Ruthven is a fool,” Alaric said, as if that changed anything for Evan. “He is a greedy man. How long dae ye think he has afore Balliol brings him tae ruin, too?”

“I dinnae ken an’ I dinnae care,” Evan said through gritted teeth. Perhaps Alaric was right. Perhaps in the end, the situation would take care of itself. After all, many were already displeased by Balliol’s rule and wanted him gone. Ruthven would get caught up in the conflict, eager as he was to please Balliol just so he could gain more land, more influence, more wealth. But Evan would be a fool, too, if he didn’t do his part in order to get Balliol off the throne and maybe, if he worked hard enough and was lucky enough, even get to the Hammer of the Scots—Edward I.

“Perhaps it would be wiser tae try an’ use the bride,” Alaric said. “If this lad willnae speak, she might be able tae help us.”

Evan had heard of the so-called bride of Laird Ruthven, a woman who was supposed to meet him in Arran, at the same wedding Evan and Alaric were going to be attending. He couldn’t fathom a way that he could use her, though, not when he didn’t even know who the woman was and not without putting her in danger.

As far as he knew, she was innocent in all this. It would be cruel of him to drag an innocent woman into a perilous plan when there were other avenues he could take.

“Nay,” he said, shaking his head. “We shall continue with our plan. We will go tae the weddin’ an’ we will try tae find proof o’ connection between Ruthven an’ Balliol. An’ then . . . well, then we’ll see.”

With a chuckle, Alaric pushed himself off the wall and approached Evan, giving him the kind of scrutinizing look that Evan had never liked to have directed at him. For all his rough and rugged appearance, Alaric was surprisingly insightful and capable of seeing right through him if he wanted.

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