Page 71 of Wicked Highland Wishes
She remembered. She did not want to relent, but she feared if she didn’t, his worry for her would get him killed. “Aye, I pledge it.”
He breathed out a sigh of relief and continued toward the great hall. Inside the hall, the fearful chatter of twenty women hit her and made her grit her teeth.
Lachlan pulled her to him and kissed her full on the mouth, making her chest squeeze with fear and love. “I’ll nae be long. Stay here.”
She nodded and watched as he instructed Barclay to guard the door and then left. Instantly, she made her way to the window to try to see what was happening below, but all she saw was the top of a birlinn coming into the loch below. Marion and the other women sat, but Bridgette paced the length of the hall, startling every time the faint echo of a shout from somewhere below reached her. What was happening?
Her fingers went absently to where she kept her bow, but then she remembered she had set it down in the kitchens. She could not be unarmed! She raced to the door, ignoring Marion’s call behind her. Barclay turned to her in surprise, and she prepared herself to argue with him. She would not break her vow and go down to the battle, but she refused to stay in here unarmed. What if the battle somehow managed to come to them?
“I have to get to the kitchens,” she told Barclay. “I left my bow there.”
Much to her surprise, he nodded. “I’ll take ye. The women can bar the door behind us.”
“Do ye fear the battle coming to us, as well?” she asked as Marion came to her side.
“Aye,” he quickly agreed. “I’ll lead ye there, but we must make haste.” He glanced to Marion. “Ye best come with us. The MacLeod will kill me if I leave yer side, though ye’d be safe here.”
Marion nodded and took Bridgette’s hand as Barclay unbarred the door. “Stay here,” Marion hissed to the other women. “We will return shortly.”
Alanna opened her mouth to protest, but she was the only one. Marion shook her head. “Dunnae argue,” she ordered Alanna, impressing Bridgette with her stern tone.
A hard knot of fear lodged in Bridgette’s belly as they made their way out of the great hall and toward the kitchens. The stark silence of the castle made her uneasy, and when she heard voices ahead, she tensed and tugged on the back of Barclay’s plaid. “Do ye hear that?” she whispered.
“Dunnae fash yerself,” he replied in an oddly calm voice, not even turning around.
Apprehension gripped Bridgette, and she exchanged a look with Marion who appeared equally uneasy. “But Barc—” Bridgette started.
He suddenly stopped, turned to her and Marion, and gripped them both by the arms. “I’m sorry,” he said, and the guilt in his voice set off her sense to protect. She reared up and kneed him, screaming at the same time. He doubled over and released her, and when he did, she stood face-to-face with Helena, who should have still be in the dungeon.
Bridgette was so stunned that for a moment she simply stared. “Ye!” she hissed, her thoughts immediately flying to Lachlan. If Helena had escaped the dungeon that could only mean that Colin had as well. Was it a battle for the castle or some sort of ruse to free Colin and Helena? Or both?
“Bridgette!” Marion cried, and Bridgette jerked back around to see her friend being hauled off her feet by Atholl, the elder councilman.
Confusion blanketed her, and thickened as Colin Campbell stepped around the man and Marion. Instinctively, Bridgette scrambled back a step, but Colin reached out, clutched her by the arms and jerked her to him.
“Hello, Bridgette,” he said, his dark eyes gleaming menacingly and the sickly sweet stench of sweat rolling off him.
“I still say we should kill her,” Helena whined from behind Bridgette.
A vicious smile twisted Colin’s lips. He shoved Bridgette behind him, then twin daggers flashed by his side. He threw them, and she gasped as they sliced through the air with a deadly hiss and lodged with a double thud in Helena’s chest and Barclay’s head. Bridgette stared in horror as Barclay crumpled to the ground. Helena’s mouth fell open, blood spreading from the wound in her chest, and she fell first to her knees, her eyes glazing, and then forward so that her face hit the rushes under their feet.
Marion’s screeching snapped Bridgette out of her shock. She lunged for the dagger lodged in Barclay’s head and got her hands on the hilt, but before she could release it, something hard hit her in the head with such force her teeth rattled, bright spots appeared, and then all went dark.
She awoke with a jolt. Confusion blanketed her as she turned her head, struggling to orient herself. To her side, trees swiftly passed by as if she were on a horse. She frowned as rain drizzled down on her and her body shook. Ahead of them was another destrier. She could not see the faces of the riders, but she knew the man wearing the MacLeod plaid had to be the traitor, Atholl. Moonlight glittered off his bald head, and fierce anger consumed her.
Long pale hair blew back against his arms from whomever sat in front of him. Bridgette froze at the sight.Marion. Bridgette knew well why Colin had taken her—to try to force Bridgette to marry him. The thought sent a shiver across her body.
“Ye’re awake,” Colin whispered in her ear, drawing her attention away from Marion.
Three things became apparent at once, crashing into one another and sending Bridgette’s heart into a gallop that matched the pace of the horse upon which she was riding. She went to move her hands to push herself away from Colin, whom she was pressed firmly against, but her hands were bound. His thick arm tightened across her belly, brushing the underside of her breasts as he shifted his hold higher. Purposely, she suspected.
“Where—” She started to demand to know where they were going, but her throat was dry, and a coughing fit took her.
His long, irritated sigh tickled her ear, but a flask touched hard to her lips. “Drink,” he commanded.
She did so willingly. Strong wine filled her mouth, and she struggled to swallow it down against another cough. Wine dribbled out of her mouth, and when she tilted her chin down to wipe it away with her shoulder, firm fingers stilled her.
“What are ye doing?” he demanded.
