Page 24 of When a Warrior Woos a Lass
“Aye,” she promised, warmth flooding her heart. They lay there in silence, each absorbing what had happened in their own way, Lena supposed. After a long while, when her breathing and heartbeat had returned to normal, a desire sparked inside her: she wanted to touch Alex as he had her. She wanted to explore her husband’s body and learn every part of him. She slid her hand up his chest, over his shoulder, and to his back, caressing him. When her fingers brushed over uneven skin, she frowned.
She went to trace her finger over the skin, but Alex rolled to her at the same time he caught her hand, brought it to his mouth, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “’Tis nae anything,” he said, answering a question she’d not even voiced yet. Scowling, because she knew an evasive, preemptory answer when she heard one, she sat up and peered over his shoulder A multitude of scars marred his back.
“Alex!” she cried out, astonished. She reached out to touch one of them, but he was off the bed and standing before she’d gotten close enough. The man was quick.
“’Tis an old scar,” he said, his words gruff. “Dunnae fash yerself about it.”
“It’s more than one scar,” she retorted, shocked and amazed at her audacity to speak to her husband that way. But he made her feel she could. He was making her fall in love with him, and she’d be damned if she was going to give her heart to a man who hid himself from her. Yet, saying that to the stubborn Scot would likely make him close himself to her further.
He shrugged. “I was lashed as an apprentice. ’Tis a common practice.”
Was it? She hardly knew. She had not been at Dunvegan when her brothers had gone off to be apprenticed, and if there were apprentices at Dunvegan currently, she’d been so trapped in her own misery while there that she had not noticed. Still, she could not imagine her brothers lashing any man, let alone a young lad. Iain detested punishing others, as did all her brothers. Yet, she had seen Findlay and his father lash men. Alex must have apprenticed with someone horrid.
“Who did ye apprentice with?” she asked.
“Gillis Stewart,” Alex said with no emotion. She’d have thought he had no feelings at all about the man if it hadn’t been for the brief revulsion that flashed in Alex’s eyes when he said Gillis’s name. But it was gone as quick as a blink.
“Did he do that?” she asked, motioning to Alex’s back, which he was covering with his plaid. Was he leaving her because she was prying? She bit the inside of her cheek with frustration.
“Aye, he did,” Alex answered in the same voice devoid of emotion. This time, his eyes displayed nothing.
She wanted him to stay and sleep with her, yet she remembered what he had said about his nightmares and going to his own bedchamber to sleep. If he was departing no matter what, then she may as well question him and try to glean some information. “Why did he do it?”
“To break me,” Alex said. The words were simple but heavily laden with rage. She could hear it and feel it rolling off her husband. Her heart twisted for him.
“And did he?” she asked in a soft voice. “Did he break ye?”
Alex stared at her for a long moment, not speaking. She could see the tenseness of his jaw and the slight flare of his nostrils. She wanted to snatch the question back. How foolish to demand her husband display his weakness to her. Yet, he’d demanded the same of her, and it had freed her. “Aye, Lena, he broke me.” The words lashed out at her like the whip that had surely been used to scar him. His eyes dulled, and she knew then that she’d pushed him too far.
“Alex—”
He cut her off by turning from her. “I’ll see ye on the morrow, Wife,” he said and left without glancing her way again.
A hollowness filled her gut as she crawled into bed alone and pulled the blankets up over her. Even covered as she was by the mounds of fabric, however, she could not shake the chill that had taken root inside her. She feared that if she pushed Alex to reveal his past to her, then she would push him away, but she also feared that if she did not learn his past and try to help him, then whatever haunted him would soon darken their entire marriage.
She lay back and closed her eyes, searching for sleep and not finding it until late into the night.
The pain was real, ungodly, and unbearable.
“Relent,” Gillis hissed in Alex’s ear.
Alex jerked away, unable to do more tied as he was to the pole.
“Give me what I desire,” Gillis demanded.
Alex yanked on his arms to no avail, helpless rage filling him. His back burned as if a fire had been lit upon it. His head pounded, the blood hurting his ears. His mouth was so dry he could not swallow, and the hunger… Well, it had been all-consuming, painful, and gnawing until it had passed. When that happened, Alex could not say, as the dungeon was dark. But relent? The very thought made him flinch with disgust and shame. His father would kill him for crumbling and allowing such a thing, if he ever knew. Did he know? Alex’s thoughts roiled in his head, and he tried to call up an image of his father as he’d last seen him. How long had it been? The thick, misty memories were ungraspable and indiscernible. He’d been eleven summers when last he’d seen his father, and he’d just turned twelve summers, hadn’t he?
“Ye will relent. Ye are nae different,” Gillis taunted, his face coming in front of Alex’s. Gillis’s cheeks and bulbous nose were mottled red. “I am the strongest here, MacLean. Ye may be the future laird of yer clan, but here and now, I am yer master.”
Gillis brought his face a hairsbreadth away, and Alex didn’t hesitate. He reared his head back and smashed it into Gillis’s nose.
A raw cry came from Gillis, but a gurgling laugh followed it. The man swiped at his face with the back of his arm, leaving smears of blood across his cheek. “I like the pain, MacLean,” Gillis growled. “I like that ye’ve fought me as hard as ye have. Say the words. Give me what I want.” When Alex shook his head, Gillis slammed his fist into Alex’s nose, his mouth, his right cheek, then left cheek.
He awoke some time later burning everywhere. He tried to open his eyes, but it was near impossible. Somewhere in the darkness, Gillis laughed, and then a lass, who sounded like his friend Ginny, screamed. The tortured voice made bile rise in Alex’s throat, and he roared, straining against his binds.
“Back to sleep!” Gillis commanded, smashing Alex over the head with the hilt of his sword.
He jerked awake once more. His heavy body tingled painfully at the movement, indicating to him that he’d been out for a long while. A crack of sunlight streamed through the barred window. Sound tickled his ear, and he turned his head toward it, forcing his swollen eyes open. Gillis stood there, staring at him, a silent, wide-eyed, bruised Ginny at his feet.
