Page 6 of Once Upon A Haunted Castle
Chapter Two
The warrior movedlike a specter.
Flashes of his body lit in the lightning-streaked sky, glinting off the long, jagged dagger he held in one hand and the wicked sword extending in iron-might from his other.
In one place one minute and another the next. Ducking, twirling, dodging, leaping, crashing, hacking at their bones. His enemies had nowhere to go. No way to save themselves from his assault.
These same enemies who’d attacked her castle days past.
She’d been lucky to escape alive.
By either of them.
Elle Cam’béal had heard Laird MacDougall’s declaration. She was his. But what did that mean? His to protect? To imprison? Abuse? Murder? Or to set free?
She prayed it was the former and the latter, but nothing in between.
A life for a life. That was essentially what she’d told MacDougall, but she’d not been completely honest. She’d not told him the reason her own father had been able to gain not simply a trade of one life saved for another but, in fact, protection for his entire family for all the days of his life.
And she wouldn’t tell him if she didn’t need to. If he set her free, then she was free. If he promised to continue to protect her, then her secrets were her own. But… if he chose to harm her, her family, or keep her in any way that impeded the oath his father had given, she would tell him.
Oh, Erik… Pray be well.
Just having reached his tenth year, her younger brother was in grave danger. Left to fend for himself and, hopefully, protected by any who yet lived…
She wished she hadn’t had to leave him, but there was no other way! When her Norse relations came, when they murdered her father and stoned her mother, she’d sent word out right away. But when days passed and no help came, she knew she had to go herself, in case her message had never been received.
Her Norse relation, Bjork, had decided she was to marry him. Her brother was not yet discovered and she was surprised to see that Bjork had no knowledge of him, besides. As long as those loyal to her and her family kept Erik’s identity safe, then he could remain hidden and unnoticed by her mother’s cousin. But… if someone thought to gain favor with the man who’d sieged them… Erik would be in mortal danger.
Elle’s stomach grumbled and the dizziness that had been threatening to consume her since the day before filled her head like a thick, hazy cloud. She swayed on her feet, reaching out to grab hold of something, anything to keep herself from falling.
The chamber pulsed in and out of her vision, completely foreign. Stone walls, a narrow window, wide enough for, perhaps, herself to fit through, but not a larger man. A bearskin had been pulled back from the window to let in a fresh breeze. The hearth was banked, any ash swept away. She spied a large four-poster bed with a plain brown curtain tied at the posts. A thick, brown blanket covered the bed. The floor was bare of any rugs, but was scrubbed clean of dust. A single chair and small table were situated near the hearth and beside the door was a narrow wardrobe not quite as tall as herself. There was no personality to the room, no personal flare or even a hint of what clan the room belonged to. She could have been anywhere in Scotland, if she’d not known exactly where she was.
Her mind reeled.
What was happening? Why?
One moment, she’d been with her family. Laughing. Loving. Learning. Living.
The next, a heavy knock had sounded at their not so heavily fortified keep door. Their holding was small, situated between two larger, wealthier castles. If ever raiders were to come, ’twould be the other castles that they would target. What could they hope to gain from laying siege to a small keep with little worth?
So on that fateful night just a few days before, when the knock had sounded, no one had guessed what would happen. And especially not when they realized her mother’s cousin had come to visit.
Or so they thought.
Elle remembered seeing her mother’s face light up when she heard the language of her home and then the precise moment when her smile had faltered.
As soon as Lady Cam’béal laid eyes on her relation, she’d known why he was there.
He was not a nice cousin. But rather one Elle had heard of before. A man steeped in misery. Jealousy. He hated the Scots. Hated anyone not fully Norse. And he’d always resented the marriage her mother had made in order to widen their alliances. He thought he should have been sent to conquer the land, to take control of the Scots. He thought her father too weak to see the deed done, not understanding the need for a greater, more unified Scotland.
His appearance that night could only mean two things: One, her grandfather, King Ederlad had passed away and, two, Bjork had come to make Lady Cam’béal pay. To take over their lands and castle. To murder and maim and punish.
Elle’s father had fought. He’d fought so hard. She could still see him crashing to the floor, blood pooling around him, sinking into the wooden planks. The way Bjork had stood over his body, breathing heavy, excited. The man had not simply killed for self-defense or in the name of battle, but for the pure enjoyment of it.
Elle stumbled forward onto her hands and knees. Her vision blurred. The ghosts of the past finding their way in and out of her line of sight. The bed loomed up in her vision and she attempted to crawl forward, to reach for it, and curl up beneath the blanket. She was suddenly so cold.
But the further she went, the further it seemed. When her gown caught on a stray nail in the floorboards, she simply collapsed, curling up in a ball on her side. After a few deeply drawn breaths, she rolled onto her back, briefly seeing the ceiling overhead. Maybe it was best if she sank into the oblivion that threatened. Maybe it was best to join her family.
