Page 35 of Highland Ruse

The yeasty scent of the bread pulled at him. He took a bite while waiting for her to reply. The crust was hard and flaky, the inside pliant and moist. His mouth watered, and a hunger unlike anything he’d known before slammed into him.

“I think you were most affected because of the valerian root you were taking. You had more nightmares. I think it’s the valerian that’s causing those as well.”

She offered him a flask of ale, and he washed down the bread lodged in his throat. It all mingled in his stomach like a comforting balm.

Already he was beginning to feel better.

Elizabeth held the empty vial toward him. He pushed himself onto his arm and sat up to reach for it.

She pulled it back with a frown.

“Kaid, I think this is what is causing your nightmares. And I believe something happened to you, to Donnan, to people you loved. I think it has to do with why you took us.” She was speaking faster now, like the words had been swarming in her head and she finally had a chance to say them. “Please tell me.”

Her eyes implored him, and her fingers closed over the empty vial.

The world spun around Kaid for a brief moment before settling into place once more. A breeze swept through the surrounding forest and sent the leaves chattering amongst themselves.

She was right. He needed to tell her.

The sound of hoofbeats came in a muted clopping, the kind made on wet forest earth. Kaid turned and found Donnan on the back of a horse with Leasa in front of him holding another bag of food clasped in her hands.

They’d expected to stay several more days.

For him.

Donnan grinned at him. “Glad ye could finally join us. We’ve missed yer charm.”

“If I werena so intent on eating this bread, I’d knock ye for that,” Kaid said with a grunt.

Donnan laughed and slid from the horse. “Aye, that charm.”

He helped Leasa from the horse.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked.

Physically, he hadn’t felt better in ages. But deep inside the hurt of an old wound had ripped fresh.

Donnan’s grin wilted.

“We need to tell them,” Kaid said. He shifted his gaze to Elizabeth and found her watching him with a terse expression.

Donnan led Leasa over and motioned for her to sit beside Elizabeth. “I think we should have told them from the beginning,” he said.

Kaid nodded. Donnan had indeed said as much, and deep down Kaid had known it as well.

The time had finally come to tell the women why he had taken them, and why he would hold them for ransom.

Chapter Nine

Telling the story would be like reliving the nightmare. Kaid knew this before he even began.

His gaze drifted toward the wavering surface of the loch, where the moon was mirrored in a grotesque image of itself, smeared and swollen.

He let his mind slip back to a place it constantly flicked away from, that fateful gray morning in December. The wind had been so bitter and ruthless, breathing left his throat and chest raw. Spirals of smoke from controlled fires puffed throughout the outlying village near Ardvreck Castle where Kaid had stood guard with several other MacLeod warriors.

“It happened half a year ago.” He did not recognize the hollowness of his own voice. “Our alliance with the MacKenzies had always been a fickle one, which often broke down in minor battles. But never had we suspected an attack to be on so great a scale.”

The invasion had started with a woman’s single scream. High and shrill in the thin air, and quickly cut short.