Page 89 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

But Cailleach had already disappeared into the castle. He was hunting one person.

Neilina.

The shouting began so suddenly that Neilina knew at once the war had reached them.

She was in the linen store with two of the refugee children, showing them how to tear linen to make bandages the way Elspeth had taught her, when the shouts went up from somewhere below. She knew it was not the ordinary call of a watch changing, not the ring of practice blades from the yard, but something higher, panicked, cut off too fast. There hadn’t been any recent reports from the scouts about the advancement of Cailleach’s army.

The castle erupted around her. Then came the clash of steel.

"Stay here." She was on her feet before she'd finished the sentence, pushing the children toward the corner behind the heavy chest where Elspeth kept the linens. "Both of ye stay low under the window and dinnae move till someone ye ken comes for ye."

She didn't wait to see them obey. She was already at the door, already hearing the unmistakable clash of blades meeting blades, men shouting in a cadence that wasn't MacKinnon's own, boots pounding stone in numbers that had no business being inside these walls at all.

Were they inside the walls already? But that wasn't possible. The soldiers would have discovered them even before they stepped into the gates. A scream went up terrifyingly close, and she froze.

They're inside. Dear God, they're already inside.

"Marcas." She said it to the empty corridor. It was useless because she had no idea where he was. At breakfast, he’d said he would be at the east wall, checking the new stonework with Lachlan. Every instinct in her screamed to run toward wherever that fighting was, and every scrap of sense she had left screamed louder to run the other way, toward the inner hall, toward safety, toward anyone who could tell her what in God's name had happened.

She ran.

The corridor that should have taken her to the great hall spilled her instead into chaos. Right in front of her, a MacKinnon guard was down against the wall, not moving, blood spreading dark beneath him, and three men wearing colors she recognized with a surge of horror advancing from the stairwell beyond him.

MacRath colors. The same deep blue band she'd seen on the hangings at Cailleach’s stronghold.

The passage. He must have had a way in we never kent of. Oh God, he's inside.

She turned fast, back the way she'd come, her heart slamming so hard it hurt, and she nearly made it to the solar door before a hand closed hard around her arm from behind.

"Got her!" The voice was rough, triumphant. "She's here⁠—"

"LET GO OF ME—" She twisted, drove her elbow back the way Marcas had taught her, felt it connect. She heard the man grunt and a second pair of hands caught her other arm before she could fully break free, wrenching her backward hard enough that her shoulder screamed.

"MARCAS!" She screamed it with everything she had, the sound tearing raw out of her throat, praying it would carry through stone that suddenly felt like it was swallowing every sound she made. "MARCAS, HELP ME⁠—"

"Scream all ye like, lass." The second man's grip tightened, cruel, dragging her off balance. "Yer laird's got his own men tae worry about just now."

She fought with everything she had, twisting, kicking, raking her nails across one man's face hard enough to draw blood. She used every move Marcas had taught her.

For one wild half-second she nearly tore free, nearly had her feet back under her, before a third man simply lifted her bodily off the ground. One arm locked hard around her waist while the other closed across her throat, cutting off her air as he carried her down the corridor. Choking for air, she clawed and begged every god she knew to let someone, anyone, see and rescue her.

He released her throat as he hurled her up the stairs and she gasped for breath before she resumed screaming loudly.

They brought her into the great hall, and the sight of it stopped even her screaming for one horrified breath.

There were bodies everywhere. MacKinnon men, down near the doors, most of them decapitated. The floors were slick with blood and she gagged at the sight of them twisted and flung like dolls. Beyond them, in the center of her own hall—her hall, the one she'd helped fill with refugee families only daus earlier—stood Cailleach MacRath.

CHAPTER FORTY

He stood entirely unbothered, his blade and arms already bloody. He watched her dragged forward with an expression of mild, satisfied interest, as though she were a parcel finally delivered rather than a woman he'd very nearly broken twice already.

"There she is," he said, almost pleasant, a thin smile curling his lips. "I confess, Neilina, I expected ye tae put up a fight. Ye have disappointed me."

"Let me go." Her voice came out ragged, torn from screaming, but she forced the words level anyway, refusing to let him hear how badly her whole body was shaking. "Ye've nae right tae be in this castle. Ye've nae right tae be anywhere near me."

"I've every right that twenty years of patient waiting earns a man. And trust me, I have waited patiently." He crossed toward her, his steps slow and unhurried. The two men holding her arms forced her to her knees before him, hard enough that pain shot up her legs. "Ye've nae idea what ye've cost me, lass. Nae the faintest idea."

"I've cost ye naething." She lifted her chin despite the position she'd been forced into, despite the pain in her arms where the men gripped her. "Whatever ye believe I've taken from ye, I never owed ye anything tae begin with."