Page 92 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

Another came from his left. Marcas turned too slow and the blade caught his shoulder. Pain tore through him and he grunted, staggered one step, then swung with everything left in him. The man fell.

"Go!" Fearchar roared behind him. "I’ll hold them!"

Marcas ran. He could hear Fearchar shouting orders behind him, but all Marcas could think was Neilina.

A muffled cry.

Then he heard a bloodcurdling scream that stopped him in his tracks.

"Marcas!"

His blood went cold.

He hit the door with his good shoulder and it burst inward, and he stopped so short that his boots skidded on the stone.

It was a small chamber, one of the old storerooms off the east wing that had been turned to other uses over the years, and the single window let in just enough grey light to show him everything he did not want to see.

Cailleach stood on the far side of it with one arm locked around Neilina's waist, her back pressed hard against his chest. His sword lay beneath her jaw, the edge so close to her skin that every breath she drew made it shiver.

Her face was white. Her hair had come loose from its pins and fallen around her shoulders, and there was blood on the sleeve of her gown, a dark, spreading stain that Marcas could not tell was hers.

Her eyes found his.

For one terrible heartbeat, neither of them moved. Marcas heard the fighting somewhere below them, the dull, distant roar of it, and none of it mattered. Then Cailleach smiled, slow and wicked.

"Drop the sword."

Marcas's grip tightened on the hilt until the leather creaked. Cailleach pressed the blade closer and Neilina flinched, a small, sharp breath, and a bead of red welled where the steel met her skin.

"Now, MacKinnon."

"Cailleach." His voice came out lower than he meant it to. "Let her go."

"I said drop it."

"Marcas." Neilina's voice cracked on his name. It was barely more than a whimper, and it went through him like a blade of its own. He did not look at the sword, or at the man holding it. He kept his eyes on hers.

"I've got ye, Neilina. Trust me. I've got ye."

Cailleach laughed. It was a soft, ugly sound. "Ye've got nothing. Yer men are dying in yer passage and yer walls are mine already. Ye've nae more to bargain with than a beggar at a gate." He dragged her back a step, forcing her tighter against him, and she made a muffled sound of pain. "One step closer and she dies. Dinnae doubt it."

"I dinnae doubt it."

Marcas lowered his sword.

He did it slowly, deliberately, his arm aching where the MacRath blade had opened his shoulder in the corridor, until the point touched the floor with a faint scrape of steel on stone. He felt the warmth running down beneath his sleeve and ignored it.

"Good." Cailleach nodded toward it, almost gracious. "Now kick it away."

Marcas did not move.

"I'll surrender the sword," he said. His voice had gone frighteningly calm, his mind running through every possibility. "But I willnae surrender her."

Cailleach's expression hardened. "Ye've nae choice."

"I've always a choice." Marcas looked past him then, directly at Neilina, and for the first time something in his face softened. "And so does she."

"She is a Chisholm bride," Cailleach said, and his arm tightened. "Promised tae the Accord. She belongs tae a house that has waited years for what it was owed."