Page 91 of The Highlander's Accidental Wife
Whether it was because of the swimming or because the water was not as cold, thanks to the storm, Damien found that his hands were not too numb. Finding a slimy rope hanging down,he crawled up the side until he managed to find notches that made a sort of ladder and made it to the deck.
Swinging himself over the side, gratified that he was near the prow, in a shadowed space behind some nets and crates, he flexed his hands and blew on them. He shivered a bit, but it was not bad, all things considered.
Perhaps me anger and hate are keepin’ me warm.
Then, there was a flash of Helena looking up from a book with a smile, her eyes bright and dancing behind her glasses. And his heart seemed to burn in his chest.
Och. It’s her. And I shall tell her so.
Taking out his blades, he took a deep breath, again with that sense that he did not step out alone. The weight of his responsibilities seemed to drape around him, and he stood tall, ready to finally end this.
Thunder rolled, and his stomach clenched. Again, theVipersank its teeth into him, memories rising and his gut churning. For a moment, he thought he might be sick. He felt the lash of the whip, the hot irons?—
“Truly, there would be no fatemoreinsulting,” said a sharp, clear voice. “To be wed or killed by a pathetic worm such as yourself. I would eschew Charon’s passage. I would turn awayfrom Elysium and the Meadows just to come back and haunt your days, you feckless, wretched waste of a man.”
A laugh escaped Damien, drowned out by the other laughter that rang out.
“I will gag ye, woman,” Lachlan warned.
“Oh, go ahead,” Helena said. “I assure you, though, you will know by my face what I am thinking. You should not be troubled that I would haunt you, since you already cursed yourself.”
At that, there was a ringing silence, and Damien slunk forward.
“You dance to the tune of your dead father, do you not? Tell me, what is it like to be the offspring of a false laird? Do you hear his cries from where he paces on the shores of the Styx, without coin or respite?”
“What of yer husband? I mean…” Lachlan blustered, and Helena laughed. The sound made Damien smile for the first time since he’d realized she was gone. “I mean, Damien does much the same.”
“No,” Helena said in a soft and deadly voice. “And the fact that you think such a thing tells me everything I need to know. There is legacy, and there is lunacy.” She paused, and again, Damien had the sense that the entire ship was listening to his wife-to-be. “Even if, somehow, you managed to take Morighe, you would never be Laird. Just as your fatherneverwas.”
There was a sound of a slap and a soft grunt of pain. Damien’s blood surged, and he burst onto the deck. His blades flashed ruby as he cut his way through the pirates, most of whom seemed more intent on scrambling away to save their own skin than fighting him.
For all that Lachlan heeded his father’s ghost, he could not command that strange, mad loyalty. He only drew up short when he came upon a squeaking Englishman, holding up his hands and saying something about being brothers.
Damien realized this had to be Bartholomew, Helena’s foolish stepbrother, who’d betrayed them all. Much as he wanted to run him through, he merely punched him in the face and kept moving.
“Damien.”
His entire body seized, and he stilled, his heart thundering in his ears. A thundering that got worse as the thunder overhead grew louder and lightning flashed again, illuminating the blade held to Helena’s throat, a cruel twin to Lachlan’s wicked grin.
CHAPTER 35
Damien stood covered in blood,with dead and dying pirates lying around him, and the bastard had the audacity tosmile.
Lachlan smiled as though they were strangers about to sup together at a tavern, not fight for the fate of Morighe, for the people of Galeclere. As though he wasn’t holding a blade to the throat of the woman Damien loved more than air or water or anything on heaven and earth.
“Well, well, well,” he drawled and pressed the blade flat against Helena’s throat, forcing her to lift her head to avoid being cut. “Look who decided to join us. Did ye hear me bride? She’s got quite a sense of humor. If I didnae want to make ye hear her scream, I’d have cut out her wicked tongue. Such a snake of a woman.”
Damien snarled his rage, even as terror for Helena ripped through his veins. He’d make Lachlan pay ten times over for this.
“Of course, ye couldnae appreciate a perfect woman,” he spat at his feckless cousin. “Or her brilliant tongue.”
Helena’s eyes went soft with gratitude and affection, and Damien almost smiled, for he’d long suspected. But now he knew beyond a doubt.
Aye. Ye love me, too.
“Me men didnae believe that the one-eyed brute, the mad dog of Morighe, could care for such ahighbrowwoman,” Lachlan said in a soft voice. Helena flinched at that word, causing Damien to again snarl at his cousin. “But here ye are, at last.”
Lachlan’s eyes gleamed with a manic triumph, and Helena tried to arch away, prompting Damien to suck in a breath and make a minute movement, telling her to hold still. A chuckle escaped his cousin, and he slid the flat of the blade down Helena’s throat, causing Damien to grip his blades even tighter.
