Page 1 of The Highlander's Auctioned Wife
CHAPTER 1
Gordon Shaw couldn’t rememberwhen he’d last seen daylight, time creeping stealthily out of his sight.
Must be weeks, at least.
Robbing a man of his awareness of day and night, foxing his mind, was far greater torture than the physical pain he had endured. Pain was nothing. Pain was part of life. But to steal time itself from a man, never allowing him to sleep for more than an hour or two at most, keeping him in a permanent state of confusion:thatwas a torment that could drive a man to madness.
The damningly merry jingle of keys awakened Gordon’s dulled senses. He pushed himself up off the filthy floor, dragging his chains as he sat up, his one remaining eye squinting through the gloom at the cell door.
I’ll see the sun today…He told himself the same thing every day, believing it despite each failure to escape. The moment he stopped believing he would ever be free of that place was the moment he gave up, and surrender was not in his vocabulary.
The cell door opened to reveal three guards. Familiar now, despite the fact that he had never seen their faces. They wore executioner’s hoods, yet refused to grant him the mercy of an honorable death.
“I see ye survived the night again,” one guard said, perhaps not realizing the encouragement in those words.
So, it’s mornin’ outside. The sun has risen.Gordon took comfort from that, letting the idea of sunlight on his face strengthen him.
“I wouldnae give ye the satisfaction of dyin’,” Gordon rasped, his throat parched.
“Funny, that’s what yer brother said just before the sword went through his chest,” a different guard said.
Gordon could hear the man smirking beneath his hood, and his temper flared at the insult. It didn’t matter that he was starved of food and water and light and rest, it didn’t matter that his entire body was a patchwork of dappled bruises and healing wounds, it didn’t matter that he was chained and barely had the strength to stand up; his anger, his rage, his thirst for vengeance, was powerful nourishment to his weary bones.
“Ye willnae say anythin’ when I kill ye,” Gordon replied calmly. “Though I willnae make it quick.”
The third guard tutted under his breath. “That’s the trouble with ye Shaw men—ye’re all talk and nay action. Ye’re weak men.Ye’rea weak man, like yer faither and yer braither before ye.”
“If ye really thought that, I’d be dead by now,” Gordon said.
In fact, I’d wager that ye wish ye’d killed me that night, that ye’d killed me along with me faither and braither.
There was obvious method in the torture and torment that he had endured for however long he had been rotting in that cell. The “ guards” wanted to break him, diminishing him to the point where he would no longer pose a threat to their own lives, for that was the only way they’d be able to end the Shaw line. If Gordon had even a sliver of strength left, they must have known that not all of them, if any of them, would survive this.
“There’s nay use in rushin’ things,” one of the men said, moving in such a way that Gordon heard the faint jingle of keys again. They were tucked inside a cloak, easily reachable if Gordon timed it right.
“We made that mistake the first time,” another man said. “Ye shoutin’ and bellowin’ for the guards meant we had to rush.Iwanted to kill ‘em slowly. Maybe, I’d have made ye and yer maither watch, were I given the chance to kill ‘em again.”
The third man laughed. “Who kenned that someone could actually die of shock? Saved us a task, I suppose; yer maither dyin’ of her own accord.”
Gordon knew the length of his chains and noticed that the guards had come further into the cell than they usually did. When they wanted to torture him, they wafted a strange smoke into the cell that made him sleepy and dizzy, so they could bind him with additional ropes and shackles, but they had neglected to do so that morning. They had made a mistake… although their first had been insulting his family. The family they had taken from him.
With all the might he could muster, Gordon propelled himself up and forward, lunging at the guard with the keys. The chains sailed over the man’s head, and Gordon yanked backward, pulling the guard into the gloom of the cell.
The other two fumbled for their swords, cursing loudly, but Gordon wasted no time. He dispatched his captive, snapping the man’s neck, and grabbed for the keys. He had been attentive enough throughout his imprisonment to remember which one opened the lock on his chains.
The chains dropped to the dirty stone floor, and Gordon slotted a few of the remaining keys between his fingers, steeling himself for what was to come.
“If ye back down, ye’ll live,” one of the guards warned.
“I willnae make the same promise,” Gordon replied, stalking forward, swiping up a vile bucket on the way.
He hurled the contents at the guards before they could say another word, and as they staggered in shock, gasping and yelling their disgust, Gordon made his attack. He delivered a fierce kick to the knees of one, snatching the wretch’s broadsword as he buckled, and with weapon in hand, Gordon became unstoppable.
He ran the last man through without saying a word, listening to the surprised gurgle of bubbling blood as the guard swayed and stumbled back into the hallway, hitting the far wall, where he slumped down to the floor.
“Please…” begged the man with the shattered kneecap, his eyes wide in terror beneath the eye holes of his hood. “Please… I was just doin’ what they told me. I willnae… say anythin’ if ye let me… live.”
Gordon grabbed the man’s hood and pulled it away. The face beneath belonged to a man of similar age to him, perhaps thirty or so… and entirely unknown to him. There was no hint of familiarity at all, though Gordon had imagined revealing the three men and knowing them when he finally removed their hoods.
