Page 2 of The Highlander's Auctioned Wife
“Please…” The man clasped his hands, shaking from head to toe.
Leaving him on the floor to stew awhile, Gordon went to the dead man at the back of the cell and drew awayhishood too.Again, the man was unfamiliar. And when he stalked out into the hallway and took off the other dead man’s hood, the lifeless face was that of a stranger. Gordon couldn’t place the wretch at all.
Broadsword in hand, Gordon retraced his steps, his huge frame filling the cell doorway. He brought the sharp tip of his blade to the notch at the base of the last living guard’s throat.
“Who instructed ye to do this?” Gordon asked roughly. “Who is yer master?”
Therewasa fourth, who had visited on occasion, his voice slightly different from the other three.Thatman had to be their leader, considering he was the only one who wasn’t there consistently.
“Will ye let me live if I tell ye?” the guard wheezed.
Gordon had a choice between honesty and deceit. Unfortunately for his former torturer, he wasn’t someone who used tricks and games to get what he wanted. He wasn’t like these pathetic beasts. As such, he said nothing, letting the man imagine his fate instead, hoping the desperation would be enough to loosen his tongue.
“Thought nae,” the guard said quietly, bitterly. “But ye’ve met him. He’s the one missin’ today, lucky bastard.”
Gordon glowered down at the man. “Is he likely to return soon?”
“Nay,” the man replied, head bowed. “Maybe he kenned it was only a matter of time ‘til one of us did somethin’ stupid.”
“I’ll grant ye the mercy ye dinnae show to me,” Gordon said, understanding that he would get nothing more out of the man, not without resorting to their torture tactics, at least.
The young man’s eyes widened with the faintest, most foolish flicker of hope, as Gordon pushed the blade through his throat. A quick death. A more honorable one than the man likely deserved.
“Ye should’ve killed me when ye had the chance,” Gordon muttered, his broadsword trailing blood as he left his cell and the bodies that now occupied it.
Hopefully, yer leader will be clever enough nae to seek the same fate,he mused as he walked, trudging up a set of ancient, crumbling stone steps into what appeared to be an old, abandoned keep. Through the gaps in the masonry, torn down by decades of disuse, and the high-up roof that no longer existed, gray daylight kissed Gordon’s face at last.
He closed his eyes to it, savoring it, relishing it as if it were the most beautiful summer day and not an overcast morning. After so long in the dark, it was like being reborn.
On second thought…He opened his eyes, his resolve hardening.I hope yer leaderdoesseek out the same fate.
Whoever he was, Gordon would be ready for him. But Gordon couldn’t linger to wait for the absent fourth man to potentially come back; he had a clan and a castle to return to, before his own people gave up hope of his survival and put another in his place.
Gordon sat slumped in the saddle of a borrowed horse, his whole body ablaze with fever, his limbs like lead weights, his entire being aching down to the marrow of his bones.
He didn’t know how he had managed to find his way back to familiar territory, considering the keep where he had been imprisoned was in the middle of nowhere, hidden away in lands that belonged to no one. Nor did he know how he’d managed to endure the two days of walking after his escape, before he had happened upon a kindly farmer who had lent him a horse.
“I’ll send coin,”he had promised the farmer.“As soon as I am back at me castle, I’ll send a rider with payment for this generous act.”
The farmer had tried to refuse, and had insisted that Gordon should stay with his family until he was better, but Gordon had rejected the notion, got up into the saddle, and—with directions from the farmer—had headed straight for home before his fortitude vanished entirely.
“Home,” he murmured, spotting the gates of Castle Lyall up ahead, at the peak of a steep slope.
The castle was cut into jagged, imposing cliffs, with a thunderous sea frothing and crashing far below. The structure blended into its surroundings perfectly, easily missed by eyes that didn’t know what to look for. But Gordon’s one remaining eye knew it keenly. By the skin of his teeth, he had made it; he was home.
With everything he had left, he rode up the slope to the gates, barely able to listen to the sudden clamor of the guards on the battlements.
“It’s His Lairdship!”
“He’s alive!”
“Our Laird is back! Thank the Lord!”
“Heavens above, it’s him!”
All Gordon could focus on was the shriek of metal on metal as the gates opened, the sound shuddering in his ears, and the steadyclop-clopof his horse’s hooves as the placid creature plodded into the main courtyard.
“Gordon?” A wild scream cut through the chaos, a figure darting through the gathering crowd to him.
