Page 47 of Dark Side of the Laird
“Do it,” I said through bared teeth.
“Do ye know how very long I’ve dreamed of your death?” James said. “Since the moment I found out who ye were. I’ll never let ye survive past me.” He coughed, the blade he held to my throat digging in as he lost some of his balance. A warm trickle of blood dripped over my throat.
He could kill me now. Kill me when he wanted. Or kill me by accident. My life was in his hands.
I’d known this moment was coming. Perhaps even from the time James had come to Gealach and given me the key, and his ultimatum. My life was never my own.
And now he was proving it.
“I want to feel your blood running warm and thick on my hands,” James said.
A flash of Emma’s face assaulted my mind. She looked frantic with worry. Her mouth moving with panic. Was it our connection? I reached out to her, wanting to comfort her, and believing in my heart that it would take a miracle for me to see her again.
When her name came close to crossing my lips, I clamped my mouth shut and turned to face my brother, my enemy. “Ye can take away my freedom, ye can take away everything, but I’ll never give ye the respect ye crave. Ye’re not my king.”
15
Emma
Iwas back in that musty, dank corridor, this time lying on my back, just as I had when I fell in my chamber. Darkness surrounded me, and an eerie pounding echoed deep within my skull.
I pushed up, my hands slipping on the scummy stone, causing me to crash back down. My elbow banged painfully, and I rubbed it as I pushed more carefully back toward the door. On my knees, I pressed my hands gently to the wood, hoping it was still ajar, the way I’d left it.
No such luck. The door was closed again. All the progress I’d made before undone by the mists of time. The dagger was once more strapped to my nude thigh, and I felt it, almost like a pulsing, pulling me to unlock the door again.
I peered once more into that tiny keyhole, realizing the pounding was the sound of my heart. Through the keyhole, I could see Logan. He was still strapped to the table, still bloody and bruised, but this time he was looking toward me, like he knew I was there. His dark eyes were intense, his lips in a long firm line.
“Logan,” I called out, but the sound seemed trapped in the space around me, dull and muted.
But it didn’t matter, because somehow, he must have known I was there. We were together in this altered state. Not a dream, but not quite reality either. He mouthed my name. Or maybe he said it, but I couldn’t hear, only witnessed the movement of his lips.
The door must have blocked our voices, though before I’d been able to hear shouts and the sound of whipping. Now there was only my own sounds.
The right side of him faced me, and his hand flexed, clenching into a fist, and then his fingers splayed out and he motioned toward me. He was reaching for me, needed me.
A desperate sense of fear clawed from within me. Logan needed me and there was nothing I could do to help him, save him.
“Emma.” His lips moved and my name, spoken on his lips, was heard this time, but inside my head. Not from my ears.
I shook my head, certain I must have imagined it, but then he said it again. Now we were telepathic?
“Can ye hear me?” he asked.
It was clearly Logan’s voice, and hewasinside my head.
I nodded, then remembered, from his distance, he wouldn’t be able to see such a movement through the keyhole.
“Yes,” I answered, pressing my hands so hard to the door, if it were soft I’d sink right through it.
“They have me, Emma.”
I swallowed, feeling my throat constrict. “I know.”
His eyes burned a fiery black. “Ye’re Scotland’s only hope. The king…he has been…poisoned against me. MacDonald will take over and he’ll side with the English, sell us for a price.”
I opened my mouth to tell him about Isabella, but instinctively closed it again, pausing. Now was probably not a good time to tell him about the bitch and what she was doing. He was in enough trouble, lying beaten on a slab and having no control over anything. There he was, more concerned about his own country, too. Never had I met a man more selfless than he. I pulled the dagger from my thigh. “What can I do? I want to save you.” I licked my lips, the stress of the situation taking all the moisture from my mouth. “I have the dagger. The key fits in this door. I can open it.”
Logan shook his head vehemently, a feat that had to have pained him.
