Page 79 of Beguiled By the Highlander
He wouldn’t need to breach them. Because everyone within the castle believed MacGregor was simply Malcolm MacNeil, and the gatehouse wouldn’t be secured against him. The bastard would just ride in, unchallenged.
And take Isolde hostage. His only hope was that MacGregor’s plan was not to draw any attention to himself until his men arrived, and only then capture Creagdoun’s mistress. If so, she was still safe, until MacGregor realized his cause was lost.
There was no telling what that knowledge would make him do, and William’s gut clenched as a thousand horrifying scenarios flooded his mind. He had to get to Isolde. Had to protect her. But how the hell could he do that, without alerting MacGregor that his strategy had failed?
He bore left, along the path beside the loch that led to the gatehouse. But his horse reared as a furtive shadow amongthe trees up ahead caught his eye. He pulled up short, primal warning spiking through him, and from the cover of the trees Alan MacGregor emerged.
William leaped from his horse, drawing his sword as he advanced on the other man. MacGregor pulled back his lips in a mockery of a smile and tossed a woolen and bloodied shawl at his feet.
Isolde’s shawl. His heart slammed inside his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs.
Isolde’s blood.
Wildly, he glanced around, his grip tightening on the hilt, but there was no sign of her. Was she hidden in the undergrowth, injured?
Worse?
“Isolde.” He didn’t recognize his voice, but even the rasping sound against his throat couldn’t stop his mind from seeing graphic, ravaged images of Isolde, his beautiful bride, lying crumpled on the sodden ground while the blood seeped from her body.
God, the blood. He couldn’t look at her shawl again, and not just because he needed to keep his focus on MacGregor, who’d drawn his sword and was inching closer.
It was because the blood-soaked shawl was stark evidence of how she’d already suffered at the hands of Alan MacGregor, because he, her own husband, had failed to keep her safe.
Why didn’t she answer? The reason crouched in the darkest corners of his mind, but he wouldn’t go there. Couldn’t. Instead, he glared at MacGregor. “Where is she?”
“Yonder,” the bastard said, which could mean anything and nothing. “She won’t come running to ye, Campbell, no matter how ye shout her name. But know this. I enjoyed her well enough before the end.”
Nausea surged through him, burning his throat, and for a horrifying moment, all he could see was an endless abyss of impenetrable blackness. A high-pitched buzzing filled his ears, threatening to take him under, just as the sea had once taken him under.
But this time there was no Isolde to drag him from the depths.
There was no Isolde.
Isolde.
Her name echoed through his head, and he sucked in a harsh breath, forcing the crucifying fog aside, and for an elusive moment he saw her smile in his mind’s eye.
Don’t leave me, mo chridhe.
But she did not reply.
MacGregor still stood before him, and the image of Isolde shattered like glass inside William’s mind. The deadly shards embedded into his flesh and tore through his chest before ripping his heart into a thousand bloodied chunks.
He would avenge her honor, her life, and God help him, he didn’t care if it cost him everything.
Their swords clashed, and a cold ferocity whipped through him as MacGregor retreated beneath his attack. There would be no prisoner taken this eve.
The other man grasped his hilt with both hands, and blood trickled from his mangled ear although William had no recollection of how that had happened.
“Creagdoun is mine,” MacGregor panted. “I don’t know how ye escaped, but my men will be here shortly, and the castle restored to its rightful bloodline.”
William slashed, and blood bloomed along MacGregor’s biceps. “Ye forfeited that right when ye attacked Dunstrunage three years ago. Yer men aren’t coming to yer aid, MacGregor.They’re lying dead in the glen. Did ye really think Campbells would fall for yer trickery?”
MacGregor stumbled on a root as he retreated, but finally the smirk on his face had gone. He lunged, missed, and William plunged his sword through the man’s gut.
MacGregor collapsed, wheezing, blood oozing from his mouth. Malevolence filled his eyes as he caught William’s glare. “’Tis almost worth dying, knowing I was the one who took yer woman from ye.”
William thrust his sword once more, and this time it found its fatal mark. MacGregor fell back, lifeless, in a malignant pool of his own blood.
