The Chief (Highland Guard #1)(118)

Tor listened to the seneschal explain that she’d left with the men going to Mull with a mixture of disbelief and rising panic as the truth sunk in. She’d taken him up on his foolish vow to permit her to retire to a nunnery. He’d never dreamed that she’d actually do it, though why he didn’t know. He’d given her a way out; why was he surprised that she’d used it?

Lord knew he’d given her no reason to stay. She’d done nothing but try to please him since he’d married her. She’d given him her heart, and he’d given her nothing in return. He’d been a cold-hearted bastard, driving her away.

Alone. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To feel nothing but emptiness? But it wasn’t emptiness that he felt at all but raw, searing pain. He felt as if he’d just had a blade plunged into his chest and had his insides ripped apart.

A lifetime of loneliness stretched out before him. A lifetime of nothing but war and duty to his clan. A lifetime of misery.

God, what had he done?

He should be furious that she’d dared leave him. Highlanders were known for their pride, and he was no different. But all he could think of was how badly he must have hurt her for her to do this. He felt ill just thinking about it. He had to get her back. Not because she was his wife—his possession—but because this was where she belonged. Here. By his side.

Why he felt so strongly he didn’t know. But he would have to make her see it. No matter what it took.

He continued into the Hall, the two men hustling after him. A few clansmen were sleeping around the fire, but most sat quietly at the long tables. The room was just the way he’d left it, but different. Somber. As if all of the joy had been extinguished. His dogs lifted their heads as he entered. Instead of rushing to greet him, they gave him a disappointed look and laid their heads back on their paws.

“Where’s Murdoch?” he demanded.

Both men looked grim. Colyne shook his head. “He is with the men who were traveling to Mull. They’ve not returned.”

“What do you mean they haven’t returned?” Tor exploded. “Even with the added travel time to Iona, they should have been back yesterday.”

Neither man responded. His stomach took a sudden turn as if he’d just swallowed a mouthful of rancid beef. Panic welled up inside him, but he tamped it down. She was fine. There had to be some explanation. But Rhuairi hadn’t finished. “This arrived for you not an hour ago. The messenger said it was for your eyes only.”

Tor unfolded it, the premonition of doom suffocating him.

His heart stopped and the blood drained from his face as he read the crudely written words on the scrap of parchment. Words that changed his life. “Men killed. English took your lady. Dumfries. Do not delay.”

Do not delay. They’d murdered his men and meant to kill her as well.

The loss of his men enraged him. He wanted to kill someone. But the thought of Christina in danger …

Bile rose up the back of his throat. He thought himself fearless, but fear unlike anything he’d ever known consumed him—black, soul-eating fear that tore like acid through the steel encasing his heart. He felt raw. Exposed. And more terrified than he’d ever been in his life.

If the news of her leaving him had jolted him from his emotional stupor, the news that she was now a prisoner of the English was like a lightning rod of clarity, forcing him to acknowledge the truth.

He loved her.

Too late, he realized what a fool he’d been. Stubborn pride in the belief that he was impervious to emotion had blinded him from what had been there all along. It was the reason he could never stop thinking about her. The reason he looked for excuses to spend time with her. The reason it felt so different to make love to her. It was what made him content to hold her in his arms for hours and listen to her voice as she read him those silly, romantic tales. It was the reason he wanted to wake up beside her every day for the rest of his life. It was the reason his chest twisted when he walked into a room and she looked up to see him, a wide smile spreading across her face.

She’d brought warmth back into his life, broken through the icy shell that he’d erected around his heart, and dug down deep to find emotions long buried.

And now he might never have the chance to tell her.

Images long suppressed flashed before him. His mother’s naked, broken body covered in bruises and blood. The look of terror fixed for eternity in her gaze. And then he remembered the rest. How he’d thrown himself over her and refused to let his father’s men take her body away. How he’d cried. How the pain had burned and ravaged him, just like it did now.

It couldn’t happen to her, too. The thought of never seeing her again … never touching her … never inhaling that soft, flowery scent was unbearable. He couldn’t lose her.

Something inside him snapped. Rage. Madness. A single-minded determination to find her and to strike back with the sword of vengeance. He would hunt down every man responsible for the murder of his men, and if they’d harmed one silky dark hair on her head, he vowed to make their deaths slow and painful.

Edward’s minions had made a fatal mistake. In killing Tor’s men and capturing his bride, the English had made Scotland’s war his war.

His course was clear. Tor began immediate preparations to rejoin the men at the broch. To have any chance of rescuing Christina, he needed them. Surprisingly, the admission didn’t bother him. Before he left, he gave Rhuairi a short message to send to MacDonald: “We are ready.”