To Tempt Highland Fate (The Mac Coinnach Brothers) (56 page)

             
The man came towards her, and she grabbed the bedposts behind her with both hands, determined not to go without at least a valiant struggle.  Though she kicked at him as hard as she could, he easily grabbed her ankles, pulling her towards him with his superior size and strength.  She screamed bloody murder, though she knew there was no one to hear her. 

             
“Shut the hell up, or else I’ll gag ye!  Ye’re hurting my bloody ears!”

             
Good!

             
Her grip was so tight on the posts that he pulled the bed along with her halfway across the floor before her wrists gave out and she was yanked onto the floor.  When the man reached down for her, she flung herself forward and sank her teeth into his fleshy arm.

             
“Ahh!  Bitch!”  He tore his arm out of her grip and automatically backhanded her across the face.  Her head snapped back and she felt the blood begin to flow from her nose. The other man snickered and her attacker turned to glare at him.

             
“Shut the fuck up Robbie!  Or I’ll shut ye up meself!”  Still cursing under his breath, he pulled a length of rope out of a pocket and swiftly bound her hands behind her back.  Grunting, he lifted her across his shoulder like a sack of meal.

             
Willa decided that further struggle was not a good idea and would only get her hurt or killed, so she went limp, biding her time and praying for a chance to get away.

***

             
Drust  rode out of the forest into a clearing, and now, finally, he could see the towers of Creagmor looming in the distance. 
Home
.  A home he had never expected to see again. 

             
He planned to surprise his brother, anticipating the look of shock on Bren’s face when he saw that Drust had survived after all.  He should be relieved, happy even, to have made it home at last.  But all day he had felt a sense of unease growing inside him, as if something, somewhere was wrong.  Och, perhaps he was just more nervous about coming home than he realized.  Or maybe it was the fact that he was more exhausted than he should be, and his wound ached like the very devil.  No, he finally admitted to himself.  He had his home in sight, but damned if he wanted nothing more than to turn around and ride straight back where he came from. 

             
But he didn’t.  He urged his horse forward, and within half an hour, he was riding through the gates of Creagmor. 

Chapter
13

              “Sit still!” Bren commanded.  “Ye’ve been pacing around like a caged animal since ye came home.  I am grateful beyond belief to have ye back with us alive and well, but God, Drust, what the bloody hell is wrong with ye?”

             
Drust shot him a look, but sank into a large upholstered chair, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.  “It’s of no consequence.  All that’s important is that ye have yer wife back safe and sound, and that I’m home now to help defend ye both and Creagmor to my last breath.”

             
Bren raised an eyebrow.  “That’s a verra noble speech brother, and ye ken already how grateful I am to ye, more than can be put into words”, he added in a voice that was heavy with emotion.  “But there’s something else that happened while ye were gone.  Something that’s riding ye like the verra devil.”  He paused, and considered Drust for a moment.  “Were ye tortured, then?  Something so horrible ye dinna want to talk about it?”

             
Drust looked up at his brother above his folded hands and gave him a rueful smile.

             
“No’ tortured, nay.  At least not in the usual sense”, he mumbled.  It had been torture all right, to want something so badly, to hunger, to
need
.  And to deny himself.  It felt like his damn soul had been ripped out. 

             
Suddenly Bren was grinning.  “A woman!  Och I should have kenned!  It’s a woman, is it no’?  The only thing by far that can cause such misery in a man.”

             
Drust slumped back in the chair, utterly defeated.  Aye, his brother would know better than most about women and misery.  But it was not the same for him.  He had never wanted to get married and settle down and start a family.  He didn’t want to bring more helpless children into the world and risk that they would suffer.  He didn’t want something as fragile and precious and beautiful as a wife to cherish and protect, because he might just fail to do so. 

             
He shrugged.  “Aye, there was a woman there.  She cared for me.  Saw me through a bad fever.  Saved my life.  She found me… no’ long after I escaped the underground tunnels.”

             
Bren sank down into a chair facing Drust.

             
“And?”

             
“And I left.  I came home as soon as I was able.  I… I promised I’d go back after everything here was sorted out.  I… I have to return her horse.”

             
Bren leaned closer.  “Ye love her?”

             
Drust narrowed his eyes.  “I dinna want a woman, Bren.  I’m no’ like ye.  I have no need for a wife and family.”

             
Bren sighed and ran his hands through his hair.  He knew what this was about.  “It wasna yer fault, what happened all those years ago.  I wish ye’d stop taking the blame for something ye had no control over, because I ken it’s eating ye up inside.”

             
“Ye dinna ken what it was like.  Ye werena there.”

             
No, he didn’t.  Bren had been fostered to another family at the time and had not been witness to the horrors Drust had been at such a young and impressionable age.  But now he saw something in his brother’s eyes, something that hadn’t been there before.  Something… hopeful.  There was more to what had happened with the woman than Drust was telling him.  Much more, though more than likely Drust hadn’t even admitted it to himself yet.

             
“Then tell me this, brother.  Can ye live without her?  Every day for the rest of yer life?  If ye dinna claim her, another will.  Can ye see her wed to another man?  Walk away while another takes her to his bed and loves her, night after night?”

             
Bren watched with a knowing smile as Drust’s fists clenched at his sides and his whole body tensed as if for battle. 

             
“Och brother, I think ye have yer answer.  Listen to me now.  If ye dinna go back for her now, ye’ll regret it for the rest of yer life.”

             
“Bren I… I pledged myself to the Order… I took a vow.”

             
“Aye, I ken”, Bren scoffed.  “And I told ye that no hot blooded Mac Coinnach should be taking a vow like that!  Celibacy?  Ridiculous.  It goes against Nature.  How can a man concentrate on fighting when his balls are aching?  I’ll get you out of the vow, dinna worry.  Perhaps I’ll send our younger brother to take your place”, he said with a smirk.

             
Drust nearly laughed out loud at that.  Eian was perhaps the
least
celibate man he’d ever known.  He likely wouldn’t last an hour with the Order.

             
“Where is Eian?  I didna see him when I rode in.”

             
“I sent him on a wee mission, to keep him out of trouble for a bit… but back to the lass ye left behind. If she is your soul mate, as we suspect, ye will never be a whole man without her.  But with her… believe me when I tell ye, with her ye will ken the kind of happiness ye never dreamed of.”

             
Drust frowned.  “I never said I thought she was my soulmate…”

             
“But ye must
suspect
she is…. As do I.  Dirc said…”             

             
“No!”  Drust held up his hand.  “Dinna tell me what Dirc said.  I dinna want to ken.” He shrugged helplessly, then rubbed his hands over his face. He felt as if he was about to jump over the edge of a cliff.  “Aye, I suspected”, he finally admitted.  To himself, as well as Bren.  “I’ve denied it from the first; I never thought… I never thought I would
have
a mate.  I certainly wasna looking for one.”

             
“Perhaps ye didna, but as I said, I was talking with Dirc last night,” Bren began.

             
Drust winced.  It was always trouble when Dirc and Bren got together.  Or Dirc and anyone, for that matter. 

             
He sighed.  “All right then, what did the bloody sorcerer say?”

             
Bren grinned impishly.  “It involves ye, brother.”

             
“I already dinna like the sound of that”, Drust told him.  Creagmor’s resident sorcerer and sometimes healer had a penchant for stirring things up, in more ways than one.

             
Bren cuffed his brother playfully in the ear.  “Ye will, eventually.  I was talking with Dirc, and he mentioned some research he’s been doing, about the Dragon Ring.  We want to be certain it can never be used against us again.”

             
Emotion flashed across Bren’s face, and Drust was again reminded of how Bren had so nearly lost everything.

             
“He came across more documents in the old library a few weeks ago.  Verra interesting documents, ones that were hidden under the floor where they had apparently been forgotten for a verra long time.  They speak of the ring, and of much more.”

             
Drust unconsciously tensed at the mention of the ring.  Although it had brought Bren’s mate to him, it had also nearly been the cause of his own death when it had fallen into Mored’s hands.  Though he had been more than willing to sacrifice himself to see his brother happy and to see the Mac Coinnach line live on, that he had survived the battle with Mored still surprised him.  He shook off the memory.

             
“The ring is still safe?”

             
“Aye”, Bren said with an enigmatic smile. “But there might be more to its power than we thought, and more to the prophecy as well.  The document we had before didna tell the whole story, after all.  There is more.  We think the ring is meant to bring all three of us our mates.  Three brothers… three women, three sons.  The rule of three.  Magic.”

             
Drust felt his heart nearly stop in his chest, then begin to pound.  If what Bren was saying proved true, then Willa was his. 
Truly his
.  The fates had given her to him to love and protect.  Had
trusted
her to him.  And once given this incredible gift, he had promptly left her completely alone in a cottage in the mountains, unprotected except by Maura’s wards.  Wards that were adequate, but certainly not impenetrable.  Sudden, all-consuming panic seized him and he stood, knocking back the chair. 

             
“I have to go!”