His Judas Bride

by Shehanne Moore

  After all, why would he want her? Why would any man want a lying, betraying whore?

  She was the damn fool who had thought just maybe, and now must stand here trying to show she wasn’t the least bit put up nor down by the fact. When all the time her heart hammered in her throat, her ears, for all she strove to blot it out. And something glittered dangerously in her eyes, all along the line of her lashes.

  Because it wasn’t just her he’d left.

  She shrugged, fighting to muster artificial nonchalance. The circumstances did not exist on the face of this earth in which she would show these men, show Ulla, how unfocussed her eyes had become. How she died inside.

  She was Kara McGurkie, and Kara McGurkie didn’t beg. Didn’t grovel. She remembered the things she drew strength from, even when she felt she’d not another ounce left in her to draw strength for. She lifted her chin.

  “Where?”

  * * *

  Kara acknowledged that it could have been worse. It might have been a brothel. Give the man his dues. Not an arrest as such. She had never heard such a thing. If it was not an arrest, why the blazes was she greeted with the words Let me take you to your cell even before the sealed orders from the Black Wolf were prized apart? Sealed orders from the Black Wolf, clearly being on a par with those from God Almighty.

  Although quite how Kara McGurkie, traitorous whore, pathetic excuse for a mother, and abandoned wife, had been explained within these orders, she had no idea.

  She turned her chin from her consideration of it.

  Imagine though, him not even possessing the common decency to cast her off afterward. Why? What kind of man was he? Her plan would have worked. And now?

  “It’s all right, you don’t have to follow me.” Because the place was holy she prayed her voice could be heard above the noise of the screeching gulls wheeling above her head. Big Murdie’s too. Not to mention the wind howling along the shore. “I assure you I can’t swim and only our lord Jesus Christ could walk upon the water.”

  It was true though, wasn’t it? Never mind that the Wolf, having made it obvious he didn’t trust her, when he’d already amply demonstrated he didn’t want her, how could he put her here in a place she could not possibly escape from, being unable to swim? Obviously because he knew her natural inclination would be to run.

  She squared her shoulders, dragging her cloak tighter about her. Of course this place was also widely reputed to be a place of miracles. Certainly it must be since the walls didn’t fall down the second she set foot on dry land.

  But the Isle of the Saints? It was too much. The ruthless damned bastard—was it some kind of joke? She was not going to dedicate herself to God, not with her son in a black, shuttered place she could not reach, when she had fought so hard, for so long, to keep hope alive.

  Nor was she going to give in to the temptation to believe, maybe she deserved to stay here when passion had cost her so much. Deserved to count the days, dwindle away.

  She admitted that after the first shock had passed, she should have expected no less. To some extent, because she had slept with the Wolf, she had underestimated him. He may have balked when it came to threatening her with Ewen. But the real man was going to get her to spill her secrets by any means.

  She drew herself up sharply feeling the waves froth at her toes. Of course she admitted this would be easier, when she tore him from her blood. When she did not wake from her nightmares thinking she was curled around his back, her arm encircling his waist.

  Because for every second she awoke like that, with his betraying imprint on her memory, her lips, her body, there were others, like this when she held his treachery in her heart and nursed the fact he had threatened her with Ewen. Because he had. He had repaid her tenfold.

  “I think I said I cannot escape.” She bit her lip. No. My God, there must be a way to escape that fate, that feeling, that only made her guiltier. But she could so little see one, it seemed she merely reiterated that hollow fact. “There’s no boat. So if you wouldn’t mind, for once, being so kind as to leave me alone—”

  “Maybe I would were ye not standing right in my favorite spot.”

  Kara’s scalp froze as if someone raked a giant claw across it. For an instant she did not breathe. She had assumed Big Murdie—well, he had been there squelching along behind her a moment ago. The seconds seemed to freeze too, as she stood pondering who it was now. Meg.

  For a moment she remembered what the Wolf had said about her. She came from here. That was all very well. What the blazes was she doing here now though, appearing like this from the soft rolling mist, her purple cloak fluttering around her?

  “Hello, Kara.”

  She fought the impulse to stiffen. Never mind what, how should now surely be her first consideration. Meg had not been at supper, or breakfast, so there must be a boat, or a tunnel of sorts, maybe leading from the abbess’s room or the kitchen. Or one of the many others she’d not this far managed to get a look in.

  “Aye.” Meg slid her gaze across the expanse of water. “I used to come here too, when I first arrived. Stand and just look at the mountains and the water. The view’s very…reflective.”

  Perhaps it was. The first chance Kara got though, she would not be standing here. Especially—she also slid her gaze—especially with Big Murdie gone.

  “Yes. The island. The convent. The water, so beautiful. I couldn’t have chosen better.”

  Kara spoke as if a little of that water so beautiful was in her mouth. Ice-cool and so pleasant. Did Meg think Kara didn’t see right through her though when she was guilty of such things herself and would sooner drown in that water there than have it going back to the Wolf she was anything less than delighted with his choice?

  “Ye know, I can just about see why Callm did it.”

  To say Kara scented hostility in the way Meg huffed her breath out and tightened her jaw would be an understatement though.

  “And I’m trying very, very hard not to hate you for it.”

  “Why try? Succeeding is much more fun.”

  Kara hardly cared she spoke like that. Anyway, what was Meg going to do about it? Complain to the abbess and have Kara thrown off the island? That would be good.

  “Morven was never like you.”

  Morven. Morven. Kara glanced at the detaining hand grasping her arm. The perfect wife who he had gone to hell for. Gone to hell over too from what he’d told her. It was not that Kara could never be that perfect. No. All that way for Morven when for Kara he hadn’t even been prepared to go that extra half mile. Well, she would not listen now.

  “And what, pray, has this to do with me?”

  “It has everything to do with you.” Meg’s gaze scorched and Kara felt her own pulse flicker. “He found her that day. Of course, I acknowledge that as a sister, there are things I shouldn’t know. But just think, will ye, what that must do to a man?”

  Not when she could not afford for the merest second for acknowledgement to become a mirror, when if she let go for a second of what she clung to here…

  “Because he was never going to be in tatters again. Before her, before he ever met her, Callm always had a woman on the go. But since…”

  It was as if Kara had been handed a beautiful shiny bauble and shattered it irretrievably, because she did not know how to handle it.

  “That’s how I know within himself, he must love you. To have been with you at all, he must.”

  Kara gazed around the rocks standing like sentinels, barely able to breathe for what filled her. That was not possible. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. Or wasn’t it just too much to hear knowing just how fragmented that bauble was, when after all, there had been a chance of it being whole?

  When even she was forced to admit, that while there had been every calculation in her seduction of him there had been absolutely none in her success, so even what she had thought of as lust… Oh God, it was hard to imagine that a man who seemed so confident was as afraid as he was. Easier to believe that he wasn’t,
when it meant letting go of the things she held against him. Her biggest grievance next to being here even, when she thought of how she’d goaded him.

  “What else am I meant to think but that he does? You’re here. Even Fallon and Dug are here. All on his say so. With him and Ewen gone, I am supposed to command this glen.”

  Kara felt every drop of blood drain from her face.

  “Gone?” Understanding hit her like an avalanche. What a damned stupid fool she was not to see it, what he’d done. She just couldn’t understand why he hadn’t told her.

  No. Damn it, she could.

  It was her choice, this.

  Mistrust? Or sparing her facing her father? Her throat dried. How she stood there she didn’t know. “Arland.”

  “Arland?”

  “My son. Oh, my God, he’s gone for my son.”

  * * *

  “Well, here we are at last. Is this not cozy?”

  Cozy was not the word Callm would have used to describe Wee Murdie’s breath on his cheek right now. Although he admitted it could have been worse. He might have been Eck, being squashed between Shug’s gross belly and the staircase wall.

  “Can ye see?” Eck gasped.

  Callm edged a breath. From long habit of moments like this, Callm didn’t want to answer. But Eck sounded as if he breathed his last, so was it any wonder he wanted to know how much longer he’d have to live?

  “Hell. Shh. Do you think I’ve got eyes on sticks?”

  “Do ye want me to have a look?”

  Wee Murdie was almost as bad as Eck. Now, when it was vital they all held their tongues, it was as if none of them could do so. But then none of them had ever done anything quite like this. Callm glanced over his shoulder.

  “No. What I want is you to shut up.”

  “Aye. Shh. You get us ambushed and you’re dead. Miracles dinnae happen twice in a day.” Shug shifted his bulk, letting Eck snag a breath—a miracle for him.

  What Shug said was certainly true though. Five days ago, this had seemed impossible, yet they’d just slipped in through the kitchen quarters, disguised as hunters. Who would have believed it? Were the tinker chief to know how badly his own people had turned against him, Callm knew he would still be living on his wits with Ewen and the eight men he’d chosen to accompany them on this fool’s errand.

  Now here they were on the dimly lit staircase, right in the heart of the thinker chief’s castle.

  “I still think we should have waited for word from the other McGurkies.”

  Callm frowned. They could have. Should have. It was true. Wee Murdie’s assessment of the situation wasn’t far off the mark, but the opportunity was God given, the chance too good to pass up when he didn’t want to leave the boy in that dungeon any longer. A child of four, for Christ’s sake. While he admitted his judgment had been flawed lately, considered himself fortunate these men still followed him, he was still grateful for what Shug whispered next.

  “What? And pass up the opportunity te be invited in here, looking furtive, by our new friends? Are ye daft? Anyway, the bastard’s hardly expecting to be set upon in his own castle.”

  “Shh!”

  “Jeez.”

  They each of them froze in their boots as a loud clattering came from the floor beneath. So far as Callm knew the tinker chief’s chamber itself wasn’t heavily guarded, but the castle was crawling with men. He didn’t want to be ambushed on the tortuously twisted staircase.

  The longer they stood here, the danger increased. Already he cursed the fact he’d dragged his men into what was essentially his business. Callm just didn’t want to think that maybe some of the resistance was fake, that this was a trap they had been led into like rats in the gutter.

  “Ewen can’t be far either. Word should reach here any time now,” Shug’s whisper echoed in his ear. “What do ye think?”

  Callm listened past the noise, to the click of a door shutting somewhere along the corridor, to the muffled growl of fury. He took a deep breath. “I think word just has. Let’s go.”

  Fingering his blade, he zigzagged into the shadows. Instinct told him there’d be one man at the tinker chief’s door. Maybe two inside. And none, certainly not the one at the door, could be allowed to utter a sound. The knife throw needed to be swift. Needed to be one of his best if they stood any chance here, not just of rescuing the boy, but getting out of here alive.

  Even before he hurled it down the length of corridor, watching it spin tortuously through the air, he knew it was. Hurrying forward, he caught his victim as the man’s knees sagged. It wasn’t all clean. But he couldn’t afford to think it as he maneuvered the sagging body onto the floor and prized the knife free. He dragged a breath to calm his hammering heart.

  Christ, for that matter, the man may have been one who had beaten and raped Kara.

  “Quickly.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Drag him over there. Out the—”

  “They’re nuttin’ but sheep!” a guttural Irish voice bellowed inside the room itself. Do ye hear me? Round them up. Man. Woman. Child. Their dogs if you have to.”

  He froze. In fact, they all did. Well, at least they hadn’t been betrayed. At least the resistance was real.

  “Black Wolf McDunnagh’ll raise no standards in my glen. And he’ll not be setting foot in this castle to save his supporters either. Find them. Find them, before they get here.”

  Callm had no trouble knowing who the bellow belonged to. Especially as the door creaked open. Fortunately Eck, Shug, and Snosh had edged up the corridor because he and Wee Murdie still had the body of the man they’d dragged out of the way to lower to the ground. He waited till the two men exited the chamber, and he heard choked gasps and thuds behind him before stepping into the doorway.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that?” Then he stepped over the threshold.

  As soon as he did, a bulky figure turned from the table before the blazing fire.

  The tinker chief wasn’t exactly what he expected. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit wherever Kara came by her extraordinary looks, it wasn’t from her father. The bulbous nose and tangled shock of greasy, gray hair were nothing like her for a start.

  The man wasn’t exactly frightened of him, though was he, he thought with a sudden pang.

  “And who the fuck are you?” The tinker chief arched unimpressed eyebrows. “Coming in here like this.”

  “Your son-in-law.”

  “My son-in-law?”

  “Although this isn’t exactly a social call.”

  Had Callm said it was, and to break open the whiskey bottle, the tinker chief could not have looked more accommodating. Ewen McDunnagh somehow here in his fortress—that day Callm had stood on the castle doorstep and cut what throats remained of Morven’s murderers, he had been unrecognizable. Plainly, for Ewen McDunnagh to be here, Kara had spilled everything.

  Not like her father? In that second Kara became his double. So much so, Callm felt he examined a well-thumbed book.

  “Ewen McDunnagh, here in my castle.”

  “Hell, no. Do you want me cutting your head off for the cheek of it, old man?”

  It was probably unwise to give that much away, when Ewen actually still wasn’t anywhere in sight, that Callm knew of anyway. These feelings about Ewen were probably something he needed a lesson in governing. But so long as the corridor was still empty of McGurkies—unless of course, they were dead ones—he’d be all right.

  “No. I’m Callm.”

  “Callm? Callm McDunnagh? But…but she was told…”

  Truth to tell, Callm was a little astonished by the outcome of this himself. Was it really roughly three short weeks ago he had been free of such encumbrances as a wife? So the perplexed manner the tinker chief ran his tongue over his mouth, the knitting of his brows, were things he not only understood, they were things he might even say they had in common. He frowned.

  “Are you thinking the same as me here? Obedience isn’t exactly that girl’s strong point, is it?”
>
  “But Callm McDunnagh is—”

  “Busy raising standards? You should know better than me how this goes. But in case you somehow don’t, let me tell you. Ewen takes my place, leading your people up to your door, putting you at ease, thinking you can take him, while I, well, I lie my way in here. Does that sound in any way familiar?”

  If it did, the tinker chief was quick to refute it. “Callm McDunnagh, eh?” He strolled to the other end of the table. “Well, well, well.”

  Callm had a prescience of what was coming next. But he’d lived with the thought long enough to know it wasn’t worth responding. At least, he hoped he had. The old bastard was clever though.

  There was no doubt he’d guessed the most men Callm could have in the castle itself, could be counted on the fingers of one hand, hence the leisurely stroll, the even slower sloshing of two golden drams into the cups from the decanter that stood there.

  “The rightful chief of clan McDunnagh. Tell me, sir, have you never felt the least bit irked that your father passed you over?”

  “That he passed over? Yes. But that’s all. Because I was a good son that way. I knew it was men like you who left him no choice in the other matter.”

  “Hmm. Because, see your brother now, well, drunken fool’s the term for him. That much the lasses did not want to marry him. While all I hear of you now, sir—”

  Callm eyed him carefully. It wouldn’t pay to let this bastard out his sight. Or to take that drink from him either. The one he now casually extended. He tightened his jaw.

  “Well, fool or not, drunk or not, you sent your daughter to marry him.”

  “That trollop sent herself. Begged me. Though I can’t say the outcome displeases me. Aye.” He downed his whiskey in one gulp.

  Callm could see that it didn’t. His heart was cold though. If the tinker chief thought he could smooth his way out of this, he couldn’t. Raking over ashes in the matter of the succession was bad enough. This slice to his underbelly with talk of Kara merely strengthened his determination to end this with only one of them alive in this chamber.