by Hazel Hunter
“Oh, very well,” Bhaltair said and walked out of the house and peered up at the dark sky. “’Twill be dawn in a few hours. Saddle two horses, and be quick, Cailean. The conclave arrives at noon, and if I am late, Brother Fergus will never let me hear the end of it.”
From their settlement the two druids rode along a trail hidden from the eyes of mortals. Cailean repeatedly tasted the air, drawing and holding it in his mouth in an effort to detect any trace of mortal blood. All his tongue found was smoke and fear, which was explained when they reached the edge of the village.
“Wait,” Bhaltair said when he would have dismounted. In the bright moonlight, he peered at the smoldering ruins of the cottages. “There are no bodies.”
“Mayhap they took them, to serve as thralls,” Cailean said as he peered through the smoke. “Or they ran into the hills.” In a louder voice he called, “Hello? Is anyone here?”
A white-skinned, dark-haired woman rushed out of hiding, falling on her knees in front of the druids’ mounts. “Masters, the undead attacked us. They took everyone away on carts before they set fire to our homes.” She knuckled away the tears streaking her soot-stained face. “I hid in the trees and watched it all.”
“You are Fiona Marphee?” Cailean asked.
When she nodded Bhaltair swung off his horse and tugged the terrified woman to her feet. “Where is Evander Talorc?”
“That is what I would like to know,” a cold voice said as dozens of undead trotted out of hiding places and surrounded them. “Do tell us, old man. Where are the McDonnels?”
Fiona screamed and tried to run, but a Roman wearing the battle armor of a prefect caught her and flung her to the ground.
“No, brother,” Bhaltair said quietly as Cailean summoned his magic. “We were brought here for another reason.” To the prefect he said, “We are monks, and ken naught of this clan you seek. Let us take the wench and be on our way, to trouble you no more.”
“I am Quintus Seneca, Prefect of the Ninth Legion. Claiming to be monks is clever, but I know the difference between mortal priests of the one god, and druids who spill blood for their many.” He made a gesture, and one of his men clouted the still-shrieking Fiona, who fell over in a silent, limp heap. “I am a reasonable man, and there is no need for bloodshed. I believe that you will tell me everything I wish to know.”
“Do you now. Well, then.” Bhaltair smiled gently, as if well-pleased. “Go bugger yourself, you pestilent pile of dung.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
FIONA OPENED HER eyes, squinting until she adjusted to the dark. She was in the cavern. The iron chains of her manacles rattled as she moved, and a moment later a chalk-faced centurion loomed over her.
“This one is awake, Prefect.” The Roman grabbed her hair and used it to haul her to her feet.
Sobs poured from Fiona as she saw the two druids being led away by guards, and met the dreamy gaze of the younger of the pair. Cailean Lusk didn’t seem fearful, but the druids were a strange lot. She gave him a tremulous, tearful smile that vanished as soon as they were gone. She straightened and held her shackles to the guard yanking on her curls as she looked at Quintus and Gaius, where they were conferring on the tribune’s dais.
“Take these off me,” she told the guard.
The prefect murmured something to his commander before he walked down to join her.
“Well done, Mistress Marphee. I am a little disappointed that we could not also take your lover this night.”
“I told you he wouldnae come.” She shook out her wrinkled skirts and tucked her curls back behind her ears. “He never does after we’ve swived like that. It guilts him.”
“Wait here.” He returned to Gaius.
Fiona’s skin crawled, as it did every time she was obliged to come to the tunnels. Being brought in as a captive revived the old, hateful memories of when the undead had taken her the first time.
She’d been but a girl then, looking after her widowed father and learning to work the loom. She’d said her prayers that night before going to bed, and had fallen asleep without a care. The men who had taken her had come in so silently they’d had her bound and gagged before they carried her out into the night. Fiona had seen the blood on the floor by her da’s room, and knew him to be dead. That was the moment her heart died with him.
In the tunnels they stripped her naked, touching her white skin as if she were a prize hog about to be slaughtered, and put her in the women’s pen. Her young body had almost glowed in contrast to the filthy bodies of the captives. Some of the older women had pushed her to the back when the Romans came to choose, but they remembered her. They cast lots to decide who would have her. One tall, heavy soldier with a scarred face won her. He told her his name was Marius as he carried her off to his cave, but she would address him as Master.
Fiona never thought about that night, all those hours, what that monster did to her. It made her scream and cry and puke when she did.
She lay in a stupor in the pen for most of the next day. When the choosing time came again, the prefect ordered her brought to his chamber. There he had pierced her wrist with his fangs, and drank from her veins, but then had another man bathe her and wrap her in a blanket.
“What is your name, child?” the prefect asked.
She peered at him. He was not hurting her like the other one. He had kindness in his voice.
“Fiona Marphee, Master.”
He nodded, and asked, “Fiona, how would you like to go home now?”
The real tears that spilled down her face were the last she would shed. “I would, sir. Please.”
Quintus Seneca had told her what she would have to do, and took her back to the cottage himself. He had helped her clean up the blood on the floor, and arrange her father’s body in the bed. He’d told her how to make it look like plague. Then he’d told her how it would be.
“If you wish to remain free, you must help us,” the prefect explained. “I will call on you when I need you. You must do whatever I ask, Fiona, and I will keep you safe. If you tell anyone, or betray me in any way, I will take you back to the tunnels. I will make you Marius’s blood thrall. Do you understand what that means?”
Fiona had. She’d done everything he’d asked of her. She’d spied on mortals and seduced important men and stolen and lied and hoored herself. She would have killed for Quintus Seneca, although he never asked that of her.
She hated him. He disgusted her with his false kindness. He had used her for ten years, and would go on using her for the rest of her life. She would never be free of him. Yet even now, as the prefect came to her, she knew she would do whatever he wanted.
“The tribune wishes to speak to you directly,” Quintus said. He glanced at the dais before he added in a lower voice, “His blood thrall took her own life, so he is in a foul mood. Prostrate yourself before him, and say nothing out of turn, or you will be the next to feed him.”
Fiona didn’t doubt him. The prefect had been using her as his spy since killing her father, but she had no illusions about her importance. Mortals who failed the legion were easily replaced, and the undead especially liked pretty wenches and lads that they could fack while draining them. The only way she had survived this long was by using her wits to make herself more valuable than food.
Quintus marched her through the tunnel to the dais, where she stopped short of the steps and dropped to the cave floor, flattening herself against the stone.
“You’ve brought your little pet whore for a visit, Quintus. How delightful,” Gaius said. “I take it she still hasn’t fucked the location of the McDonnel stronghold out of that cunt-snared seneschal?”
“No, my lord,” Quintus answered for her. “But she was helpful during our assault on the village, and lured to us two druids who may be important to the highlanders.”
“Those heathens are useless to everyone,” the tribune said as he came down to stand over Fiona, and nudged her with his boot tip. “You may rise, slut.”
Fiona re
membered not to look directly at Gaius as she stood. “Thank you, Tribune. Forgive me for no’ pleasing you.”
“I gave you no leave to speak.” The tribune backhanded her with his gauntlet.
The heavy clout made her face hurt so much her eye began to tear, and blood pooled in her mouth where her teeth had cut the inside of her cheek. Fiona swallowed and hunched her shoulders. Quintus had warned her.
“I cannot imagine why the McDonnel would wish to put his cock in such a fat little cunt.” He walked around her. “Still, you have done your best, I suppose, and I can be merciful. I think it pleases Quintus when I am. Can you send word to the McDonnels? Not to your swain, but to the laird himself?”
“Yes, Tribune.” Fiona felt bile rise in her throat as he fingered one of her curls. “What should I say?”
“Tell him that he and his men are to come to the grove of stones, before tomorrow dawn, and surrender to Quintus. If he does not, I will have all of the children from the village turned.” He released her hair. “Now go back to your hovel.”
“I cannae.” Fiona cried out as he gripped the back of her neck. “Please, Tribune. Evander has the village watched. He will come as soon as he learns it has burned.”
“Then you will fuck him one more time, and while he grunts over you, you will stab him, here.” He pressed on a spot between the bones of her neck. “Drive the blade deep between the bones at the base of his skull. Then bring proof to me that he is dead.”
Fiona nodded tightly. When he released her she looked down at her trembling hands. She had heard the Romans talk about how hard it was to kill the highlanders, and that only fire or a blade to the back of the neck could end them. Even now she carried a small dagger tucked between her breasts that would do the work. Evander didn’t suspect her of being anything but a common, ignorant village wench.
But the thought of jamming her blade into his neck while he was naked and atop her made her belly go sour.
“I will return her to the village, my lord,” Quintus said as he gripped her elbow.
“No, I need you here to question the heathens, for perhaps they know something of value to us. Give her a mount and send her on her way.” Gaius walked back up to his throne and clapped his hands. “I’m bored. Bring me a thrall. Something with some fight left, but not too many teeth.”
Quintus bustled Fiona out of the cave and through another tunnel that led to their underground stable.
“Do as the tribune says, and all will be well,” he said. He drew his own dagger, and pressed it in her hands. “After the McDonnel is dead, cut off his manhood with this, and bring it to me. I will give it as proof of his death to Gaius, and we will talk about where next to move you.”
Fiona chose a quiet mare from the legion’s mounts, and led her out of the tunnels, where the sentries watched with greedy eyes as she mounted the horse. She rode sedately until she was out of sight, and then jumped down, falling to her hands and knees as she puked up everything in her stomach.
She had seen terrible things in her short life, and it had hardened her. It did not even shock her that Gaius had ordered her to murder her lover, or that Quintus had asked her to castrate his corpse. She had known from the moment she was told to seduce the McDonnel seneschal that it would come to a bad end.
Her only mistake had been to fall in love with him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
EVANDER READ ONLY once the message Fiona had sent by dove before he gathered his weapons and headed for the loch. He would be missed, leaving in the middle of the day, but he didn’t care. His mistress’s village had been attacked and burned by the legion, and she the only mortal left living.
Now he could bring her back to Dun Aran, and install her as his mistress. Having done the same with Kinley, Lachlan could say naught to him about it.
Never had Evander felt so powerful while diving into the loch and transforming to flash through the currents. At last he could show his lovely lass all of his secrets, and bring her to the safety of the stronghold. The bubbling water frothed about him, dancing as if it could feel his fierce glee.
As soon as Evander rose from the stream he ran straight to Fiona’s cottage, which he found only a charred shell. The rest of the village had also been burned, and the bodies of slaughtered livestock lay everywhere. He saw no corpses, which meant the villagers had been taken, as the undead would not have disposed of the bodies. Fiona might have thought her neighbors killed, but the legion had likely captured and taken them to serve as blood thralls.
The thought of the same being done to his sweet lass made Evander’s blood boil. If even one of those monsters touched her, he would find it and nail it to the door of her cottage. He should have brought her to Dun Aran, where she would have been protected.
This was all Lachlan’s fault.
“Fiona?” He entered her cottage, and breathed in. He could smell her skin, and blood, and began searching through the scorched rubble. “Fiona, I’m here. Call out to me if you can. I’m here for you, lass.”
A blade tip pricked the back of his neck. “Dinnae move,” a cool voice said from behind him. “Or I will end you where you stand, Evander Talorc.”
He stared at the burnt remains of her standing loom, and felt his heart ice over. “What have you done, lass?”
“Kneel.” When he did she took his sword, dagger and cudgel, and tossed them out of reach. “Hands behind your back. Clasp them together.” Once he had, he heard the clank of irons as they closed around his wrists and latched. “You’re as blind as that druid boy and his auld master. They came calling before you. Now they’re learning what manner of magic the legion wields. I’ll tell you, there’s none blacker.”
When she came around to face him Evander took in her disheveled appearance. She had a dark bruise spreading from her cheek to her eye, and her hair and frock looked as if she’d been dragged through swill. The cunning expression on her face he had never seen, nor the Roman blade she clutched in her hand.
“Am I no’ fetching, my lord?” she demanded, and spread her skirts as if she wanted his admiration. “Your sweet Fiona, here and back from Hell. Och, what’s the matter, sweetheart? Do you no’ wish to fack me now?”
He spat at her feet. “I’d burn off my hands before I’d touch you again.”
“You men do love your fires.”
Fiona went to retrieve something from a singed dresser, swearing under her breath as she plunged it into her washing basin. She removed the small metal box and pried open the lid, peering in at the coins before she tucked it under her arm.
“Counting your silver, Judas?” Evander asked.
“Oh, I earned every penny, from my weaving.” She glanced around the ruined cottage, and tucked her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. “I never thought they’d torch my father’s house. I’ve done so much for them, and asked so little.” She looked up at the broken, burnt timbers of her collapsed roof. “’Twas the only place in the world I was ever happy, so when they told me about you, I said, I’ll use my Da’s cottage. There, I thought, I could be happy for a time. Until I was finished with you.”
Now he understood why she had kept asking him to bring her to Dun Aran. “You’ve been spying for the legion.”
“Longer than you think,” she said, her voice hardening again. “Did you never wonder why you kept seeing me all pretty and primped at the market, and in the street? ’Tis how they use me, lover. I’m the bait they dangle at the prize catch. That would be you, stupit. You might have ken it, if you’d ever pulled your brain out of your cock.”
Evander thought of how she had peeped up at him, all virtuous innocence, and the trembling of her voice as she had first refused him her bed. “You were no maiden.”
“No’ since that night I was taken. ’Tis an easy thing to feign. Some shaking and blushing, a nick on the inside of the thigh, and lo, I’m a virgin again, and so I have been, five times now.” She brought the dagger to press against the back of his neck. “Stand and walk out the back doo
r. There’s a cart waiting.”
“I’ll no’ let you deliver me to the legion,” Evander told her. “If that is your intent, stick your blade in me.”
She laughed. “Even now, you’re naught but a great thickhead.”
The tip of the dagger left his neck, but as he braced himself for the blow he heard Fiona screech, and turned to see her struggling against the arm Neac had clamped around her waist. Behind the chieftain a dozen Uthars rushed into the cottage, swords drawn and faces grim.
“If you mean to go wenching, Seneschal, you should take us with you,” Neac said and handed Fiona off to one of his men, who carried her out. Then he unlatched the irons and let Evander’s hands loose. “We’ve better taste in lassies.” When Evander would have gone after Fiona the chieftain planted a big hand on his chest to stop him. “We stood outside while she made her confession. We need her alive so we might find Cailean and his master.”
“She’s mine to question,” Evander said and picked up and sheathed his sword. “No one puts hands on her but me.”
Outside, Fiona looked up at him. “I should have facked you and cut off your cock.”
“Aye,” Neac said, grimacing. “I dinnae think anyone will wish to touch her.”
Evander felt a grim joy as he marched Fiona to the stream. Taking her back to Skye to be questioned and killed instead of installed as his mistress did not make him bitter. Away from any chance of the undead retrieving her, he could take his time with her. He also wanted her to see Dun Aran before he throttled the life out of her. She would weep when he told her that he had meant to bring her to live at the stronghold that day. How close she had been to learning exactly what her masters needed to wipe out him and his clan.
Fiona struggled at the edge of the water. “You’ll no’ drown me.”
“Quiet,” he ordered. He hated pulling her into his arms, and binding her to his thoughts, but it had to be done. As he jumped into the current, he felt her wild struggling as he transformed. But he held her fast as he went liquid and whisked the two of them from the mainland to Skye. When he walked up out of the loch with her flung over his shoulder, she choked out some water and twisted until he put her on her feet.
