Even as she sent up a prayer for Hervey and his men to ride right past them, her cousin entered the clearing where they all were and right behind him was a force of nearly twenty men. Brona was astounded that her cousin had been riding around in the dark, risking his men and especially his horse. Her men, Heming standing slightly to the fore of them, looked a pitiful force to stand fast against the men on the huge temperamental horses. Brona was very afraid that she was stuck there in order to watch them all die. Even if she were inclined to disobey Heming’s forceful order, she had a clear view of how many well-armed men Hervey had and felt frozen to the ground in fear for Heming’s life.
“I thought we would find ye creeping back to your nest,” snapped Hervey, glaring down at Heming from atop his massive black warhorse.
“Weel, arenae ye the clever one,” drawled Heming. “Now, if ye would be so kind as to move aside, I believe I will be going home.”
Brona wondered if she should have told Heming that all that taunting of Hervey accomplished was death. Hervey became absolutely rabid if he felt he was being ridiculed, especially if he felt the one ridiculing him was of less power and wealth. Yet, it almost appeared as if Hervey was actually using some restraint, although whatever that restraint was, it was proving too weak to remain unmoved by Heming’s obvious utter contempt.
“I wasnae done with ye, demon,” said Hervey. “I still need the answers to a few questions. Seems my compatriot lost his prisoner as weel.”
Heming breathed an inner sigh of relief but let no sign of that show itself in his expression. “I should hie myself home then and prepare to fight for your life as my kinsmen will soon be pounding at your gates and demanding ye pay for your crimes against us.”
“Crimes against ye? Ye are a crime against nature! Against God! Ye will return to Rosscurrach with me now. Those traitors with ye will hang for betraying their laird and ye will give me the knowledge I seek. Whether ye live for verra long depends upon the value of what ye tell me.”
“And after ye say all that do ye truly expect us to simply lay down our swords and surrender?”
“Then die here. I can always find me another MacNachton to tell me what I seek.”
Heming braced for the attack, placing himself to the fore of the three men standing at his side for he knew they were not hardened soldiers. He wanted Hervey and had every intention of taking the man down even if it caused him his own death. As he laid into Hervey’s men, trying to get to Hervey himself, Heming caught a brief glimpse of Peter, Colin, and Fergus fighting and decided he had maligned them. They were very fine and fierce soldiers and none of Hervey’s men would find them easy to kill.
Brona put her hand over her mouth as she watched Heming throw himself into battle. He reached up to drag men out of their saddles and hurl them aside as if they were feather pillows. One of her cousin’s hirelings went for Peter’s back and found Heming at his, snapping his neck and tossing him aside. Heming moved with a startling speed and was deadly with both his hands and his sword. And his fangs, she thought as she watched him drag a man off of Fergus and sink his very sharp teeth into the man’s throat. The terrified scream that came out of the man gave her the chills.
One thing Brona did see, despite the numbing shock that had overtaken her, was how her men seemed unfrightened by the fury they fought side by side with. Even when Heming used his fangs, they barely blinked an eye. It seemed that sometime in the days of travel they had spent together, Fergus, Colin, and Peter had fully accepted Heming. Brona was not sure why that should make her feel good despite the carnage going on all around her.
Astonished that the battle seemed to be going in Heming’s favor despite the odds against him and her men, Brona wondered if she should just stay where she was. In the heat of the battle there were many times when she could slip away unseen, but Heming had told her to stay where she was unless she had no other choice. Just as she was about to at least make a way out of the thicket clear and easy to move through, she was grabbed by the back of her gown and roughly dragged out of her hiding place. When she was free of the brambles, she looked to see who was holding her. At the sight of Angus’s hard cold face, she screamed.
Heming was beginning to weaken. Despite the toll he had taken amongst Hervey’s men, he had suffered many a wound. The slow loss of blood from those wounds was beginning to steal away his strength. Just as he grabbed the front of the jupon of a man he was sure he had thrown away before, a scream pierced the air and he froze. He knew that was an error, that he could easily get himself captured or killed by reacting in such a way, but he could not move as the sound of Brona’s fear rang through the wood. Hervey’s men did not see that they had a chance to kill or capture him, however, for a harsh command sent them running for their horses.
Backing away from Hervey and his men and the chaos caused by their sudden retreat, Heming looked for Brona. His heart nearly stopped when he saw her struggling in the grip of Angus. She looked terrified and he could not blame her. The look upon Angus’s face was not that of a man finding the woman he dearly wanted and had feared was in danger. Angus looked like a man who wanted to make a woman pay dearly for his humiliation.
Heming took a step toward them as Angus threw her over his saddle and mounted up behind her, but Heming suddenly found that he could barely walk. He staggered and was grateful for Peter’s sudden aid. “Let her go!” he demanded, pleased that no hint of his increasing weakness was revealed in his voice.
“Oh, I dinnae think so, demon,” snapped Hervey. “I have plans for her.”
Angus looked sharply at Hervey and frowned, but Heming did not have the time or the strength to try to find out Hervey’s little secrets and try to use them to turn Angus against his laird. “What plans? Ye have ignored her or beaten her since ye sat your arse in the laird’s seat. Ye would have done something ere now if ye had truly had an interest in her care.”
“My interest now is that she will gain me a verra pretty purse. Some men are so desperate for a young wife who may be strong enough to bear them a son, they are more than willing to pay a hefty price.”
“So ye would sell your own kinswoman, one of the few true kin ye have left?”
“In a heartbeat if the price was right and this one is,” snapped Hervey. “Dinnae think this ends here, demon. I cannae take the time or waste the men to get ye now, but I will return ye to your cage verra soon.”
“Heming!” Brona cried.
The sound of her panic hit him hard but what happened next nearly blinded Heming with rage. Angus punched her in the head and she went limp. It was only the grip of his three companions that stopped him from trying to climb over Hervey and his men and tearing out Angus’s throat. Instead he had to stand there and watch Hervey and Angus take Brona away knowing that he was simply too weak at the moment to stop them.
For a moment after all the riders had disappeared, Heming just stood there staring in the direction they had gone. Then he slowly sank to his knees, what little strength he had abruptly leaving him. Peter, Colin, and Fergus quickly gathered around him. They were bruised and bloody but alive and obviously in far better condition than he was.
“What do ye need, m’laird?” asked Colin.
“I am nay a laird,” Heming said, not really surprised to hear that the weakness he felt had invaded his voice.
“Oh, I think ye will soon be ours,” Peter said. “How badly are ye hurt? I swear, ye moved so fast I couldnae see where or when ye were hurt but ye are a bloody mess and I have the feeling a lot of it is your own blood.”
“Aye, ‘tis.” He looked in the direction Brona had been taken and whispered, “I want Brona.”
“And we shall get the poor lass back, but ye need to get your strength back first. Aye, she willnae be treated weel by those bastards and it grieves me to think what she might suffer, but they willnae kill her. They want something from her, can gain from her, and that will keep her alive until we can get her out of there. So tell us what we need to do to get ye back
to where ye can be tossing grown men around like they are pillows.”
“I need blood.” Despite the fact that he was so close to unconsciousness he could barely see straight, he felt how all three men tensed. “Nay, not yours. I have no wish to be sucking on your necks and I suspicion ye have no wish to have me do it. Nay, I can get what I need at Cambrun. Take me home.”
“Where is Cambrun?”
Heming had to struggle to raise his arm enough to point in the direction of home. “See that rocky hill in the distance?”
“The one that has all that mist about it?”
“Aye. At the top is Cambrun.”
“As ye wish then. We will get ye there.”
“Thank ye. Oh, and try to remember to keep me out of the sun,” he said and fell forward as the blackness finally conquered him.
Eight
“Brona?”
It took Heming only a moment to realize that the small, soft hand he held was not Brona’s. He slowly opened his eyes and turned his head to see who sat at his bedside. Even as he saw his mother there, she leaned forward and brushed the hair from his forehead, giving him a kiss there just as she often had when he was a small boy. He must have been a lot closer to dying than he had realized.
“Thirsty?” she asked.
“Aye.”
He waited patiently as she fetched him some wine. One sip told him it was his father’s enriched wine and he began to believe he truly had been in far worse a condition than he had realized. He obviously needed more than just one hearty drink of blood to recover. Heming felt a great deal better than he had before he had fallen face down in the dirt, but he could tell that he was still weak.
His mother had just finished plumping up a mound of pillows at his back and helping him rest against them when his father walked into the room. Heming could tell by the tight look of anger on his father’s face that Colin, Fergus, and Peter had already told their tale. He was glad, for it meant he only had to clarify a few things before he could start planning how to go and get Brona back.
“Have ye heard how Tearlach fares?” he asked his father.
“Aye, he fares weel,” replied Jankyn as he moved to stand beside his wife, Efrica, and idly stroke her hair. “It seems he too had a guardian angel, an English one.”
“I must get my angel back.”
“Brona?” asked his mother, her eyes alight with curiosity.
“Aye, Brona,” he replied. “How long have I slept?”
“Just for the day. ‘Tis nay e’en full sunset yet. Ye were near to dying, Heming. That mon Colin said he e’en decided to give ye some of his blood but he couldnae rouse ye and he didnae ken how to do it without ye being awake.”
“This mon Hervey Kerr is one of the hunters?” asked his father.
“Aye. I suppose ye ken what the mon holding Tearlach wanted.” When his father nodded, Heming continued, “Hervey wanted me to tell him how to live forever.” He smiled crookedly at his parents’ identical looks of disgust. “Brona got me out of there just before Hervey decided that the secret may be in my blood and that he and his first would make a potion out of it and see how they fared after a fortnight of drinking it. If they showed signs of healing swiftly and the like they planned to hold me there and use me to keep making those potions.”
Heming watched his mother shudder and his father quickly take her small hand in his to soothe her. “Aye, ‘tis hypocrisy at its worst. He condemns me as a demon because I drink blood and then decides to use mine and drink it because it might make him live longer. Brona refused to believe me a demon and what her cousin wanted to do sickened her, so she set me free.”
“So your men said. They said ye hid within the keep itself until ye felt it was safe to try and get away. They also said that ye will be their laird because ye are going to kill Hervey and marry Brona.”
“Weel, I can see ye all had a verra nice talk.”
“They are good men and only a wee bit nervous about being here.” Jankyn grinned when Heming laughed. “They accept ye.”
“Aye. Nay so much at first although they didnae kill me when Brona gave me her blood so that I could recover from her cousin’s torture. I was near to dying then, too.” He squeezed his mother’s hand when she suddenly grasped his. “My Brona wasnae so sure she wanted to do it, but she couldnae let me die just because she was made uneasy about giving me what was needed so that I could live. And as we traveled here all of them saw many other things about me but didnae flee or back away. Nay, not e’en after I showed off all my strengths during the battle in which we lost Brona.”
“And do ye plan to marry this Brona and become the laird of Rosscurrach?”
“Weel, I mean to marry Brona but I cannae say if that will make me laird of Rosscurrach or nay. It may weel do so as I think there isnae anyone else, no males leastwise.”
“Then ye shall start with three loyal men who ken the truth about ye and dinnae care. A verra good start.”
“But first I must get my Brona free of those bastards.” Heming cautiously sat up, almost grinning at how hard his mother had to work at not moving to help him. “Weel, it may be a few more hours, I fear, but I am strong enough to make my plans.”
“Hervey will be shut up tight in Rosscurrach. It willnae be an easy battle.”
Heming smiled and knew it was a cold smile of anticipation. “Oh, it will be verra easy for I ken how to get inside without being seen—the same way me, Brona, and those three nervous men of mine got out. Oh, and the dog.” He winked at his mother. “We did manage to convince Brona that it would be best if she left her cat, Havoc, with Colin’s mother.”
“Do ye love this Brona, Heming?” asked his mother.
A little annoyed when he actually felt himself blush and his father grinned widely, Heming grimaced and decided to tell the truth. “She is my mate. Do ye ken, when she first came to me whilst I was in my cage, I tried to think of how she may be just another trick, sent to make me feel as if I had an ally and thus get me to tell her things I refused to tell Hervey. I couldnae do it. Oh, I didnae tell her anything, but I simply couldnae believe she was part of it all. And after she rescued me and then offered me her blood so that I could heal, I knew. I just havenae told her yet.”
“Then we had best get her free so that ye may do so. I am curious about one thing. Do ye feel the urge to mark her?”
“Och, aye. Verra strongly. Why?”
“Oh, no verra important reason. I am just trying to keep a record so that we may eventually ken just how strong that particular urge is. At the moment, it appears to be a verra strong one indeed.”
Jankyn nodded. “Your mother decided that it might be useful to keep a record of what disappears and what lingers when a child is born to a MacNachton and an Outsider. We ken verra little about such mixes and ignorance is ne’er a good thing. Ye are actually the strongest, er, mix yet, taking a great deal from both of us.”
“Aye, of all the things both families tried to breed out,” Heming said, smiling so that they knew he was not unhappy with what he was.
“Actually if ye look at the list your mother has made, most of what ye kept are the strengths, all the hunting and fighting skills. Weel, we shall talk of this another time. Ye will sense the importance of it when ‘tis time for your own child to appear. Now we shall plan how to free your mate. Do ye think her life is in danger? Your men didnae.”
“I am nay as certain as they are, but it could be because she is my mate.”
“Aye, calm reason is verra hard to grasp when one’s mate is threatened. Colin believes there is some gain for this mon Angus and the laird if Brona weds with Angus. He also seems to truly believe that, if Hervey Kerr dies and Brona marries, she will be heir for ye can stand in the place of the laird. ‘Tis nay uncommon for a laird to have his daughter be his heir on condition that she marry. Have we nay had such a thing happen within our own family? It will need to be looked into. It would nay be so strange if this mon Hervey isnae telling your Brona the full truth about
her father’s last wishes.”
“I will do that as soon as I put that bastard in the ground.” He grimaced and looked at his mother. “Pardon, Maman.”
“No need, son,” she said and smiled sweetly. “He is a bastard and I hope ye put him in the ground verra soon.”
“Weel, I am nay sure how easy it will be to get too many men in through the way we got out,” said Colin as he stood near the window of Heming’s bedchamber and rubbed his chin as he thought the matter over. “We slipped out because no one was doing the work they should have been doing, aye? Resting whilst the laird was gone and all. They will all be ready for an attack this time, looking out for the enemy so that they can live through yet another of the laird’s mistakes.”
Heming yanked on his boots and then laced them up. He was finally feeling better, his weakness gone. It had taken the offer of blood from a cousin to finally help him recover his strength, but now he was eager to get back to Rosscurrach and find his Brona. Colin was right, however. They might know a secret way into the keep, but the guard on the walls would be tight and very watchful.
But would they all be eager to die for Hervey Kerr? Heming suddenly thought. “How many of the men now manning the walls of Rosscurrach are loyal to Hervey?”
“Wheesht, I doubt ye would find a full handful, why?”
“Because mayhap the simplest thing to do is lessen the number of men on those walls by letting them ken that ‘tis Hervey who has committed a wrong and that Brona is the true heir as soon as she marries. All we want to do is save her from the brutal Angus and give her back what is hers by right of birth.”
“Verra good,” murmured Jankyn.
“It could work,” said Peter. “I could—“
“Nay, ye must nay be seen by anyone who might feel inclined to tell Hervey ye are back at Rosscurrach. He will recognize ye. I suspicion there are others at the keep who will recognize ye as weel.”
Peter sighed and acknowledged that truth with a nod. “‘Tis humiliating but I fear there were a few who kenned exactly why the laird dragged me into his dungeon.”
Highland Thirst Page 9
