The Wolf and the Highlander (Highland Wishes) (38 page)

Stunned by the fall, she blinked and met a pair of eyes so pale they reminded her of snow. Bantus.

He inhaled, then grinned, showing a lot of tooth. “Freshly bathed. Perfect. Reddick, put
her with the others while I gather my generals. Myre, make the bed and wake up the trespasser. Bull, come with me. As for you, my new pet,” he said to her. “I will be back shortly. I have only an hour before I must go to battle. If you sate me well, I will bring you back the head of a king.” He kissed her scarred cheek and handed her off to another man. Terror had such a hold on her she could think of no retort.

As the second man carried her from the dungeon, she peered over his shoulder at Riggs. He raised his head an inch, enough that she could see how badly his face had been beaten, enough that she could see blood staining his lips. His nostrils flared as he inhaled. He opened his eyes and fixed them on hers.

Then a doorway blocked her view.

Her heart pounded. She’d found Riggs, but they were sorely outnumbered. They were prisoners. Pets. At the mercy of a mad king.

The man carrying her, Reddick, unlocked a barred door, put her on her feet, and nudged her through. She dug in her heels, but it only earned her a shove that made her fall to her hands and knees.

The door closed behind her and Reddick stalked away, leaving her in a cell smelling of piss and stale blood and lit only by the meager light coming from that cursed dungeon room. She couldn’t help it. She began to cry.

“Hush, now, lass. It’ll go worse for you if ye let them see your tears.”

She started at the soft, alto voice. ’Twas painfully familiar. “Seona?”

A gasp. “Anya? Is that you?”

“Aye.” Her voice wavered.

Arms went around her, more slender than she remembered, naught but skin and bone.

She wrapped her arms around her sister’s skeletal body. Her heart rent to feel the bones of her ribs, the bumps of her spine. She cried harder, needing to squeeze her sister tight, but afraid to hurt her.

“Hush, Anya, hush,” Seona whispered frantically. “I meant what I said. You doona want to show them tears.”

She gulped back her sobs and brought her galloping heart under control. Pulling back, she gazed into her sister’s eyes, lighter brown than her own, but the same shape. They were sunken and rimmed with purple shadows. Poor Seona was starving.

She touched her sister’s face, assuring herself she was real. Her fingers found a rough patch on her cheek.

Seona’s hand clasped Anya’s to her face. “It’s his mark,” she said, her eyes sad. “We all have it.” She motioned behind her, and Anya noticed at least a dozen sets of eyes fixed on her and
Seona. The human women. She’d found them. She’d found her sister. And she was powerless to do aught about it. “You’ll wear the mark too. He’ll brand you before he tups you. It hurts like bloody hell, but it’ll heal, Anya dear. It’ll heal.”

Did she mean the branding or the tupping? Anya shivered. There were some things that never healed. She feared these women were scarred in ways that had naught to do with Bantus’s paw-print brand. Judging by the way Seona dropped her gaze when she tried to offer comfort, she was more broken inside than her pride would allow her to admit.

Anya was going to kill Bantus. For Seona. For the other women. For Riggs. She didn’t ken how, but she would find a way. If it took the rest of her life, lived out in the squalor of this cell, she’d bloody well find a way.

Anya sat on the cold stone floor arm in arm with Seona. The woman with her forehead pressed to hers was her sister but not. Her eyes darted nervously. She refused to speak of the horrors Anya feared had been visited upon her by their mad captor. She would only answer the most rudimentary questions, and even then, ’twas like baiting a hook and reeling in each bit of information a word or two at a time.

Roughly half an hour had passed since Reddick had put Anya in this cell, and all she’d managed to learn was that Seona had been lured from the bawdyhouse in Thurson by a man matching Ari’s description.
“Told me I’d belong to a great king. I’d never have to work again. Ha!”
She’d begun laughing hysterically, and the cackling had raised the hairs on Anya’s arms even as it rent her heart in twain. None of the other women paid Seona any heed. Or Anya, for that matter. Chained in their own thoughts, or divorced from all thought. Hard to say which.

Had they all been lured away from the Highlands by Ari? Or were they from different places? Was anyplace safe from him when he held that red stone?

Once she found a way to kill Bantus, she was going to set her sights on Ari. She’d string him up by his gonads and beat him until
he
cackled like a lunatic.

A clang echoed in the passage outside the cell. Footsteps approached. A palpable tension descended over the women. Some of them scampered to the shadows.

“I hope you’ve had a chance to rest, lovie.” Bantus and Reddick appeared at the cell door. “Because it’s time to play.”

She reached for Seona’s hand, coveting her sister’s support, but Seona was no longer by her side. Anya peered around and found her hunched and shivering in a corner.

She hated her sister in that moment. For being a coward. At the same time, she ached for her. This should not be. None of this should be.

She squared her shoulders and faced Reddick as he unlocked the cell. When Bantus grinned and motioned her forward, she limped to him and looked him in the eye, craning her neck to do so.

He hummed with approval. “A brave one, Reddick. How long do you think she’ll have the courage to meet my eyes?”

“Not long, sire.”

She would not show her fear. Riggs had awoken when Reddick had carried her from the dungeon earlier. She would be brave for her pledgemate. Lord knew he’d suffered enough this night. She would do naught to add to his suffering.

And if the Lord saw fit to rescue them soon, she’d welcome it with open arms.

* * * *

“Wake up, Maranner.”
Slap.

The wretched guard, Myre, tried to wake Riggs, but he was already awake. If one could call the fuzzy consciousness he clung to wakefulness.

He ignored the guard. Instead of giving him the satisfaction of opening his eyes, Riggs rotated his wrists in tiny increments this way and that, exploring the range of movement of his bonds. He flexed his arms, lifting himself so his weight left his feet and was completely sustained by the beam overhead. The soles of his boots remained touching the floor, but only barely. He did all this subtly, so as not to alert Myre to the fact he was working out whether he might get free.

The moment he’d scented his lifemate and opened his eyes to find her present in Bantus’s dungeon, he’d called to Danu from his moonsoul. He’d paid the goddess little heed through his life. Had never worshipped or prayed to her as his father had. Why should he? If she existed at all, she’d abandoned wolfkind, a people of her own creation, to a slow but sure death.

He’d called to her moments ago. He’d called to her in desperation. He’d called to her in faith. She would answer. She must, because it was Anya at risk.
Anya.

Danu
would help, but he had to do his part. So he tested his bonds, searched for any little bit of give he might exploit. Where was the weak point? Where must he focus his strength so he could save Anya from a horrific fate?

Myre slapped him again.

He fluttered his eyelids to get the guard to leave him alone. It worked.

Myre moved away, muttering.

Sounds outside the dungeon punched through his concentration. He recognized the baritone rumble of Bantus’s voice. And the lilting cadence of Anya’s steps.

She was walking to what she must know would be certain torture. And with no hesitation in her gait. Brave lady. But then he’d known that. He’d witnessed her bravery many times over.

He wouldn’t fail her.

Danu wouldn’t fail her. Anya was not to be the salvation of wolfkind, but she was
his
salvation. She was his life.

He didn’t open his eyes when he heard her enter the dungeon with Bantus and another man who was likely Reddick since the footsteps weren’t heavy enough to belong to Bull. He stilled his explorations, rested. He would need all his strength for what he must do. And som
e of the goddess’s too, if she would lend it.

He breathed deep. Waiting. Praying.

“Good. You have the fire nice and hot.” Bantus. “Myre, heat the brand.”

Those words should send him into a panic. They didn’t.

Breathe. Rest. Wait.

“Reddick, you know what to do.” Bantus spoke to his guard, but he was standing in front of Riggs, facing him with breath smelling of wine.

He fluttered his eyes again, pretending to come to.

“Wakie, wakie. Time for a treat, pet. Do you
enjoy the symphony of a woman’s screams? I do.” Behind him were sounds of movement. Then a struggle.

“Get your bloody paws off me!” Anya. Furious.

His heart beat faster. They were manhandling her onto the bed Myre had just prepared with fresh linens.

Wait. Wait. Not yet.

“Clean her cheek. Yeah, the smooth one. Don’t want my mark lost amidst those scars.”

Anya’s protests became muffled. They’d either gagged her or someone had a hand over her mouth. She was frightened. He could tell from her rising pitch.

Wait. Wait. Breathe.

Clinking by the fire. Bantus was pulling the iron from the flames.

Riggs slivered his eyes open. The Larnians in the room all had their eyes on the glowing paw-print-shaped iron in their king’s gloved hands.

Anya had her eyes on Riggs.

He opened one eye to let her know he was with her, then closed it again to concentrate. Before darkness wiped out that glimpse of her, her gaze had darted to the dagger strapped to Reddick’s calf. The man was sitting on the bed with her between his legs. With one hand he held her wrists behind her back. With the other he clasped her jaw, forcing her head to his shoulder so her smooth cheek was presented for branding. Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths beneath the peach silk dressing gown she must have been given at Glendall.

Bantus turned from the fire and began moving toward the bed.

Now.

He took a deep breath and flexed his feet, tipping his toes up, using the manacles around his ankles as an anchor. He tensed every muscle in his legs, abdomen and back. Lifting his chin to align his neck for maximum power, he poured every ounce of strength he’d ever possessed into pulling down on the chain.

When the eyehook had been screwed into the beam high overhead, it had gone in slightly off-center. During his testing, he’d found the slightest bit of wiggle and had worked it to make a bigger defect. He exploited that defect in full now.

No longer trying to remain inconspicuous, he roared with the strain. When his muscles and joints protested, he demanded even more of them.

Bit by bit the screw eased from the beam until with a mighty snap, the eyehook broke free.

The men all wheeled on him with wide eyes.

He pinned Bantus with his gaze. The man stood at the foot of the bed, iron in hands, inches from searing his mark forever into Anya’s eggshell smooth skin.

Like with the wolves, time seemed to slow down.
Splinters rained down from the beam at a fraction of their expected speed. The chain began to fall, chinks collapsing into each other. With it came the heavy eyehook. It would all land in a pile on his head if he didn’t do something.

Whipping his arms in a circle over his head, he threw the chain like a whip, directing it toward Bantus.

Danu, let this work.

There! The chain hit its mark, collaring the vile king.

Without the chain to keep him upright, he fell forward. Using the momentum of the fall, he twisted his shoulders midair and yanked the chain. It tightened around Bantus’s throat. A final jerk of the chain as he hit the floor and it tightened enough that Bantus dropped the iron to clutch at the links.

It wasn’t sufficient to choke him, but it made a nice distraction. There was one at the ready who’d been waiting for such a distraction. Anya.

She had not been idle when the men had turned to gape at him. She had been stealthily slipping Reddick’s dagger from its sheath.

With a growl as fierce as any she-wolf, she broke free of Reddick’s hold and lunged at Bantus’s back. She clung on like a monkey
with one arm locked around his throat. In a single swift move, she brought her other arm up and sliced across his neck, just under his jaw.

Blood poured over
the chain and the peach silk sheathing her arm. It ran like a river down the king’s chest. The wound gaped like a gruesome smile. Larna’s king would bleed to death in moments.

Anya had dealt the fatal blow.

Pride and wonder rushed through him, but freedom was not yet theirs. Reddick was still a threat. Not Myre. He huddled in a corner, whimpering. But Reddick’s orange eyes darkened. When Bantus began falling forward, Reddick plucked Anya from his back. He held her by her throat and shook her.