Highlander Ever After by Jennifer Ashley
If Zarabeth returned to Nvengaria and Egan came with her, would he be happy so far from home? If she stayed at Castle MacDonald as she’d declared to Egan she wanted to, would Egan, impatient and impetuous, wish to travel the world without her? The thought gave her a sharp ache and an angry determination. No matter where they went or what they did, she and Egan would remain together. She’d see about that.
A thought came to her from outside the door, one strong and clear enough to penetrate her barriers. She could not tell what language it was in, because it was more an urge than a word.
Now.
Zarabeth jerked around to face the door. It remained closed, no noise from without.
Valentin raised himself on his elbow, alert, trying to adjust his bandaged arm. “What is it?” he whispered.
“I don’t …”
Her mouth went dry. She felt resolution from outside, along with guilt and fear.
Valentin eased open the drawer of the bedside table and withdrew a pistol and a small flagon of powder. Quickly if clumsily he primed and cocked the pistol, then told Zarabeth, “Open the door.”
It wasn’t locked—any intruder could have burst in. Zarabeth quietly glided to the door, shielding herself behind it as she pulled it open.
Valentin pointed his pistol at empty air. No one was there.
Zarabeth tentatively peered around the doorframe. Ivan and Constanz stood in their places, blinking at her in surprise.
“Ivan, was anyone out here?” she asked in Nvengarian.
Ivan came to smart attention. “The cook came out of this room and went downstairs,” he answered readily.
“I mean besides Mrs. Williams. Did anyone else come up to see Valentin?”
“No.” His surprised innocence told her he wasn’t lying.
Valentin lowered the pistol. Zarabeth turned back to the room, and as she did, she caught another thought—vast relief.
She whirled and stared at Constanz, who looked back at her with guilt large in his eyes.
“Oh, no,” she said, her voice sad. “Oh, Constanz.”
Ivan abruptly grabbed Zarabeth’s arms in a hard grip and dragged her into the room, the cold blade of a knife at her throat. Constanz followed and shut the door.
“Please put the pistol away,” Ivan said clearly to Valentin. “I will try not to kill her, but you must not shoot and make noise, or I will cut her.”
Valentin, glaring fury, uncocked the pistol. Constanz hurried over and took it from his grip.
Zarabeth for some reason felt no fear, only profound sorrow. “You could have killed me at any time during our journey,” she said. “Why have you waited until now, when Sebastian is dead and gone?”
Constanz frowned as though she puzzled him. “Because we wanted to protect you. We need you. We did not lie when we said we’d die for you. We several times almost did.”
Zarabeth swallowed carefully. “Then why does Ivan have his knife at my throat?”
Ivan answered. “We did not mean for this to happen. But we cannot let Baron Valentin kill us. He is not on our side, and we still need you. You will come with us, and we will explain.”
Valentin snarled and kicked back the covers. He was naked under them, all the easier for him to surge into his demon form. He became something inhuman, large-eyed, sharp-fanged, and growling. He was still injured, making the change difficult for him, but his limbs were bursting with muscle, his hands curving to razor-like claws.
Constanz fired the gun.
The ball hit Valentin as he leapt, sending him crashing back into the bed. Zarabeth screamed.
Ivan swore. “Now they will come running to the noise. Help me!”
Constanz dropped the pistol. Zarabeth struggled against Ivan’s brutal grip, crying out as the knife’s blade bit into her neck. Constanz yanked a thick wad of cloth out of his pocket and pressed it over Zarabeth’s mouth.
She gagged and tried to turn away from the strange, cloying odor, but the two footmen were strong. Her head spun, blackness dancing before her eyes.
She heard running feet as she drooped, nearly senseless against Ivan. Then Williams’s voice, and Hamish’s. Where was Egan?
“Ze baron,” Constanz shouted in broken English. “He attack our lady. I shoot.”
No. Zarabeth struggled to speak, to tell them Constanz lied, but her tongue was heavy and she couldn’t make a sound.
“Good lad,” Hamish said. “Bloody bastard.”
Again, Zarabeth tried to correct him, and again her lips would not form words. She was vaguely aware that the knife and the cloth were no longer there, but she could not make her body respond to her will.
The last thing she knew, Ivan had swept her into his strong arms and was carrying her away, past Hamish and Williams, who let them go without question.
* * *
Egan returned to Castle MacDonald after having to search too bloody long for Angus. He’d found his cousin halfway along the road to the village, talking with Olaf, who’d just returned from a walk there. Egan had sent a resigned Angus after Jamie, and climbed back up to the castle with Olaf.
As soon as Egan entered the castle he knew something was wrong. The servants were bustling up and down the main staircase, Gemma shouting from above, Hamish cursing.
Silence fell the moment Egan set foot into the foyer. Hamish looked over the gallery then hurried down to him, his face gray. “Egan.”
No.
Egan felt his world drop away, and then something fierce and furious welled up inside him. Every vestige of the cheerful Mad Highlander, the friendly Egan, shattered like brittle glass and fell away.
“Where is she?” he asked, his voice deathly quiet.
“We don’t know,” Hamish said, his forehead beaded with sweat. “She’s gone, and her two footmen. The baron—he’s gone, too.”
Olaf made a noise of rage. “I knew he could not be trusted.”
Egan raced up the stairs, shouting for Williams, and Hamish choked out the story. He’d found Valentin in naked and spilling blood on the sheets in his bedroom, Constanz the footman claiming Valentin had attacked Zarabeth.
The two footmen had taken Zarabeth, who’d fainted, out. Hamish swore they’d carried her to her chamber, but once he’d had Valentin subdued, Zarabeth and the footmen had vanished. By the time Hamish organized a search for them Baron Valentin himself had somehow slipped away.
“Egan. Cousin,” Hamish said in a near-whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Egan snapped, his body tight. “Find her.”
Olaf broke in, his face grim. “What about Baron Valentin?” He had murder in his eyes.
Egan preferred for Valentin to remain alive so he could answer questions, possibly with the assistance of Egan’s fists. “Search for him, too,” Egan told Hamish. “Injured, he cannae have gone far. If ye find him, you’ll likely find Zarabeth.” He started to turn away, then decided to trust Hamish with the truth. “If ye see any wolves, don’t shoot. That will be Valentin.”
Hamish started. “Wha’?”
“Valentin can turn into a wolf. He’s part logosh—a shape-changer. Keep it t’ yourself. I’ll explain later.”
Hamish’s mouth hung open in astonishment. He nodded and turned away, bellowing at the servants to search the castle top to bottom one more time.
The tunnels under the castle would be useful for an abductor who wished to spirit Zarabeth away, but he’d have to go straight through the huge kitchen to do it, and besides which, Egan had posted a guard there. However, if everyone in the castle had been running in seven different directions, the kitchen and cellar might have been unguarded just long enough.
Egan couldn’t think clearly. In the depths of his panicked brain, only one thought pounded.
Find her.
No more noble ideas of letting Zarabeth go home with her father, back to Nvengaria where she belonged. The ancient Scotsmen whose blood ran in his veins, the ancestors who’d fought and died at every battle for their freed
Find her.
Egan needed a weapon. Somewhere in the house were pistols, but he didn’t at the moment remember where. Aggravating to not know his own house well enough to put his hands on a gun. Valentin had used one, but when Egan grabbed Williams to question him about it, Williams said they couldn’t find it. Valentin must have taken it with him.
The gillie had hunting guns, but his cottage was a half mile from the castle. Egan rushed into the Great Hall, eyeing the ancient—and rusted—weapons hanging on the walls. The now-polished claymore of Ian MacDonald rested on the table where Jamie had left it. Egan snatched it up.
The sword was well balanced, with a good hilt, made by a fine craftsman. Egan had carried it at the wedding, liking the weight of it by his side.
The scabbard and belt lay across the chair where he’d dropped it. Egan buckled the scabbard around his hips and slid the sword home.
If Jamie wanted this sword to perform a brave deed, Egan would give him a brave deed. He’d find Zarabeth and slice up anyone who had dared touch her.
Egan headed downstairs for the tunnels, growling at Hamish to gather the men and follow.
* * *
Zarabeth awoke in darkness. She tried to move and found her hands painfully bound behind her with coarse ropes, the same kind of ropes around her ankles. She lay on something hard and unforgiving, but lifting her head to look around gave her a pounding headache. Wherever room she rested in was dank, warm, and smelled of earth.
Ivan and Constanz. This abduction made no sense. The two lads had been loyal to Zarabeth since they’d left Nvengaria, very worried about her well-being and adamant about keeping her safe. They’d had plenty of opportunities to harm her on their journey, as well as at Castle MacDonald, and they hadn’t. After Egan had rescued her from the Devil’s Teeth, both young men had moaned in self-castigation, even offering to kill themselves to atone. Zarabeth had persuaded them not to, telling them they could better protect her if they remained alive.
What had happened to change them? And had it been one of them who’d shot Valentin at the Ring of Dunmarran?
They hadn’t gagged her, and for that she was thankful. She moved her tongue, which felt foul and sticky, cleaving to her parched mouth.
A blinding light flashed in her eyes. “She needs water,” came Ivan’s baritone.
After a moment, a dripping cup touched her lips, but Zarabeth closed her mouth and turned her head.
“’Tis not poisoned, I promise,” Constanz told her. In the glare of the lantern light, he sipped from the cup himself, then offered it to her again.
A very good assassin learned to take an antidote to a poison before sharing it with his victim, but she knew that neither Ivan nor Constanz were trained assassins. She’d known them for years, and she had an advantage—she could read her captor’s thoughts.
From both Constanz and Ivan she felt only concern to keep her alive but confined. Worry that she would be angry, hope that she would understand, and no intention of letting her go.
Zarabeth gulped the water. It tasted muddy, but it wet her throat and let her draw a clean breath. She looked up at Constanz as he gently dabbed her lips with a handkerchief.
“Why?” she croaked.
Ivan and Constanz exchanged a glance. They were wondering exactly how much to tell her and each worried that the other would tell her too much.
Tell me what? She silently urged them to think, but Ivan and Constanz were simple lads, not much given to deep contemplation. She sensed something in the backs of their minds, something important, something big, but their immediate worries were keeping it silent.
“I know you mean me no harm,” she prodded. That is, no harm, except for savagely tying her wrists and ankles and dragging her out of Castle MacDonald. “Did Sebastian order you to kill me, even if he died?”
They exchanged another glance, and Ivan spoke. “No. We keep you safe.”
“Why?” she asked again.
Their thoughts came to her at the same time as Ivan’s words. “For the cause.”
Zarabeth was pulled swiftly into a vision of their triumph. She saw glorious but blurred images of battle, Prince Damien covered in blood, and herself stepping over Damien’s dead body with the crown of Nvengaria on her head.
She coughed, sickened. “No—You cannot.”
Constanz started, spilling the water. “Cannot what?”
“You cannot put me on the throne of Nvengaria. Have you run mad?”
Ivan swung to his brother. “Constanz, you told her.”
“I did not.” Constanz was wide-eyed. “I told her nothing, I swear it.”
“Constanz did not betray you.” Zarabeth firmed her voice as she often did when she admonished the two for their mistakes. “I am a powerful witch, as you know. That is why Egan married me, because he can break his curse only if he weds a witch.”
Constanz took a step back in new worry, but Ivan remained in place. “You being a witch will be even better for Nvengaria. You will be a great Imperial Princess, a finer ruler than your husband would have been. The cause is not dead.”
She blinked in puzzlement. “But Sebastian did not want to rule, not as prince. He wanted the Council of Dukes to rule, with himself as Grand Duke, of course.”
Ivan shook his head. “No, we are true to you, not Duke Sebastian. He did not want you on the throne, but we know you should be there. Duke Sebastian was ready to kill you for going to Prince Damien, but we protected you. When Prince Damien imprisoned you and then exiled you, we became part of your entourage, to make sure you were well until the time was right.”
Zarabeth went silent in shock. Did people truly believe Damien had abducted her—had Sebastian told the world that lie so he’d not have to admit that his own wife had betrayed him? Ivan and Constanz had helped her escape Sebastian, but perhaps Sebastian managed to poison their minds against Damien somehow. She could never know. Looking into Ivan’s and Constanz’s thoughts showed her they believed Damien’s perfidy wholeheartedly.
She wondered what to do. If she pretended to go along with their scheme, perhaps they’d untie her, and she’d stand a better chance of getting away. But she was realizing that while they were not the most intellectually gifted young men, they were cunning. They needed her, but they did not trust her. She hid a sigh. She’d have to win them over gradually.
“May I have more water, please?” she asked.
Ivan nodded at Constanz. Constanz lumbered into the darkness, clinked the cup against something metal and returned with it brimming with water. Zarabeth drank gratefully, trying to ease her position to relieve her cramped body.
“My hands hurt,” she said as she licked droplets from her lips. “I cannot run away if you loosen the ropes—I’m much too sore and tired.”
“We do not mean to hurt you,” Ivan said, believing it. “We brought you here to protect you from Valentin and the Scotsmen, who wish to keep you here forever.”
“They are trying to protect me too.”
Constanz shook his head. “I hear them talk. They think we understand so little English, but we understand more than they know. They want you to stay and be the lady to Egan MacDonald. To live in this wilderness as nothing, when you could lead your people in Nvengaria.”
Zarabeth stifled a groan. Ivan and Constanz were fanatics, certain their way of thinking was the only way and simplistic enough to not easily be turned aside.
“Can I begin leading you by having you untie my hands?” she asked. “My arms ache so.”
Constanz looked to Ivan for guidance, and when Ivan nodded, he leaned down and quickly cut away the bonds.
Zarabeth hadn’t lied when she said she was too sore and tired to run away. She eased her arms out from behind her back and rubbed her hands together, trying to work the blood back into them. She didn’t ask them to unbind her feet—she’d have to lead them into trusting her that much.
She began her questions again.
“Oh, yes,” Ivan answered, and she eagerly touched his thoughts looking for information. “Plenty of men were believe Prince Damien must die and are happy to have you as the symbol for the new Nvengaria.”
Oh, dear. “Damien is powerful,” Zarabeth pointed out, trying to sound reasonable. “And so is Grand Duke Alexander. They have the army with them.”
“Not all,” Ivan babbled on. “There are those who have had enough of Damien and his family. You are connected to the royal blood but distant enough to not be tainted by the cruelty of that family. We have watched you and your father for a long time, and know you to be good people.”
Zarabeth swallowed, her throat still dry. “My father, does he know of this?”
“No,” Ivan answered, to Zarabeth’s relief. “He likes Prince Damien too much, but when you are put in Damien’s place, he will follow you.”
This was worse than she’d feared. Zarabeth delicately rubbed her hands, wincing at the pins-and-needles feeling of blood flowing through them again.
Ivan, and Constanz wanted a puppet queen, she was coming to understand, a woman who was popular, young, and pureblood Nvengarian. The average Nvengarian would balk at what Sebastian wanted—rule by the Council of Dukes, whom they didn’t much trust anyway. But they might accept an innocent young woman connected to the royal family.
The two footmen hadn’t mentioned Princess Penelope and her tiny son. Zarabeth found the vague thought in Ivan’s mind that Princess Penelope would be sent back to England, but he was comfortably avoiding the question of what would happen to the baby, Damien’s son and heir. Ivan might naively believe that wife and son could be exiled, but Zarabeth knew Nvengarians. Assassination was much more likely.
Bloody hell.
The epithet Egan liked to use was strangely satisfying. Zarabeth came from a long line of people who’d lived close to the bone, who’d fought vicious battles in the cold mountains for survival. She had that survival instinct in her; Sebastian had not been able to suppress it.