The Love of Her Life (Highlander Heroes Book 6) Read online

  The Love of Her Life

  Highlander Heroes, Volume 6

  Rebecca Ruger

  Published by Rebecca Ruger, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Some creative license may have been taken with exact dates and locations to better serve the plot and pacing of the novel.

  ASIN: B08J4GWW6W

  The Love of Her Life

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2020 Rebecca Ruger

  Written by Rebecca Ruger

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and may contain graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Disclaimer

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Chester Castle Prison

  Northern England

  1298

  He was very good at waiting. Very good at sitting perfectly still for up to an hour now, could ignore the pins and needles in his legs while he waited on his haunches. Sometimes, he didn’t blink for many minutes, staring at that small gap between the damp stone wall and the cold hard floor. Other times, the lines betwixt those spaces blurred, that he was forced to blink, to dispel what wasn’t real. He’d caught many mice already, his reflexes honed daily and lightning quick.

  And then they stopped coming.

  Mayhap they’d been warned to avoid this means of entry, mayhap they’d caught the scent of the previous deaths. No more came through, not for a long time.

  But there must be more. There had to be, Alec was sure.

  Jesu, Alec, give up already, someone whispered behind him.

  What’s he about? asked the other.

  There were only the three of them in this farthest corner of the dank dungeon. After the first few days, it had become apparent that neither he nor Iain nor Lachlan would go easily, that they’d scrape and claw for each and any tiny triumph against their captors. The other prisoners had separated themselves, keeping to the lighted areas, putting distance between themselves and these three, where any trouble usually began.

  Alec, what are you doing? Iain asked again.

  His voice was starting to grate on Alec’s nerves, the same noise again and again, that harsh murmur, infused partly with surrender, seeming to ask instead, Why do you bother?

  Alec ignored him.

  Finally, his prey showed himself. Alec’s eyes brightened but he did not move. Not yet. He waited, let the intruder acclimate himself, let him imagine safety and move further inside. When he was but a foot away, Alec struck, swiping his hand swiftly from left to right, snagging his prey on the first pass.

  He could not call out the fierce joy he knew just then with his success. They would come and he would lose his prey.

  Alec—

  Leave off, Iain, he hissed darkly. I’m working on a wee critical something

  Lachlan Maitland groaned, prone on the ground, as he had been for two days, since they’d lit his face on fire.

  Alec stared at the wall when he broke the intruder’s neck. After a moment, when it moved not at all, he opened his hand and stared at the small brown mouse.

  At least he would eat today.

  Iain, and now Lachlan too, continued to call his name, over and over that his lip curled, and he squeezed his eyes closed hard, willing them away, or quiet, or dead already.

  Northwest of Edinburgh

  1307

  WHEN HE OPENED HIS eyes, a blinding light shone upon him.

  They called his name yet, louder now.

  Alec!

  “Alec!”

  He came to quickly, a great burst of air exploding from him, as if he’d held his breath while he’d dreamed.

  “Alec.”

  He swiped a hand at the one that reached for him as he sat up.

  “Bluidy fireballs!” Aymer’s voice. “Sulfur and coal and God knows what.”

  That would have been the burst of fire that had dropped out of nowhere in front of his horse, that had seen him thrown and momentarily disoriented. His ears rung yet, that Aymer sounded as if he shouted his words into a barrel between them.

  He was lifted to his feet, dazed, spinning to see a bit of charred and smoldering earth some distance away. He’d been thrown several yards.

  “Let’s go, then,” Simon urged. “They’re falling back, all the armies. We need to get help for Malcolm.”

  This pulled Alec from the last of his haziness. “Malcolm?” His captain had been close. He searched his mind for his last recollection of Malcolm before the fireball had sent him through the air but could recover nothing.

  Simon came close, handed the reins to Alec’s big black to him. “He’s in bad shape. C’mon.”

  Alec gained the saddle and immediately was at ease. A horse under him always put him to rights in a battle. He took a quick inventory of his unit, saw Aymer and Simon were close yet and further ahead were Nigel and Ranald and William and the others.

  He followed, as opposed to led, as however few or many minutes he’d been out, had put him behind in the knowing, in the discerning of the situation. The lads would know though, would lead for now.

  Bluidy English!

  IT WAS A SHAME THAT such charming weather really did not see any more game brought to their table, or at least a better variety. One might think that as much as she longed to be out of doors when the weather allowed, so too might the animals.

  She stirred the few pieces of meat around in the kettle, supposing she should be happy for even the substance of one hare she was able to add to the stew. Truly, it only was afforded the name stew because she’d been able to add one carrot and one leek and a very tiny bit of garlic. When all the chunks were gone, tomorrow possibly, she’d toss in the pile of bones she’d hoarded of late and boil these for a full day. At least they’d have a good bone broth for several days after that.

  Mayhap tomorrow, someone might call, might need her aid. Mayhap she’d be paid with food—bread, she hoped, thinking Henry ate any bread or oat cake so much more agreeably than any pitiful thing Katie might put to the kettle. She supposed it was not very charitable of her to wish illness on another so that she might eat, even if she were imbued with plenty of faith in her healing capabilities.

  Straightening, she tossed a glance over her shoulder, found her son still seated at the small table where they took their meals, busy yet with the needle and thread and his own tattered hose. He was young yet, only seven, and a lad at that. He shouldn’t then ever have to learn such domestic chores, but she wa
s only one person and couldn’t possibly do everything. Actually, they were two, Katie and Henry—a good pair, he’d said—which had put her in a mind that he was indeed old enough to start helping out. Turning fully, she watched as he scrunched up his brow and showed just the tip of his tongue, as he did often when he concentrated, pushing and pulling the needle and coarse thread through the hole in the toe of his hose.

  “That’s very well done, Henry,” she said, and meant it. His stitches, learned only in the last month, improved with each attempt. “Mayhap I’ll have you begin mending my things as well.”

  He turned his disappointment toward her. “Aw. You said I’d only have to fix these.”

  “Fair enough,” she said.

  It had been just the two of them for so long that she supposed she often treated him more as a friend and companion than her son that she thought he was much older than his years. Possibly a harsh life demanded that a child grow quickly. She thought she had, for certain.

  Their hound, Boswell, larger than Henry yet, his coat wiry and three shades of brown, lifted his head. He tipped it toward the right, the gray snout and whiskers moving as he sniffed the air. Of course, this was not uncommon, as their cottage sat well away from the Dalserf castle, tucked between a small forest of trees and a narrow stream, that so many critters scurried around and through their immediate yard. Until, apparently, she stepped outside with any intent to catch one for their supper.

  Boswell did not settle, as was normally the case, but growled low and got to his feet. The hair along the ridge of his spine stood straight, prickled with some awareness that Katie was not privy to, despite her own stillness.

  She stepped softly to the front window, moving aside the linen covering, just an inch or so, to peer out into the yard. It was empty and the landscape of trees beyond, some hundred yards away, showed no one, of two feet of four, approaching.

  The hound continued to growl, moving again, around the table, now facing the backside of the cottage. There was no window that faced the stream, that she could not peek to find what had spooked the normally unflustered Boswell. And when he began to bark in earnest, the hair on her own neck stood on end, that she said calmly, “Henry, get under the bed. Now. Dinna come out for nothing.”

  Her son obeyed, not terribly accustomed to such a command, but then sadly it was not completely foreign to him either. No sooner had the boy scrambled from the table and slid under the low mattress in the far corner of the room, than the noise came.

  Katie froze, knowing full well what dozens of mounted riders sounded like. But it couldn’t be that swine, Farquhar, from the castle, not coming ‘round the back, from the stream and from the south. She took up the lone knife she possessed, which had remained on the table after she’d sliced the sparse vegetables, and hid it within the folds of her skirt.

  As one, she and Boswell turned, their gazes following the noise outside, from the back wall, around the side, and then to the front.

  And then it stopped. No hooves pounded the earth. No harnesses jangled. No words were called. Everything was quiet.

  Breathing quickly now, Katie stared at the handle of the door, watching, waiting for it to turn, imagining it probably wouldn’t have done her any good anyway to have set the bolt in place.

  The handle did not turn.

  The entire door crashed in, swinging fully around, slamming into the small cupboard behind it.

  Boswell charged and Katie shrieked, jumping back.

  A goliath entered, having to duck under the door frame, having to twist and turn as his arms were laden with yet another mammoth man.

  He growled at the charging hound, but otherwise ignored him and laid the man unceremoniously upon the table, setting him atop the carrot and leek parings and knocking over Katie’s only jug of ale. It crashed to the packed earth floor as several more giants entered the small cottage, each and every one of them having to duck as neither Katie nor her husband had ever needed to do.

  Sadly, Boswell was forever the proverbial more-bark-than-bite hound that this was the only defense he offered just now.

  “You are the healer?” Asked the man gruffly over Boswell’s dislike of this circumstance.

  Katie nodded, transfixed and aghast at the same time.

  “Call off your hound.”

  She shook her head, not persuaded to remove whatever little defense Boswell might provide for her, against this horde.

  “Call off your hound or Aymer there will happily snap his neck.”

  She made a face at him, for giving her no choice, hating this man instantly.

  “Aye,” she said. “Boswell. Corner,” she instructed. The hound knew this command, as it came his way often when people in need came calling. He went, but not quickly, and not without more low growling.

  She swallowed as the man approached her, strode ‘round the table and bore down on her. Every instinct, every fiber inside her screamed run, but she held her ground as he came close and towered over her, held her breath as well, lest he see how frightened she was.

  “Boswell, stay,” she instructed while the man appeared interested only in intimidating her. She’d sensed that the hound was getting to his feet again, in the far corner, near the bed where Henry hid.

  Leaning over her, that she was forced to tip her head back, the man spoke slowly, infusing great menace into each word, “You fix him now,” he said, pointing his hand behind him, to where he’d laid his friend. “If he dies, then so shall you.”

  She didn’t move, continued to hold her breath, her fright immobilizing her.

  The giant lifted a brow at her until she nodded shakily.

  With that he pivoted, and Katie released a whimper of breath and then a greater puff of air. Sadly, it was only now that she recalled the knife in her hand. Little good the blade might do against this horde of goliaths. She sent a critical glance over the warriors, their presence shrinking the size of the very tiny cottage.

  “Out. Everybody out. I need light and space and you’re taking up all of it.” She’d meant to sound imperative, but it emerged more as wretched begging.

  The big man who’d just threatened her sat in the very chair Henry had only seconds ago. He inclined his head toward the rest of them, and they departed, one at a time, leaving the door open.

  “I’ll be sitting right here,” the man said, “make sure you dinna carve him up yet more.”

  Katie sighed nervously and tucked the knife into the pocket of her gown and then exchanged her house apron for her work apron and washed her hands at the small cupboard near the hearth. She approached the table and the unconscious man with the bright orange hair and the barrel chest, possibly larger than that one sitting in the chair, terrifying her with the very essence of savagery that surrounded him.

  “All this needs to come off,” she said, indicating the bloodied leather breastplate and his sliced and charred tunic. “And I’ll preface any treatment with an initial estimation that there’s a lot of blood, likely worsened by you moving him and carrying him so recklessly. Hence, if he dies, I’d say the fault lies with you.”

  “And yet you will be the one who pays for it.”

  Narrowing her eyes at him, so that there was no confusion about what she thought of him, she tried to move around him in the chair. He grabbed at her, his fingers circling her upper arm almost completely.

  “The patient is here,” he said, pointing at his friend. His eyes were as black as pitch, the same color as his hair and the stubble on his cheeks and jaw and chin. Likely the same color as his soul, she thought uncharitably.

  “And my tools and remedies are there,” she said heatedly, indicating the counter along the far exterior wall, under the only other window.

  ALEC RELEASED HER AND watched for just a moment as she strode to that counter and began pulling items from all the different shelves and crocks and jar. She walked past again, going to the hearth and dropping several utensils into one of the two kettles over the low burning fire. Satisfied that she would
get about the work of saving Malcolm quickly then, he stood and began to remove the captain’s gear, slicing his knife through the leather and then the linen, pulling everything open, baring the entire trunk of his body, and showing three wounds, all bleeding still.

  Alec grimaced, not with the unpleasantness of the wounds, but for the seeming severity of them.

  The woman returned, her hands full, and stood across the table from him. Biting her lip, she considered the wounds as well, blindly setting all her implements down next to Malcolm’s head, the only space yet available on the table. She lifted her blue-eyed gaze to Alec but briefly, though did not manage to suppress her negative opinion quick enough that Alec’s heart dropped to his stomach.

  “I can clean them and sew what needs repair,” she said, “but I...I can promise nothing else.”

  The first words she’d spoken to him only minutes earlier had been harsh and without any emotion save perhaps her anger at Alec’s threat. These words were given with some sympathy, a healer’s tone, which offered no hope.

  Nevertheless, he maintained his fierceness with her. “I dinna think you want to die, woman.”

  Nae, she did not, as told by the seething in her gaze, and something deeper, as yet unknown to Alec. He watched her work then, addressing the largest and bloodiest puncture first, not wincing at all when she opened it further to gauge the damage within.

  “Cracked his rib but doesn’t appear to have punctured his lung. Next time, leave the entire shaft and arrow intact until it can be treated. Keeps the blood from flowing freely.”

  “Aye, but you’ll have to repeat that to him when he wakes. He’s the arse that yanked it out.”

  With a swift scowl, possibly for his language, she asked, “Will you fetch the pliers?” She gestured vaguely behind her while peering inside the wound. “On that cupboard?”

  He hesitated, not entirely trusting her.

  “Or we can sew up the tip of the blade that broke off in his rib and only hope it doesn’t become infected.”