Aidan (14 page)

“Where’s the stone?” asked
Tasgall again, shaking her by the shoulders.

“It’s under his hei
d!” she cried out. “He uses it as a pillow.”

Tasgall
and one of the guards rolled Aidan’s body off the pallet, and he landed right in front of her. She reached down and slowly touched him on the head, noticing the big bump and blood that accompanied the gash she’d given him.

She
tore off a piece of her skirt, and wrapped it around his head. She wanted to take the gag from his mouth and also untie him, but she couldn’t. If he awoke in the middle of this, he’d try to fight the English and she couldn’t let him do that.

“Here it is,” said
Tasgall, moving the pallet and spying the Stone of Destiny. He ran his hand over the stone. “It’s beautiful!”

“It’s a damned rock,” said the guard, reaching down and trying to move it. “It’s damned heavy
, too. It’ll take at least three of us to move this, now someone give me some help.”

They dragged it across the room, pushing things aside, making a mess and breaking things in the process. Reid scurried over to her and settled on her
lap and she ran a hand over the animal’s fur.

“I did
na mean te hurt him,” she whispered to the squirrel. “I was only tryin’ te save his life.”

“All right, load it into the c
art,” said one of the guards from behind her.

She reached over to Aidan’s clothes and
laid them over him to cover his naked body. It pained her to know she would never feel his arms around her or his body pressed up against hers ever again. She wanted nothing more than to cuddle up with him and make love all night long or to dance with him or just sit there and talk, but that was all over now. And the worse part was, that she didn’t know if it really meant anything to him after all.

“Get his weapons. We dinna want him comin’ after us,”
she heard one of the guards call out. She quickly palmed his dirk and hid it beneath the pallet just under his leg. She couldn’t leave him defenseless.

Two guards rushed over and grabbed his weapons, and an
other pilfered things in the cottage and stuck them into his pouch. Then yet another guard walked over and dragged her to her feet.

“Come on,” said the guard, “we may need you.”

“What should we do with the Highlander?” asked the man who was stealing whatever he could get his hands on.

“Just kill him,” snapped the guard holding her arms and dragging her to the door.

She broke free of him and rushed back to Aidan and threw herself down to cover his body.

“Ye’ll have te kill me first,” she said, refusing to move out of the way.
She wanted to leave some sort of sign for Aidan. To let him know she didn’t really want to betray him, but had no choice. She saw her brooch under the edge of the pallet where she’d put it earlier, and picked it up and hid it in his bound hands, so the guards wouldn’t see it and take that too. Hopefully, this would give Aidan some sort of message.

“Let’s go,” shouted
Tasgall from the door. “The longer we wait the more chance the clan will return and catch us. The stone is in the wagon, now bring the lassie and hurry up aboot it already.”

“Come on,” said the
guard who was going to kill Aidan, putting away his sword. “He’s not going to come after us without any weapons or clothes.” He reached down and tore the clothes away from atop Aidan’s body, and dragged Effie out the door. Laughing, he threw Aidan’s clothes onto the back of the cart with the stone. Then they pushed her onto the front of the wagon, and Tasgall slapped the reins against the horse and sped away, following the guards.

She looked back one last time as they left, and saw Kyla walking up from the loch.
The girl saw her in the distance, and Effie turned around quickly, hoping Kyla wouldn’t call out for her.

“What are ye lookin’ at?”
asked Tasgall, starting to turn around.

“Nothin’, now let’s move faster already.” She reached out and grabbed the reins and urged the horse forward. The cart jolted and
Tasgall fell backwards, and Effie got the horse to move so fast, that they passed up the guards. She could only hope they hadn’t spotted Kyla, and that Tasgall wouldn’t say that he’d seen her.

The only thing that made her feel better was that she knew Kyla would be there for Aidan when he awoke. She tried to dismiss her thoughts of Aidan and Kyla
, and focus on how she was going to save her sister. Because if she thought about Aidan any longer, she was going to want to turn the damn cart around and head right back to him, begging for his forgiveness.

Chapter 14

Aidan awoke to knocking in his brain. He felt like he’d
had too much mountain magic last night, and that his head was splitting open. His mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow, and he was so stiff that he felt as if he couldn’t move his hands or feet.

The knocking continued and his eyes slowly opened, and he found himself face
down on the ground next to the pallet. When he tried to move, he realized his hands and feet were tied and then he remembered that Effie had done this to him right before she hit him over the head with the end of his own sword.

“Aidan, are ye in there?” came Kyla’s voice at the door.

He tried to call out to her, but there was a gag in his mouth. What the hell was going on?

“Aidan. I need
te talk te ye, wake up.” Kyla pounded on the door again and he cursed himself for telling his sister never to enter unless she knocked and was asked to come in. But after she’d walked in on him and a whore at one time, she also wasn’t in a hurry to enter if she thought he was naked.

“
Kya,” he called out, his tongue getting stuck on the gag. “O’en th’ dur.”

But when she didn’t hear him and the knocking stopped, he knew he was going to have to do it himself. He pushed himself up on his bound hands, his eye
s meeting those of his squirrel as it stared him in the face and scolded him. Something pinched at his fingers, and he moved his hands to see Effie’s brooch in his grip. He threw it to the ground in disgust, his body shaking in anger at what Effie had done to him.

Then he pulled his knees up and pushed them under him and managed to get to his feet.
With one grip of his bound hands, he ripped the gag from his mouth. Then he wobbled, trying to stand and hopped his way to the door. He used his bound hands and took a hold of the latch and pulled the door open. But at the same time Kyla opened it from the other side, and Aidan stumbled backwards landing on his doup. Kyla caught herself on the door, and when she saw him, her eyes opened wide as well as her mouth. She turned away quickly and spoke to him over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I did
na ken ye were in the middle o’ couplin’, I swear. I thought ye were jest sleepin’, especially since I saw Effie ridin’ away.”

Aidan was furiou
s by this time, and nothing his sister said was making any sense.

“Kyla, what the hell are ye talkin’ aboot?” he asked, using his fingers to untie the ropes at his feet.

“I saw Effie leavin’, in a cart with a man. I think there may have been others, but I couldna see thet far.”

“God’s eyes, what the hell is goin’ on?” He looked around the room at the shambles and then his eyes darted to h
is pallet as the fog in his brain cleared, and he realized what they were after. Sure enough, to his horror, the Stone of Destiny was gone.

“Bid the devil, she took the damned stone!”

“What?” Kyla turned around, then hid her eyes as she saw her brother was still naked. “Put on some clothes, Aidan. I dinna want te look at me brathair naked.”

He rushed over to the pallet and realized his clothes were gone
as well. His eyes searched for his weapons, but by this time it was no surprise when he didn’t find them. “She took me clothes as well as me weapons. How could she do this te me?”

Reid was playing with something at the edge of the pallet and he realized it was his dirk hidden underneath. He grabbed it and maneuvered it until he cut the ropes that bound his wrists.

“What are ye talkin’ aboot?” asked Kyla, still looking the other way.

“I’m talkin’ aboot thet no guid, gyps
y. She lied te me, Kyla. She didna want me at all, though I wanted her. All she wanted was the stone.”

He ripped open a trunk and
dug to the bottom, finding some of his extra clothes, and donned them quickly.

“She wanted the stone?
What for?”

“Turn around sister, and talk
te me already.”

“Are ye covered yet?”

“I am. God’s toes, ye act like ye ne’er saw a naked man before.” Then he looked at her as she turned around, and squinted his eyes. “Have ye?” He donned a pair of boots that covered his legs up to his knees. These were usually only worn in winter, but it was all he could find.

“Dinna fash yerself o’er thet, brathair.
Like I said last night, becooz o’ ye bein’ so protective o’er me, I’m goin’ te die a spinster. Now tell me, how did ye get tied up?”

“
She
did it.”

“Effie?” His sister was smiling
, but he didn’t think it was funny.

“She also hit me o’er the head with me own sword.”

“How did a wee lass like Effie manage te tie up a big, strong Highland warrior like ye and knock ye out as well?”

“I . . . thought she was
playin’,” he said under his breath.

“
Playin’? Playin’ what?” Then her eyes opened wide as she realized what he meant. “Ohhhhhh, thet. Well, thet’s what ye get fer being so adventurous when it comes te beddin’ a lassie.”

“Kyla, she was a traitor, and I ne’er saw it!” He stood up an
d pounded his fish into the door. “Damn, I was blinded by the deceitful bitch. I ne’er shoulda brought her right te the stone. I shoulda listened te Ian and Dagger when they said they didna trust her. But nay, I was a fool. I thought she was me dream angel. Hell, I even told her I loved her.”

“Calm down, Aidan. She
musta had a guid reason fer what she did.”

“How could ye say such a thing?” He walked back and forth and ran his hand through his hair.
“She stole the Stone o’ Destiny. She led the English right to us. I was supposed te be guardin’ the stone. I’ve let down the MacKeefes, and worse than thet, I’ve failed in me promise te Scotland.”

“I dinna think she wanted
te betray ye.”

“The stone tried
te warn me, with me dreams.” He kicked at things as he paced the room and Reid ran out of the cottage so as not to be hit.

“She would
ne’er do anythin’ te hurt ye, Aidan. Believe me.”

“I told
her I loved her, and what a fool I was. She had a tail jest like in me dream. She was me enemy, but I thought she was me angel.”

“Aidan, listen
te me.”

“Damn
her!” He picked up a chair and threw it across the room and it crashed against the wall. “I’m goin’ after them.” He slipped the dirk into his boot and ran out of the room.

“Wait!” called Kyla, running after him. “Ye canna go after them with only a dirk
te protect ye.”

“
Well, they seem te have stolen all the rest o’ our weapons. I’ll kill them with me bare hands if I have te. And then I’ll wrap me hands around Effie’s neck as well.” He headed to the stable and grabbed the horse Madoc left there, but when he pulled it out of the stall and it limped, he remembered it had gone lame. “I dinna even have a horse now te go after them. What else could go wrong?”

He took off back to the main
firepit with Kyla running alongside him. And he kept on thinking aloud. “If only Dagger and Ian were here, we’d figure out somethin’. I canna believe I asked her te stay with the clan.”

“
She said she was leavin’, but I had no idea why,” said Kyla, but he wasn’t listening.

“I was supposed
te protect the stone and I led her right to it. Now thanks te me Scotland has lost the coronation stone thet we’ve hid and protected from the English fer o’er five and sixty years.”

“Aidan,
mayhap she had a guid reason fer doin’ what she did.”

“She was a traitor
te her own country,” he said, looking at his sister. “And she was a MacDuff, can ye believe it? And after her own grandmathair risked her life and turned against her own husband to do the right thing.”

“It’s no’ what ye think
, I’m sure. Effie isna thet kind o’ lassie, I jest ken it.”

“
Hell, I even gave her MacKeefe clothes to wear, what was I thinkin’?” He couldn’t stop himself from saying the same things over and over again. And each time he voiced his thoughts aloud, it only made him angrier.

“Haud yer whees
ht and let me talk already,” Kyla said, finally getting his attention. “Effie had a sister thet was taken prisoner by the English, so mayhap thet had somethin’ te do with this.”