Revenge (Book 3 of Lost Highlander series) (15 page)

She shook her head. “No, she acted mean to him, like she acts to ye and my brother. But not as if she knew him.”

His appetite was gone. Where was she now? Was she scared? “We have to go after her,” he said, slamming his fists on the table and rattling the dishes.

Redmond made a rumble of dissent that almost sent Pietro over the table to give the man another lump, but Quinn shook his head at him.

“Ye are right. Redmond will gather the others to meet us. I shall ride after Bella.”

He got up and headed out the door toward the stable. Pietro was so stunned that he had agreed with him that he sat there for a moment, staring at his back. Then he swallowed hard and ran after him.

Quinn barely turned to acknowledge him as he readied his horse, barking instructions to anyone within a five foot radius. Stable lads were scurrying out of his way to do his bidding, not wanting to be the victim of a clap on the head or an earful of his wicked swearing.

“Ye’re no’ well enough,” he said, shaking his head at the lad Pietro had asked for a horse. “I canna have ye falling into the road halfway to the Glen land. I shall find her, ye need no’ worry.”

Pietro gave the stable lad his best look of fury for ignoring him and started to saddle a horse on his own. “If I drop, leave me,” he said, his arms quaking as he shifted the saddle onto the horse. “But I am going. And I am worried.” When he saw that Quinn looked as stony as ever, he pulled out his most powerful ammunition. “Lachlan said ye are to keep us together at all costs. Not just alive, but together.”

Quinn shook his head but didn’t argue. “Depend on my brother to fall in love with a witch,” he muttered under his breath.

Pietro paused at that. Was Piper a witch? He never would have put it so bluntly, but what other reason for them to have traveled across the ages? For the most part, he thought he’d taken it all remarkably in stride, being ripped from his day job to a completely different century, to meet the woman he was supposedly destined to be with. It shook him a little now, but it was obviously too late to worry about it much. Bella was his, fate had deemed it so, and he would protect her to his last breath because he bloody well happened to love the wee vixen. He reddened as Quinn continued to stare at him, glad the man couldn’t read his thoughts.

They set out with four other men, armed to the teeth, and would meet up with the rest of Quinn’s men from his own land sometime later on down the road. From there they would try to determine what was to be done, if Bella had been abducted against her will to be forcibly placed back under her father’s iron thumb, or if she had for some reason decided she was done with the Fergusons. Done with Pietro.

As they rode, his unsettled thoughts waged a war in his mind. He couldn’t decide if he was fooling himself into believing that a few passionate encounters was enough to keep Bella by his side. She did seem determined to be independent, and he thought he had convinced her that she could make her own decisions with him. He had told her in the beginning that he would take her to Edinburgh to be a tutor, no matter what the people of the day thought of that. There was no reason she should want to go back to her father, who she purported to despise.

He groaned as he continued to circle around his musings, always ending back where he had started. Confused.

“Ye’re going to hurt yerself,” Quinn said with a wry smile. “We shall find her. We know they willna harm her at least.”

“Did she ever say anything about me, while I was asleep?” Pietro asked, throwing his pride onto the muddy road to be trampled by the horse’s hooves. He stared at the reins in his hands, not wanting to meet Quinn’s eye.

Quinn took a deep breath, which didn’t bode well for his hopes at all. “Aye, she was worried for ye,” he said. “As we all were.”

“Bugger,” Pietro said. “Ye know what I mean. Ye know she is with me though she is married to your brother? We are meant to be together.” He hated the pathetic sound of his own voice as he threw the words at Quinn.

“Verra well,” he said, pulling his horse up close to Pietro. He slowed down and watched until the others were quite a bit ahead of them. “She did speak of ye, to my sister.”

Pietro stared at him, waiting for him to continue. “Well?” he asked, about to jump out of his skin.

“Are ye sure ye feel well enough to be out like this?” Quinn asked maddeningly.

“I feel well enough to knock ye out of that saddle, if ye don’t tell me what they said.”

“I hesitate to do so as I was eavesdropping, and shouldna have heard it in the first place,” he said, his face dimpling with a mischievous grin. He held up his hand in concession and continued. “It seems she told my sister a bit about yer being soul mates. Catie ate it up with a spoon, but Bella thinks it’s all very unromantic. She’d rather not know, y’see.”

“What?” Pietro asked.

Quinn shrugged. “I dinna understand her. She said it takes all the mystery out of it, and that if ye really are soul mates, it willna matter if she treats ye like a washing maid.”

“I hope she treats her washing maid better than she treats me,” Pietro said bitterly.

Quinn laughed. “Aye, ye lap it up like a dog, though. She seems to like, er, certain aspects of yer relationship. Perhaps ye have more power than ye think.”

Pietro’s head was swimming and for the first time in days it wasn’t from fever. Was he supposed to be playing hard to get with Bella? He had thought it was a good thing to be assured of his romantic future. He assumed she would have thought the same.

“Ye think I should withhold sex?” he asked incredulously, earning him a howl of hilarity from Quinn.

“I wish I had yer problems,” he said, flicking the reins to catch up to his men, leaving Pietro to ruminate on the new information.

“No, ye don’t,” he muttered to his retreating back.

***

They met up with a scout the next day, who had just come from the direction of castle Glen. He had been watching the roads for the past few days and noted a small group pass by with a woman in their midst. It had to have been Bella. Pietro grilled him ruthlessly but nothing the man had seen led him to believe she was being mistreated.

Quinn rubbed his face tiredly and looked out at the long road ahead of them. Then he looked to Pietro.

“I dinna know what we can do without my brother. Neither one of us has a claim on the lass.”

“Well then, where’s Lachlan?” Pietro asked. His headaches came and went, but the tremors in his limbs still bothered him, and he clenched his fists at his sides to keep anyone from noticing how weak he was. “Didn’t he say he was going to speak to a friend in Castle on Hill before heading to your land?”

He was sure that was their intention when they had all parted ways, was it a week ago? He had been unconscious for so many days he wasn’t sure. But surely Lachlan would at least be on the way to his home by now.

Quinn shook his head. “I believe he was going to the village, aye, but if he ever started the journey home, none of my men have encountered him. It makes me believe …” he trailed off and Pietro nodded bluntly, to show that he understood.

The only other explanation was that Lachlan and Piper had returned to the present. Future. It made his head spin and he didn’t want to start hopelessly reminiscing about hot showers and comfortable beds, or fast cars for that matter. His horse whinnied and nudged his shoulder as if it sensed his wistful thoughts.

“It’s not your fault, old man,” he said to the sturdy gelding he’d been riding. “So, what do we do, if we can’t find your brother?” he asked Quinn.

Quinn mounted his horse in a smooth, quick motion, signaling to his men to do the same. “We stay the course and hope for the best. If we have to bluff, we shall. I only pray her father willna marry her off to another in the space of these few days.”

Pietro’s blood froze at those words. “Can he do that?” he asked, gripping the edge of the saddle.

A swirling flurry of rage, disgust and horror swept over him at the thought of it and he flung himself onto his horse, wild to get moving. Every moment away from Bella felt like knives pricking at his skin, and he yearned to hold her again.

For once he was grateful for her contrary nature. The certainty that she would raise a ruckus if her father tried any such thing kept him from whipping the horse into a lather to get there sooner. He prayed she would raise hell if she had to.

“He can do whatever he pleases. The Glens are verra powerful and Tavish is the sort that does no’ like to be played a fool. This will be personal to him.” Quinn pulled ahead of the others, with Pietro staying beside him.

“It’s personal to me,” he said, distraught.

Quinn looked at him sidelong before answering. “Good,” he finally said. “I pray ye stay healthy enough to fight, as we’ll need every last man if it should come to it.”

Everyone froze while the scream tapered off into a sad echo of itself. Piper was the first to shoot from the room, tearing up the stairs as fast as her strappy heels would allow. When she reached the second floor, she turned in the direction of the room Evie was living in with Magnus, only to run into Sam coming out of the room next to it. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost and been punched in the stomach in the same instant.

“The baby’s gone,” he said, his voice harsh with fear.

“What?” Piper couldn’t even register the words he’d just spoken.

She could hear Evie sobbing in the darkened room and pushed past him to find her standing shaking in front of Magnus’ crib. The baby monitor was on the floor at her feet, a wadded up blanket clutched in her hands. She turned to face Piper, and Piper hoped to never again see such anguish again on anyone’s face, let alone her best friend’s. Hurrying to her side, she put her arms around her and peered into the crib. The sheets were rumpled and a binky lay off to the side, all by itself.

“Sam’s looking for him,” Piper said.

It was the wrong thing to say, as if the baby had just climbed out of his crib and wandered off to another room. She didn’t know what to say,  stunned that he was gone. Everyone in the village loved Magnus, loved Sam and Evie. Who would take him? Had someone possibly heard him crying and picked him up?

 Evie sobbed harder and held the blanket out to her, choking as she tried to speak, but unable to form words and just shook her head.

Piper took the blanket from her, feeling foolish and helpless. When she looked down at the soft blue fabric, she noticed it was damp in spots and streaked with stains. She stepped to the bedside table and clicked on the lamp, and held the blanket under the circle of light. Gasping, she tried to hide what she’d seen from Evie but she’d already followed her. Evie grabbed the blood stained blanket and sank to her knees, the most heartbreaking sound Piper had ever heard coming out of her.

“It’s not—” Piper began, stopping because she couldn’t make it not true.

Sam burst back into the room, his eyes hollow and empty after hearing Evie’s outburst. He dropped to the floor next to her and wrapped his arms around her, seeing what she’d seen to drive her to that level of hysteria. Piper was frozen, unable to do anything to help them. Her hands were curled into claws and she struggled to unclench her body.

Dr. Stone pushed into the room with his medical bag and leaned over Evie, motioning Sam to move aside. Sam reluctantly released his fierce grasp and let the doctor peer into her eyes.

“Now, lass, the police have been notified,” he said.

He pulled a bottle of pills from his bag, examined the label and popped a few into his hand. He motioned around for someone to get water.

Piper reached shakily for the glass on the bedside table, but Mellie was there, grabbing it before she could reach it and ran from the room, returning in a split second with water from the bathroom.

Evie mashed her lips together in a thin line, refusing to take the medication.

“I can’t,” she sobbed. “I need to find him.”

She tried to stand but her legs gave out and she slumped back onto the floor, the blanket in front of her, a gruesome, constant reminder that her baby was gone, possibly hurt, possibly worse. Piper wanted to snatch it away and hide it but still couldn’t move.

“Evelyn, my dear, you’re hysterical right now, which will not help anyone. This medicine is just going to calm you and help you focus, all right?”

Evie nodded and gulped down the pills, nearly gagging on them. Dr. Stone nodded and retreated, saying he was going to wait for the police in the front hall. Sam fell back to his place next to Evie, once again pulling her into his arms. She put her face into his chest and cried, her body going limp as the medicine began to take hold.

Piper turned to watch the doctor leave, grateful to see Lachlan coming down the stairs. She had completely forgotten the commotion of the fifth floor that had caused them to run upstairs in the first place. The dark look on his face didn’t reassure her and he was cradling something small in his hands.

Rushing out into the hall to intercept him, not wanting Evie to be further upset by whatever he had found, she stopped short as she saw the little cloth wrapped bundle he was holding was also stained with blood.

“No,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

Lachlan gripped her shoulder and moved her away from the others. “The passageway has been collapsed,” he said. “I sent Archebald downstairs to call for help, then investigated.”