The Devil of Dunakin Castle (Highland Isles) Page 7

  “I don’t give a damn what he thinks.”

  “I do.” Embarrassment had changed her drastically from the sensual woman who’d told him to watch her pleasure herself.

  Keir walked closer, and she turned big eyes up to him. He touched her cheek. “Bloody hell,” he whispered. “Ye don’t need to look scared. Brodie isn’t going to say anything to anyone.” He’d lived his whole life frightening people. The only lasses who dared his bed were experienced and uncaring as to what society thought of them. Grace was different. She was a virgin and a lady. The shame she felt from being caught with him was evident. What was he thinking? Tupping a beautiful, untried, gentle lass? She deserved a hero, not a devil.

  His jaw tensed. With a small nod, he stepped back. “Ye sleep here. Bar the door, and don’t let anyone in unless it’s me. I’ll bed down in the barn. Tomorrow we leave.”

  “Leave? I don’t think—”

  “Cogadh’s wounds have healed, and my leg can withstand walking, if need be. It’s time to go.” Spending more time in the cabin would be torture if he couldn’t finish what they’d begun. And Brodie’s presence had ruined the possibility of getting closer to Grace. If they could leave, they must, to get her back to Rabbie’s sick son.

  With one last look at the angel, standing alone, questions in her gaze, he turned and walked out into the freezing night.

  …

  The rising sun was breaking through the forest, its rays sparkling on the snow as Grace braced herself for seeing Keir in the light of day after what they’d shared.

  She yawned, blinking at the brightness, exhausted from tossing most of the night. Her body had ached for hours, and she’d nearly walked to the barn to invite him back into the cabin. After all, they would be parting today, and she hadn’t finished her adventure. Perhaps she could send word to Barra, letting Mairi know she’d be there as soon as she helped Keir’s nephew. But first she must check on Thomas.

  Her boots broke through the thin crust of ice on top of the snow as she hiked to the barn, her breath puffing out in white clouds. At the door, she rapped and stepped inside.

  The heat from the horses and the hay acting as insulation made the barn cozy. Little Warrior and another horse turned their heads her way, ears flicking. Pushing up through the bedding, like a corpse coming out of its grave, came Brodie, yellow spikes of hay sticking out from his hair. But what drew Grace’s immediate attention was the half-clad familiar form of Keir turning toward her.

  He stood naked from the waist up, the black markings on his arms swirling about his muscles as he hefted his sword. A slight sheen along his skin showed that he’d been working or practicing with his heavy claymore. Biceps curved with muscle as he lowered his sword and crossed his arms over his chest. His plaid kilt had been replaced with a black one, and he wore a black leather band around each upper arm. If she didn’t know the man behind the warrior, fear would certainly cast her mute and frozen to the spot.

  “What?” Brodie asked. “Good God, is the sun even up yet?”

  Grace swallowed, blinking, but couldn’t tear her gaze from Keir’s display of fierce strength. She cleared her throat. “How are you feeling?” she asked. Maybe he’d be too sore to journey today.

  In the hayloft, Brodie rolled around, trying to brush the straw from himself. Keir raised the edge of his kilt, exposing the inside of his thick thigh. A little higher and Grace would see the heavy member that she’d held and stroked. The memory of it alone caused heat to flood her cheeks. She stepped closer as he unwound the fabric to show the healing holes and scratches. “Does it ache?” she asked. “Your thigh,” she added quickly.

  “No more than normal for a healing wound,” he answered, and her heart dipped lower at the distance in his words. They were cold, as if he’d already said good-bye to her. “I am sound enough to ride, and your care has helped Cogadh’s leg heal. He can carry me.”

  Disappointment hollowed her stomach. “Good,” she said. “We can go, I suppose. I should check on Thomas. Perhaps we could discuss…your nephew’s illness in Kilchoan.”

  Grace watched Brodie glance between her and Keir, as if waiting for something. He seemed surprised. The hairs on the back of her neck rose under her scarf. Something didn’t feel right. Could she have misread Keir’s integrity? Hadn’t he nodded when she’d suggested he find someone else in Kilchoan to help his nephew?

  Grace swallowed past the dryness in her throat, watching them carefully. Brodie asked something in Gaelic, but Keir cut him off with a raised hand. His steely gaze centered on Grace as if determining the extent of her understanding. And even though she didn’t know the words, she very clearly understood.

  Keir had no intention of taking her back to Kilchoan. Her tight stomach dropped through her to the packed ground. “Bloody hell,” she said and pivoted toward the door, slamming through it out into the snow.

  “Grace,” Keir called, but she kept going, leaping through the frozen drifts into a run, although she had no idea how to get back to Kilchoan. “Grace, there are wolves out here.” She heard his footfalls behind her growing closer, snow-muted thumps overriding the rush of blood in her ears. Anger and hurt twisted together, filling her with desperate strength.

  “I’d rather brave the forest!” she yelled, yanking her skirts higher to run. But there was no escaping him in an all-out chase, so she stopped, spinning to confront him. Panting with her exertion, the fact that he didn’t even look winded doubled her fury. “You weren’t ever going to take me back to Kilchoan, were you?” she asked and lowered her voice, hissing through her clenched teeth. “Even last night, before Brodie showed up. As soon as your horse could hold us, you were taking me to Dunakin.”

  He stared in her face, his features a blank mask.

  She tipped her gaze to the sky. “It was always your plan, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?” she yelled and shook her head. “And I fell for…” She flapped her hands toward the cabin. “Everything.”

  She waited, but he didn’t say a word, which was as terrible as if he’d nodded. She huffed out an angry, warlike sound and tried to kick him with her boot, but her skirts hindered her movements. Bloody damn skirts!

  He sidestepped, pulling her in to him. “Come back to the barn. We are leaving.” His voice was cold, heart-piercingly different from last night when he’d held her in the cabin.

  She frowned deeply until her face hurt. “They are right,” she seethed. “Everyone who calls you a devil.”

  “Aye,” he said, easily accepting her condemnation.

  She tried to turn back to the woods, but his fingers manacled around her wrist, reeling her in like an impotent fish. Hands dropping to her waist, he hoisted her up, throwing her over one of his massive shoulders. “Let me down.” She pounded the muscles across his back and attempted to kick him. Bucking with an arch of her back, she screamed, “After all I did to save your life, you carry me like a sack of wheat.”

  He grabbed her flailing legs, pinning them down his front, and continued to stalk toward the barn. When they reached it, he set her inside the door. Her face flushed deeply from being upside down and from being carried like a caught goose in front of his staring friend. She glared at them both.

  Brodie led the two saddled horses toward Grace. “Ye are safe with us, lass.”

  “Highly doubtful!”

  Brodie grinned, though his eyes remained cold. “Nay. Even when he looks like he wants to slice ye in two, Keir never kills lasses.”

  “Unless she raises a sword against him,” Grace said, remembering the one white cross on his skin. “And at present, I just might do that.”

  Chapter Nine

  Keir watched Grace’s full mouth, the soft, pink lips that had opened to scream in passion the evening before, tighten with her fury. She hated him now. It was better this way. The Devil of Dunakin couldn’t have attachments. Duty would always come first, and Grace was needed to help Lachlan live.

  “Ye will ride before me on Cogadh,” he said, stepping closer to lift he
r up.

  “Perhaps she should ride with me,” Brodie called. “I’m less likely to end up with a sgian dubh in my gut.”

  Keir hadn’t taken away her weapon. He’d already stripped her of her pride and trust, and he wouldn’t leave her feeling even more defenseless.

  “I will take my chances,” Keir said, reaching for her.

  She slapped at his hands and turned toward the horse. “I can climb up on my own.” Her words were colder than the blizzard winds that had drawn them together. He stood there watching as she stepped on a hay bale and pulled herself up the side of Cogadh, straddling him to stare forward.

  “I’ve never seen a woman able to climb your warhorse, Keir,” Brodie said with his lighter tone, but nothing was melting the ice Grace had encased herself within.

  “I’ve been riding since I could walk,” Grace said. “There isn’t a horse I can’t befriend, mend, or climb upon.” Her gaze dipped to Keir. “So beware. Little Warrior knows who saved him from lameness.”

  Keir had no doubt that his horse was faithful to him, but he nodded anyway and climbed up behind her. There was barely room for them both to sit in the saddle, and his thighs rested along the curve of her lovely round arse. But she held her back straight, leaning slightly forward so as not to touch him. It was going to be a long ride with a very bitter lass.

  “How long will we journey?” she asked as they started out.

  “It took us two days to ride down from Mallaig where there is a ferryman to take us across to Skye,” Brodie said. “Though with the snow, and a lady riding along, it may take three days.”

  She snorted as if his comment was ludicrous.

  “And Keir’s horse should not overstress his leg,” Brodie said.

  “And where will we sleep?” Grace asked. She gazed at the cabin as they passed. Did she loathe the reminder of their intimacy?

  “Brodie carries a tent folded on the back of his mount,” Keir said. “It’s not as sturdy as the cabin, but it will do.”

  “It kept us dry on the way down,” Brodie said. “Until the blizzard hit with the fury of a banshee.” Brodie smiled across at Grace, giving her a roguish grin. “We will keep ye warm, lass.”

  Grace said nothing, but when Brodie glanced his way, Keir made it obvious from the ice in his gaze that there would be no “we” when it came to warming Grace. Brodie’s grin soured, and he looked forward.

  They rode for most of the morning, Grace sitting straight for hours before she slumped slightly forward as if her back ached. He halted them near a stream to eat some bannocks and cured beef that Brodie had brought from Kilchoan. When Grace stepped around a series of boulders to relieve herself, Keir and Brodie led the horses to the stream to drink.

  Without preamble, Keir advanced on Brodie, stopping right before him. “Ye will not warm or touch Grace,” he said, his voice low, the threat evident. “I am responsible for her. Me, on my own. Is that clear?”

  Brodie’s ready smile flattened, and though he had to look up at Keir, he didn’t back away. “Quite, though the reason behind it is not.”

  “I don’t owe ye a reason. ’Tis none of your business,” Keir said and turned toward the stream.

  Brodie snorted. “Everything about the Devil of Dunakin is my business, Keir.” He rubbed his horse’s side, adjusting the saddle. “Since the first day of your training as a tall, skinny lad, it’s been my duty, like it’s your duty to protect Dunakin.”

  “That does not extend to Grace,” Keir said, his teeth set. He didn’t like to be at odds with the only person he considered a friend, but he didn’t need Brodie meddling.

  Brodie frowned. “If she affects the great and mighty warlord who protects Dunakin and Clan Mackinnon, my guidance, and if needed, interference, certainly does extend to the Englishwoman.”

  Keir frowned back at Brodie. “That does not include trying to get under her skirts,” Keir said. “She’s innocent and doesn’t need the likes of ye panting around her.”

  “Innocent?” Brodie’s brows rose to his hairline. “Even after last night?”

  “Because some bastard banged on the door,” Keir said through his locked teeth.

  Brodie glanced toward the rocks where Grace had retreated. “And she didn’t know ye were taking her to Dunakin, with or without her permission.” He shook his head, raising a finger to scratch his ear. “I guess I don’t need to worry about her sweetening up to ye and turning your attention from your duty, do I?”

  “She hates us both for taking her,” Keir said, dropping his fist. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Grace sneaking in a wide path around them. She’d risk the wild woods rather than continuing with him.

  Brodie chuckled. “I’d say she hates ye quite a bit more than me.”

  Keir turned, his gaze connecting with Grace’s, making her freeze, half hidden behind a tree. After a moment, she dropped her skirts with a huff as if realizing the futility in her escape attempt.

  Keir watched her march back toward the horses. “I had no choice but to take her to Skye. ’Tis the duty of the Devil.”

  Brodie’s grin faded with a slow, knowing nod. He placed his hand on Keir’s shoulder. “Aye, my friend. I know.”

  …

  Grace focused on the horse’s gait while her rage simmered under her skin. She continued to run through escape plans, but with wolves, snow, and damnably fast Highlanders about, all plans would end in disaster. The bitterness accompanying that realization helped her sit straight for hours, holding herself apart from Keir.

  She loathed him, yet the way his parted thighs rubbed her, her backside pressed intimately against him, only reminded her of the passionate rhythm they’d set last evening. Damn her traitorously wanton thoughts. I hate him. He lied to me. God, carry him to Hell.

  “He isn’t favoring his leg,” Keir said. Grace glared at his hand where it rested easily on his thigh, the reins in his strong fingers. “Your poultice took care of any taint, but we shouldn’t make him ride into the night. It’s been a long day.”

  The rumble of his voice behind her made Grace squeeze her eyes shut for a moment. A long day, indeed. She’d tossed without sleep the night before and had been taken by force, riding all day with rigid anger. Anger at Keir, but also anger at herself for ignoring her earlier concern that he’d take her when she told him that Mairi was too difficult to reach.

  “Cogadh was fortunate that a talented healer was near,” Keir said.

  She snorted softly. “I suppose if I hadn’t been so bloody talented, I wouldn’t be riding to Skye right now.” But the poor horse had nothing to do with his master’s betrayal and lies. She leaned forward toward Little Warrior’s ears and stroked his neck. “I’m glad I was able to help you…Little Warrior,” she said, purposely adding the horse’s name so Keir wouldn’t think she extended the sentiment to him.

  She should have left Keir bleeding in the snow and stolen his horse. The furious thought pinched inside Grace, making her feel worse. She’d never have left a person to die like that, even if he hadn’t risked his life to save her from the wolves.

  “It all unfolds as it should,” Keir murmured.

  She turned in her seat to stare into his face, ignoring his rugged jawline and the deep brown of his eyes. “So, I am taken away from an ailing man left alone in Kilchoan and a woman who needs help on Barra giving birth? God didn’t want me stolen. That was you, Keir Mackinnon.”

  His gaze bored into her own stare. “It had nothing to do with what I want, Grace. It is the duty of the Devil of Dunakin to follow the chief’s orders and protect the clan.”

  “Did your chief order you to kiss me?” she whispered, leaning in to prevent eavesdropping. “Touch me? Taste me?” She felt her face growing red but pushed on. “Was it your duty to seduce me into coming with you?” Damn, but he bloody well had. She’d been ready to offer to see his nephew this morning, but she’d never admit it now.

  Keir grasped her hand, pulling it to lay flat on his chest. She could feel his heartbeat thud
against her palm through his shirt. “On the souls of those I’ve lost, I swear to ye, Grace Ellington, nothing that happened between us last eve had anything to do with duty. No matter what comes of this, know this to be true.”

  Grace’s pulse seemed to flip about as she watched him closely. “What did it have to do with, then?”

  His voice was low, nearly a whisper. It rumbled with his Scots accent like his words last night when they were wrapped together. “Just a woman and a man, alone, without fear, without judgment or duty. Only heat and a willingness to give pleasure.”

  Grace swallowed past the squeeze in her throat, reminded of the words she’d spoken. Keir’s gaze still held that heat now. Was he telling her the truth? Would he dare to swear on the soul of his mother with lies? It didn’t matter. He’d tricked her, and she would hate him forever now. Though he probably didn’t care. Grace broke the connection by turning to stare out over Little Warrior’s head. “What will become of me once I help your nephew?”

  The horse took several steps before Keir answered. “I will take ye to Kisimul Castle or Aros, as ye wish.”

  Grace caught Brodie’s glance, but he didn’t say anything. “Is this another lie, to get me to cooperate?” she asked.

  The forest was quiet as the sun lowered, filtering down through the jutting trees. “When ye have seen and helped Lachlan, I will see ye to your destination, unless I am dead,” Keir said, signaling for them to stop in a small clearing at the base of a hill.

  “Is that a possibility?” Grace asked, trying to keep her voice light, as if she didn’t much care if he lived or died.

  Brodie laughed. “Not likely that anyone could best the Devil of Dunakin, but if he’s unable, I will take care of ye.”

  “I don’t wish to be taken care of by any man,” Grace said, frowning over Brodie’s choice of words. Did Brodie Mackinnon like to cause trouble or was he just obtuse?

  “Lo, lass,” Brodie said, rubbing a hand down his short beard. “It would be safer if a man took care of ye, especially up in the wilds of the Highlands.”