Prologue
French Border 1343
Everything had gone quiet.
Deadly silent.
Teagan crept through the woodland with a keen eye on his surroundings, bracing for an unexpected attack.
Yet none came.
All remained silent.
Eerily still.
Until an all-too-familiar sound filled the sky.
“Something’s not right.” Edmund’s gaze rose to the vultures circling overhead. “Trouble lies ahead.”
He and his comrade-in-arms had just left a skirmish with the English to pursue a few cowards. After cutting them down swiftly, they were about to turn back only to sense trouble.
“Do ye hear that?” Teagan murmured.
“Aye.” Edmund listened closely. “Sounds like men moving further away from us.”
“Not away from us, but what lies ahead.” He held his sword at the ready when cottages appeared. “’Tis a village.”
Or at least it was.
He’d seen horrible things since fighting on behalf of Scotland’s Auld Alliance with France, but nothing compared to what they came upon that day. Broken, bloodied bodies. Awful carnage. Unspeakable atrocities done to women.
After Teagan gestured that Edmund go in one direction and he another, Teagan made his way deeper into the village.
“Bloody hell,” he cursed when he rounded a corner and came upon a scene no one should witness, let alone suffer.
Not bothering with stealth, he roared, “Nay,” and yanked a man off a lass. Shaking with fury, he punched him once, twice, then a third time before he slit his throat.
“’Tis all right, lass,” he said gently, returning to the woman's side. She struggled to breathe as he covered her with his cloak and held her hand. “All will be well.”
But it would not be.
Not at all.
Her pained gaze drifted to his face, then went vacant moments later.
Just like that, she was gone.
Trembling with rage, he closed her eyes to death, hung his head, and murmured a prayer for her soul. This sort of thing happened far too often during wartime, and he’d long ago reached his breaking point. Long ago, given up hope good still existed in the world.
“Och,” Edmund said softly when he joined him and saw the woman. He made the sign of the cross on his chest. “Bunch of bloody monsters.”
“We should look for survivors.” Teagan ground his teeth and headed deeper into the village. “Mayhap, some lived.”
How could they have, though? Whoever did this had been brutal. Ruthless.
“There.” Edmund pointed ahead. “I just saw a lass.”
They headed that way, only to discover two women fleeing into the forest.
Moments later, a young man leapt out of nowhere with his sword at the ready, blocking their attempt to follow.
“You will g-g-go no further,” he stuttered. Though shaking, he held his ground and narrowed his eyes at Teagan and Edmund. “In the n-name of Good King Edward III, you will stand d-down and leave those w-women be.”
“Good King Edward?” Edmund sneered in disgust. “There is nothing good about him. Now get out of our way.”
Assuming the man would flee in terror, Edmund made a motion like he was going to engage, only for their opponent to stay put. Though he shook so hard he could barely hold his sword up, he was brave.
“What happened here?” Teagan growled. “Who did this?”
The man was about to respond but stumbled back a few steps instead, his eyes wide with fear. Teagan realized why when he glanced over his shoulder. His men were approaching. Yet it wasn’t them the man’s eyes locked on. Nay, another group came from the opposite direction.
Clearly only so courageous, the man fled when the groups engaged one another.
“Let him go,” Teagan said when Edmund started after him. “He obviously means to protect the lasses and our men need help.”
That decision, it just so happened, would someday prove very helpful.
Chapter One
MacLauchlin Castle
Scotland 1347
Though eager to leave, Teagan waited patiently while everyone said their goodbyes.
“You will bring her back safely?” Julianna looked at him with her heart in her eyes. “You promise?”
“Enough with that already, daughter.” Cecille shot him an apologetic look. “He, we, will do our very best to bring your sister, Greer, home safely.”
“Aye.” Teagan winked at Julianna behind her mother’s back. “And ye can ask me as much as ye like.”
Cecille and Julianna had traveled with Isabella when she fled France back at Hogmanay. Since then Isabella had married his brother, Malcolm and everyone had settled at MacLauchlin Castle. Now, determined to bring her daughter Greer home from England after having been separated for years, Cecille would be joining him on the journey south.
Meeting young Julianna and her mother, Cecille last winter had been a breath of fresh air in his haunted existence. Ten years of battling in France, then on behalf of Scotland’s King David II, had taken its toll.
Those moments in the village, especially so.
Since then, he’d been tormented, wondering how he might have changed things. Mayhap if he’d gotten there sooner? While he knew better than to think he and Edmund alone could have downed them all, mayhap he could have gone for help. Gotten men back there before too much harm was done.
“Have ye everything ye need, brother?” His eldest sibling and laird, Keenan, eyed the men Teagan had chosen to escort him and Cecille to the border.
“Aye.” He nodded thanks to Isabella, who had prepared food for their travels. “Thanks to my new sister by marriage, we have more than enough to hold us over.”
“Are ye sure ye dinnae want me to come?” his brother Malcolm said, not for the first time. He frowned and shook his head. “Ye’re traveling through dangerous areas.”
Though they didn’t say it, his brothers worried less about attackers and more about the state of Teagan’s mind. Would he be able to keep his composure through what lay ahead? Or would his demons rear their ugly heads? Their concerns were valid, too. On occasion, he couldn’t see past moments from the war. The rage he’d felt in the village that day. The guilt he still carried.
“Where we travel is no more dangerous than this area.” Teagan gestured at Isabella and Fionna with their swollen bellies, reminding his brothers why they need not come. “’Tis best ye protect our people and the wee ones on the way.”
“I completely agree.” Cecille embraced Julianna one last time, then held her at shoulder’s length. “I expect you to—”
“I know.” Julianna managed a smile. “Be on my best behavior, and remember we are guests here.”
“Even though, in truth, ye live here now,” his nephew said.
The lad’s grin dropped under Cecille’s stern look. “And you—”
“Will continue to be a perfect gentleman around me,” Julianna intercepted. Her lips curled up ever so slightly when she looked at Dougal but dropped immediately beneath her mother’s narrowed eyes.
Truth told, Julianna and Dougal were on the verge of adolescence and got along quite well, so their behavior was to be expected. It mattered not that she was English and he a Scot. Their friendship had blossomed over the past few months and their flirtatious antics hinted at things to come.