“The fire in the fields and the toppled barrel at the distillery,” Liam realized aloud. “That was ye?”
“Thwarted by a rainstorm and a bit of luck,” Hamish spat. “And it was a pure miracle that carriage didna tumble down the Bealach na Bá with a shorn linchpin.”
“Ye put innocent people in harm’s way just to get yer revenge,” Liam growled. For that he would pay.
“Doona let this so-called Demon Highlander play the hero for yer benefit.” His bastard older brother almost sounded gleeful as he addressed Mena. “Innocent lives have never meant much to either of us. We are similar creatures with different predilections.”
“I was never like ye.” Liam’s hard voice echoed around the glen now, before it dissipated through the canopy of trees.
“Nonsense, whatever monstrous things Father neglected to teach me, ye filled in the spaces,” Hamish said conversationally. “Doona ye remember the things ye said? That open battle is effective for casualties, but that the battles we wage with terror gain us even greater results. That the personal kill is the most satisfying. Ye taught me that if ye snap a bone just right, it makes a clean, crisp sound that ye can feel ricochet in yer own skeleton. Ye taught me that ye attain glory on the battlefield, but to gain true infamy, ye attack at dinner, or a party. Or maybe when yer enemy is putting their children to bed … Or … making love.” Hamish bared his teeth from behind those hideously disfigured lips, and made as though he were going to bite into Mena’s bare shoulder.
“Ye’re wrong.” Liam battled the desperation threatening to creep into his tone, convinced his brother’s injuries, and his hatred, had tainted his memory. “Ye’re confused,” he corrected as evenly as he could. “That was his grace, Lord Trenwyth. I was the demon on the battlefield, he was the phantom in the darkness. It was always thus.”
“Collin Talmage, the sodding Duke of Trenwyth.” Hamish spat into the mist. “I’ll settle that score once I’m through here.”
Liam didn’t take the time to wonder what his brother meant. His every thought, every molecule in his body, was focused on Mena. “Let her go,” Liam had meant to cajole, but it escaped as a command. “I’ll trade ye across, my life for hers. I’ll take ye to Trenwyth if ye want.”
Hamish made a snide sound of victory. “Why this sudden weakness for women?” he sneered. “Could kill yer own father in cold blood, and whip a whore to death. But watching the English bitch die will break ye?”
Liam closed his eyes for a brief moment, unable to bring himself to face the look of horror and terror Mena must be wearing. That alone would break him. He wouldn’t survive her loss. Not the part of him that was human, anyhow. Liam somehow knew that seeing her blood would turn him into the monster he’d spent forty years trying not to become.
He didn’t miss her sharp gasp, though, and neither did Hamish. Now she knew his darkest secrets, the two main reasons his soul was eternally damned.
It started with Tessa McGrath, and patricide had sealed his eternal fate.
He’d killed his own father, left his brother for dead, and helplessly allowed his mad wife to take her own life.
He truly did destroy those closest to him.
But he’d die before letting the woman he loved fall prey to his demon curse.
“Father deserved to die for what he did.” Liam had forgotten to misdirect his voice that time, and Hamish’s head swiveled in his direction. “For what he forced us to do.”
* * *
Mena’s calm had deserted her. She’d become a shivering pile of liquid bones and frozen blood. Only the blade at her throat and the monster behind her kept her from dissolving into a puddle of panic and soaking into the marshy ground.
Liam seemed to be everywhere at once. First to the east, and then in the shadows where her imprisoned gaze was trained to the west.
He’d offered himself for her. Mena’s heart swelled at the fervency in his voice. A part of her wished Hamish would take the offer. That he’d toss her away. But in her heart, she knew that she’d never be able to live with herself if she’d had any hand in Liam’s demise. His children needed him. His clan and kin relied on his leadership.
She, however, could disappear into the mist and none would be the wiser. She had no family but the one who had locked her away. A handful of people would mourn her tragedy, hold their loved ones closer, and then move on.
Hamish’s words pulled her from her encroaching despondency.
Liam had whipped a woman … and killed his own evil father. Dear God. She’d assumed it was any number of heinous war crimes that haunted him. Or the circumstances of Hamish’s death. But no, Liam hadn’t only killed people in the name of queen and country, he’d committed murder.
Her breath caught as she considered his answer. What had the elder Hamish Mackenzie done to incur Liam’s wrath?
“It was one tavern slut, Liam, and she was paid handsomely for her services.” Hamish almost moved the hand with the blade at her throat, as though he wanted to make a frustrated gesture. Remembering himself, he tightened his hold on her, repositioning the dagger in a more dangerous place than before.
Mena would have whimpered, but she refrained, fearing that even the slightest swallow would impale her upon its point.
“No amount of money could prove recompense for what he made us do to her.” Even through the confines of her own terror, Mena wept for the hollow shame in Liam’s voice. Wept for the poor girl and the humiliations that were too awful even for the Demon Highlander to lend them words. The hot tears scalded her chilly skin and ran down the cold blade.