Pain jolted him back to semi-awareness. What happened? His thoughts foggy, he slowly opened his eyes, surprised to realize that he lay face down on the floor of his home. What was he doing here? Why was he—

It all came back to him in a rush. The two men forcing their way into the house. One of them had brandished a knife before he could react. Where had they come from? What did they want—

Alis!

He tried to push himself off the floor, but a jolt of pain prompted a groan and caused a renewed wave of agony to shoot through his body. He froze, fully conscious now, aware that he had been stabbed.

Where was Alis?

“Alis?”

Alarmed by the weakness of his voice, he moved his arms, braced his hands beneath his shoulders, and fighting the pain, the nausea, and the trembling in his muscles, forced himself upward onto his hands and knees.

His heart trip-hammered when he saw the pool of congealed blood on the floorboards beneath him. Shifting position, he managed to get onto his knees, one arm outstretched and bracing himself against the floor, his right hand clasping the wound in his side. It felt sticky, but glancing down, he noticed no fresh blood oozing between his fingers.

Gathering his strength, he quickly glanced around, but as expected, his small house was empty.

They had taken Alis… but who were they? Had those men belonged to the McGregor clan or the Orkneys? He had to get help. Alis was in great danger. The thought of her in their hands brought a surge of fury rising to his throat, his pain was not physical this time.

What would they do to her?

He didn’t want to contemplate it.

It took him several minutes, but he managed to stand up, though hunched over, the pain in his side taking his breath away as he lunged for the door.

He collapsed against it, fighting the blackness the threatened to pull him down into unconsciousness.

Not yet.

He had to get help for himself and for Alis.

Just the effort to get to the door exhausted him. He leaned against it for several moments, trying to catch his breath, trying to breathe, trying to fight the pain. Gasping, he glanced down, saw fresh blood now oozing between his fingers. He couldn’t die. Not before he knew Alis was safe.

With the greatest effort, he scrambled outside.

It was dark, the moon halfway to its zenith. How long had he lain there on the floor? He glanced toward the house, saw just the corner of it past the dark outline of the armory.

His ears ringing, his legs weak and unsteady, he staggered several steps away from his house, focusing on the armory. Once there, he would make it to the house. He had to!

All was quiet; the only sound disrupting the night was that of the bullfrogs croaking near the edges of the pond and the even more distant chirp of crickets.

He tried to shout, but couldn’t work up the effort, all of his energy focused on simply putting one foot ahead of the other. He didn’t think any vital organs had been punctured or he would have been dead by now.

Still, he’d lost a lot of blood.

After what seemed an incredibly long and arduous journey, he managed to reach the armory house, crashing against the side of the building before collapsing to the ground.

The jolt triggered a renewed round of throbbing pain, each pulse of his heart sending shafts of agony throughout his body; every beat of his heart caused him to bleed more.

If he didn’t hurry, he would run out of time.

With a groan, he battled to rise, but found it difficult to gain his footing. Doubled over, every movement tortured him with new waves of pain. The ringing in his ears grew louder while darkness hovered around the edges of consciousness. What if he couldn’t make it to the house? What if—

“No!” He had to—

“Who goes there?”

The voice came from around the side of the armory, the tone threatening and guttural.

He recognized it and nearly collapsed again, this time with relief.

Hugh.

“Hugh!” His voice barely louder than a whisper, he tried again. “Hugh!”

A figure rounded the armory, short sword at the ready. Maccay recognized Hugh’s profile in the moonlight. Mere seconds later, Hugh recognized him as well. He lunged forward, reaching for Maccay just as his legs gave way.

“Maccay!” Hugh managed to break his fall, easing him to the ground. “Maccay, what happened?”

Hugh hovered over him and swore when he found the wound. Then he shouted for help.

“Alis… Alis…” Maccay couldn’t make his mouth work, couldn’t transform his thoughts into words.

His head was swimming, the ground beneath him undulating, as if he were in a boat.

Everything was upside down, and through it all, over the buzzing in his ears, his fear, and his pain, he could only think of one thing. Alis.

Voices surrounded him.

Shouting voices, questions, orders.

“Into the house!”

Phillip.

“Maccay, who did this to you? What happened?”

He felt himself lifted upward. Pain racked his body and he barely managed to stifle a garbled cry as he was carried, arms and legs dangling, by two men taking him to the manor house. Just before darkness overtook him, he heard alarmed female voices and willed one to be that of Alis.

Before he could place any of them, darkness overtook him, carrying him away on waves of pain-free blackness.

* * *

Maccay dimly heard the sound of voices but couldn’t make out the words. He felt trapped, weighed down by… by what? He tried to force himself to move, to open his eyes, but his body refuse to cooperate.

What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he move? He tried to speak, but no sound emerged from his throat.

Even those unsuccessful efforts left him feeling exhausted, so exhausted that he succumbed to the blackness once again...

“The bleeding stopped. He will recover.”

Maccay forced himself upward from oblivion, relieved that he could make out the words, the female voice.

“Alis?”

He felt a hand stroking the hair back from his forehead.

A cool, damp cloth replaced that hand a moment later.

“You’re going to be all right, Maccay. Try not to move around too much. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

He tried to open his eyes, and after immense effort, finally managed. Everything looked blurry. Shadows and figures moving around. Voices wafting in and out, seemingly in time to the waves of pain thrumming through his body. Not as bad as before. He took that as a good sign. He knew Sarah would be looking after him. Maybe his confusion was caused by one of her herbal drinks, something to make him sleepy. He was sure that one of the figures hovering over him was the healer. Then, as before, it all came back to him in a rush. Along with the memory came an overriding sense of fear. Not for himself, but for Alis.

He blinked and forced his eyes to open, forced himself to wake up, to focus, to concentrate.

“Maccay, please, don’t move around. I managed to stop the bleeding, but if you move around too much it’s just going to start again.”

“Is he going to be all right?”

Heather was here too.

If Sarah and Heather were here, chances were that Phillip and Jake were as well.

After several moments, his vision cleared, but the room spun crazily for many seconds before that too, gradually ebbed.

“Alis?” His voice sounded strange even to himself.

He turned his head and saw Phillip and Jake leaning against the wall beside the window, their faces wavering in the shadows cast by the firelight in the fireplace. He realized where he was; the room where they had brought Alis when she first came to them.

Thoughts of her prompted a renewed pounding in his heart.

“They took her!”

“I know,” Phillip said, stepping closer to the bed. “Hugh and I went to your house after you were brought inside. She’s gone.”

“You have… to find her!” Maccay tried to sit up, but only managed to lift his head and shoulders off the bed before a stab of pain and Sarah’s hand on his chest stopped him.

“Maccay, I told you not to move,” she scolded. “The bleeding has stopped, but if you keep moving around, it’s going to start again, and it will take even longer to stop it, if I can.”

“It wasn’t Clyde,” Jake said, frowning down at Maccay. “As soon as I learned what happened, we paid a visit to his camp. He’s still there.” He sent a glare toward his brother. “But he will be leaving at dawn.”

Maccay didn’t understand. If it wasn’t Clyde, then who were the two men that had pushed their way into his house? “Two of them,” he said.

“What happened?” Phillip asked, arms crossed over his chest.

“Alis and I… talking. A knock on the door, thought it was Hugh,” Maccay said, glancing around the room, but did not his friend. “Opened the door. Two men.” He paused to catch his breath. “Said nothing… stabbed me. Hit on the head… don’t remember anything after that.”

“Hugh is patrolling the grounds, trying to discern who they are and where they came from.” Jake turned to his brother. “The McGregors might have had this planned. Distracted us with his presence while those other two hid deeper in the woods.”

“But why risk coming here, taking such a chance? For her? A woman?” Phillip shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Maccay’s heart skipped a beat. He frowned as he gazed up at the laird. “Hugh didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what, Maccay?” Phillip frowned. “I haven’t even had a chance to talk to him. The minute we found you, I sent him off to check on Clyde and then find out who dared to attack you in your own home and take Alis, or Mairi, from right under our noses!”

Maccay started to inhale deeply, frustrated, but the pain prompted him to wince and change his mind. “Hugh found out the Alis… Mairi, was betrothed by Angus McGregor to an Orkney. She was—”

“A betrothal between the McGregors and the Orkneys?” Jake interrupted, his tone disbelieving. He glanced at Phillip, confused. “But they’re enemy clans—”

“To join the clans,” Maccay broke in. He needed to make them understand the danger Alis was in. “She refused.”

“She refused?” Sarah gasped, pausing in her ministrations. She was in the process of mixing a poultice for his wound, the crunching of herbs by the pestle in her bowl now silenced.

“Maccay, what else do you know?”

He turned toward the laird. “Only what Hugh told me. Alis refused the betrothal. The McGregor laird ordered her… banished.” He fought the lethargy sweeping through him, tugging him down into the blackness of oblivion once again. “They beat her, abandoned her in the woods, hoping that… hoping that a wild animal would finish her off.”

Phillip growled low in his throat. He glanced at his brother, then down at Maccay. “So, the McGregors are involved in this treachery.” He shook his head and glanced toward Sarah and Heather. “Maybe all this was planned; the arrival of your stepfather and the McGregors at the same time. The McGregors were here for Alis. How they found out about her presence I have no idea. And Patrick MacDonald and that sheriff were somehow coerced to arrive at the same time, to distract us.”

“I don’t think so,” Sarah said, placing a fresh poultice gently on Maccay’s side, holding it there as she looked up at her husband. “Unless… the only thing that motivates Patrick MacDonald is money. But how could they possibly have timed this out? It would’ve taken more than a week for my stepfather to make his way to the highlands, even riding quickly.” She shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like my stepfather.”

“And what was he was offered to do it?” Heather broached.

Maccay tried to keep pace with the conversation, but found it increasingly difficult to pay attention. He felt so tired but he fought against it. He couldn’t lie here in bed while Alis was out there at the hands of the McGregors, the very members of the clan that had tried to kill her once already.

Both Sarah and Heather started talking at the same time, each to their respective husbands, urging them to go find Alis. Maccay felt much the same. “Phillip, find her… find her!”

Blackness pulled him down into its comforting embrace before he heard Phillip’s replied.