10 – Caimbeulach Battle Cry
The familiar Caimbeulach battle cry had Mungo halting Harriet. She gaped as men from her clan poured over the cliff edge in a berserker battle charge. Heedless of their safety, a dozen men raced toward her and Joe, weapons at the ready.
Experienced, battle-hardened soldiers.
Her brother Raibert.
Her brother Cinead.
Her father.
They’d come for her.
Mungo blinked, convinced she was seeing things.
Joe snarled while Harriet shied and high-stepped, eyes rolling at the masculine hollers. Mungo reined her in and patted the steed’s shoulder in a comforting manner.
“Where are the coos?” her father demanded.
Some of her joy dissipated as her father’s gaze drifted over her right shoulder.
Joe prowled closer and placed himself between Harriet and her father. He snarled and immediately several of the men carrying bows aimed at Joe.
“Nay,” she snapped. “Dinnae hurt him. He’s protecting me.”
Joe stepped closer to Harriet’s left side and waited.
“The coos?” her father repeated.
“They’ve gone.”
Impatience flared in her father’s expression. “Where?”
“They took them over to the island.”
“Ye lie,” Raibert snapped. “’Tis impossible.”
Mungo dinnae argue the point since she dinnae understand the land bridge herself. She met Raibert’s accusing glare with one of her own.
“Nay matter.” Her father’s beefy shoulders lifted in a shrug. “’Tis ye we came for.”
Shock rocketed through Mungo. Her mouth dropped open in a manner that would’ve had Reilynn scolding her, had she seen. “Me?”
“Aye,” her father said.
He still refrained from meeting her direct gaze, but jubilation flared anew within her. Father had come for her with a party of warriors. He truly cared.
“Who did ye steal the steed from?” her oldest brother asked.
“Two men tried to attack me.” Mungo was unable to rip her gaze from her father. He cared for her. Reilynn had been right when she’d told Mungo her father hid his emotions. It was his way.
Raibert scoffed and shot her a glance of disbelief. “Ye lie.”
Joe growled, and Raibert backed up half a step.
“Come,” her father ordered. “We march to the Grantlach Castle.”
“What? Why?” Mungo asked. “That is the opposite way to our keep.”
“We go to meet yer betrothed.” Her father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Come, I wish to have this matter settled.”
“What?” Her father’s announcement stunned Mungo so much she forgot her normal careful approach.
Her father scowled, his tight mouth and displeasure clear despite his bushy black beard. “Dinnae question me. I am yer laird. Ye will do as I decree. Get off the steed. Raibert or Cinead will ride it.”
“Nay, ’tis mine,” Mungo protested, her mind still reeling at her father’s decree. A betrothal. Nay!
Her father intended to banish her to the Grantlach clan. If she kenned her father, he’d gain riches from the transaction while she’d receive a husband. An older man. While the Grantlach had treated her with kindness during his visit a few rotations ago, he’d seemed distant and humorless. And then there were the rumors about his second wife and her disappearance. One cycle she was at the Grantlach castle, and the next she had disappeared. No one had seen her since. Fear crawled down Mungo’s back. She stared at her father, confusion, and pain pressing against her chest.
Aengus Caimbeulach strode to Harriet, his big fists clenched at his sides. “Mungo! Dinnae make me repeat myself. I am yer laird, and the steed belongs to me. Hand the beast over to yer brothers before I take a stick to ye.”
Joe growled—a vicious snarl of warning. One warrior turned and fired an arrow at him. It struck him in the haunch, and he roared his pain and fury. Mungo threw herself off Harriet and flung herself in front of the warriors who were nocking their arrows in preparation to fire again. Cinead hauled her out of the way to clear the warrior’s range of fire, but Joe had disappeared.
Cinead backhanded her before grasping her arm and shaking her. “What did ye do that for? The beast is dangerous.”
Not to her. Dizzily, Mungo jerked away to avoid another blow. She kenned not to complain to their father. She’d only earn another blow for her impudence.
For an instant, when they’d poured down the cliff, she’d thought her father truly valued her. But nay, he intended to use her to secure advancement for him and his sons. She searched for Joe and still couldnae see him. Hopefully, he’d be all right, but at least he’d escaped.
She should’ve done the same. Instead, she’d allowed hope to sway her judgment, and now she’d have the devil’s trouble to free herself from this marriage mire.
Mungo’s shoulders slumped as she tried to imagine a life with the Grantlach laird. Even though he was an old man, he’d expect her to lie with him and produce bonnie bairns.
“Move.” Raibert shoved her in the back. She stumbled forward with a pained cry before she regained her balance.
“Dinnae push me.”
“Hurry or ye’ll be sorry,” her brother warned. “If ye insist on dressing in men’s clothes, I’ll hit ye as a man.”
With that dire warning ringing in her ears, Mungo dragged her aching body toward the path that led into the forest. She swiped away the blood dripping from the cut Cinead had made on her left cheekbone, then glanced through her tangled hair to search for Joe. She couldnae see him, but he’d come for her last time, and she believed he would again. But how could one man help even if he bore the power to transform into a big cat? They—she—were lucky her father hadn’t come across them the previous eve. She stumbled over a rock and winced at the thread of pain that traveled from her big toe and up her leg. Mungo limped along the beach, gritting her teeth with each step over and around the rocks.
After last eve with Joe, she was no longer a maiden.
The laird her father had betrothed her to would ken this.
Foreboding seeped into her.
This wouldnae end well.
The scramble along the beach to find cover shot agony from his haunch. The arrow wasn’t deep, but he’d need to shift to pull it free. He’d suffered worse wounds than this and would recover. Though he’d never experienced an injury that ached and smarted so badly and dulled his strength. That fact caused concern.
Joe ran until he rounded a bend in the coast. He dragged his fatigued body onto a path that wound up the side of the cliff. Once he reached the trees at the top, he sank to the ground in the middle of a pile of pink leaves. Gritting his teeth, he summoned a vision of his human form and focused until prickles under his skin announced the start of the transformation. Blood trickled from his buttcheek, and despite the pain, his mouth twisted in a wry grin. His brothers and cousins would never let him hear the end of this injury. He curled his hands around the shaft of the arrow and yanked hard.
Bloody hell.
For an instant, Joe thought he might black out from the pain. He groaned as he wrenched again on the shaft. With a pop, the metal arrow came free.
Joe turned his head to study what he could of the wound. It still bled, but not profusely. He concealed the arrow beneath a stone and a pile of pink leaf litter. He also covered the drops of blood he’d left on the ground while extracting the arrow. Content with the concealment, he shifted into feline form and waited for the Scothage troop to pass.
He spotted them not long afterward. As he’d expected, they’d sought an easier way up the cliff rather than repeating their rappelling trick. His gaze went straight to Mungo. She hobbled behind the line of Scothage men. He counted ten in all. A growl rumbled free. No, twelve. Two dark-haired men with black beards fought to lead Harriet after the group. One hauled on the reins while the second hurried her progress with the aid of a long stick.
Joe growled again as the switch-wielding man hit Harriet. She kicked out her rear legs and caught the man with a glancing blow on the thigh.
The one leading the horse yanked out his bow and aimed it at Harriet. Mungo screamed and snatched the reins from him. Immediately, Harriet calmed. She nuzzled Mungo and followed her docilely once they recommenced their trudge along the rocky shore.
They chose a less challenging path, farther down the beach, their pace swift. Once they reached the grasslands at the top of the cliff, Joe hauled himself to his feet and followed at a distance. Stiffness and numbness assailed his buttock and his other muscles ached. His vision blurred, and only determination dragged him onward.
He refused to leave his mate to her fate. They’d relax their guard soon since they didn’t realize he was following them. When the opportunity to grab Mungo arose, he’d take it because there was no way he intended to let her bully father marry her off to the laird of another Scothage clan.
His mate, and he kept what was his.