Chapter Thirty

Preparations for the clan’s attack were underway.

Kaid strode into his solar and rummaged through several sheets of parchment. Neat rows of numbers reflected the stores of food they would have to bring, the number of weapons for his men, the assignment of each horse to those who didn’t already have their own.

There was much to do in one short day prior to their departure. They would need to purchase many items while they traveled.

Now that Torra had agreed to take back the ownership of her people and ally with him, he did not want to risk her changing her mind. The longer this took, the greater the likelihood that Torra would go back on their agreement.

He checked the doorway for Lachlan, but found it empty. Impatience set Kaid’s feet stalking across the room in a restless pace. He needed to speak to Lachlan, to finalize some of the finer details about the men who would be coming.

Kaid glanced out the window where the heavy cloak of night blanketed the quiet village. The festivities had finally quieted. The evening had slipped from him like water through a sieve. There was still so damn much to do.

Not that it mattered. This was what he’d been born to do. This was why he was laird of his people. After having left his clan starving for vengeance, he would finally deliver.

The light of a flickering candle hovered outside the door, pausing a moment before entering. But his visitor wasn’t Lachlan.

“Delilah.” He couldn’t help but smile as he spoke her name. She was a refreshing change to the all-consuming details of the impending attack.

She was a dream with her long honey-brown hair falling in gentle waves around her face and her dark eyes gazing at him imploringly.

A tear slipped down her cheek.

He straightened in surprise and caught her in his arms. “Delilah, what is it?”

“I haven’t been able to find you.” She clung to him, her fingers strapped around his arms like bands of iron.

Truth be told, he’d been so busy, he had only thought of coordinating his men and this attack. But then, Delilah wasn’t a woman who needed coddling.

“I was speaking to the men who will join us.” He carefully wiped the tear from her cheek and was relieved to find there weren’t more. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Claire.” Delilah’s voice broke. “She’s with Rhona.”

Kaid shook his head. “I dinna understand. How do ye know? And why would the lass go with Rhona?”

“Rhona took her.” Another tear ran down Delilah’s cheek. “I promised Claire I’d never let anything happen to her again. I let her be taken, Kaid. I wasn’t there to save her.”

Delilah, Kaid’s strong, beautiful Delilah, broke down then into a fit of sobs. Kaid held her and let her cry against his chest. Beneath his tear-soaked leine, his own heart crushed against his throat.

Claire, with Rhona.

On their way to MacKenzie, that bastard.

His stomach twisted. What would they do with Claire?

Lachlan appeared in the doorway and cast them a wary glance.

“A moment,” Kaid said to Lachlan, who nodded and slipped from view in an obvious show of offering privacy. He wouldn’t go far, Kaid knew, not when they had so many important details to finalize.

Delilah lifted her head and looked toward the empty doorway.

“Go to the room,” Kaid said softly. “I’ll be in later this evening. We can discuss it more then.”

“No,” she gasped. “We have to leave now.”

“It’s no’ possible. No’ with so many men—”

“Kaid, they’ll kill her.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “So many men cannot travel quickly.” She spoke fast, as if doing so might possibly change his mind. “We could catch them. Stop Rhona before she gets any further.”

“They’re already too far, and we dinna know the path they took.” He tried to keep his tone gentle, but her wounded expression hardened.

“You could have men go after them,” she said.

“My men are needed to prepare for the march on Edirdovar. We’ll save Claire when we get there.” Kaid reached for her, but she jerked from his grasp.

“By then she might be dead. I thought you loved her,” Delilah whispered. “I thought you loved us both.”

If she’d meant those words to be a dagger in his heart, she’d hit her mark perfectly. He almost staggered beneath the pain of the blow.

Lachlan’s dark head peered around the doorway, a reminder of the limited time and the growing list of important details to discuss.

Kaid staunched the ache emanating from deep within. He couldn’t think of the way Claire smiled with such tenderness, nor how she held such trust when she regarded him with her large blue eyes, or the sweet warmth of her skinny-armed hugs.

Kaid swallowed the tightening sensation in his throat. “We can’t always make decisions with our hearts, Delilah.” It was said harshly, more as a reminder to himself than to her.

She lifted her head and regarded him with cold calculation. He felt as much a monster as MacKenzie. “Because a soft heart leads to poor decisions?” The words were like a splash of acid.

Lachlan crossed his arms and studied the hearth with such intensity, his discomfort was palpable.

Kaid caught Delilah’s arms and met her gaze. “Go to the room, Delilah. We will speak of this no more tonight and will leave in the morning as planned.”

In truth, he could not allow himself to focus on the topic anymore. He couldn’t let his mind be clouded with the hurt of Claire’s loss when he had so many lives at stake.

Delilah turned from the room without another word and stalked past Lachlan, who nodded in greeting. He glanced behind him and regarded Kaid. “Is something amiss, laird?”

Kaid shook his head. “No’ anything we can do much about now.” Then he tried as best he could to shove out the racing thoughts about Claire and Delilah. Being distracted would help no one.

He had a war to plan.

• • •

Delilah’s throat burned with the swell of a rising scream. She wanted to let it loose until her throat bled. Maybe the searing cry would staunch the direct flow of damage to her heart.

Kaid had told her to go his chamber.

Kaid had clearly forgotten who she was.

She was no damn guard to be ordered about. The soles of her shoes clacked hard against the flagstones, the sound echoing against the cold walls and then fading into the open night air as she stepped outside.

A flash of a blade reflected a glint of moonlight in a shadowed corner of the courtyard.

Sylvi—always finding a place to practice. It was exactly what Delilah had hoped for. Her body flared with energy. She wanted to let her anger explode out of her, unleashed on an opponent.

Soundless, she hurried over the uneven cobblestones to where only the subtle swish of a blade cutting through the air could be heard.

“What are you doing here?” Sylvi’s hard voice sounded from the shadows.

Delilah stepped into the darkness, and her eyes immediately adjusted to the absence of the moon’s wide-faced glow. Without a word, she picked up a discarded staff from where it lay on the ground. Sylvi never trained without several weapons at her disposal.

Delilah lifted the staff and whipped it behind her back before stopping it directly in front of her in a silent challenge. Her body braced for impact, her knees bent and her muscles tensed to strike.

Sylvi’s mouth curled into a smirk. “I haven’t had a good spar since I arrived at Killearnan.”

Instead of replying, Delilah pushed the force of her frustration and rage into the hearty swing of the staff, directly toward Sylvi’s legs. Sylvi leapt a scant second before the knobby wood head would have connected with her knees. She landed silent as a cat and swept the blade toward Delilah.

The attack was slow and easily avoided. Sylvi no doubt did this on purpose.

“Don’t go easy on me,” Delilah said through clenched teeth. “Not tonight.” She whipped her staff toward Sylvi’s head, but only succeeded in catching the end of one pale blonde braid.

Sylvi rolled on the ground and popped up in front of Delilah with a grin. “I take it someone made you angry.”

Delilah held her staff with both hands and shoved it so hard against Sylvi’s chest, the other woman grunted.

Sylvi held fast to the staff and pulled it from Delilah’s grasp. “It would appear as much,” Sylvi answered her own question and tossed her sword to the cobblestones with a metallic clatter. “Switch weapons with me and talk before you kill us both.”

Delilah snatched up the blade and adjusted her hold on the hilt. The wound leather there was still warm from Sylvi’s grip.

“Is this about the little girl?” she asked. “Claire?”

Delilah swung the blade, and a growl snarled from between her clenched teeth. Sylvi snapped the staff up in time to keep the blunted edge from connecting with her skull.

“How do you know about her?” Delilah demanded. Her body was alight with the burn of anger and vengeance. Each attack, each block, each flex of her muscles gave way to the comfort only spent energy could provide.

“I see more than you realize.” Sylvi thrust the staff toward her, but Delilah knocked it away. “And I know she’s been taken.”

Delilah thought back to the hallway where she first saw Claire. Sylvi must have been lurking in the shadows. How very like Sylvi to witness such an intimate moment and not reveal herself.

“Did you see what happened when I asked Kaid if we could leave now to save her?” A fresh wave of molten fury rushed through Delilah’s veins. She waited for Sylvi’s slight pull back on the weapon in preparation to attack before Delilah lunged into her.

Delilah braced Sylvi’s legs with her own then shoved hard at Sylvi’s torso. The blonde woman went down with whuff of air.

“He said no, didn’t he?” Sylvi stuck her arm up in silent request for friendly aid.

Delilah gripped the proffered forearm and hauled Sylvi to her feet in a smooth heft. “Did you see that too?” Delilah couldn’t keep the irritation from her voice.

“No.” Sylvi smirked. “But he’s a leader on the cusp of war, Delilah. Even if Claire were his own daughter and he had no one else left in the world, he would not sacrifice the lives of his people by departing prematurely.”

Delilah’s cheeks went hot with the certainty in Sylvi’s tone. “Even if there’s a child in danger?”

Sylvi stepped back and eyed Delilah. “Do you know which path she took? Which towns she’ll stop through?”

“No,” Delilah said. “But we know where they’ll end up.”

“At a highly defended castle over two days’ journey from here?” Sylvi shook her head as if explaining common sense to someone daft. “With either no army or an ill-prepared one?”

Sylvi swept the staff toward Delilah’s legs. Delilah stumbled backward. “Yes,” she admitted sheepishly.

When she caught her footing, she kept her knees slightly bent, ducked the blow of Sylvi’s thrust and rose with the blade pressed to Sylvi’s throat. “And what would you do if you knew someone you loved were to be harmed?” she panted.

The blade of the sword pressed to the black silk ribbon tied to Sylvi’s throat, so close it brought the thin silk down just enough to reveal the ragged pink skin of a raw scar.

It wasn’t until she saw the reminder of what Sylvi had been through that Delilah realized what she’d said, what she’d done. The pulse at Sylvi’s throat leapt hard and fast.

Delilah lowered the blade.

Sylvi took a long, slow breath in and then carefully hissed it free. Sweat shone at her brow. Delilah knew it was not from their exertion.

Three years ago, Sylvi would have had Delilah on the ground and bleeding for having touched her neck. After being the sole survivor of her family’s massacre, Sylvi was tender about the reminder. The scar along her neck where someone tried to have her join them in death wasn’t without its own level of sensitivity.

Sylvi regarded Delilah with her cold, pale stare. “I would do anything to save them. Even if it meant leaving on my own.” She threw down the staff. It landed silently on a cloth bag lying against the side of the castle wall.

Delilah staggered back. She’d been so upset over Kaid declining to leave early, she hadn’t even considered the option of going alone. Perhaps because she didn’t want to leave without Kaid.

Not again.

And yet, if it would save Claire…

Sylvi looked beyond Delilah’s shoulder. “But before you decide to go out on your own, you may want to see what he says about that.” With a smirk, Sylvi strolled out of the shadows, toward the castle.

Delilah winced inwardly. She knew who was behind her before she turned. Yet still she allowed herself to spin on her heel and peer into the darkness for the familiarity of his face.

True to her suspicions, it was Kaid.

And she couldn’t help but wonder exactly how much of their conversation he’d overheard.