Fire!
Rose.
He felt overwhelmingly ill. His body ached and he almost lost his breakfast twice from both the pain of his earlier wound and even worse pain in his shoulder, and the thought of Rose—he couldn’t allow himself to think it.
It took his mind and body a moment to adjust.
Callanach was on fire. Everything…everywhere. Where was Rose? He pulled his léine up and winced at the excruciating pain in his shoulder. He grimaced. It was out of place. He looked at the thick tree trunks around him. There wasn’t time to think on it. He had to reset his shoulder, or his arm would be completely useless to him. He held his wrist and rammed his shoulder into the nearest tree, and then fell to his knees against the thick bark. He thought he would pass out. He couldn’t. He had to hold on to his senses and find Rose. Please God, dinna let her be in the flames. Please. Please help me find her.
Wincing in pain, which wasn’t as bad as before, he pulled his léine over his nose and mouth and lowered his head against the smoke. He was able to make out some of the cottages along the way. Swords and broomsticks were keeping the doors barred from the outside in.
Were there people inside? He heard something from inside one of the cottages. A woman’s scream! Rose! He tore the sword away from the door and then kicked it open. Smoke billowed out into his face. He coughed, and keeping his léine over his nose, hurried inside.
He found a woman on the floor. Not Rose. Was she alive?
He looked back at the door. Rose. Could he make it if he carried this woman?
What was he doing saving yet another lass from death? He cursed himself as he bent his knees and slipped his arms beneath her. Thankfully she weighed little. Still, it felt as if his arm was being torn from his shoulder all over again.
He grinded his teeth and carried her outside. She coughed. He closed his eyes in a moment of relief.
When he set her down against the castle wall, her eyes fluttered open. “William…”
“Lass! Lass, where is Rose?”
She looked at him with tears making her olive-green eyes glassy. She seemed to come out of it more for a moment and clutched his arms. “He took them.” She coughed until her face turned blood red. “He…took…” Her grip on him loosened. She would answer no more questions. At least, not now.
He left her safe against the wall and ran for the castle. He took them. The bastard who lit this fire took Rose. He shook his head with the horror of it. He had to go find her. Now!
He ran across the grounds where the smoke was thinner. He took a few deep breaths and then ran for the flames and thick smoke of the burning castle.
He was stopped before he reached the doors by two crazed-looking men and a bronze hilt to the temple.
“No! Oh, no!” the earl screamed and raced his horse through the open gates of Callanach Castle.
Jonathon Jones kept his horse at a steady pace close to him, his heart battering against his bones. No, this couldn’t be!
They had seen the smoke from the road three villages away. With their hearts melted within them, they had raced home on their steeds to find the castle and all its grounds, burning.
Jones slowed his mount when he saw Cavanaugh’s dead and half-burned body beneath the tower, a blackened arrow through his chest.
The earl’s cries tore his attention away from his good friend.
The older man had dismounted before the gaping, burned out hole where the castle doors were this morning and wailed. “Rose! Oh, my Rose! Oh, no! How did he get in? All these years I tried to protect you from him! You cannot be in the fire!”
Jones thought the earl would go mad with grief.
There was nothing left inside. Everything was burned and black.
Jones tried to comfort him, but he continued to weep and scream his daughter’s name while staring horrified at the castle.
At first, Jones didn’t hear the deeper, agonized voice calling out to Rose from beyond the smoke, but whoever it was grew closer.
By the time Jones recognized Tristan MacPherson, it was too late. The earl butted him in the head with the hilt of his sword then kneeled on the ground next to him and grabbed him by the throat. “Where is my daughter? My daughter?”
But MacPherson was unresponsive.
What in the blazes was the Highlander doing here at the castle when they were supposed to meet at the inn? Had MacPherson duped him again? MacPherson had wanted them to meet on more neutral ground, like an inn. With him there to stop any bloodshed, he might be able to save lives. But MacPherson hadn’t been there. Because he was here. How had he gotten through the gates? Did he do this?
“My lord,” Jones stopped the earl. “You knocked him out. He can tell you nothing.”
But the earl didn’t hear. He kept on shaking and pulling at MacPherson to wake him up.
Jones tried again. He’d never seen the earl so hysterical. He wished the captain was here. Was he dead? Burning to ashes somewhere inside the castle with Rose and…his wife? Mary! Watley! The others!
“Lord, I need to make a search.” He didn’t wait for the earl’s approval but ran into the smoke toward the small village. He prayed for Mary on the way and thanked God his wife had listened to him and left with the other wives.
Mary had refused to leave her husband. Did she die with him?
He couldn’t see because of the smoke and the tears in his eyes. But he made it to the captain’s house and waved the smoke from his eyes to see the front door kicked in. MacPherson?
He stepped over the splintered wood and went through the small house, but he could not find
