LITMIR.BIZ

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would help him then.

      Two

      Brona quietly left the great hall, the meal she had eaten sitting heavily in her stomach. She was not sure what had troubled her more—the way Hervey had played the hospitable, ever-smiling laird, a man interested in and concerned about his clan, or the way Angus had watched her. A shiver went through her. She had seen lust in the man’s eyes, a dark, predatory lust. She might be innocent in body but Hervey had not been laird of Rosscurrach for long before she had begun to learn all about lust, so she knew what she had seen in Angus’s cold eyes and it terrified her. The man was as hard and cruel as Hervey.

      Forcing all thought of Angus from her mind, she hurried up to the lady’s solar. Relieved to find it empty, she hurried toward the narrow opening near the far wall. She lit a lantern and stepped inside, but instead of following the corridor all the way, she stopped about half the way through. Grabbing the rope handle of one of the chests that lined the hall, she pulled it away from the wall, revealing a hole in the floor. By the look of the thick drape of cobwebs, Brona suspected that no one had ever told Hervey about the secrets of Rosscurrach. He was not a man to ignore the advantages of such passages within his walls, either using them himself or sealing them off so no one else could use them.

      She grabbed a broom used to sweep the floors of the solar and the bedchamber connected to it by the passage. Brushing away the curtain of cobwebs, she then tucked the broom in the crook of her arm and stepped onto the narrow stone steps leading down into the many passageways running through the walls of Rosscurrach. Once below the level of the floor, she grabbed another rope handle attached to the bottom of the chest and dragged it back over the hole.

      Using the broom to brush aside the worst of the cobwebs in her way, Brona made her way down to the narrow passageway that would lead her to the one running behind the great hall. She knew that Angus and Hervey would have sought the chairs by the fireplace the moment she left. Even as she approached the chimney she feared she would not be able to eavesdrop on the men for too long. It was uncomfortably warm near the chimney. The sound of the men’s voices quickly distracted her from the discomfort she was already beginning to feel, however.

      “MacNachton isnae telling us anything,” complained Hervey.

      “He will,” said Angus in that deep, cold voice that always made Brona shiver inside.

      “Angus, I have been torturing the mon for nearly a week and he still shows no sign of weakening. The only thing left for me to do to him is to start taking off wee pieces of him. Although it might be interesting to see if he could recover from, let us say, the loss of a finger or a toe. Do ye think he would drain a mon dry ere he could fix that?”

      “What I think is it was a mistake to make him drink Peter’s blood.”

      Brona put a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp of shock and horror. Colin and Fergus had spoken the truth. Sir Heming had drunk of poor Peter’s blood. Even after hearing that horrifying truth, however, she still found it difficult to believe the man was a demon, hell-born, and a slave to the devil. Surely there would be something she could see or sense or even smell that would tell her she was in the presence of a demon. She had a gift for scenting the evil in a person, even what they felt at times, but she sensed no true evil in Sir Heming, only something feral. And since her gift worked best with animals, that feral part of him should have told her a lot, yet all she had felt was that air of a predator but one that was no threat to her.

      “It gave me the proof I needed to verify all of the tales told about the MacNachtons. They are demons.”

      Angus snorted, the sound rife with scorn. “He isnae a demon. If he was some spawn of Satan, ye wouldnae be able to treat him as ye do. He would have some power, some ability to cast spells or the like, that would get him out of that cage and at your throat. Aye, and he would be trying to get ye or one of your men to give him his soul in trade for the information ye seek.”

      “He drank Peter’s blood and his wounds immediately began to heal.”

      “That just makes him some strange creature, doesnae it. Mayhap more animal than mon, for many a predator drinks the blood of its kill. It still doesnae prove he is a demon.”

      “Ye dinnae think he stole Peter’s soul?”

      “Nay. Peter shows signs of recovering and I see little difference in him from what he was ere ye cut his throat and handed him to the prisoner. And, dinnae forget that ye had to nearly force the mon to do what ye wanted him to, shoving a bleeding Peter right under his nose several times e’en though MacNachton was crazed and near blind with pain from the torture ye had inflicted upon him. Do ye truly think a demon would show such restraint? Nay, a demon would have drunk Peter dry and laughed as the poor fool died.”

      “If MacNachton isnae a demon then what is he?”

      “I am nay sure. As I said, just a different breed of mon, mayhap. Who kens. But, nay, I dinnae think he is some spawn of the devil. We couldnae hold him if he was, nay e’en with silver and iron. There havenae been any signs of a witch’s or demon’s tricks about Rosscurrach, either. No curdled milk, no sickening animals, naught but the usual. The mon does have strengths and skills we dinnae have, but ’tis said the whole clan has such things. I cannae believe the devil would make a whole clan his minions and then allow them to stay hidden away within their own lands. No one creates such an army without intending to put them into battle.”

      “He has fangs, Angus.”

      “But nay any horns, aye? And, though he is a strong, weel-set lad, he doesnae really have much more than ye and I have. I have often heard it said that the devil’s minions have massive rods and bollocks as big as apples.”

      Brona grimaced in disgust as both men laughed. She was beginning to think she was wasting her time. They were not telling her any more than what she already knew and it was hardly worth standing so close to the heat of the fireplace. She was drenched in sweat and beginning to feel a little un-well. The heat was stealing all the strength from her body.

      “Actually, I begin to think ’tis something to do with the blood,” Hervey said just as Brona decided to leave and she quickly halted, pressing herself against the wall again.

      “Ye may just have the right of it,” agreed Angus. “The mon did heal and grow visibly stronger after drinking of Peter’s blood. Mayhap we err in allowing so much of it to drip into the floor. We may have been wasting something as precious as gold.”

      “Aye, mayhap we should collect it and drink it. A disgusting thought, but it could hold the answer to the secret.”

      “Weel, he will have to recover a wee bit first. He lost too much blood this time. Nay sure we ought to let him just feast on another prisoner either, so we shall have to leave him be for a wee while. Once he gets his strength back, we will take some of his blood and see if the secret of what he is lies within it.”

      “A good plan. After all, if it is the blood that makes him what he is, it just might work for us and then we shall have to keep the MacNachtons alive, or at least some of them. I but wonder how we can ken that it works.”

      “If it is his blood that makes him what he is then ye will feel some change, I am certain.”

      “Any wounds we had would heal faster. Mayhap giving ourselves just a wee cut and watching how fast it heals itself will be enough to tell us. It might be that we need to drink of his blood several times before we can be sure whether that holds the secret or not.”

      “Agreed. We will take a potion made of his blood each day for a fortnight. If we see naught changing in ourselves by then, then we must decide if he is worth keeping alive.”

      “He will be worth it only if he begins to tell us what we need to know.”

      “True. Mayhap if the arrogant bastard realizes that he is now the prey and nay the predator, he will start telling us all his secrets in some vain attempt to save his worthless hide. And now let us speak of Brona.”

      “Ah, aye, my sweet wee cousin whom ye have been sniffing around

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