BLOOD OATH - SAMPLE
Prologue
Kilfinan, Scotland, 1968
Simon struck the match and watched the tiny flame take root. A wisp of smoke rose in the air, and the sharp scent of burnt wood infiltrated his nostrils.
Mesmerized, he watched the blue-violet light slide over the charcoal head as it eased down the splinter of stiff paper held between his fingers. An angry trail of glowing red besieged the edges of the matchstick, swallowing the flame as the last whiff of smoke dissipated into the darkness.
He set the used match aside on the floor and ripped out another. The sunny faces of the Lamonts and the Curries were so like this flame’s yellow-gold tip. They surrounded Simon with warm, happy expressions that were often too bright for a boy like him. Because like the match, he had a dark center. An evil he feared grew inside him.
Like his Da.
He shuddered. “I am not like you. I am not like you.”
He wanted to believe it. With all his heart, he did. But it was his Da’s eyes that stared back at him every morning. And it was his Da’s mouth that earned sharp looks from his aunt when Simon’s temper flared and he couldna hold his tongue.
Moonlight streamed in through the window. Simon stood and peered over the crib’s slotted sidewall, his hands grasping the smooth edge, to where a small form slept peacefully unaware of his presence.
Jean said people made their own choices. He didn’t have to be like his da. He could grow up and be a different man. A good man like his Uncle Duncan or Jean’s husband, John. This new world—a home with Jean and his Aunt Mariota—would afford him wonderful opportunities if he applied himself.
If he were good.
Always if.
He gripped the rail tighter. Johnnie, Jean’s son, promised to help. Simon had never had a friend before, but Johnnie said they were brothers now. And, being twelve, Simon was four years older. That made him the elder son. He liked the idea.
He liked it very much.
Simon narrowed his eyes. She would ruin it for him. She would force his aunt to wield the power of the stone and send him home. He knew it.
He shook his head violently, his fingernails digging into the wood. He would never go back.
Never.
Here, there was food. Here, he could run and play. Here, he was free from daily lashings. There was no cold floor to lay his broken body upon after one of Da’s fits of temper.
No, he determined. He would never go back.
Simon angled his head and studied Else Lamont. At two, she was taller than most of the children he’d known back home, but other than that, there was nothing special about her. He didn’t know why she infuriated him so. She just did.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her earlier. He really hadn’t. When she’d taken his toy and defiled it with her mouth, something had come over him. He had retaliated with a pinch, but then his heart thumped in his chest with excitement, and instead of letting go, he’d held fast to the tender flesh caught between his fingers.
Just like his da.
Simon fisted his hair in his hands until his scalp burned. When the pain numbed his fear, he stretched a thin arm through the slotted rail and snatched Else’s rag doll. He slid to the floor and laid the doll on his lap. Balance would set things right. An eye for an eye. She’d sullied his only toy. He would sully hers. Burn a leg. Or an arm.
And then…
He and Else would be on even ground. They could begin anew. A fresh start.
Reaching for the matchbook, he decided forgiveness was honorable. He’d do better to hide his toys anyway. And who knew, maybe one day, he might even grow to like her.
He wrinkled his nose.
Doubtful. She was a girl, after all. Girls were trouble, his Ma had always said. Especially girls with yellow hair and clear blue eyes who stuck their hands in their mouths and touched things they shouldn’t—things like his green, MG 1100 matchbox car.
Someday he would own a real car. A shiny, new model, and when he drove through the village, everyone would stop and stare.
Everyone but his da.
Simon lit the match. The baby flame kissed the frilly lace edging the doll’s ankle. Fire spread up the doll’s leg, consuming the dress with a hungry lick, whispering promises in Simon’s ears.
Enthralled by the flames, he listened until his skin stung. Snapped from the trance, Simon dropped the doll to the floor.
The fire spread, consuming most of the fabric.
“No,” he whispered.
Panicked, and filled with regret, he tried to swat the fire with his hand.
“Ow.” He blew on his throbbing thumb, his gaze darting about the room. It was only supposed to be the one leg. Mariota could not know he took Else’s doll. He could not let her see what he’d done to her daughter’s favorite toy.
Not again.
He reached for the cloth by the crib and stamped the flames shooting up the doll’s hair. The cotton cloth caught fire. He hopped to his feet and kicked the burning toy toward the window. The grass outside was damp. If he could get the flaming cloth outside…
Simon ran to the window and struggled to open the latch. Flames caught the edge of the curtain and rose. “Come,” their voices called, “set us free.”
The hot, smoky air caressed his skin. Fire scaled the cloth panels, climbing up to the ceiling with claws of red and gold. Angry tongues lapped what remained of the blackened cloth and jumped to the wall, spreading across the top of the window, forming a canopy of living flames.
Such beauty, he thought in awe. Such destruction.
A dense plume of smoke rolled across the ceiling, and his lungs burned. He snapped from his reverie, jumping away from the window. Away from the inferno destroying Jean and Mariota’s home.
No, no, no! What had he done?
He had to stop the flames before Mariota discovered his mistake. But how? She would never forgive him. She would never forgive this wrong. Not this time.
He’d gone too far.
He turned and ran from the room. He ran down the stairs and across the foyer. They would hate him now. All of them. Hate him for destroying their lovely home.
Bursting through the front door, he ran across the lawn and threw his body behind the bushes lining the front yard.
What had he done?
He slammed his head into the dirt. Bad, bad, bad. His knuckles rapped against his skull. Bad, bad, bad. When the first shout rang from the house, his heart leaped into his throat. Shadows blurred the second story windows. Screams. Shouts.
Else’s blood-curdling cries.
The family poured out of the smoke-filled entrance. Mariota ran out first, a screaming Else in her arms. John was next, cradling his son Johnnie against his chest with Jean clutching the back of her husband’s shirt. Duncan emerged last, coughing and sputtering as he shepherded his family down the narrow porch steps and out into the cold night.
They ran across the lawn, heading for the bushes near the property’s perimeter not too far from where Simon hid.
He stiffened. He had nowhere to go. Curling onto his side, he tucked his legs into his chest, and made himself small, watching from between thorny branches.
“Oh, dear God. Oh, dear God.” Mariota fell to her knees upon the wet grass a few feet away from the bushes. She carefully laid Else upon the chilled earth. Choked sobs escaped her throat.
Duncan kneeled beside her, his face pale as he looked upon his daughter’s burnt flesh. Jean and John hovered to the side, Johnnie clinging to his mother’s skirts.
“John, get the car,” Jean ordered. “Quickly. We need to get her to the hospital.”
“Where’s Simon?” Mariota looked around frantic. “Duncan, Simon’s still in the house. Oh, God, Duncan, he’s still in the house,” Mariota sobbed.
Duncan stood and grabbed hold of John’s arm. “Get my daughter to your healer. I put her life in your hands.” He turned to his wife. “Go with your kin. Be strong, love.”
“I can’t leave you.” Her gaze darted frantically from her daughter to Duncan’s face. Broken spasms and sharp breaths racked Else’s sobs.
Duncan crouched and touched Mariota’s chin. “I will always be with you. I will always find ye. Now go with John. Save our child. I’ll be right behind you with the boy.” He kissed her forehead then turned and ran across the lawn into the burning house.
The hulking shadow of Duncan Lamont entering the darkened entrance of the smoldering edifice—the would-be home that had been so filled with promise—was Simon’s last memory of the man who was almost a friend.
Almost a da.
* * *
Decades later, Simon MacInnes stood outside his Highland manor watching flames engulf another would-be home. Life had come full circle, now, hadn’t it?
He laughed, his voice echoing in the damp Scottish air. It would seem little Else Walker Reed had gotten her revenge after all.]
Chapter 1
Ardgour, Scotland, Present time
Lights flooded the house’s front lawn.
Caitlin Reed steered her gaze forward. “Here we go.”
Armed men slid from the shadows and spread toward the car in a coordinated blitz that made the Rockettes look klutzy. Red dots flashed against her shirt through the windshield. Weapons locked, loaded, and ready to fire.
Yep, they were going to die.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“This is bad, Ewen. Really bad.” She gripped the steering wheel and swallowed the dread pooling in her mouth.
“Were we to expect different given the hour?” His steely blue-eyed gaze narrowed on the men now standing in front of their stolen vehicle. His long jet-black hair was gone, replaced by a severe buzz cut that accentuated the hard lines of his face, and his intense see-through-you eyes.
“No, but after escaping the manor, I hoped fate would take it easy on us.” She dropped her hands in her lap. “I mean, come on. Daniel promised his contact would help us. This”—she gestured to the windshield—“doesn’t look like help.”
Ewen flashed a warrior grin that spiked her pulse, then pulled a gun from his waistband. “Have faith, lass. He would no’ have sent us here if they meant us harm.”
With his hand on the latch, Ewen eased the door open.
Caitlin scanned the sea of scowling faces through the dirty glass. Her gift, the psychic ability that allowed her to see into a person’s mind through touch, had confirmed Ewen’s words, but what if she’d read Daniel wrong?
What if this was all part of MacInnes’s diabolical plan?
MacInnes is dead, she reminded herself. He couldn’t hurt them anymore.
“Stay in the car until I tell you to exit, aye?”
“No, Ewen, wait—”
“Caitlin—”
“Let me go with you. They won’t hurt me. I’m unarmed.” Not to mention protected by a magic pendant that saved her life the last time a bullet aimed for her heart.
Ewen’s expression hardened. “Doona move, not until I deem their intentions.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Should danger arrive, lock the doors of this beastly contraption and go. Seek shelter at Lainie’s. Do I make myself clear?”
Her stomach twisted. The stubborn ass would get himself killed. He’d barely survived the manor. The image of Ewen dying in her arms still haunted her.
As per Daniel’s plan, they’d found the car along with the address to Lainie’s B&B. It’d broken Caitlin’s heart to relay Daniel’s last words to his former fiancé, but Caitlin had. She’d fulfilled her promise to a dying man.
Laine turned out to be a godsend. She provided Ewen with medicine and a safe place for him to battle the effects of MacInnes’s virus since the antidote hadn’t miraculously healed him. Just this morning, he’d collapsed with a raging fever. Ewen was in no condition to bat a fly, never mind go up against a squadron of angry looking secret army guys.
“Caitlin.” His fifteenth-century brogue thickened with warning. “Your word, lass.”
“Aye, fine,” she said, mimicking his accent. “But I don’t have to like it.”
He eyed her suspiciously before exiting the car. Once outside, he threw his gun to the ground and raised his arms in the air. “We mean you no harm. I wish to speak to Rohan Keane. Know you the man I seek?”
“Who wants to know?” asked a gritty voice from the crowd.
“Ewen MacLean. Enemy of Simon MacInnes.”
Tall and built like a linebacker, a fifty-something man barreled through the pack like Moses parting the Red Sea. In his SWAT gear with weapons strapped to every part of his body, the man was formidable, a little scary, and clearly the person in charge.
This had to be Rohan Keane.
Caitlin stepped out. “We’re friends of Sean McCollum.”
Ewen shot her an I’m-going-to-kill-you look over the roof of the car.
She ignored him and centered her attention on the man striding through his private militia.
“Hold your position,” he said to his team. Aiming his weapon at her head, he drilled those hard eyes her way. “And who would you be?”
A panicky teacher whose voice ran off with her stomach? “My name is—”
Ewen slid over the hood of the car and landed in front of her like a human shield without so much as a wobble. The cutting glance he threw her stopped the rest of the sentence from tumbling out of her mouth.
The guards tensed.
“Rohan Keane?” The tone of Ewen’s question bordered on a warning.
“What brings an enemy of Simon MacInnes to my front lawn?” Eyes hostile, the man adjusted his aim to Ewen’s chest and kept his finger steady on the trigger.
Movement at the exterior of the house caught Caitlin’s attention. A woman stepped out onto the porch, her outline magnified by the interior light beaming from inside the structure.
She closed the door and began her descent down the stairs, oblivious to the weapons flanking her path. Caitlin couldn’t see her face in the dark, but her silhouette was tall and slim. There was something familiar about the way she carried herself across the paved path.
Caitlin’s heart sped.
It couldn’t be, could it?
“Mom?” Sidestepping Ewen, Caitlin ran past Rohan Keane. Grief mixed with disappointment the moment she realized this woman wasn’t her mother.
She’d been a fool to hope, a fool to believe her parents were still alive when the evidence pointed to the contrary. MacInnes was a bastard. He wouldn’t lie about killing her parents. Not when their lives would’ve advanced his agenda.
And yet, there was a fragile part of her heart that guarded that tiny fleck of hope and wouldn’t let it die.
The woman slowed. She was older and gray-haired, standing a few inches shorter than Caitlin’s five-foot-eight frame. She walked with an easy stride and a friendly smile.
“Hello, Caitlin.” The stranger’s voice was elegant, imbued with a modern Scottish accent that washed over Caitlin, triggering a distant memory.
She knew this voice, but from where?
Wait . . .
The muscles in Caitlin’s mouth went slack, and shock replaced the grief that had expanded in her chest only moments before.
Then anger.
Furious anger.
Chapter 2
“You’ve a right to be angry,” the woman said.
“Angry?” Two days ago, Caitlin would’ve been thrilled to find Janet, her grandmother’s best friend, and the only person alive who could reveal what drove the MacEwen’s into hiding.
Finding Janet would’ve put them on the right path to saving Caitlin’s family. Janet McCabe was the key and the answer to Caitlin’s prayers.
Now she was a symbol of all Caitlin had lost.
“Angry doesn’t begin to describe what I’m feeling. I can’t deal with you right now.” Caitlin backtracked to the car, yanked open the door, and sat. She stared at the group of twenty trigger-happy, breathe-wrong-and-we’ll-kill-you people standing beneath a starless night sky.
A week ago, she’d been a second-grade teacher who loved her job and didn’t believe in boogeymen.
Or magic.
Her parents had been alive. Ewen had been living his life in the fifteenth century, and the only major worries on Caitlin’s horizon, other than work, were adopting Jadiel and avoiding her ex.
The naïve school teacher was gone, replaced with a seething woman who’d killed two people with a beam of light that had vomited from her palms. One would think things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Oh, but they did.
Ewen got into the car and quietly closed the door. Time ticked away as they stared ahead at Janet and Rohan Keane’s small army in silence. Caitlin’s head buzzed, and she clenched her jaw to rein in her wild emotions.
At least she hadn’t had a panic attack in front of them all.
There was that.
Finally, she sighed. “She’s Janet McCabe. My grandmother’s best friend. There wasn’t a trace of shock on her face when she greeted me.” There’d been no gasp. No, whatever are you doing in Scotland, dear? Not even a raised brow. “She knew I was here. She knew and did nothing to help us.”
A deep vee pinched Ewen’s dark brows together, drawing her attention away from Janet.
“Ewen, this isn’t your fault. You tried to warn me. I knew the risks coming into this.” Risks she’d take all over again if it meant saving his life.
“There is another way.”
“No, there isn’t.”
Ewen leaned across the seat and cupped one side of her face. “Go back to your life. You are free of MacInnes. Take the money Daniel left us and go home.”
“Home to what? There’s nothing left.” She shook her head, her throat tight. “I made you a promise, remember?”
He pulled her against his chest and kissed the top of her head. “Stubborn lass.”
“I gave you my word, and I mean to keep it.” She repeated the words he’d said to her a million times before. “I’m going to send you back, and you are going to save your clan. One of us will get our happy ending.”
Locked against the warmth of his body, it took everything she had to hold it together and not break down in ugly sobs. “This is our only option, Ewen.” She squirmed out of his embrace. “We’re running out of time. Samhain is in six days.”
He winced and scrubbed a hand over the thick stubble darkening his jaw, then glared through the windshield at the crowd waiting silently in front of their tiny hatchback. Janet hadn’t moved from her spot on the cobblestone path. Rohan Keane stood with his hands on his hip, his gun evidently stowed back in his holster.
“They are working together.” The switch from sexy Highlander to dangerous warrior was instantaneous. “Watch them closely. Guard your words and your temper.”
“That goes for you, too.”
His smile took her breath away. Ewen touched her cheek and winked. “For you, I’ll swallow my tongue.”
Her knees went weak. The idea should have grossed her out. But, no. Her mind preferred to roll in the gutter, remembering the feel of his oh-so-talented tongue against hers.
“Are you okay?”
Caitlin smiled. She loved the way he said “okay.” His heavy accent wrapped around the syllables and spread through her body like warm honey. “Yeah. I’m okay. What doesn’t break you makes you stronger, right?”
Ewen reached for the backpack Daniel had left them containing an obscene amount of cash, a change of clothes, and another gun neither of them knew how to use. They exited the vehicle at the same time. He hung the strap over his left shoulder and met her gaze over the roof of the car.
She blew out a breath. Here goes nothing.
As they approached Janet, Caitlin cleared her throat and tried to control the rising anger building in her chest. This woman had betrayed her family, and the one question burning in her mind was why.
Instead, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Right question, wrong interrogator.” Keane moved to Janet’s right. His face hardened into a suspicious scowl. “Simon MacInnes is not in the habit of allowing his enemies to roam free. So, I’ll ask you again. Why are you here?”
“That’s an interesting choice of words.” Ewen pressed a hand to the small of her back. He was tense and wary, the emotions surging through her skin on contact. “Perhaps the question you mean to ask is not why we’re here, but how we managed to stay alive?”
Keane’s dark eyes shuttered. “Which brings us full circle, doesn’t it?”
“Why don’t we move this discussion inside?” Janet said, calmly scanning the open space behind Caitlin.
“No.” Ewen coiled his hand around Caitlin’s upper arm gently, locking her in place. “Unless you mean to take us by force?”
“Of course not, Mr. MacLean. The choice is yours.” Janet sported a warm smile. “Choice is, after all, the instrument that binds us all.”
“Choice as in free will? Is that how you justify doing nothing while my parents burned to death?” Caitlin’s voice shook. “Go on, deny it.” God knew a part of her hoped and prayed it was all a mistake or some ploy MacInnes had devised to break her.
Janet had the decency to flinch. “I am sorry for your loss. Else and Robert were good people.”
The sympathy in the woman’s voice tore open Caitlin’s grief. “So it’s true then?” She was going to be sick. “I want answers.”
Janet exchanged a look with Rohan and then nodded. “Come.”
She led them up the narrow walkway with the quick, energetic steps of someone half her age. Her short, silver-gray hair fell in soft layers, forming a point at the base of her neck. A spiffy navy tracksuit and a decent pair of running shoes completed the look.
Caitlin tried to focus on her surroundings as they climbed the porch stairs and entered the house into a small foyer. Tried being the operative word. Her mind kept running back to the Janet she’d met a year ago—a frail, stiff-legged caricature who sat beside her inside the old Kilfinan church.
The woman escorting them today was fit and strong, a complete one-eighty from the woman who needed assistance to descend the church steps. This Janet led a convoy of armed men and women through a disaster of a house fit for an HGTV rescue with the confidence of a lieutenant leading her unit into war.
Everything had been a lie.
When they met last year, Janet had to have already known Simon MacInnes was a threat, which meant she’d had ample time to warn Caitlin, to warn her family, but did nothing—nothing—to stop MacInnes from churning through their lives like a category five hurricane.
Caitlin clenched her fists. “Where are you taking us?”
“Somewhere private, where we can answer your questions.” She stopped before a wooden wall and watched Caitlin with another of her indecipherable expressions.
Ewen leaned over Caitlin’s shoulder and whispered to Janet, “Are you being held against your will?”
Rohan shoved to the front of the group to stand beside Janet, who clamped her mouth shut. “If you’ve got anything to say, anything at all, you say it to me directly,” Keane demanded. “Not a peep to my people, got it?”
“Is that so?” Ewen’s brogue thickened, making his words nearly unintelligible.
“You’re in no position to make demands, MacLean.”
That was the wrong thing to say to a proud warrior struggling with his feelings of inadequacy thanks to his lack of twenty-first century know-how.
Ewen’s eyes darkened. He spread his legs wide and folded his massive arms across his chest. His six-foot-three frame seemed to expand and fill the tight hallway.
The man could posture with the best of them.
“Who I choose to speak with is of no concern of yours.” Ewen’s quiet tone was the calm before the storm. Keane would be a fool to underestimate the man standing before him.
Rohan Keane assessed Ewen. His glowering gaze took in every bruise and every cut before lingering briefly on the trembling hand she held at Ewen’s arm.
“Are you allied with Simon MacInnes?” Ewen asked again.
Keane spat on the floor, his mouth puckering into an animal-like sneer. “No.”
Okay, so MacInnes wasn’t on Rohan’s Do Not Kill list. Good to know.
The tension in Ewen’s body eased, and he squeezed her hand.
This small show of tenderness fired fierce emotions into life—feelings she shouldn’t feel when everything in her life was so gray and uncertain.
“We are no’ spies, old man. Our mutual hatred of MacInnes binds us to a common goal. But make no mistake, this wee show of power”—Ewen gestured to the guards surrounding them—“willna force our cooperation. I’ve no’ yet decided whether you are to be my ally, Rohan Keane, or my enemy.”
Keane edged Caitlin to the side until he and Ewen were face to face.
“Takes balls to look me in the eye and call me old. I’ll give you that.” There might’ve been a trace of admiration in Keane’s faded Scottish accent, but there wasn’t a shadow of a smile on his rock-hard expression. “Let’s get one thing straight. I make the rules around here. My word is law. If you can swallow your fucking pride and follow orders, you might find a place for yourselves. Your choice, MacLean.”
“Prove yourself a worthy leader, and I may consider your offer.”
Janet cleared her throat. “Rohan, might I suggest we give Caitlin and Mr. MacLean a chance to recuperate from their ordeal before negotiating demands? Perhaps after a good night’s sleep, they will be more amicable to your appeals. After all, they’ve not had time to familiarize themselves with our cause.”
Their cause?
Caitlin chewed the inside of her mouth to keep from snorting. What cause was that, exactly? The peddling of cowardice? Betrayal?
“We must not forget trust is earned, Rohan, not given,” Janet said.
“I have forgotten nothing.” The air in the room chilled with the undercurrent running between Janet and Rohan. There were secrets lodged in that icy wave. Probably the same secrets that had killed her parents, and the same secrets that would explain the magic pulsing in Caitlin’s veins.
At the thought of her magic, heat flushed her palms. With one touch, Caitlin could tap into the old woman’s mind. Learn what she knew. It was an invasion of her privacy, and that didn’t sit well with Caitlin.
At all.
But Janet hadn’t played fair, and there was more at stake than one woman’s personal boundaries. It was a line Caitlin was willing to cross.
“It’s alright. We came to you,” Caitlin said. “Mr. Keane has every right to question our motives.”
Ewen arched a brow at her. What are you up to? his gorgeous eyes telegraphed.
I’ll tell you later, she answered with a flash of her own.
Focusing her attention on Janet McCabe, Caitlin raised her hand to the woman’s shoulder and squeezed. “Thank you for your concern.”
She braced herself for the rush of emotion that would flood her mind like a raging river, but nothing came. Not a single emotion flowed. Not a single sensation brushed her consciousness. Just miles and miles of a cold, empty expanse stretching in every direction as far as Caitlin could see.
How could that be? Even when she sensed a wall, she could feel emotion beyond the block. But with Janet McCabe, there was nothing.
Maybe the velour hoodie was too thick and Caitlin needed skin on skin for a better read?
Janet patted Caitlin’s hand, and once again, that steel wall smashed into Caitlin’s senses. But the knowing smile on the woman’s lips said it all.
She knows.
Caitlin broke contact. What the hell was she? A sensor? An empath?
Or something far, far worse?
READY FOR MORE?
Ewen peered into his empty glass, debating whether he should go for a third. In his time, whisky was served in a wooden Quaich, offered by the host to his guests as both a welcome and a farewell. Times were no’ so different. The hearts of men were still filled with love or hate, hope or despair, fidelity or betrayal.
— Ewen MacLean/Blood Oath