Page 12 of Enchanted

Tormod tied the blindfold then stepped back. “Now what?”

Having no choice but to proceed in front of his brother, Keiran brought his hand to lie on the man’s chest.

At the touch from his enemy, the soldier’s body stiffened. “What are you doing?”

Ignoring the prisoner and Tormod’s presence, Keiran gathered a measure of heat inside himself and sent it into the man’s chest like a brief bolt of lightning before pulling his hand back. He wanted to frighten the man, not kill him.

The soldier arched his back and howled in pain. When he settled against the bed once more his face was ashen, and his body trembled. “What was that?”

“Aye,” Tormod asked, looking at his brother as if he was someone unknown to him. “I thought you said nay to torture.”

“’Tis a little trick I learned from the fairies and is harmless,” Keiran said flatly. “Tell us what we want to know, or I will be forced to do that again.”

The soldier shook his head. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to murder me when I do.”

“Your life is safe with us. We promise.” Keiran clutched his hands, fighting a wave of dizziness that came over him. He was grateful not to have to deliver another shock to receive the cooperation they needed. He still had not recovered fully from healing both Rosalyn and this man earlier. Keiran pulled the blindfold from the man’s eyes.

At Tormod’s nod in concurrence, the man said, “We were ordered to kill the woman and her men.”

“Ordered by whom?” Keiran pressed.

The man paused and looked away from Keiran. “Lieutenant James Long.”

Keiran closed his eyes for a moment. Agony rocked him as he absorbed the soldier’s words. Opening them, he said in a rough whisper, “Rosalyn’s betrothed ordered you to kill her?”

The man nodded.

“Have you any idea why?” Keiran asked.

“The lieutenant agreed to the betrothal under protest. He had no intention of ever marrying the girl. He only wanted to get her brother off his tail. Lieutenant Long said he would rather marry his horse than a coarse, unsophisticated woman such as Rosalyn de Clare.”

Keiran knit his brow. “Why does he think her uncivilised? She is English, as is he.”

The soldier swallowed roughly. “She is part Scot, therefore a part of her is unacceptable to him.”

“Then he never should have agreed to marry her,” Keiran exploded. “What kind of man would do something like that to be rid of a woman?”

The soldier’s mouth tightened, and he shifted away from Keiran as far as his restraints would allow. “One who will come and slay your entire family without a second thought, especially now that you have taken something that once belonged to him.”

“The MacLeods do not fear Lieutenant James Long or any of the English. We can hold our own against whatever they might have in store for us. You, however, should prepare yourself to be transported on the morrow to be reunited with some of your brethren who also tried to test the MacLeods.”

The soldier paled. “I am to be a prisoner?”

Keiran stood. “You wished to remain unharmed. So now you will join the others we have captured since the English invaded our lands.”

“I’ll stay with our prisoner until you send the guards back into the chamber,” Tormod said.

Keiran stepped from the room, and signalled the guards to return, before heading down the hallway. Should he tell Rosalyn that her betrothed had tried to kill her, or was she better off not knowing? Perhaps if he saw her again, he would be better able to decide if she was a woman who wanted to know the truth or avoid it altogether.

He’d known fairies like that in Fairyland—those who had grasped the illusion of contentment and had ignored reality.

Rosalyn did not strike him as frivolous, but what did he truly know about her except that her skin was soft, her eyes were like amber glowing in the afternoon sun, and that during their brief time together, she had been the only one to break through the barrier of aloofness he had built around himself since his return.

In her presence, he had felt almost human again, a flesh-and-blood man of the earth, for the first time in nine years.