Page 69 of Enchantment of a Highlander

Fire burned through Alec and set his muscles ablaze with the urge to knock the other man on his arse. “Aye, I do understand. My da drove ye out and threatened yer lives—then after he died, I came home. Ye thought I’d make good on his threats, so ye ran. Am I wrong?”

Niall’s thick body flinched with tension. “It wasna like that.”

“Then how was it?” Alec’s words grated harsh in his throat. “How was it so awful ye left the innocent to die?”

Niall continued to stare into the distance.

“I asked ye a question,” Alec said. “No as laird, but as witness to the horrors of yer failure.”

“Aye,” Niall growled. “We thought ye’d be like him and so we hid. He used us for cruel deeds, things we’ll no ever find forgiveness for.”

“That’s why ye hid?” Alec said, his gaze once more on the moonlit horizon where no men appeared. “Even when ye knew yer people were being murdered?”

The fight slipped from Niall’s face the same way the light faded from the eyes of the dying. “We were too far from the village. We dinna know until too late and then we came. We dinna know…” Niall’s voice trailed off.

“Ye know now.” Alec shot him a hard look in the darkness. “They need ye. Stay with me and fight for them. I’ll pay ye well and I will promise to never make ye do something ye dinna like.”

Movement showed against the horizon and several of Niall’s men appeared in the distance.

“Aye.” Niall gave a firm nod. “We’ll fight with ye and we’ll protect the people. Now let’s see if they’ve had any success so we can get the hell home. I’ve no slept in a real bed for far too long.”

Alec leapt onto his horse in response. Niall followed suit and together the two rode toward the men emerging, empty-handed, from the woods.

His father’s men had been found, yet the knot in Alec’s gut did not ease. Niall had claimed the men had not known of the attacks, yet how could they not?

Surely they’d had some contact with the villagers unless they were hiding on the other side of Scotland.

He’d seen the guilt shine in the other man’s eyes as sure as stars shone in the sky above.

Niall and his men had known about the village attacks.

They’d known and they’d stayed hidden.

Alec rode forward in silence, accepting the heavy burden of realization.

The men he’d sought to save him, his father’s former soldiers, were all broken.

They even looked broken when Alec approached them.

Their shoulders were slumped, their faces lined and weary.

True, it’d been ten years since he’d seen them last, but some had been very young when he left.

They all appeared old and weathered now.

“We found one,” said one of the younger ones. His dark hair shadowed his face in the moonlight, but Alec still recognized him by the jut of his massive nose. Lachlan.

Alec looked between the returning soldiers for the captured outlaw. Finding none, he turned his gaze to Lachlan once more.

Lachlan rubbed his neck and shifted with obvious unease. “We had him to question and then he, uh, he escaped.”

“Escaped?” Niall asked in a flat tone.

“Well, he escaped, but he dinna get away. We killed him.”

Alec pressed his lips together in an attempt to seal in his frustration. Yes, they were supposed to kill the outlaws, but they were supposed to question them first, to find out where they lived, to gain information on how to destroy them.

“So, we’ve learned nothing,” Alec said finally. His voice sounded as heavy and tired as he felt.