Perhaps he’d heard me and I couldn’t hear him.
Right. Or maybe I’d wake up back in Alloway, snug in my four-poster bed at Dunbrae Cottage, and realize this was all just a dream.
“That hurt, you big troll!”
I twisted around to see if Kenna was okay, but only succeeded in tripping on a bump in the path. My captor jerked me back onto my feet, practically yanking my arm out of the socket. I sucked in a breath through clenched teeth.
“Keep goin’,” he demanded.
A sharp pinching sensation stung my throat, followed by warmth I knew was a thin line of blood trickling onto the collar of my hoodie. This was no dream. If my prince wasn’t going to save me, I’d have to save myself. Too bad I hadn’t paid more attention during those self-defense phys-ed classes. The only moves I remembered were the eye jab and the knee to the privates. Since the instructor had never mentioned how to accomplish this while being held at knifepoint, I decided to try reasoning with my captor. “Sir, I can explain—”
“Silence!” He tightened his grip on my already aching arm, and I decided to listen.
We walked a good distance and around a concealing bend before our abductors stopped. The knife still hovering near my throat, I moved with care as the creep holding me addressed his cohort. “Quit yer laggin’, Fergus.”
As I got my first good look at the guy restraining Kenna, I stifled a gasp of surprise. He was the size of an evergreen tree. At least a foot and a half taller than me, he had the sort of fair-yet-ruddy complexion that turned his skin every shade of mottled pink imaginable. His hair, a long shock of yellow, was baby-fine with two slender braids extending from his temples. And his face—his face looked so young and innocent I had a hard time believing he would hurt anyone. Ever.
The man-boy, Fergus, regarded me for a moment with pale blue eyes and then frowned in a way that made me want to give him a cookie to make things better. “I was just thinkin’, Gideon. Shouldna we inform the MacCrae?”
My captor—presumably Gideon—relaxed his grip slightly, allowing me to twist away from his blade to look at him. He had a good thirty years on Fergus. A few inches taller than me, he was bald and slight, but comprised of sinewy muscle as if he’d spent every day of his life running a decathlon. Weathered by sun and age, his bearing said hunter and tracker. More importantly, it said, “Don’t mess with me.”
Gideon glanced back the way we came. “Later. Fer now, let’s get them to the castle. We’ll be takin’ the low gate.”
Whatever the “low gate” was, it caused Fergus a moment of concern that he did his best to hide. He acquiesced with a solemn nod.
Encouraged by his hesitation, I addressed him. “Excuse me, Fergus?”
“Silence, lassie! You wenches will remain quiet unless spoken to.”
Fergus grimaced. “Let the lass speak.”
“And let her beguile me? Notta chance!”
“Och, Gideon, we donna know they’re in league with the witch.”
Witch? Cold slithered down my throat and dropped into my stomach, like I’d swallowed an ice cube. Maybe Kenna was right and the people of Doon were burn-witches-at-the-stake-Puritans after all.
Gideon tightened his iron grip on my arm. “There’s magic afoot, I tell ye. How did they come to appear in our land? The Brig o’ Doon does no’ open fer another fortnight.”
Kenna took a step forward, but the giant didn’t let her move far. “We used my aunt and uncle’s rings.”
“Show me.”
When Kenna lifted her hand, Gideon yanked the ring off her finger so carelessly that she cradled her hand to her chest and bit her lip. He examined the ring with a catlike hiss, then looked at me with a manic gleam that gave his blue eyes a purplish glow. The tip of his knife bit in farther. “Yers too.”