demons do, aye?”
“Colin, I find it verra difficult to believe the mon I just spoke with is a demon. If naught else, surely he would have the power to get away from Hervey. That my cousin may lust after men was something I had begun to suspect. Only the fact that I kenned all too weel that he beds women kept me from being sure of it. I didnae realize ye could lust after both. I had another cousin, a woman, who only loved other women, so I am nay ignorant of such things. Aye, I was a little shocked but, as ye say, I cannae condemn as the church does. God made us all, didnae he, and I cannae see how loving someone, anyone, can be such a great sin. Lusting as my cousin does, aye. Love, nay. But, to harm or kill a person because he or she doesnae share your lust is wrong. Verra wrong. I thought it was all done willingly.”
“Most times it is, mistress. E’en the lasses who dinnae really want to warm the laird’s bed make no real complaint when they are called there. It isnae worth it, aye?”
“There will ne’er be another nay uttered now,” said Fergus. “Nay when it could mean a demon will be fed your soul.”
“Ye cannae be sure that is what happened, Fergus,” said Brona. “I came down here because I heard whispers about a mon down here, a mon caged like an animal and being tortured. I decided I needed to ken what my cousin was doing and why. Now I have e’en more I must learn about such as what has happened to Peter. And why the two of ye are still held here. I must go now, however, for my cousin will soon be arriving. Answer me this, Colin—do ye and yours have anywhere safe ye can flee to?”
“Aye, mistress. Why?”
“I am nay sure yet, but this is wrong. All of this is so verra, verra wrong.”
Heming heard the soft rustle of skirts as Brona fled the dungeon. The rapid click of the dog’s claws against the stone floor told him that Mistress Brona was running away. It was no surprise. The fear of being discovered down here might be enough to make her run, but he suspected talk of demons and murder gave her speed as well.
He sighed and tried to get into a more comfortable seated position. It appeared that Mistress Brona Kerr was just what she seemed to be—a young woman appalled by the actions of her kinsman and struggling to decide what, if anything, she could do to right things. Unfortunately, that young woman now had to wonder if he was a demon who had killed a man by ripping out his throat and drinking his blood along with his soul. Heming had to wonder if she would even bother to try to find out the truth now. It would not surprise him to discover that she no longer even thought he was innocent of all but attracting her cousin’s interest in the impossible.
It was difficult not to rage against a lost chance at freedom. Heming knew that, if Peter was dead, all chance of Mistress Brona helping him to escape her cousin was gone. She might not fully believe he was some soul-sucking demon, but she would certainly think him some dangerous madman.
An all too familiar footstep dragged Heming from his morose thoughts and his whole body tensed. Hervey was returning and with at least three men. The blood that had been forced upon him had almost healed all of his wounds and restored his strength, so Heming knew that this time the torture would last for a long time simply because he was now strong enough to endure it. He pushed aside a sudden overwhelming sense of defeat. He could not let Hervey know that he was slowly winning this uneven battle. He prayed that Mistress Brona would judge him innocent and find a way to free him from this hell for he knew he was doomed to madness if this constant torture continued for very much longer.
He also prayed that Hervey did not want to see the drinking of blood again. Colin and Fergus feared they were being held for just that reason and Heming knew that was a real possibility. He also knew that if he was driven to feed again on either of those men, he was doomed. No one at Rosscurrach 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
