Page 13 of Rekindled (The MacTavish Heirs #5)

In which there’s the fight we’ve all been waiting for.

Catriona…

Lucas insists on stopping repeatedly the next day for breaks.

“I’m fine,” I insist, “we’re never getting out of these mountains if ye dinnae stop trying to baby me.”

“Your face is pale and your gait is unsteady,” he says evenly. “If ye have another series of spasms, it’s going to take even longer, aye?”

There’s something about him being right that makes me hate him. I grit my teeth and keep climbing.

If this dinnae feel like some kind of death march, I’d really enjoy being here.

The Atlas Mountains are strange and beautiful.

In the far distance, there’s a series of vivid green terraced fields where the farmers cut into the mountain to create farming plots.

They stand out against the white rocks and below, there’s a lake, a cerulean color I’ve not seen before .

“Where’s our next stop?” I dinnae argue when Lucas calls for another break. He’s eyeing the gathering clouds with a frown.

“There’s a series of castles along the Atlas Mountains,” he says, offering me a drink of water.

“They were used in the 15th and 16th centuries to defend against the Ottoman Empire and the Portuguese. There was a well-defined trade route that the invaders used, the fortified castles were used to turn them back at every point.”

A streak of lightning blazes across the sky, followed by thunder loud enough to feel in my bones.

“Most of them are still standing.” He pulls his huge backpack on, watching me. “We’re not far from one of them. We can take shelter, make a fire. I’m thinking we dinnae have much time to beat this storm. I can carry ye, if ye let me.”

“Along with the backpack that weighs as much as I do?” I scoff. “I can do this, Lucas. I’m gonna need an extra pain pill tonight, but I’ll keep up.”

He’s torn, I can tell. The desire to wrap me in cotton wool and treat me like I’m a wee fragile thing is warring with his urgency to get us to the castle. Giving a sharp nod, he takes off again.

After another hour of scrambling around boulders, I can see the castle. It’s made of golden stone, and the two towers are crumbling.

“How far are we?”

“Maybe ten minutes,” he says, taking my hand. “Let me help ye over this rockslide.”

It’s then that the heavens open up and all of nature’s fury descends upon us at once. I’m Scottish and no stranger to rain, but this feels like needles pelting into my skin and I grit my teeth tight, keeping them from chattering.

“Almost there, lass. Not far.” Lucas shouts over the thunder.

Another violent crackle of lightning seems to shoot sideways and when it touches earth, it blows a stone outcropping apart not far from us and I scream.

He sweeps me up in his arms, hopping from rock to rock with the ease of a Highland wildcat and we’re at the castle in minutes.

The iron gates at the entrance are massive and likely rusted shut, but Lucas kicks them open after two or three tries.

“I’m gonna find the kitchen,” he says, lifting me back into his arms and striding across the courtyard. “It’ll have the easiest source for a fire and they tend to have low ceilings, quicker to warm up.”

“W- w- will anyone see the smoke?” I’ve given up, teeth chattering and bone-deep shuddering.

“Not in this storm.” He shoulders open another door and it’s the promised kitchen, with a big fireplace. There’s a thick layer of dust and sand, but I can still see the vivid tiles on the walls, cobalt blue and yellow. “Ah, grand. There’s a huge pile of charcoal,” he says, setting me down.

In minutes, there’s a cheerful fire in the ancient brazier and I scoot as close as I dare.

He’s taken off his shirt, hanging it up to dry and I greedily examine his tattoos.

He’d gotten more, when he went to Siberia, a skull on a barren tree inked on his back.

On his side, there’s a thistle woven expertly through a complicated Celtic knot.

“Ye need to be out of those wet clothes or I’ll never get ye warmed up.” He’s rooting through his backpack and holds up my shredded skirt and sweater, stiff from the dunking in the stream yesterday and then dried overnight, but they’ll fit me at least.

“Ye need to turn around,” I say stiffly, holding the sweater against my chest.

“I’m going through the rest of the castle for a security check.” He sounds completely indifferent to my potential nudity. Not even in a gentlemanly-like way. Just indifferent.

Bastard.

“Grand. Counting the minutes to your return.”

Lucas gives me a cool, level stare before leaving the room.

He wasn’t always this impenetrable. The memory of our last night together blooms in full color and I growl, pushing the memory away and yanking off my wet shirt and bra.

The sweater feels wonderfully warm against my skin, which is still raised with goosebumps the size of the boulders outside.

Wrestling myself out of the soaked pants takes longer, but I’m finally dry again and wringing the rainwater out of my hair by the time he returns.

“No signs of any recent activity here.” He’s still shirtless, damn him and the firelight plays along his defined biceps, those chiseled abs and the V line of muscle pointing enticingly to what’s under his low-slung cargo pants.

I want to scream at him to get dressed. Or take everything off and let me look. I’m leaning more towards the latter.

“...ye awright?”

He’s looking concerned and I flush. “Fine. My brain’s just warming up too. Ye were saying?”

“I was asking about your back. What pain level are we talking, then?”

Shifting with a slight wince, I admit, “A five out of ten.”

“I should have carried ye.” He pulls out the pill bottles he’d stolen for me yesterday, taking some tablets out. “Two of each, aye?”

“Aye, thank you. And carrying me all over the Atlas Mountains is so sustainable.” I say dryly. “Ye kept me alive. Ye got me medication. You’re doing more than your part here, Lucas.”

“I should have ye home by now.” He unbuttons his wet pants, looking up as I flush and spin with my back to him. “Trust fecking Hugo Dubois to put ye in the most remote and inhospitable of his lairs.”

“Hah! That’s what I called it, his villain’s lair,” I chuckle, feeling warm and safer now that he’s back.

And possibly naked.

“Aye?” His deep voice is right behind me, and I hear the rustle of clothing.

Damn. He’s getting dressed.

“What did he say?” he asks.

“He seemed taken aback by it, so maybe that poisoning was sparked by the lair comment as well as not knowing who he was, he’s so-”

“Poisoning?” Lucas takes my shoulders and turns me, keeping his hands there. He’s furious, skin drawn tight, his eyes the color of the storm clouds outside. “Did he hurt ye? What happened?”

“Oh, it-” My throat feeling like its dissolving, muscles slack and twitching…

the horror of it hits me again. “He put a Death Cap mushroom in my dinner. When he could tell it was taking effect, he put a tray of antidotes in front of me and made me find the right one. That wasn’t bad. The toxin is fairly common and-”

I have never seen Lucas so enraged. He’d rarely deviated from his cool demeanor for the four years he was my bodyguard. Now, though, his eyes are alight like the fires of Hell.

“That motherfecker poisoned ye?”

“It’s fine, it’s awright.” I’m patting his chest gently, appeasingly and I can feel his heart thundering. “It was a bad night and morning, but I got the mushroom bits out before they could cause more damage and the antidote did the rest.”

“I should’ve killed him before I took ye out of there,” he hisses. “I’m gonna go back and cut that piece of shite into-”

“Aye,” I agree. “The little ratbag deserves to die. Not now, though.”

He’s so angry. I’ve never seen him like this. Not even the night he hauled me out of that party after I’d managed to sneak out of my flat without him catching me and punched my date in the nose, and-

Lucas fecking Stewart has no business getting angry about another man hurting me. He threw away everything between us .

I’m exhausted. My spine is sending flames of agony through my midsection and irrationally, I am enraged at this man.

“Oh. Now ye care? Now ye care that I was in danger? Not for the last three years after ye walked out of my life and never spoke to me again? Ye went to fecking Siberia to get away from me? Ye fecking hypocrite!”

Lucas puts his hands on his hips, staring at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

Maybe I have.

“Cat,” he says slowly, “I had to leave. There was no choice.”

This breathtakingly arrogant bastard.

“There was a choice!” I stalk forward, smacking him on his bare chest. “Ye could have let me talk to my father, made him see reason and-”

“I broke the first oath I made to your family! I got involved with the asset!” I hit him again and he dinnae seem to notice. “It was my responsibility to report to the Chieftain.”

“The asset?” Now, I’m screaming. “Did ye just call me ‘the asset,’ like I’m a fecking package to be delivered? Not even a human being? After working together for four years, that’s all I was to ye?” I laugh bitterly, “Well no fecking wonder ye could sleep with me and leave without a word. ”

“Ye know that’s not true.” Lucas grabs my flailing hands, holding them together.

“Ye know how I felt about ye. Every fecking day was torture, not being able to touch ye. But if a man loses his honor, he’s got nothing left, lass.

I’d intended to ask the Chieftain to release me from my service, so I could be with you.

As a man, not an employee of the MacTavishes.

Though I knew the chances were 50/50 that the Chieftain would shoot me in the face. ”

“Ye took my choice away from me.” My voice wobbles humiliatingly. I will not cry in front of this man. “You made the choice to not let me be part of the discussion, my choice to tell my da that ye were important to me, that I…”

My hands are still clasped in his enormous, warm ones. Against his beautifully sculpted chest. Yanking away from him, I turn. “I’m going to sleep. Dinnae bother me.”

“That’s a good idea,” Lucas says coldly. “The storm’s dying down. We’ll leave at first light.”

Then he walks out of the room, just the way he did three years ago.