Revenge (Book 3 of Lost Highlander series) Read online

  Yes you are. Another voice sounded in her head, calm and cool. She froze in her pacing and started to shake.

  And you know where to get them.

  She raced to the bathroom door and reached out a trembling hand. If she opened it she would see Lachlan’s sweet smile and loving blue eyes and she would be saved. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would be all right if she opened the door. She started to turn the handle.

  Or you could end this.

  Piper turned and ran from the bedroom and down the stairs. She made it outside before she started to sob. The night air was chilly but she was burning up with energy. Gripping the edge of one of the wrought iron benches, she tried to get her legs to bend so she could sit and think and calm down.

  A light was coming from the little bedroom off the kitchen that Mellie had taken over for her own. She was probably studying or watching a movie. She wouldn’t mind if Piper tapped on her door and wanted to hang out for a while. They had so much to catch up on. Still gripping the bench, she turned in the direction of the kitchen door.

  Then she let go of the bench and headed away from the house, down the hill and past the stable. She hadn’t brought a flashlight and when she was beyond the motion sensor garden lights, she kept walking purposefully through the dark. The thing that was guiding her wouldn’t let her fall. When she reached the door of the crypt, her heart beat steadily with calm determination. The stream of tears she’d cried while she’d walked dried on her cheeks. The giant old padlock hung open on the door.

  Come in, the cool voice in her mind said.

  She pushed open the door.

  Chapter 7

  “No, ye need to stay down,” Quinn said, shoving Pietro forcefully back onto the couch. “Everytime we think ye are better, ye fall back down again. I canna have ye die on me.”

  Pietro nodded and stared at the ceiling. His body felt like it was floating in the ocean, the sickening tides moving him back and forth. A hundred years seemed to pass as he watched the light fade across the walls.

  Someone came in and lit the lamps and stoked the fire, checking his head and smiling at him. The kind lady, Quinn’s aunt, brought him some broth but he couldn’t swallow it. Eventually he closed his eyes.

  Everyone was gathered around him, sitting on chairs in the room. He could make out their muffled voices, but not quite their words. He imagined this was his wake. Funny how his splitting headache followed him after death. Just his luck.

  “We shall wait for the news. When Geordie releases the prisoner, it will take him several days to make his way back. I’ve sent word to prepare. I’ve no doubt we shall have to take the fight back to the Glens.”

  Pietro realized nobody was mourning him too hard if they were talking strategy. He was a peaceful enough person, despite having signed up to go to war in his own time. He’d just wanted to fly, really, not fight. But strangely, now, he did want to fight. Sadly, he would never have the chance. He really hoped he’d leave his body before they buried him. Being stuck behind like this was disconcerting.

  “I dinna know why ye insist on keeping the lass with us?” Aunt Gwen said and Pietro bristled from beyond the pale. How dare she be so quick to turn over his darling Bella to her tyrant of a father.

  “I had verra specific instructions from Lachlan before he left, Aunty. I willna go against him, nor should ye speak so.”

  He heard her grumble but she didn’t argue further. Quinn cleared his throat loudly and someone else came into the room. A soft, gentle hand rested on his forehead. He liked it, knowing it was Bella, happy she at least cared. More mumbled conversations until the room became dark again behind his eyes. The lamps had been extinguished and still Bella sat with him. He heard her crying quietly and felt her hand shaking as she stroked his hair.

  With a start he sat straight up, almost knocking her teeth out. She hurtled back in her chair and clutched her chest.

  “I thought ye were asleep,” she said, wiping at her eyes.

  “I thought I was dead,” he said, looking around. He pressed his knuckles into his hot, grainy eyes and coughed. Immediately she offered him a cup of water, which he drained and breathlessly asked for more. “How long was I out?”

  She filled the cup from a pitcher on a sideboard and frowned. “Since yesterday.” She watched him drain the second cup of water.

  He lay back down, every last drop of energy he had expended by sitting up. His pain was excruciating, and he knew he would no longer be able to pretend he was getting better.

  “I love ye,” he said, in case. Every breath could be his last, and he didn’t want to waste any of them. “Just so ye know.”

  She put her head on his chest and started to cry.

  Chapter 8

  Piper blinked in the darkness, closing the crypt door behind her. She walked without hesitation to a ledge that held several small votive candles and a lighter. A few seconds later she was surrounded by a halo of candle light. The air was cold and dry, the first room of the family mausoleum containing the most recently deceased.

  She walked past her great-grandmother Fenella’s tomb; a small cubby containing her cremated remains. Her grandmother had an honorary place next to Fenella. She had run away from Castle Glen when she was sixteen and never returned. No one in the family ever knew why. Piper didn’t even know about this place until Fenella left it all to her the year before.

  There was nothing she needed in this room, but she wanted to stay. She didn’t want to go further underground, to where the bodies were. Where the bones were. It was safe, almost comforting up here with Fenella. She had visited before, trying to feel her great-grandmother’s presence. It had never happened before, but maybe this was the time, if she only stayed longer.

  Hurry.

  The voice came clearly back into her mind and she shook her head to try to physically get it out. She’d been out of control like this once before, and had ended up here.

  “Yeah, okay,” she answered, to make herself feel less alone and maybe less crazy. She laughed quietly when it didn’t help. “Not surprising,” she muttered.

  A jolt passed through her, like something was trying to shake her, get her to concentrate. She paused for another moment in front of the ledge containing Fenella’s remembrances and touched the little rolled up scroll resting there. She had done that before as well, trying to find a connection. But now, as then, there was nothing. It seemed the only ancestor who wanted to commune with her had dark intentions.

  And Piper was set on destroying that link once and for all. She headed deeper into the crypt, holding her candle out in front of her, though she didn’t really need the light. Something else was guiding her steps. The candle made her feel better though, so she clung to the glass holder and tried not to let it waver too much in her shaking hands.

  She passed the first room, not knowing if she had a certain destination or not, but knowing it wasn’t time to stop yet. The further back she got, the older the bodies were. Each was marked with a stone or plaque. Some had intricately carved busts or weapons surrounding their tombs. She briefly toyed with the idea of seeing if Lachlan’s tomb was still there. They had tinkered with history, so maybe his tomb and his severe looking marble bust would be gone. She was only one room away from where she remembered him to be but stopped instead of continuing forward.

  Here.

  She halted as if a hand had reached out and stopped her. She looked down in alarm to see if someone was actually touching her shoulder and sighed to find she was alone. While she was certain about what she had to do, there was still a part of her that was telling her to leave the crypt and go back to the castle, go upstairs and get cozy with Lachlan.

  She laughed nervously and looked around her. She was in a part of the crypt that contained her ancestors from the early nineteenth century. She was deep in, but there was far deeper. She could break free from the cold sensation that had been guiding her and sprint out of there. Turning to do just that, she heard the voice again and sank
to the ground, trying to block it out by covering her ears and humming softly under her breath.

  He will die. They all will die if you do not take care of this. You are poised to rid your life of the evil that plagues you.

  The words kept repeating in her head until she took her hands away and stopped humming. Resolve took the place of fear and anxiety. Disbelief had long since fled.

  Standing up, she walked unseeing to the nearest tomb. It was firmly and permanently closed. Whoever was in there had been sealed in for good. Piper spread her hands out on the wall and felt all around the rectangular outline, pressing her fingers into the crumbling mortar edges. A smooth single stone had been fitted into the wall. She began to dig away at one corner, finding the old stone start to chip away in larger and larger chunks. Soon she would have an opening large enough to fit her hand through and then she would see if she could reach what she needed.

  If not, she would keep digging away at the edges until the entire stone fell away. Sweat popped out on her brow, but she didn’t pause to wipe it away, just kept scratching away at the stone surface of the tomb. Closing her eyes helped her to work harder and she blindly clawed with her nails into the tiny crack she had opened, pulling and ripping.

  An outside force tugged at her shoulders, coupled with a distant noise, like a cry from the bottom of a well. Piper tried to jerk away but it was adamantly opposed to her reaching her goal. No matter how hard she struggled, the vice-like grip on her shoulders kept trying to tear her from her purpose. The bones. If she had the bones she could call Daria here or go to where she was and kill the hell out of that witch. No amount of crying, pleading or pulling was going to keep her from that goal.

  “Piper, please!”

  The pleading grew louder in her ears and with one strong wrenching heave, she was dislodged from the cracks in the tomb. Evie shook her so that her head snapped back and thumped the wall, then pulled her toward her, almost cracking her spine with the strength of her hug.

  Emotions drained out of her like a sickness passing as she stood stiffly in Evie’s arms, leaving her weak and embarrassed. She pulled away and looked around, then down at her hands, which were filthy and bleeding.

  “Oh my God,” Piper said, wiping her hands on her skirt. She laughed shakily when she realized she’d come into the crypt in her pencil skirt and high heels, and … had she been digging at the wall? Evie was still holding onto her shoulders and crying. Ugly crying. “What happened?”

  Evie wiped away her tears and took a deep breath. “Mellie saw you wander down here. She tried to call after you but you either didn’t hear her or you ignored her, so she came and got me.”

  “Lachlan?” Piper said, scared of what he would think about her wandering the estate in a trance.

  Bile rose in her throat, as she realized she had been wandering the estate in a trance. Again. She looked down at her hands and started shaking.

  Evie shook her head. “He thinks we went for a walk,” she said, then looked like she might start crying some more. “I was yelling for you the whole time I was in here, didn’t you hear me?”

  Piper shook her head. She hadn’t heard anything except the voice urging her to … She made a strangled noise and turned to look at the crypt. She had thought she was making such good progress, but she’d barely caused a few scratches in the edge of the stone. Her hands were far worse off than the tomb was. Evie took her hands and turned them over, looking at the ragged, bleeding nails.

  “What were you trying to do?” she asked. Piper could tell by the look on her face that Evie had a good idea. They had discussed the bones just that afternoon, and Evie was far from stupid. “Were you trying to get—” she choked on what she had been about to ask and Piper looked away.

  As sick as it made Evie, it made Piper that much sicker. She had tried to desecrate one of her ancestor’s graves. She had become a grave robber. The thing she was most afraid of seemed to be coming to pass. She was as evil as Daria. Her blood was as bad.

  “Listen to me,” Evie said, roughly grabbing Piper’s chin and turning her face to her. “Stop whatever you’re thinking. Just stop.” Her voice was a shrill howl that echoed off the walls of the crypt, causing them both to jump. Evie laughed nervously and hugged Piper again. “I can tell what you’re thinking and here’s what I have to say about it. I had a bad feeling you might have kept that book the first time we all wanted you to destroy it, and it turns out it was probably good you didn’t.” She took a breath and pushed Piper away so she could look hard into her eyes. “But you were looking at it again, weren’t you?”

  Piper should have told the truth and swore to let Evie destroy the diary the second they returned to the castle. She should have admitted everything.

  “No,” she said, relieved to hear how convincing she sounded.

  Evie made a face and shook Piper’s torn up hands. “You did this on your own?” she demanded. “Jesus, Pipes, were you trying to get bones out of that tomb?”

  Evie’s devastated voice tore at Piper, but she knew she couldn’t allow the book to be destroyed yet. Not with Daria roaming free across time.

  “I was thinking about how I wouldn’t be able to do the spell ever again,” she said weakly. “Lachlan was in the bath and the sound of the jets must have lulled me to sleep. I…I haven’t slept well since we got back. I must have been sleepwalking.” She blinked a few times up at Evie, almost believing it herself. She could tell the precise second that Evie relaxed and believed it too.

  “Well, we need to get back before Lachlan comes out here swinging his axe. He’s been worried about you, too,” Evie said, taking her arm and leading her back out of the crypt.

  Piper stifled a giggle at that and followed meekly. “There’s nothing to worry about, I promise,” she said. “I’ll just take something to make me fall asleep, okay?”

  “Yes, you better. I can’t have you going psycho at your party tomorrow night.”

  Piper suppressed a groan. She didn’t want the party in the first place, and that Evie and Mel had put it together so quickly didn’t give her any time to settle back in. But they were determined that she have one, and that no more time would be wasted.

  They stopped at the archway leading up to one of the outer rooms when they both distinctly smelled smoke. With a shriek, Evie ran for the entrance, Piper close behind.

  The entry room was lit up with the crackling flames of a small fire set near the doorway. Piper recoiled in frightened disbelief while Evie stamped on it until it went out. Coughing and spluttering, she nudged the thing that had been on fire with her toe.

  “Looks like one of your cardigans,” she said, looking sadly at her ruined shoes. “Did you drop it here when you first came in?” She looked around the ground some more and found an overturned votive. “Good Lord. You could have been roasted alive down here.” She swallowed hard and continued kicking the charred sweater until it was out the door. They made sure it was no longer smoldering and headed back to the castle.

  Piper acted like she had no recollection of taking off her sweater and carelessly dropping it on the ground near a candle. It would have been something a sleepwalker might do, but Piper knew she hadn’t been sleepwalking, knew she hadn’t been wearing that sweater and also knew it would take a lot more than a cursed trance to make her drop one of her favorite cashmere cardigans on the ground.

  She morosely followed Evie back up to the castle, feeling more angry by the second. Now that witch was messing with her wardrobe. Which meant she had been in the house at some point.

  And you still don’t have the bones. The voice taunted her.

  “Shut up,” she hissed, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

  She had to be careful. Hearing the voice was bad enough. Responding to it was too much. Fortunately Evie didn’t turn around.

  In the kitchen Mellie was holding a baby monitor and pacing nervously back and forth.

  Evie took the monitor and smiled reassuringly. “She was sleepwalking,” she said, l
eading Piper over to the sink.

  Piper was too tired to fight her and let her scrub all the dirt and dried blood off her hands. She frowned down at the ragged nails and Evie sighed.

  “I’ll get a manicure in the morning, don’t worry,” she said. “Your party won’t be spoiled by my savage hands.”

  Evie grunted and tossed a dish towel at her. “It’s your party, not mine!” she said, her whole face collapsing into dismay. “I thought you were excited about it.”

  Piper dried her hands and hugged Evie one last time. “I am excited about the party. I’m just overtired. You know you’re not supposed to wake a sleepwalker. Honestly, you’re lucky I didn’t have a heart attack.”

  Evie spluttered and Piper escaped from the kitchen before she could come up with a response. Back in her room, Lachlan sat up in bed, worry creasing his brow. She hurried to his side and sat on the bed next to him, smoothing the troubled lines from his forehead.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Just Evie being a worry wart. I just needed some fresh air.”

  She considered telling Lachlan about the fire, proof that Daria was about, but if he brought it up to Evie, then her story would fold in on itself. She wouldn’t be able to prove that she hadn’t set the fire herself out of carelessness. Frustrated, she bit her lip and scowled.

  Lachlan pulled her close to his chest and inhaled deeply. “Ye smell like the crypt,” he said. “And a bonfire.”

  She laughed into his chest. His superb senses would be what gave her away. “I wanted to visit Fenella,” she said. “I’ll go get a quick shower.”

  He tightened his grip on her, sliding his hands lower. “I dinna mind,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

  She tipped her face up so he would kiss her mouth and he readily obliged. Every last trace of the darkness and heaviness from whatever had goaded her into going to the crypt fell away in his embrace.