Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) by Tanya Anne Crosby Read Free Book Online Page A

Wracked by guilt, he hung his head. After all was said and done, not only had he cost good men their lives—and both his and Lael’s freedom—he’d lost the sword of kings.
    Was it worth it?
    The answer was most certainly nay .
    The price he’d paid was far too steep.
    His gut turned at the thought of his friends dangling from that noose: Lang Gil had a wife who needed his strong arms in the fields. His boy Wee Glen—hardly a boy any longer and bigger than most—was younger still than Cameron. Father and son were both now dead, and it was every father’s nightmare to watch his son die before him.
    Dare he consider Cameron’s fate?
    If Broc had one prayer of thanks it was that the Butcher stopped the proceedings before it came Lael’s turn to hang—not that it seemed he would ever face her brother to answer for his failure to keep her safe. But mayhap they would ransom her? He did not believe Aidan dún Scoti would forsake his kin, no matter how angry he might have been.
    God’s bones… he’d lost the sword.
    The significance of that was only now worming its way into his weary brain. And in losing his father’s sword—a sword wielded by the first Ailpín king—he had forsaken his family’s honor.
    Sola Virtus Nobilitat.
    Virtue alone ennobles.
    It was his clan’s maxim. How many times had his father told him that might was never the rightful hand that ruled? What in God’s name had made him believe he could be a leader of men? Had he never learned a lesson from the Mackinnon or his Da? Neither of these great men had ever sought to fight.
    “Look now. He’s going tae weep like a wee bairn,” one of the guards taunted and pushed himself off the wall where he stood leaning. As though the odor of piss was not strong enough in this musty cavern, the guard sauntered over to Broc’s cell, lifted up his breacan and took his Old Chap out into his hands, then began to urinate on the ground in front of Broc.
    Defeated he might be, but Broc would never give up his pride nor his fight. He found a smirk despite the pain in his face. “I’ve seen bigger cocks on suckling bairns,” he taunted the man.
    Grinning with a missing front half tooth, the guard shook his shaft vigorously. “Aye? Well, let’s see if ye’ll ever do that again,” he crowed. “I warrant ye’ll be pissing down your legs for a long while to come.” And without stopping to think better of it, he wiped the sprinkled urine from his hands onto his MacLaren breacan.
    Broc curled his lip with disdain. Dirty bugger. The eegit might be a fellow Highlander, but he was aiding and abetting the enemy. Damn, him, and damn David mac Maíl Chaluim! With a growl, Broc yanked at the chains that bound him, wincing over the self-inflicted pain. By God, the walls wept here so much his shackles were rusty and rough at the edges. Alas, but they were far too solid to undermine, for the chains were thick as his arms. They cut into his flesh.
    With little to fear of a man who was bound in chains and locked in a cell, both guards snorted and guffawed.
    Broc refused to give them any satisfaction. He kept his mouth shut, but he longed to know… what of his cousin? How did Cameron fare? Had he survived the night? The lad might be old enough to fight, but he was far too young to die. Next he thought of his sweet wife, Elizabet, his bonny daughters and son… and fought back tears that no true mon should ever shed.
    Elizabet carried a babe he would never know… a boy? Another lassie?
    Feeling defeated, he slumped against the wall, allowing the rusted metal to cut into his wrists with the full brunt of his weight. Even as tall as he was, the shackles were placed far too high upon the wall, making it impossible to relax. He loathed to think how it might feel to any man—or woman—of lesser height, and he said a quiet prayer of thanks that Lael had been sent to the tower instead. She was not so tiny as his wife, but she could never have endured the chains.
    One of the