Dark Knight of the Skye by Robin Renee Ray Page B

on her wrist, because she was so engulfed on the story Alasdair was telling. Most of her undivided attention was due to the mark that he had given her, a mark that rendered her helpless to so many of his allures. She didn’t even hold the fear of her own death any longer; he simply told her not to worry about such things and the thoughts vanished from her mind.
    “Would you like me to clean your wounds?” he asked, stepping back up to the bed.
    “That would be nice, thank you. Would you finish telling me the story while you do it?” she asked looking at him, willing him to say yes.
    He picked up the rag and dipped it in the liquid, squeezed it out and laid it across her right wrist, causing her to hiss in pain. He looked up and immediately she relaxed. He continued to wash out the scrapes and deeper wounds that the heavy chains had made on her flesh and started where he had left off.
    “Lucy Gilmore, my bride to be was hanging from a tree that stood in the middle of the field; they had stripped her down to nothing, just to shame her in front of the world. They mistook my brother for me, and had him lying on a wooden cross, driving iron stakes through his hands and feet, just like the Romans did your Christ. I can still hear his screams as they raised him, screams not of pain from the weight of his body tearing the flesh, but screams of revenge to the Gilmore family for all the harm that they had done to our family throughout the centuries. The whole time, the group around him was spitting, yelling “devil!”, throwing stones and stabbing spears into his legs. The sun was coming and I had no choice but to flee. It is something I have never forgiven myself for. The next night, I returned to find the black charred remains of him on that cross, with Lucy swaying, discarded like trash. I took her body to the Isle of Skye and buried her in her mother’s grave. I’ve never returned to my country and you are the first that I have spoken to about that night in over two hundred years.”
    “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
    “So you see why it is so important for me to find this Gilmore? He must pay for the sins of his fathers,” he said finishing with the last of the bandages.
    “Alasdair please, he wasn’t even around back then. Danny is a good person; he would never have allowed something like that to happen.”
    “Do you honestly think that you could say anything that would change my mind after all these years? I have dreamed of nothing but this for as long as I care to remember and no one will stop me from exacting my revenge,” he proclaimed. “The sun will be up soon, and I think you know what it brings. I won’t ask you to stay in here at all times but I will tell you it is pointless to try and free yourself from the lower levels of my home.”
    “What are you going to do with me, Alasdair?”
    “Whatever I please,” he replied, reaching over and picking up the tray, sitting it down on the floor.
    He crawled up on the bed beside her, laid his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes. She waited until she was sure he was dead to the world before she slid off the side of the bed, not taking her eyes off of him for a second, as if expecting him to reach out and grab her at any moment. She stood looking down at him and just like Danny he was nothing more than a corpse. After a few minutes, she took the blanket from the end of the bed and placed it over her shoulders, then walked over and leaned her ear next to the door.
    The only sound was the creak of the door as she pulled it open. The breeze of stale air blew her hair lightly as she stepped out into the open stairwell. She closed the door as easily as she could, not remembering that Alasdair couldn’t wake no matter how much went on around him. Across the hall was another door similar to the one she had just closed, only this one had a slide latch on the outside. She took a few steps before she heard the soft cries of a female, which made