Tempted by the Kilted Devil – Bonus Prologue
Two days earlier
Ailis fastened the last buckle on her satchel with fingers that trembled half in fear and half in excitement. Her breath fogged the chilled air as she moved through the dim room, eyes flicking to the iron-banded door. There was no time left for doubt. Her riding boots were already laced, her cloak laid out by the hearth, the coiled rope she’d smuggled from the armory stashed beneath her bed.
Ye’re nae runnin’. Ye’re escapin’.
The distinction mattered.
Laird Sutherland, her father, had brought her to the limits of her patience two nights prior, when he had threatened her with a heavy, silver candelabra, smashing it on the wall right next to her head and warning her she would be next. And Ailis had no doubt he would deliver on his threat if she broke some arbitrary rule.
She had endured his moods, his abuse, for years. She had done anything in her power to keep him calm around her, to show him that she was no threat. How could she be? In a castle filled with his men, she was only a young woman, incapable of bringing about any harm.
But her father delighted in punishing her for things she couldn’t predict or know, and sooner or later, his punishment would be final.
Ailis had rushed to her room, locking herself behind the safety of her door. Then she had stolen a map, sharpened a knife, and begun to count the guards’ rotations.
Now, the night was deep. The guards at the east tower wouldn’t pass her hall again for another twelve minutes. The back door would be unwatched until the next patrol. And the old stables, long abandoned and hidden beneath the bluff, still held one horse worth riding.
She crossed the room and tugged open the loose flagstone behind her hearth. There, bundled in oilcloth, was a small bag filled with necessities she had gathered in secret, and a folded parchment addressed in a hand sharper than her dagger.
She placed it on her writing desk. A single sentence, nothing more:
I am nae a piece tae be moved on yer board.
With a final glance at the room that had once been her prison and sanctuary alike, Ailis slipped into the corridor. The castle breathed around her like a sleeping beast, the shadows dancing on the walls as torchlight trembled. Her boots made no sound on the worn floors. Down the narrow servant stairs, through the kitchens where the last embers glowed beneath blackened pots, she moved like a ghost. Then, she slipped out through the cold corridor beneath the east wall and into the dark.
The wind hit her like a wave, icy and sharp, but she welcomed it. It cleared her mind, sped up her thinking. If she was going to make it out of there, she had to have her wits about her.
She sprinted low along the edge of the wall, keeping to the shadows, the rope wound around her shoulder like a serpent. When she reached the crumbling northeast turret, she climbed, her boots gripping the rough stone, fingers finding every crack she had memorized as a child.
Memory still served her well.
From the top, she tied the rope to the iron hook once used for lowering supply baskets, and tossed it over the outer wall. Then she moved as quietly as she could, biting her lip to keep herself from grunting. Her hands bled before she reached the bottom, and the rope burned her palms, but she never hesitated.
The horse, Keir, waited in the thickets near the old stable wall, just where she’d left him with water, feed, and his saddle hidden beneath a fallen beam. He was a Sutherland-bred gelding, swift and steady, a beast made for the hills. He nickered softly when he saw her.
“Hush,” she murmured, pressing her forehead to his warm neck. “Just a wee longer.”
She mounted quickly, tightened her cloak, and rode through a small opening in the back of the curtain walls—one she had recently discovered, unlike the guards who still seemed to be unaware of its existence. The moors opened up wide and wild beyond the castle. Mist rolled like waves over the heather, and the stars above were obscured by thick clouds that blurred the light.
She had only made it two miles beyond the glen when the alarm bells shattered the quiet.
Ailis froze on the saddle, just for a moment. Then, she cursed under her breath and kicked Keir into a gallop. They had already found out she had escaped, and now they would come.
The sound of hooves reached her before she saw them—six riders at least, heavy on their mounts, thundering through the bog like hounds on a scent. The glow of their torches burned in the distance, but she hoped the darkness would hide her, while the light would reveal them to her, signaling the spots she had to avoid.
Ailis urged Keir to gallop faster, her heart hammering in her chest. Her hair whipped in the wind, her satchel thudding against her back. The ground beneath them turned treacherous, wet and uneven from recent rains. Keir stumbled once, but caught himself. Behind her, voices shouted—one she recognized as Commander Bryn, her father’s favorite killer.
“Dinnae let her reach the ridge!” someone bellowed.
She veered sharply west, toward the river gorge. The Sutherland patrols rarely passed that way—too steep, too rugged. But she knew the terrain. She had grown up running these hills.
They didn’t think she could do it. She didn’t think she would have to, and so she had taken Keir, but now the rest of her journey would have to be on foot. Still, he had taken her far enough for now, somewhere where she could slip away from them.
She reached the edge of the gorge and yanked Keir to a halt. The path down was narrow and half washed away, a scramble of jagged rock and wet moss. Behind her, the glow of the torches brightened as the men approached, catching up with her.
There was no time to waste. Their hooves echoed in the night, their shouts filling her ears with discordant noise. Blood rushed through her veins, adrenaline urging her to move faster, to leave that place right that instant and never look back.
She dismounted, whispered a blessing to the horse, then slapped his flank. “Go. Run home.”
Keir hesitated, just for a moment, then bolted into the dark.
Ailis threw herself down the rocky descent, scraping her knees and her palms bloody. Pain shot through her, stinging and almost unbearable, but she pushed through, never once stopping. A stone gave way beneath her foot and she nearly tumbled, her heart leaping to her throat, but she soon caught herself, gasping, and crawled the last ten feet to the riverbed below.
The current was freezing, black as ink. She didn’t think. She didn’t hesitate. She only plunged in and the cold stole her breath, but the current took her downstream faster than her pursuers could follow.
Ailis didn’t know how long she fought the water; only that, when she finally dragged herself out on the far bank, the world was tilting, and her cloak clung to her like lead. She lay on the ground, gasping for air, eyes blinking away the freezing water, her limbs trembling with the cold and the fear.
Soon, dawn broke, pink and pale above the pines. Ailis lay in the grass, soaked and shaking, looking up at the clouds.
She had made it. She was free. But where would she go now? Clan Sutherland was behind her, and she could never return; even if she wanted to, her father would see her defiance as war.
She hadn’t had the time to think of a destination, not while she was so busy hatching an escape plan. She lay there, watching the clouds drift by, wondering if she could remain in the woods for a while or maybe find a small town, somewhere where she could hide.
Then she thought of a name. A land farther north still. A place her father had spoken of with rage, perhaps even envy.
Caithness.
She pushed herself to her feet, pain lighting up her limbs like fire, but her jaw set with fresh determination. If she was going to survive, she needed allies. She needed protection.
And she needed to go somewhere that wasn’t allied to her father. Anyone who was his ally would surely return her to him at the first opportunity, no matter how much she begged and pleaded. No, she needed to go to his enemy, to someone who had more to gain by keeping her than sending her away.
And the only man she could think of was Laird Caithness.
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