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Atalanta watched in horrified pleasure from her hiding spot, breathing heavily now, but when John yanked her back into the shadows further and put his hand over her mouth again, she came quickly back to attention, especially since John's skin was hotter now and his heart was pounding harder in his chest.  She looked into his face, and since her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could see his expression.  He looked straight ahead to the light of the doorway now, where she had been looking moments ago, but instead of seeing fulfillment in his eyes over the death of the enemy, she saw murder.  Lethal murder.  Murder, she surmised, remembering the expression her mother had given Glenlyon, of which only a traitor was deemed worthy to be victim.  

She shuddered.  And then she slowly turned her face to look at what John's eyes were already killing.   

The men that Donald and Buidhe had stabbed lay dead on the floor, Johnnie's man still held at knife-point.

"You will pay for this!" the captive tried, "they will find out that you killed him and they will come back here for you with more men and bigger weapons - "

" - Shut up!"  Johnnie interrupted, jerking him back against his chest again, the knife nicking his throat and drawing a sinister drop of red punishment. 

Alexander Cameron glared the captive to belligerent silence and then slowly stood, and when he reached his full stance he untied his robe, disgusted at the undeserving blood smeared across it, and took it off.  His heart was heavy with guilt, torn between religion and circumstance, ability to forgive and impulse to kill.  He should have forgiven the man before he killed him, but Lord save him, he could not.  Alexander shook his head in shame.  Once again he had killed.  Once again he had placed himself above his God.  He tipped his head back and looked skyward.  Father forgive me, he beseeched silently, fighting to control his rising panic from feelings of inadequacy and hypocrisy as he stood with his back to his brothers, breathing raggedly, I could 'ave just killed 'im tae protect my family, but in truth, my God, and ye know it, I did it in cold blood, and for myself.  

Hanging his head he walked to where a kettle of water was kept, and he placed his robe inside it with arms that trembled, watching in silence as the clear liquid within turned incarnadine.  His guilt was manifest now in the water.  

He was dressed like the rest of them now, in the red and black Cameron tartan, broad chest barred and battle-scarred warrior skin revealed.  he was harsh and wild, save for the cross that remained entangled in his black hair and rested now on his flesh.  With the absence of the robe, the cross was closer to his heart, where he could feel its cool surface like a moral compass over the pounding rhythm beneath.  

His brothers had looked away from him the instant he had turned, sparing him embarrassment and loss of pride.  His back was replete with wounds, many of which still oozed and bled.  But he made no attempt to hide them.  He had nearly died because he refused to renounce his belief in Catholicism and his loyalty to the exiled King James.  Thus he had chosen those scars, and he loved those scars and the pain that they brought him, because they reminded him of his purpose and his resolve.  He could endure this pain, but he would never have been able to live if he had given up his soul and his beliefs to those men.  Never.  Not even if they had promised to spare him.

He turned to face his men again, resolve renewed, but when his gaze swiped past the entrace-way he stopped, eyes surprised, confused and then freezing in anger once again, muscles in his abdomen and arms twitching subconsciously.  His brothers turned when they saw the look on Alexander's face, and then they too froze.  

Standing in the doorway was none other than Duncan MacMartin.  And he was pointing a gun directly at Donald, the eldest son of John, and thus next in line to be laird of the Lochiels.