Page 50 of Highlander’s Curse (The Daughters of the Glen #8)

And Ellie had told her there were no coincidences when it came to Faerie Magic. Could it be that this was the Faerie way of trying to make up for having failed her back there on the road?

“Are you Dair Maxwell?”

Her neighbor stilled at the question. “I am. But I dinna recall having met you before, my lady. Might I ask how you come to know my name?”

“You’re my husband’s kinsman. We were searching for you when we were attacked. They smashed Colin in the head and left him bleeding, lying there in the road. I have to get back to him.”

“Colin? MacAlister? Yer claiming to be wife to Colin MacAlister?” The other voice again.

“I’m not claiming anything. I am his wife. We married at Dun Ard a few days ago and then set out to find the two of you. Assuming you’re Simeon, that is?”

Silence again.

“Aye. Simeon MacDowell, at yer service, my lady. How badly was he wounded?”

“How badly do you think?” Dair interjected before she could answer, his disembodied voice sounding bitter. “How badly would he have to be wounded to allow this lot to carry his woman away? It’s Col we’re speaking of.”

“Too bad they took the wee weapon you carried at yer waist.” Simeon spoke wistfully, as if he thought aloud.

“Too bad,” she agreed. They’d done exactly what Ellie had predicted, overpowered her and taken the knife she had worn. All the more reason for the second. . . “Shit!”

She was an idiot. A total freaking idiot.

“I have another one. Hold on a minute.”

She scooted off the bucket, teetering dangerously when she landed on her feet. Her leg muscles screamed out in agony, shooting pains pulsing in every direction. A moment to make sure she wouldn’t tip over, and then she attempted to retrieve the little knife stuffed discreetly in her bodice.

No matter how she tried, she couldn’t reach it. Her arms were too short. She couldn’t climb up onto the bucket to get closer to the rope because of the binding around her ankles.

Someone else was going to have to retrieve her knife.

“If you were to stand, Dair, do you think your arms would be long enough that your elbow could bend over that rope?”

“Aye. If I could but get to my feet. Why do you ask?”

That was it, then, her only choice.

Shuffling bit by bit, using the limited slack available in the rope that bound her ankles, she slowly worked her way across the ground between her and Dair. Never had twelve inches felt like such a vast distance to travel.

“Balance against me and work your way up to your feet.”

“I’ll brace you on this side,” Simeon offered.

“Get to yer feet, the woman says, like it’s nothing at all to accomplish.” The last of his complaint was lost in a grunted whoosh of air as he made it to his feet. “What now, my lady? What is it you need of me?”

“There’s a knife hidden in my bodice. I can’t reach it. You’re going to have to do it for me.”

“In . . . yer . . . bodice . . .” He repeated the words slowly, as if he didn’t really believe her.

“Just do it.”

She turned her head and lifted her chin trying to clear a path. His hand was cold, eliciting an involuntary shiver the instant his fingers dipped below her neckline.

“Sorry, my lady.”

He apologized but pressed on. His hand was large, too. Large enough it required him to work his fingers back and forth between her skin and the tightly laced bodice in his attempt to reach lower.

“I’m no finding any—” His words bit off suddenly as his fingers brushed across her nipple. “Apologies, my lady.”

“Under the boob.” God, could this get any more embarrassing?

“What?”

She’d never heard a whisper sound strangled before. “My breast. It’s underneath my breast.”

Was that stifled laughter she heard coming from Simeon?

“One thing I must ask of you, my lady. When we find Colin, you must never speak of this moment. Agreed?”

“Or if you do, make sure to give Dair a day’s head start.” Simeon was definitely laughing.

“I never thought to see the day I’d find myself wishing for a woman with smaller breasts.”

“Just get the damned thing.” Someday perhaps she’d be able to see the humor in this moment, too. But today was not that day.

She lifted onto her tiptoes, offering as much access as possible, and Dair dipped lower, his fingertips at last grazing the little knife. Cautiously he worked it across her skin until he could grasp it fully.

“Got it.”

Once his hand was out of her dress, she dropped back onto the balls of her feet. Just in time, too. Her calf muscles were already cramping from the time spent up on her toes.

It seemed forever before she felt the pressure of the ropes at her feet relieved. Dair shoved the little blade into the knot binding her hands and began a sawing motion, stopping when, in the dark beyond them, a stumbling, scraping noise captured their attention.

“We canna afford to bring down the whole camp. We canna fight them all unarmed, aye?”

With the whispered warning in her ear, Dair left the knife tangled in the rope while he and Simeon scrambled back to their spots, dropping to their knees and lifting their hands to the bindings as if they were still securely bound.

An instant later, a figure stumbled into view. It was Fergus, her tormentor from earlier.

“What’s this, my bonny? Did you fall from yer wee perch? Is that the noise I heard?”

He leaned his face into Abby’s, and the smell of stale whisky turned her stomach.

Moving her hands back and forth above her head, she continued to work the little blade against the knot that held her.

“All strung up here, you are, yer wares finely on display like market day in Edinburgh. Makes a man hungry, it does, to taste a sample of what’s to come.”

“Leave her alone, Fergus. I’ve warned you before.” Dair’s voice sounded positively evil coming from the shadows.

“ Pfft ,” Fergus dismissed him. “You can watch if you like. I’ll show you how a real man does it.”

He walked behind her and grabbed her skirts, lifting them and pressing his erection up against her bottom, obviously surprised when he encountered the riding pants. “What the hell?”

The extra moment was all Abby needed. The blade broke through the knot and her hands were free. Without a thought, she ran.

Fergus ran, too. Much faster than she’d have expected from a drunk. He tackled her from behind, bringing her down with a jarring thud.

“I likes my women to be lively,” he said, as he pushed up to stand over the top of her. A drunken grin split his face and he grasped the hem of his plaid to lift it upward, revealing his swollen manhood.

Beyond him, Abby could just make out the figures creeping in their direction. Dair and Simeon. They’d want to take him without any noise. All she had to do was keep Fergus distracted until they reached him.

Clutching the little knife in her hand, she remembered her encounter with Jonathan in another forest, seven hundred years away. If it had worked once, it could work again.

She rolled to a crouch, and the man in front of her laughed.

“Aye, lassie, I like the idea of you on yer knees even more. Fergus has a surprise for you.”

“And I have a surprise for you, too.” She lunged forward, slicing the little knife downward toward his thigh.

“You whore!” he hissed, spittle flying from his mouth.

Unlike Jonathan, Fergus moved. The blade sliced along the side of his leg, but didn’t imbed in the flesh. Instead of falling to the ground as Jonathan had, he drew back his leg and kicked.

Abby rolled to protect herself, taking the full force of the blow in her side rather than her face. Pain, white-hot in its intensity, blazed through her chest, driving the air from her lungs as his foot connected a second time.

“You’ll pay for that, you little—”

His voice abruptly silenced in a snap and a gurgle. Abby could only assume her husband’s kinsmen had reached her tormentor.

“Can you stand?”

Dair lifted her to her feet, even as she fought to catch her breath. It felt as if the knife she’d held had been driven deep into her side with each breath she took, and only when Simeon picked up the weapon from the ground beside her was she sure she hadn’t stabbed herself.

Within minutes, Simeon returned, the other prisoners he’d freed slipping past them to melt away into the inky night.

Dair took her hand to pull her forward and the pain nearly doubled her over. He ran his hands quickly down her arms and around her middle.

“Ribs,” he announced. “We’ll need a mount. She won’t be able to keep up on foot.”

“Leave me,” she panted. “Go find Colin. See to him. These guys won’t harm me. They want me for a ransom.”

Simeon snorted his reply before disappearing into the dark.

“Obviously, my kinswoman, you have no concept of what yer husband would do to us if we left you behind.”

Gently, Dair lifted her into his arms, but even gently hurt like hell.

They waited under cover of the trees until Simeon returned, leading two horses.

Only the knowledge that she’d know Colin’s fate within the hour was enough to get her up on that horse. Anything, even the searing pain she felt with each breath, was a small price to pay if there was any way to save him.