Page 33 of Hunted By the Cruel Highlander (Lasses of the Highland Hunt #1)

“Come now, Me Laird,” Malcolm grunted, launching a particularly vicious overhead strike that Hector deflected with apparent ease. “Surely ye can do better than that against two old men.”

Noah circled to his left, while Malcolm—his most experienced captain—attacked from the right, both men working in coordinated strikes that would have overwhelmed a lesser swordsman. The clash of steel against steel rang across the training yard as Hector found himself pressed by two opponents.

“Old men?” Noah snorted, feinting left before striking right, only to have his blade kicked aside by Hector’s swift counter. “Speak for yerself, Malcolm. I’ve got plenty of fight left in me.”

Sweat beaded on Hector’s brow despite the cool afternoon air, but his muscles moved with practiced precision, each parry and counter-strike flowing like water as he held his ground against both seasoned warriors.

He spun between them, his wooden practice sword a blur as he parried Noah’s swing and immediately pivoted to block Malcolm’s follow-up attack.

“Perhaps if ye two spent less time talkin’ and more time coordinatin’ yer strikes, ye might actually land a blow.”

“Arrogant bastard,” Malcolm muttered good-naturedly, but there was respect in his voice.

Even with twenty years of battle experience, he couldn’t match his Laird’s natural skill.

“Focus, Me Laird,” Noah called out, attacking with renewed vigor. “Ye’re distracted today. Thinkin’ about tomorrow’s ceremony, are we?”

A slight smile tugged at Hector’s lips as he easily dodged their strikes. “If I’m distracted and still holdin’ ye both off, what does that say about yer skills?”

“It says we need to try harder,” Malcolm replied, sharing a meaningful look with Noah before they both launched a simultaneous assault.

Hector was in the process of demonstrating exactly why he was Laird when movement at the edge of the training yard caught his eye. His mother was approaching, but something was terribly wrong with her gait.

Andrea walked like a woman drunk on ale, swaying unsteadily, one hand pressed to the back of her head.

The wooden practice sword fell from Hector’s grip, clattering to the ground. “Maither!”

He was running before conscious thought took hold, his boots eating up the distance between them as pure terror flooded his system. Andrea stumbled, her knees buckling, and he caught her just as she began to fall.

Blood.

There was blood seeping between her fingers where they clutched the back of her skull, and her usually bright eyes were glazed over, unfocused. Her face was pale as fresh snow, her lips an alarming shade of blue.

“What happened?” His voice came out rough, demanding, even as his hands moved with gentle precision to examine her injury.

Malcolm kneeled beside him, holding her gently by the shoulders.

“Who did this to ye?”

“Someone…” Andrea’s voice was barely a whisper, each word seeming to take tremendous effort. “took… Gabriella…”

The world tilted on its axis. Every sound in the training yard faded to nothing. His mother’s words echoed in his skull like a death knell, each syllable carving deeper into his chest until he could barely breathe.

“What?” The word scraped his throat raw.

“In the gardens…” Andrea’s eyes struggled to focus on his face. “Man with a branch… hit me… dragged her toward the woods…”

Her words slurred together as her consciousness began slipping away, and Hector realized he couldn’t wait for the healer.

He scooped her up into his arms, her head lolling dangerously as blood continued to seep between her fingers. She was slipping away, her breathing shallow and erratic.

“Stay with me, Maither,” he murmured, his voice rough with panic as he began moving toward the castle. “Dinnae ye dare leave me now!”

Malcolm reached for her. “Let me carry her, Me Laird.”

“Nay.” The word came out as a snarl. Hector couldn’t let go of her, couldn’t trust anyone else to keep her safe when he’d already failed so catastrophically. “Just clear the way.”

They reached the healer’s quarters in what felt like hours, but could have only been minutes.

At the sight of them, Mistress Agnes hurriedly began laying out her supplies.

“Put her on the table,” she commanded, her voice calm and professional as she took in the blood matting Andrea’s hair. “Gently, now.”

As soon as Andrea was laid down, the healer began her examination with practiced hands.

“This is a nasty blow, but her breathing is steady. Her skull doesnae seem cracked, just stunned badly.”

“Will she be all right?” Hector demanded, hovering over the table like a guard dog.

“Aye, but she needs rest and quiet.”

Noah’s face was grim as he took in Andrea’s condition. “Christ, what happened?”

“Someone took Gabriella.” The words tasted like poison on Hector’s tongue. “Get every man ye can find. It’s time we hunt.”

He leaned down to kiss his mother’s forehead, and then he moved, his mind shifting into the cold, calculating focus that had kept his clan alive through countless battles. Beneath that icy control, rage burned like molten iron—a fury so complete it threatened to consume everything in its path.

“The gardens,” he bit out as Noah fell into step beside him. “That’s where it happened.”

They reached the gardens within minutes, and it didn’t take them long to spot the signs of struggle. Trampled flowers, droplets of blood on the stone walkway, scuff marks in the dirt where someone had been dragged against their will.

Each piece of evidence made the thing in his chest grow larger and hungrier.

“Tell me how the hell a madman got past our defenses!”

A young guard approached nervously. “Me Laird, about security… we’ve had workers comin’ and going all day, bringin’ supplies for tomorrow’s weddin’ feast. The gates have been open since dawn.”

Hector’s face went white. In all the excitement of wedding preparations, they’d left themselves vulnerable.

“God help whoever took Gabriella,” he whispered.

“Here,” Noah said, crouching beside a broken branch stained with blood—Andrea’s blood. “And there. See the boot prints? Heavy, deep. A man’s weight.”

Hector was already following the trail, his eyes picking out details most men would miss. Disturbed leaves, a blue thread caught on a thorn bush, the faint impression of a woman’s smaller footprint sliding in the mud as she was dragged against her will.

Gabriella’s footprints.

Hector paused and studied the ground. “Just ye and I should be enough. The tracks show only one man.” His voice was flat, deadly.

Noah nodded. “Aye, Me Laird.”

They reached the tree line, and Hector paused, his trained eyes reading the forest floor. The trail was clear—whoever had taken Gabriella wasn’t trying to hide it.

“Hector.” Noah’s voice was careful. “Whoever did this kenned the castle’s routine. He kenned when the gardens would be empty. This wasnae random—he chose the day before yer weddin’ to strike.”

The truth hit Hector like a physical blow. So, they’d wanted to hurt him by taking her.

“Then we find him,” he said simply. “And we make him regret it.”

He plunged into the forest, Noah close behind. The trail was fresh—couldn’t be more than an hour old. Branches whipped at his face as he moved through the undergrowth with fluid grace. This was his land, McCulloch territory, for generations.

“Blood,” Noah said quietly, pointing to crimson on a fallen log. “Fresh.”

Hector’s jaw clenched. The forest grew denser as they climbed higher, ancient oaks creating a thick canopy.

“There,” he whispered, holding up a hand. “Do ye hear that?”

They froze, listening. Faint voices came—one rough and male, the other thinner, strained with fear.

Gabriella.

Every muscle in Hector’s body coiled like a spring as he moved toward the sound, each step placed with predatory precision. The voices were coming from a clearing ahead, maybe fifty yards through the trees. Close enough that he could hear every word if he listened carefully.

Close enough to strike.

“Stay back,” he murmured to Noah. “Whatever happens, dinnae interfere. Unless I’m dyin’.”

“Hector—”

“That’s an order.”

He continued moving, remembering everything his father had taught him about moving unseen through Highland terrain. The voices grew clearer with each step, and he could sense the fear in Gabriella’s responses, the manic edge to her captor’s voice.

Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten.

And then he could see them through the trees.

Gabriella, her dress torn and stained with dirt and blood. Beside her was a man Hector recognized with a shock of pure rage.

Lewis. The bastard who’d tried to sell her in the first place.

“…told ye, lass, today I’m going to kill ye,” he sing-songed like a madman. “That Scottish dog thinks he can destroy what I worked to build? Well, we’ll see about that.”

Hector’s vision turned red at the edges. Every instinct screamed at him to charge into the clearing, to tear Lewis apart with his bare hands. But Gabriella was too close to him, and Lewis looked desperate enough to do something fatal if cornered.

Hector needed to be smart about this. Calculated.

But as he watched Lewis reach down to grab Gabriella’s hair, forcing her head back at a painful angle, something inside him snapped.

A sound escaped his throat—part growl, part battle cry—and suddenly he was moving, crashing through the undergrowth like an avenging angel, his dirk gleaming in his hand.

“Get away from me bride.”