Page 15 of Taken By the Vicious Highlander

“What is it, Smith?”

“Mrs. Bryant is just there.” She stepped to the side to reveal the slight figure standing at attention just a few paces beyond them.

Damon’s grunt was all she needed to get on with his instructions.

As Smith left, Mrs. Bryant, the clan’s healer, made her way toward him.

“Where do ye wish to do this, Mrs. Bryant?”

“Right through here, Me Laird,” she replied, gesturing toward the door she had been standing in front of. “Better to have all me tools, just in case.”

“Aye,” he replied gruffly and followed her into the depths of the surgery.

“Now, I’ll need ye to take that off—” she directed, a commander now that she was in her domain.

Damon obliged her silently, the blood-soaked tunic hitting the floor with a loud smack.

“I will burn that, Me Laird. Give it here,” Mrs. Bryant said, holding out a long washing basket for him to place the tunic.

“Burn?”

“Aye. Unless ye wish for a holey, scarlet-colored tunic to parade around in?”

Damon chuckled. “Nay, of course nae. Thank ye.”

“Right. Now, go ahead and take a seat up here, Me Laird. I see ye have been stitched before—do ye need a stick to bite on?”

“Nay, I’m sure yer hands work more efficiently than me old war chief.”

“Och aye, I gather that he had hooves for hands, then,” she said matter-of-factly as her eyes assessed his old wounds.

“More or less, Mrs. Bryant.”

“Right, Me Laird. In I go…”

The healer busied herself with the largest wound first, cleaning, stitching, and bandaging it for what seemed like an eternity. The woman didn’t say much more than commands for Damon to give her better light or a better angle to stitch him up.

A rap at the surgery door preceded Smith’s return. She had a change of clothes hanging over one arm and a set of books in the other.

5

“The blue one goes to the scribe, Mr. Cormag Ross, and he sits behind ye. The slender, red ones are the ledgers—to Mr. Rory Scarth, yer Chamberlain. Brown goes to yer War Leader, Mr. Duncan Dunbar. Green to yer Lawman, Mr. Tristain Gunn. Mr. Sebastian Morris will represent the Elders, his is the black-bound book. Ye can just keep all but the blue book with ye at the head of the table.”

“Thank ye, Smith,” Damon said as he took the council ledgers from her outstretched arms and tucked them easily under one arm.

“They are gathered upstairs, Me Laird.”

“Right,” he uttered with finality and quickly made his way back upstairs into the war room.

When he entered, he assessed all of the council members’ varying expressions—concern, curiosity, and, in some cases, thinly veiled annoyance.

This wasnae how I wished for our first meeting to go…

He clocked the barely rising sun outside, and winced.

Councilman Sebastian Morris, the oldest of the group, leaned heavily on his cane as he took his seat. His lined face was pale, but his gaze was sharp. Councilman Tristan Gunn, younger and ever composed, sat with a calm expression, his hands folded neatly on the table. Others murmured amongst themselves, but the room fell silent soon after Damon entered.

He didn’t bother with pleasantries. “There was an assassin in me chambers last night.”