Page 30 of The Cruel Highlander (From Enemies to Marriage #3)
CHAPTER 2
ONE MONTH LATER
A loud sound suddenly reached her ears as Keira woke up from an already uncomfortable sleep. Eric had left her bedchamber only a few hours ago. She knew her face was sporting two huge bruises, and there must be cuts and gashes all over her body.
He never touched her sexually, never even came close to her in an intimate way but hitting was another thing entirely. He believed as his betrothed, she was already his property. Although he fancied himself as an old-fashioned man and would only come close to her once she was his wife. Keira just had to make sure she’d never be that.
Everything hurt, but she was still trying to get whatever little sleep she possibly could just to escape Eric, even for a few hours. Hitting her had become a custom, a routine. She felt as if she had become the source of his venting, a human being he could be unnecessarily brutal with to take out his frustrations.
Although something else had woken her up. She sat up in bed, trying to understand what was happening, when her gaze landed on the faint orange light coming into her bedchamber through the partially shut window.
Fire.
She immediately stood up, her feet bare in the cold, and wrapped a plaid around herself. The fact that it was the colors of the Gilmor house made her recoil, but she did not have much choice.
“What is happening?” she whispered to herself and quickly walked towards the window. Her window faced the backside of the castle, and as she opened it, she was met with towering flames that had overtaken the building. A loud, violent cough quickly overcame her as she inhaled the rapidly rising smoke. Her eyes watered, and her vision turned blurred. Keira backed away in horror and immediately ran towards the door, praying for it to be unlocked.
Eric had stopped locking her up lately since he was now certain that she would not be going anywhere. He had broken her so much that she believe there was no point in attempting to escape his cruel grasp. She tried to open the door and breathed a sigh of relief. It was indeed unlocked, and when she stepped out, she found the castle in chaos. She could see servants running from one end to the other, some carrying buckets with water and others just simply trying to escape from whatever calamity had struck.
“Wait,” Keira shouted as she noticed a servant running, and the young man immediately stopped. There was terror in his eyes, and Keira knew something was wrong.
“What is happening?” she asked, praying for it to be just a fire and nothing else. For some reason, she could sense it was an attack. It was not just her instincts telling her so. She was sure a man like Eric would have enemies.
“The MacPherson clan has attacked, and their soldiers have breached the gates. We are all going to die,” the servant cried out.
“Is it just the soldiers or has their laird also come with them?” she asked, hoping it was just the soldiers.
“Laird MacPherson is here too. I saw him with my own eyes in the forest. The man looks as murderous as everyone says he is,” the servant told her, his voice almost drowning with fear.
Keira’s blood froze at the news since she knew perfectly well what it meant. The MacPherson clan was the strongest, most violent clan in all of Scotland. They were both rich and powerful, and their soldiers were the most well-trained soldiers one could come across. They were ruthless fighters and Eric’s biggest enemies. Their laird, Christian Larsen, was supposedly a fighter and a ruthless one at that. There was no one in the entire kingdom who could match him. The man was dangerous, and Keira knew he should never find her. Eric had only threatened to kill her, but Christian would kill her in truth.
They had been trying to attack the Gilmor clan for the last month now, and every time they did, Eric would take his frustrations out on her. The beating that night would be severe. Keira still did not know how she was alive yet.
Although, this time, the MacPherson clan had invaded the castle walls and had set the place on fire. She knew what this meant. If Eric made it out alive, she would die at his hands.
Now is my chance to run. They’re too distracted to notice.
Before she knew what she was doing, she was running downstairs and out of the back gate of the castle, trying to make sure no one saw her. She knew since everyone was running out, a crowd would have formed outside in the forest, which meant she would need to run in the other direction to remain unnoticed.
Every inch of her body hurt due to Eric’s beating, but she had no choice. As she stepped into the forest, filled with soldiers and fires erupting left and right, she knew she could escape. She could feel it in her bones.
Keira smiled weakly to herself as she continued running, knowing that all she needed to do was somehow get lost in the forest so no one would be able to find her. She was ready to die in the forest or become a meal to the wolves rather than suffer a life with Eric or be found by someone from the enemy clan. She just needed to run.
“God, help me,” she whispered, navigating through the thick smoke all around her. She tried her best to keep her plaid wrapped tightly around her. Running was becoming difficult for her with every passing second as her legs were starting to hurt, and she struggled to breathe.
Tired and coughing, without being able to see well through the smoke, she ran directly into something. As she tried to clear the smoke with her hand, she saw it was someone . The tallest, most muscular man she had ever laid eyes on. A sudden burst of orange flames erupted somewhere close to her, but Keira could not look away from the piercing blue eyes trained on her face.
The man was not dressed in battle armor but simply in a tunic and his kilt, which was enough to tell Keira that he was from the MacPherson clan. Her kilt slipped through her fingers and fell to the ground as he stared at her curiously, trying to understand who she was. His face remained impassive and emotionless. He was beautiful. Keira knew men were not supposed to be described as such, but she had never seen someone who looked the way this man did. Despite the chaos and the running and the flames around her, all Keira could see was this man.
His gaze moved away from her eyes and slowly moved all over her face. Keira couldn’t help but feel self-conscious, suddenly feeling the loss of the kilt over her as she noticed him looking all over her hands and exposed flesh. She immediately understood what he was staring at. Her bruises. She could sense that it was exactly what he was looking at as his eyes suddenly turned wild. Keira feared him, yet she did not once think of backing away or running. He already had a strange pull on her.
He extended his hand towards her, his index finger falling short just short of her face as if he had wanted to trace her scar, the scar given to her by Eric. His hand dropped back to his side, balled tightly into a fist as their eyes once again met. Hers curious, his still raging.
“Who did this to ye?” he asked, his voice heavy with anger. Keira would have flinched if anyone else had used such a tone, but she didn’t flinch now. Not with him.
“I need to go,” she whispered, afraid to tell him who had been behind the bruises. She knew she was beyond help anyway. Whomever this man was would not be able to do anything for her. He was an enemy of Eric’s, and in the honorary sense of the word, she was Eric’s prized possession. He would never help her. She only needed to escape, get as far from Eric and this castle as she possibly could.
“There is nay where to go. Tell me who did this to ye,” he asked again, his words restrained as if he was fighting to conceal the anger in his tone.
“It does nae matter,” she replied, running her hands over her arms as a sudden chill overtook her. She turned silent as he picked up her kilt from the ground and wrapped it around her shoulders once again. “I need to go.”
“I asked ye a question. Do nae make me ask again,” he said, his words sounding both urgent and furious, but Keira was not going to give him a name. She was not going to tell someone from the enemy clan that Eric had done this, because then she’d have to tell him she was his betrothed too. She was sure they wouldn’t take this kindly.
“Why do ye care?” she asked back angrily, looking around to make sure her absence was still unnoticed. The man was becoming a hurdle to her escape. “Move. I need to leave. Now.”
“Nay, ye do nae,” he said as if he was deciding for her.
“I said move. I must leave before the battle is over. Ye do nae understand!” she said, clearly frustrated. She pushed against him, but he was built like steel, entirely unmovable.
Before she knew what was happening, he removed his kilt and wrapped it around her, over the plaid she already had on to protect her from the biting winds. She noticed he was wearing breeches underneath. His colors wrapped around her arms. She suddenly felt warm, but not yet safe. She would not be safe until she was as far away from Eric as possible.
“There is no where to go,” he replied. “Ye are coming with me.”
He suddenly picked her up in his arms as if she was weightless, and Keira knew that to him, she most certainly must have seemed weightless. He threw her over his shoulder as if she was a bag of wheat, and she realized what was happening. This man, whoever he was, was taking her away with him. A man she did not know was trying to kidnap her, and Keira could not let this happen. This was her only chance to escape. She could not flee from Eric, only to be captured by a stranger.
“Let me go,” she shouted, kicking with all her might at his thighs and hitting her fists on his back, but he acted as if none of it had an effect. He was built like steel, and his skin felt as if it was pure muscle. He might truly not feel a thing.
“Stop it,” he said when she continued hitting him as he walked with her on his back. Keira could see the battle unfolding in front of her, and she did not know what was going to become of her. The smoke only kept increasing as it filled her lungs, and she was beginning to feel dizzy. She knew if she were still running, she would not have been able to make it much further.
“I need to go,” she shouted, a cry escaping her throat. “Ye do nae understand. I really need to go. This is my only chance. Please let me go.”
“Ye are safe with me, fox,” he whispered as if coaxing a child. Keira only felt insulted and began to hit him harder. The smoke kept making her dizzier, and she was beginning to lose sense of what was happening around her.
She noticed when the handsome stranger suddenly stopped walking and instead placed her on a horse before mounting himself. Keira had no strength left in her body to run away or fight anymore. She was both exhausted and dizzy, and the smoke surrounding them made it even worse.
“I am nae safe. Let me go,” she whispered to the man, who simply looked at her with patience in his gaze. He still did not loosen his hold on her.
Before she could say much else or hear what he was saying, her vision began to darken as things around her started spinning faster and faster. As the man began to move away from the forest and the burning castle, Keira saw Eric. His brown eyes were on her as he watched her ride away with the stranger. Keira knew she was away from him.
She was away from the danger that her betrothed brought to her, but she did not know if the man she was with was safe or just another Eric. She knew she could not trust him, but as her senses began to get even more muddled, she had no choice but to close her eyes against the darkness and hope for things to work out in her favor.
She would not die today.