Page 3

D uncan’s senses exploded, his emotions coiling into shock as he peered over the rocky ledge. The woman chose death over relinquishing the Ealach ? Waves surged, and white foam rolled with crushing force against the narrow band of jagged rocks lining the beach. There was no sign of her.

The salty air burned his nostrils as he stalked the precipice, and he felt a grinding sensation in his stomach.

Those eyes. Those wide, haunted eyes. He couldn’t erase the image of them from his mind.

He told himself it was just the aftermath of battle.

But the sensation snaked at his gut, relentless, harping.

Curse her. She was a reckless harridan, a witless shrew…

A frightened, helpless female.

He fought the swell of guilt twisting his belly. She’d resisted, damn it. And she was the enemy. Morgana’s sister. The thought stilled his uneasiness, settling ice into his veins once more. He had to regroup. His mission here was unfinished.

Swinging astride Glendragon, he rode onto the battlefield.

The day was won, but chaos stilled reigned, and it took time to find Kinnon.

His cousin sat with several other warriors on the bluff, his tunic stripped from his torso to tend a wound to his shoulder.

Blood seeped from between his fingers, and he looked up in surprise, wincing when Duncan pushed his hand away to tie a makeshift bandage with a strip torn from his shirt.

“This should hold for an hour or two. Come. We’ve work to do.”

Kinnon frowned and ran his hand through his sweat-dampened hair. Even matted from battle, strands of it shone white-blond in the sun that had burned away the morning mist. “God’s head, cousin, do you never rest?”

“Nay,” Duncan muttered, quelling his impatience with action.

He grasped Kinnon’s good arm and pulled him to his feet.

“Now find Gil, Ewen and Hamish, and meet me at the base of the bluff. I’ll explain when we get there.

” He tossed Glendragon’s reins to a soldier and began to stalk across the field, pausing only long enough to half turn and growl, “Hurry.”

There was no time to waste. For sure as the English were bastards, he and his men had a long day of searching ahead of them. And he didn’t intend to give up his quest until he had his prize in hand.

Warmth radiated up her palm to the rest of her body.

Cautiously, Aileana opened her eyelids a crack.

The sun glistened, fat and yellow in the robin-egg sky, so beautiful that for a moment she forgot what had brought her to this place.

Then memory slammed home, making her breath catch and her head throb.

The Ealach .

A tingle against her fingers made her hand clench, and she felt the amulet’s reassuring weight. Thank God she’d managed to hold onto it. It had saved her, sure. Just thinking about her bold action on the battlefield made her feel like swooning again.

Struggling to a sitting position, Aileana pushed the damp weight of her hair from her face and stared at the Ealach .

Its intricate gold setting remained unharmed but for the wet of the ocean, and the opalescent surface of its stone winked back at her with a thousand colored lights.

It seemed to know something, though she remembered little after the sensation of falling through the air and into the cold embrace of the water.

She should be dead.

But she was alive, and she had to move quickly to protect herself and the Ealach from the marauding MacRaes. Aileana toyed with the idea that they would think she’d perished in the fall, but she couldn’t take any chances.

A thrill of fear ran down her back at the expression she remembered seeing in the MacRae leader’s cold gray eyes.

He’d used his gaze to pin her, his aura of unyielding power magnified by the jagged scar that ran down the length of what otherwise would have been a face of almost flawless masculine beauty.

He’d seemed an unholy, avenging angel, his shoulder-length, golden hair swirling wildly around his face.

Shuddering, she shook her head and stood as she slipped the Ealach ’s chain around her neck. The pendant nestled between her breasts for only a moment before a dizzying swirl of images spun her into a vision of the amulet’s last resting place. Screams of agony and moans of death…

Father . Turbulent emotion swelled in her heart.

In her mind’s eye she saw him lying there, mangled, his dignity stripped away as surely as his lifeblood soaked the ground beneath his body.

He’d been snatched away before his time, before she’d been able to make him see that she wasn’t like Morgana.

That she could be worthy of his love and pride.

Her jaw clenched with a fierce, welcoming burn. She pressed the amulet close, feeling the metal heat upon her skin. One thing was certain; the MacRae devil could rot in hell before she’d let him steal back what Father and her clansmen had died to protect.

A new energy flowed through Aileana’s limbs, spurring her on in her task.

Ignoring the ache in her legs, she clambered up the bank.

Tufts of hardy grass sprouted among the rocks, and she glimpsed splashes of purple as well.

A violent shiver shook her. Wrapping her arms round herself, she peered into the intense blue of the sky. It spread above her, wide and open.

The countryside was beautiful, just as she remembered from her days of childhood freedom. But where would she go? She had to hide the Ealach ; that much was certain.

Struggling to regain her sense of direction, she squinted and surveyed the landscape.

The area seemed familiar. If instinct served, she wasn’t far from an ancient rowan grove that Morgana had shown her long ago.

She’d been just a little girl who’d idolized her older sister, then.

It had been shortly before the crisis, before Morgana had stumbled into the temptations of sorcery—a time when they’d often found time to wrap cold partridge and bread in cloths and carry it out to eat in the shelter of the rowan trees.

If she could find the grove again, she could dig a recess there to hide the Ealach .

Then, once the amulet was safe, she’d search out one of the clans friendly to her people, to the east of Dulhmeny. But she’d have to find them soon. For summer or no, the gusting winds shook the trees like an old woman’s bones.

Aye, she needed to hide the Ealach and gain refuge with another clan before nightfall, or she knew that the MacRaes would soon be adding her lifeless body to their bloody list of dead.

Duncan cursed under his breath as he knelt to examine the prints below him.

A female’s step, small and light. His men had scoured the beach, looking for her body washed up to shore, but it seemed she had eluded him again.

This was all that remained, her footprints leading up the beach and into the woodland.

The MacDonell woman was alive.

A spark of relief lit in Duncan’s chest, but he extinguished it with brutal force. She held what was his, and he didn’t relish the cat and mouse game she played with him. He stood, grasping a handful of sand, and flung it into the lapping maw of the ocean.

“Kinnon, take your men through the wood from the northern point. Hamish, approach from the south. I’ll be taking Gil, Ewen, and the others to follow her trail from here. We need to flush her from her hiding place.”

The men nodded, their faces solemn. The air crackled with tension, as if each warrior sensed the importance of this hunt to his chieftain. Everyone began to disperse, and Kinnon directed his men to retrieve their horses. Then he came toward Duncan.

“Perhaps it would be better for me to be coming with you, cousin. You’ve the look of the Tower in your eyes right now, and it wouldn’t serve for you to be too rough with the woman, be she a MacDonell or no.”

Duncan pulled his gaze up to Kinnon’s face, reading the worry couched there. He didn’t blame him. They were of an age, and Kinnon knew him well. Truth be known, he was the only person that Duncan would consider trusting with his life.

After Morgana had ravaged their clan in the attack, Kinnon had approached their overlord, the MacKenzie Chief, for help.

The MacKenzie had refused, wanting to keep the peace, and so Kinnon had moved on his own, pulling together enough surviving MacRae clansmen to try to free Duncan from the English.

But he’d only been captured himself for his pains.

The English bastards had imprisoned Kinnon at York, and by the time he’d gained his release, it had been too late to do Duncan any good.

Kinnon had had to focus his attention on rebuilding the clan, on trying to make it strong and whole again.

Eventually, Queen Elizabeth had taken the throne and released all of her Scottish prisoners, Duncan among them.

He’d returned home only months ago to find his clan still struggling to regain their fortunes and their pride, but alive and safe, thanks to Kinnon.

Unblinking, his cousin pressed his point. “What say you, Duncan? I can appoint one of the men to lead my group so that I can ride with you.”

Duncan shook his head. “Never fear. I’ll not be harming the woman…” He paused to check Glendragon’s bridle before glancing at his cousin again, “…unless she refuses to give me the amulet.”

Kinnon blanched. The wind ruffled through his sun-bright hair, making him look younger, and he moved as if to stop him. “Hold, now, Duncan. You know I cannot let you do something you’ll be regretting later.”