Page 7 of Warrior of the Highlands (Highlands #3)

“Aye, I’ve the English.” He grasped her chin, pulling her face toward his. “Who’s Sarah? Is it you’ve a sister hiding about as well?” The man looked around, glanced at his companion, and Haley registered the other woman for the first time.

Haley couldn’t move her head much in his grip, but rolled her eyes as far as she could to study the woman.

She seemed to be in league with the man.

What kind of scene is this? She was slender and pretty, but Haley was gratified to see the girl also appeared to be a total wreck, her breath hiccupping, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Who are you people?” she snarled, struggling in vain.

He ignored her, focusing only on his companion. “Easy, Jean,” he told the woman in Gaelic. Then Haley thought he said, “We’ll put down the stairs and be gone from here.”

Stairs? Haley glared at them, trying to make sense of it. “Where are you taking me?”

“Alasdair,” the other woman finally spoke, her voice a tremulous whisper. “The lass isn’t right. She gives me the evil eye, even now.”

The girl had meant not right in the head. Haley squinted hard at her. If there was any such thing as an evil eye, she’d summon it now for this simpering thing.

The man barked out a laugh, which seemed to distress his companion all the more. The girl seemed to yield before him, ceding all control. It annoyed Haley, made her want to stand up to him.

“Please.” The girl spoke again, addressing only Alasdair. “Please just take me from this place.”

His eyes softened when he looked at his companion, his fearsome mask melting into something kinder. A single-minded concern warmed his features, eased his full mouth.

Haley realized, startled, that he was . . . handsome .

And so completely focused on the girl’s well-being. She felt a rush of inexplicable jealousy and glowered at her with renewed zeal, even as she thought how silly her impulse was.

She didn’t need a man to look out for her. Haley was perfectly capable of looking out for her own damn self.

The girl’s eyes widened. “Leave the lass be,” she whispered. “She . . . She’s . . .” Apprehension and sympathy both animated her features. “She’s not right, Alasdair.”

Haley could deal with apprehension. It was the girl’s sympathy that pushed her over the edge. She tried to wriggle free from the man’s grasp, hissing at his companion as she did so.

“Och, enough.” He pushed Haley forward once more, toward what looked like a hole in the wall leading straight into blackness. “We must go, and now.”

She wracked her brain to make sense of it. He must’ve knocked her out, but where had he taken her? It was like a castle. Had the freak taken her to some crazy McMansion outside Boston?

She looked around as much as her immobilized head would allow, expecting to see mounted animal heads and gaudy wrought iron fixtures. But the large room was mostly barren. There was just a crude dining table and a few men passed out by the fireplace.

She considered calling to them for help, but her eyes adjusted and she thought better of it. The dying fire highlighted the ragged halos of their matted hair, sticking out from soiled plaid blankets.

How had he gotten her there? She did a quick internal check. Nothing was sore, so he couldn’t have knocked her out. He must’ve used chloroform or something. He’d surely had to drive far out of the city to have found this place.

Where the hell were they? Maybe somewhere near the Cape? A lighthouse maybe? She strained, trying to hear or smell signs of the sea.

He nudged her, bringing Haley to stand before the opening in the wall.

Oh God. Was he going to push her out a window?

The panic exploded again, dimming her vision, and Haley instinctively went into action, throwing her weight back, forcing her body away from the gaping blackness.

She felt his hand grip her harder, but she frantically kicked herself backward, scuffing her heels along the stone floor.

Her feet struck something hard and in her frenzy she noticed a wooden flight of steps like something from a theatrical stage blocking their path. Haley froze.

She tried to look again at the man’s companion. Useless , Haley thought with derision. Just standing there trembling.

And then the surreal realization clicked.

Her captors wore bizarre clothing, as if they’d just returned from some kind of historical reenactment.

They were both filthy, her in a long gown, soiled black at the hem, him barefooted and in a kilt.

And not like those dapper kilts and sporrans men wore at the Highland Games.

This one seemed thread-bare, winding around him, the end tossed haphazardly over his shoulder.

Oh shit. Dread chilled her. Haley couldn’t say why, but their clothing set her already screeching internal alarms into high gear. She didn’t know what these people were into, but getting kidnapped by a couple of Gaelic-speaking medieval history buffs didn’t seem like something that bode well.

His hand on her neck was loose now. He kicked at the long, rickety staircase. Typical man , she thought with a disgust that cleared her head.

Calm. Calm. I’m calm. She did another internal check, forcing her mind and body to stillness. Her heartbeat grew regular. Her muscles felt juiced from the adrenalin, but no longer jellied from shock.

Typical man to underestimate a woman. She could get free. She’d have to jump. If that staircase represented their height above the ground, she only had about one story to fall. She’d have to roll her landing. Then run like hell.

She didn’t give herself time to think. Haley tugged away from the man’s hand and she winced, feeling a clump of her hair tear from her scalp. Leaping forward, she stepped one foot onto the edge of the stairs and vaulted into the void.

“ Ciod e . . . ? ” The cursed lass had flown out, black hair streaking behind her, like a crow loosed into the night. MacColla raced to the edge and looked down in time to see her hit the ground with a roll and take off running. “Och, Christ.”

He looked to Jean and back out again. “Och,” he growled once more. He grabbed his sister by the hands and eased her out the entry door, lowering her down until his belly leaned over the edge and he could get her no closer. “Run,” he hissed as he dropped her. “Now.”

The Campbell lass was already far in the distance, fleeing like a deer across the moonlit glen.

Jean stumbled forward and MacColla wasted no time leaping to the ground, landing with a grunt and rolling quickly to his feet. He sensed commotion in the castle above. The Campbell men were stirring.

“Run!” he called, clapping his hand on Jean’s back. “Now, lass”—he grabbed his sister’s hand and tugged—“run!”

Jean finally came out of her daze and, hiking her dress over her knees, took off with surprising speed.

MacColla ran ahead, pumping his arms and legs until he closed in on the woman. He waved his hand out to snag her dress once, twice, but she ran only faster, winding an uneven path over the grass. “ Caile mhallaichte ,” he snarled.

He sprang forward then, grabbing hard around her waist, tumbling them both to the ground. MacColla wanted to catch the lass, not crush her, so he went immediately into another roll, coming to rest with her straddled over him.

He gripped her hips. Then an urge so great swept over him, he didn’t question the impulse. MacColla simply ground the lass to him as the vision of her riding him filled his head.

Watching those mystical gray eyes widen at the feel of him beneath her sent satisfaction surging through his veins. Panting hard, he felt the life pumping through him, and a smile burst onto his face, flush with his triumph.

Then like a feral cat she was clawing at his cheeks, swatting, and trying to gouge at his eyes.

“You wee hellcat.” MacColla ducked the blows as best he could, clutching tightly to her hip with one hand, trying to deflect her blows with the other.

“Alasdair!” It was Jean’s voice, crying a warning from the shadows.

MacColla saw three men racing toward them and rolled the woman to the ground beneath him.

Grabbing her by both hands, he looked quickly to his sister. He cursed himself. Jean’s safety was the only thing that should take his attention now. He couldn’t let his thoughts be diverted by some mysterious Campbell clans-woman.

He looked at the woman and regretted that he had to let her go. Regretted he’d never know the name of this strange lass who’d gotten the better of him.

A Campbell captive would’ve been quite the spoils, and such a beautiful one all the more so. But he’d not lose sight of the most important thing: freeing his sister, seeing her safe once more.

“Och.” His voice was a low grunt. The men were closing fast. He looked from the lass, to the men, and back again. A challenge was in her eyes.

“Och, God help me.” Holding her arms above her head with one hand, he took her chin with the other, and crushed his mouth to hers for one last taste.

He knew he needed to get his sister to safety, but he knew too that he had to press once more into that softness, feel one final lick of that heat.

He pulled back and gave a quick laugh, having just missed her bared teeth.

MacColla pushed up from the woman and, grabbing Jean’s cold hand in his, raced away, the Campbell castle at their backs.

He’d done it. He’d freed his sister. They had but to get to the ponies he’d tied hidden in the woods, and they’d be gone from there.

But then MacColla heard it.

A scream tore through the night, a ghastly, blood-chilling sound that stopped him dead.

Jean stumbled and fell beside him, looking up from her knees, terror in her eyes.

And then again.

It was the lass. Shrieking a sound of such horror, as if she’d been beset by demons, that MacColla’s skin crawled from it.

He dragged Jean to standing and shoved her back into a run with force enough to launch her feet from the ground.

“ Ruith! ” he commanded. Run.