Page 8 of Warrior of the Highlands (Highlands #3)

He turned, squinting to make out the figures in the darkness. The men had overtaken her. Moonlight limned their bodies, making them appear like fallen angels come seeking evil mischief from beyond. She struggled madly in their hands.

MacColla took off at a lope. Then the lass’s scream broke. A hideous sound, it tore from her body until her voice grew ragged, then cracked finally into a wail of despair.

And MacColla broke into a run.

He didn’t spare a thought as to the why or the how of it, but she was being attacked by her own kinsmen, and he’d not let a man get the better of any woman.

Especially this woman.

They had her pinned now, all atop her like wild dogs worrying a bone, and MacColla dove toward them, grabbing wildly, catching a man in his hands and peeling him up by his head, breaking his neck and shucking him away from the pile like so much garbage.

That left two on her, and, just as he was leaning down to tear away another, the lass surprised MacColla by kicking her own self free.

He was stunned, looking at her—wild-eyed, but focused. The moon cast a white bolt of light along her smooth cheek. Her full mouth parted as she breathed heavily. She caught his stare and returned it. Fearless. Proud.

The most beautiful creature MacColla had ever seen.

He felt it too late. The hands damp and hot on his calf, tripping MacColla, pulling him down before he knew what he was about. He fell hard, the deadweight of seventeen stone of muscle slamming onto the glen, and the two Campbells were on him in an instant.

Haley edged away. She was loose. She could run. Where?

She looked down at the scrum. The man called Alasdair fought for dominance, trying to best the odds. He had released her, leaving her to three attackers and a worse fate.

But then he’d come back.

She saw a hand—she didn’t know whose—draw a knife. Haley looked behind her. The stone building at her back loomed tall in the darkness. Not a lighthouse. Not a McMansion either. Looks like a damned Scottish tower house.

She scanned the night. The girl stood on the horizon shivering, whimpering.

Haley could run, but if Alasdair were bested, would that girl be next?

She knew with certainty that the pathetic creature wouldn’t survive five minutes with those men.

And Haley might not like the girl, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see her brutalized.

Besides, Haley could run, but she doubted she’d be able to escape these two men who clearly had a taste for blood.

One of them was on top of her kidnapper now, hands around his throat. The other one knelt, and she once again saw the flash of steel in the night.

She and her dark-haired stalker appeared to share the same enemy, which made him her ally. For the moment.

If she wanted to save her own life, she’d have to save Alasdair.

Scampering backward, she dropped to her knees, frantically combing her hands through the cold, damp grass, her eyes never once straying from the scuffle in front of her.

All the years of training with her father, and the most frustrating thing had been realizing she’d never have a shred of hope in a fight if pitting her strength against a man’s. The average woman didn’t, against the average man. And so Haley had learned to fight dirty.

There. The sharp edge of a stone at her fingertips. Ignoring the soil jamming under her nails, she dug, pulling the rock free. It was small, just smaller than her palm, with one end coming to a point. It was the best she could hope for.

The second man sat back on his heels, helping hold down Alasdair as he watched his friend choke the life from him. He smiled as if enjoying the show.

Which one? She weighed her options, the stone warming in her palm. Knock out the kneeling man, or distract the other? First things first.

Alasdair was being strangled to death. He pummeled his attacker, the brute force of his blows making his enemy sway with each hit. But the man clutched tenaciously at his neck, despite the blood that blackened his nose and eyes in the darkness.

“Alasdair!” the other woman screeched.

The attackers’ attention momentary faltered, and Haley saw her opportunity.

The one choking him then.

Haley was crouched in the grass, clinging tight to her stone, its sharp point jutting from her fist like an arrowhead. She sprang, landing with a thud on the man’s back, wrapping one arm tight around his neck as she brought her other down hard, slamming the rock into his temple.

“Alasdair!” the other woman screamed again, this time with a sound like hope in her voice.

She loves him.

Haley didn’t have a moment to contemplate the import of that last thought. She felt the ground whooshing from the balls of her feet as the man bobbled to standing and began to thrash her arms with fierce blows.

Haley threw down her rock and hung on to her attacker, trying desperately to gouge his eyes, wrapping her legs around his waist to slam her heels down at his groin.

Alasdair had recovered quickly and was locked in a hand-to-hand battle with the one who’d been kneeling over him.

Fragments of his fight pierced her consciousness.

The whistle of steel slashing down to his neck.

His left arm jutting over, catching his enemy’s blade arm.

His right swinging up, cracking the man’s arm at the elbow.

A grotesque wet snap sounded, and the blade flew to the ground.

The man Haley rode spun and slammed her hard to the ground. Her breath came out in a sharp squeal, and she forgot Alasdair. The man turned, pinning her, yet the only thought she could spare was the desperate desire to pull air into her lungs.

Something very wrong had happened to her ribs. The man over her seemed merely a nuisance now; pure bodily survival had become the far more acute crisis. She fought to breathe, feeling as if each inhale sucked shards of glass into her chest.

Time slowed. Darkness nagged at her, as Haley came to, then went dim, and then roused once again. And still the man was over her, until it seemed he’d always been over her, trapping her hands, grabbing at her breasts, fumbling his knees between her own.

And then, suddenly, he was gone. He’d just disappeared from over her, as if more than merely pulled away, the man had simply been eradicated from being.

She lay in the grass panting shallowly, each breath a shocking, nauseating stab. Haley brought a trembling hand up, wiping cold tears and warm snot from her face. The movement was fresh agony.

Ribs. She fought to dampen the fresh spike of adrenalin. Something was gravely wrong. Broken?

She tuned her senses outward. What was happening? Focus.

She tried to slow her breathing and her teeth ground together, biting through the shrill keening that escaped her with each exhale.

Can’t breathe. A fresh spill of tears was hot on her cheeks.

She tried moving. Was able to shift, ever so slightly. Not broken. Fresh nausea roiled through her, and she parted her lips to breathe through clenched teeth. Something . . . torn.

A dull scuffling sounded at her feet. Clipped grunts. And then silence.

Haley braced, wondering if she had any fight left in her, fearing more than anything the resignation that beckoned. She didn’t have to find out what had happened, where she was or with whom, when darkness was teasing her with such promise of stillness and peace.

There was movement again. She stiffened, readying herself for the inevitable.

But the hands that picked her up were gentle. She hated the whimper of pain that escaped her.

It was the black-haired man, his face close in the moonlight. And this time his eyes were soft as he looked at her.

“Alasdair . . .” Her voice was hoarse, his name neither a question nor an address on her tongue.

“Aye. I am called MacColla.”

Alasdair . . . MacColla.

Her eyes shot open to gawk at this man who had taken then left her, only to turn around and save her. A fierce savage of a man.

A man who claimed the same name as a hero of old.