Page 86 of Highlander's Wild Lass
Celestia shook her head. “I’m goin’, Anthony. Koll needs to see it’s me or we’ll never get Auralia back. That’s my main concern right now, I will be fine.”
“Just ken,” he said, leaning in and kissing her, “that I dinnae like this one bit. In fact, I hate this. If ye are hurt and somethin’ happens to ye or the bairn—”
She hushed him, cupping his face. “It’s early days, Anthony. We will be fine.”
In the courtyard, Hugo and Chester rushed up to them as they mounted their horses. “We want to come with ye!” Chester exclaimed. “We can help.”
“I ken yer very adept at bein’ mischievous, but this is entirely different,” Celestia told them from her saddle.
“Ye are nae mischievous at all,” Hugo said, a bandage on the bridge of his broken nose. “Ye would be more of a hindrance than we would.”
Anthony shot Celestia a glare, silently agreeing with her brothers as he climbed onto his horse.
“Nay!” Celestia bellowed, gripping Grannus’ reins. “Stay within the castle walls.”
Chester and Hugo begged off, scowling at their sister.
“Are ye ready?” Sebastian asked, looking back at them from the top of his horse.
Celestia nodded resolutely with Anthony trotting up to her side. “Let’s go.”
They rode hard at first, making decent time to the small town between the castle and Inverness. They walked the horses through the town, allowing them to recover.
“Do ye ken what we’re goin’ to do when we get there?” Sebastian said to Anthony as they kept their eye on Celestia just ahead of them.
“I’m goin’ to slit the man’s throat,” Anthony said.
“I cannae believe ye let her come,” Sebastian said, nodding his head toward Celestia.
“I dinnaelether, she doesnae listen to me,” Anthony ground out. “If she gets hurt, I will nae forgive myself. I will nae forgive her.”
“I’ll look after her,” Sebastian said easily. “Daenae worry.”
Anthony must have had a pained expression on his face, but it felt like he had been grimacing for hours because Sebastian’s brows furrowed and he said, “What is wrong?”
“Nothin’ is wrong, truly, except her asinine wish to come with us,” he said. “She’s with child, Bas—and she’s ridin’ after a madman.”
Sebastian sucked in his bottom lip. “That is... a quandary.”
“That’s one word for it,” Anthony grumbled and kicked his horse into a gallop. “Let’s go, we’re passed the town limits.”
They reached Inverness in record time, the whole time Anthony’s thoughts kept switching from how many ways he could slit Ryder Koll’s throat to how Celestia was riding too hard for a woman with a child in her belly. And she was riding astride too like she always did, but now it felt different, it felt dangerous.
Anthony hid his horse just a few yards downriver from the distillery while Celestia and Sebastian rode onwards. It would look too odd if they showed up without horses.
He was mumbling to himself as he climbed over the back wall of the distillery. The red chimneys glowed in against the setting sun. Anthony withdrew his dirk from its sheath and crept along the wall, listening for voices or noises.
He crept past the building with a large red chimney and his ears piqued, hearing the sounds of muffled crying.
Auralia.
He stood there, back against the brick wall, frozen. Should he rescue Auralia first or take care of Koll? Celestia would kill him if he had come across her sister first and did nothing. But he would hate himself if something happened to Celestia.
I should have never married her, he thought sardonically to himself. The scent of tobacco smoke filled the air and a hacking, phlegmy cough. He peered around the corner to see a middle-aged man with a pipe in his mouth standing in the large doorway of the storeroom.
Celestia said there was another man...
“Quit yer cryin’,” he said, his tone caught between pity and anger. “We havenae hurt ye, lassie. Just be quiet.”
