Page 3 of Taken By the Devilish Highlander
The girl’s ragged breathing brought Archer back to reality. He wiped his sword on his shirt, unaffected by the shock of red. He sheathed his weapon and turned to this fairy from the woods, dressed in nothing but a thin nightgown.
“Who are ye?” He asked again. She still held the broadsword with two hands, but now she let the tip fall to the earth, dropping the weapon to the ground.
“Thank ye,” she gasped. Tears fell down her cheeks as she looked at the men Archer had killed. “They were going to kill me. I saw…I saw…”
“What did ye see?”
For the first time, Archer took stock of his surroundings. He cast his eyes in the direction the girl had come from. Through the light of the moon, he could just make out McKenzie Castle in the distance.
“He killed him,” she said, and Archer had to strain to hear her whisper. The girl’s whole body began to shake, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “He killed Laird McKenzie.”
“Who did?” Archer asked. The gravity of these words hit him like a stone. He had thought he was saving some poor town’s girl from the drunken desires of two men. But here she was, telling him she was involved in the assassination of a Laird.
“These men?” he asked, when she didn’t speak. “Did one of these men kill yer Laird?”
“Nay,” the girl said. Her hair fell across her face, those striking green eyes flicking from one dead body to the other. “It wasnae them. He must still be there…he’s still in the castle.”
She took a shuddering breath and cast her eyes to the stone building on the hill, looking even more horrified, though Archer didn’t think such a thing was possible.
“He’ll hurt her. He’s said he wouldn’t let anyone get in his way.”
“Who, lass?”
“Me sister. He’s going to get her. He’s going to hurt me family.”
She took off like a light, running with the same speed she had barreled through the woods with. Only now, she was going right back where she had come from. She was going back to them.
“Nay,” Archer cried.
Everything in him told him to let the girl go. He had never had problems with Laird McKenzie or his clan, but neither did he like the man. He had heard about the man’s cruelty and the way he let his clan starve while he threw feasts for his friends.
Still, it was dangerous to involve himself in this clan business. It was risky to align himself with a strange girl who had witnessed treason. And yet his legs moved on their own. He ran after her, overtaking her with a few long strides. He wrapped his hand around her upper arm and spun her back to him.
“Ye cannae. It isnae safe.”
“What will happen to them?” she cried. She was desperate for an answer, desperate for him to see into the future and tell her the unknown. “I cannae leave them.”
She began to gasp for breath, overwrought with worry and the terror of what she had witnessed. Archer held her firmly, his hands on her shoulders.
“Breathe, lass. Just breathe.”
She locked eyes with him, and Archer was shocked to recognize the expression that stared back at him. He knew this agonizing guilt, a grief he had carried with him for far too long. And then, with a glance up to the sky, the girl fell into his arms, lost to the world as she fainted. Archer caught her, pulling her small frame tight against his chest.
He stood frozen, hardly believing what had happened this night.
“What now?” he asked the air.
2
Feya woke to a ceiling she didn’t recognize, a pounding behind her eyes making her squint. Her mouth was dry, and her feet throbbed, as did the muscles of her legs, feeling overworked and strained.
Morgana.
She sat up like a jolt, the events of earlier flooding back to her all at once. But as she did so, she was met with the broad expanse of a man’s back, bare and toned with muscles. The beauty of him stunned her for a moment, and she gulped, knowing she should be terrified but feeling anything but.
This was the man she had found in the woods, the one she had begged for help. She remembered the kindness in his eyes and the skill with which he waved a sword. He had protected her.
He gave a sharp intake of breath as he struggled to touch a shallow cut between his shoulder blades.
