Page 7 of The Highlander's Accidental Wife
No, he could not have been so foolish and kissed an English noble. Only, his mind began to grasp at other clues, putting things together, and he wondered why that name sounded so familiar.
“Needs must. At least we have a location, though I can’t say what to do now after she kissed that pirate.”
Rage shot through Damien, and he realized he had one of his swords halfway out before he caught himself.
“Lady Highbrow should just show herself to that Laird that the Queen wants to marry her off to, and he’ll go runnin’, I’m sure,” the man groused. “Ain’t natural for a woman to be that tall.”
Laird. Queen.
Damien pulled in a breath, and his blood ran hot.
That woman, Lady Helena—she’s promised to one of me people.
His hands clenched, and a roar bubbled up his chest.
What if…?
At the same time, though, he felt a bloodthirsty urge to do both bastards in. How dare they speak of Lady Helena like that? In such sneering tones, as though she were no better than a pauper, when clearly, they were simply intimidated by her, probably sensing that she was a hundred times cleverer than they could ever hope to be.
In another way, he was selfishly glad, for it seemed that only he could see her beautiful, full lips, the curve of those cheekbones, and that cloud of dark hair around her starry eyes. The shy kindness that had come and gone, along with the bloom of roses on her cheek.
“We could teach her a lesson—probably our only chance, boyo.”
Now, Damien’s blood ran cold, cold as the deep waters of the Firth of Lorn around his home.
“More than deserves it, since we might be killed for telling her father what she’s been up to—trying to shake us off her mighty tail.” The man let out a dark chuckle. “Foolish wench, thinking that sullying herself would stop this.”
The other one barked out a laugh. “Teach her to defy men. Why, kissing that one-eyed lout just means that she’s not worth?—”
He let out a squawk of terror as Damien loomed up, a sword in each hand and a blade at each of their throats.
“Ye will lose any part of yer body that touches her,” he snarled.
Despite the pale light from the rising moon and the torches flickering along the outer wall of the town, he saw the blood drain from their faces.
“D’ye hear?”
Both went down on their knees, nearly blubbering, shaking with terror, their eyes wide, pleading that Lady Highbrow was not worth it.
Damien scoffed and stepped back, his lip curling. “Leave and dinnae tell yer master what happened here.”
He did not miss the flash in their eyes as they stood—the fear of naming their master—and it was that threat that seemed to propel them to action. Damien hissed between his teeth, meeting a hard blow from one sword, before kicking the man in the chest so that he sailed through the empty gate. Grabbing the other man as he charged at him, he tossed him bodily outside the walls of Fallenworth.
They scrambled in the dark, their blades flashing, trying to fight, but they were all but lost in the dark space between the woods and the wall.
All they saw was the shadow of Damien as he moved, fast and lethal, his blade flashing. They put up a decent fight, for English blokes, and there was some swordplay that almost got Damien’s blood up. But before they could attract attention, before these two fools truly understood how outmatched they were, they were dead.
Damien scoffed, before he cleaned his blades, and then set about dragging their corpses to the river that led to the sea.
Tossing back his hair, eyeing the scatter of stars overhead, he wondered where the woman was. Had she found some inn to hunker down in? Or had she long fled from Fallenworth?
Standing on a small rise that overlooked the town and the sea beyond, the wind ruffled his hair, and he allowed himself a smile.
“Och, lass, ye are keen, but I’m afraid ye dinnae realize the simpler truth—never kiss a Highlander when ye can simply have them kill yer enemy.”
CHAPTER 4
Present
