Page 2 of Taken By the Heartless Highlander
She tried again to pull herself free. “Please let me go, they’ll kill me!”
His frown deepened considerably at her words, and he straightened to his full height.
She swallowed, tugging at him again as she brought her other hand up and tried to prize his fingers from her wrist one by one.
He looked down at her, puzzled, as she failed to move his fingers one millimeter.
“What are ye tryin’ to do?” he asked, sounding bewildered.
“Let me go!” she hissed.
“I am nae goin’ to let them kill ye, lass.”
The quiet authority in that dark voice made a quiver run up her spine, yet she scoffed derisively at him. She never ceased to be astonished by the arrogance of men.
“Och? And just how and why would ye do that for a woman ye daenae ken? Ye daenae even ken what they have accused me of. I might have murdered all of their children.”
“Ye have done that without a drop of blood spilled if that’s the case.” His eyes roamed over her again. “Unless they were children made of mud. Do ye live in the forest, is that it? Are they plannin’ to catch a Selkie?” he asked.
Keeping her eyes on the approaching villagers, she tutted under her breath. “Selkies live in the sea,” she muttered scathingly, giving a fresh tug at his hand.
“Ye must be the Bean Nighe, then.”
Keira ’s mouth fell open in shock. “The Bean Nighe is a hag,” she spluttered.
“Aye,” he said with apparent enjoyment, “ye have twigs in yer hair. So it’s a good start.”
She wrenched against him again in outrage and managed to free her wrist with a small cry of victory. Useless, however, as without any effort he merely caught it with the other hand and kept her held tight to him.
“Ye willnae outrun them now, lass; ye might as well wait and see what I can do for ye,” he muttered.
“Ye will do nothin’ but get me killed,” she protested, dropping her body to the ground as her brother used to do when he was a bairn and didn’t wish to go to bed. She used all of her weight to try and dislodge his feet from the ground.
He looked back at her as though she were a mouse that was trying to pull him over.
“Will ye stop that? Ye’ll hurt yerself.”
She huffed a breath as he jerked her almost off her feet and into his side. Her whole body fell into his as she felt the muscular wall of his chest, her palms splayed across it, a spark leaping up between them like a candle in the dark.
Flustered, she pushed away from him. He still held her wrist, but more loosely now, as though he knew she would not try and escape again.
Her heart was racing, sweat dripping down her back as she watched the torches come ever closer. There was nothing for it now; she would have to face them—these people who had once valued her as their healer and who now wanted her dead.
Her companion was a center of calm as they waited, barely moving. His breath was steady and sure; the hand on her wrist tight but somehow comforting, as though he were protecting her as much as keeping her with him.
The priest was first into the clearing. Lucas stood at the head of the crowd, his sharp features twisted into a scowl.
The torchlight was visible behind his head, like a strange echo of a halo, and his priest’s garb made him appear as an avenging angel coming to destroy all the sins of the world.
Keira swallowed. Her protector might wish to help her now, but Lucas could be very convincing. This stranger had no reason to trust her. This could all be over very quickly.
She felt fear flood through her anew as Lucas’s ice-blue eyes settled on her, even as they widened in shock at the appearance of the stranger suddenly standing in their midst.
As her captor's grip loosened a little more, she made one last desperate attempt to run. She gave a cry of triumph as she broke free and threw all her weight forward as she darted toward the trees.
She made it to the other side of the clearing, ready to dive into the blackness of the forest, when her ankle turned in a rabbit hole. In a flurry of movement, she tumbled awkwardly to the floor with a cry of alarm.
Something hard came up to meet her through the blanket of ferns, and she felt a jarring, sharp knock on the side of her head.
