Page 110 of The Highlander's Auctioned Hellion
Too afraid to look back, she kept moving through the thick bracken and ferns on the wood floor.
Finally, as she reached a thick trunk of an oak tree, she risked a glance behind her.
The carriage was almost entirely obscured by rain, the sheets of it traveling sideways across her vision as she squinted into the dark to see if the men were pursuing her.
There was no sound other than the pattering of the raindrops, and Lydia knew this was the most dangerous time.
She could not see nor hear them. If they were pursuing her, they could come upon her by surprise and kill her straight away.
Leaving the shelter of the tree trunk, she struck off toward the hill. There were plenty of places she could hide in the woods.
Shivering in fear, she kept moving, but after a moment she could hear snapping branches behind her.
“Ye have nowhere to go, lassie, I would say ye give up,” came a rasping, horrible voice, as Lydia turned to find the bearded man only a few feet from her.
His stance was casual, his clothing far more practical for the thick foliage, boots solid and thick as Lydia’s own feet bled against the tangle of twigs beneath.
She turned back, intending to run in the opposite direction, but let out a cry of dismay as burly arms appeared in front of her, plucking her effortlessly from the forest floor as the other man appeared beside her.
“Bring her back to the carriage; we’ll kill her and the driver, and sink them in the loch,” the bearded man said.
“I’ll enjoy endin’ yer life, ye little witch. That’ll teach ye to stab a man in the dark,” a voice murmured in her ear, and Lydia shivered as he gripped her tightly.
Lydia struggled as much as she could, but the second man was far larger than the first, burly and muscular. She was unable to free her arms enough to strike him and could only kick her legs uselessly outward as he dragged her through the trees.
The rain had lessened as they emerged, falling in lighter, pattering droplets all around them and over the surface of the lake as she was dragged back toward the carriage.
Lydia bit down hard on the arm that held her, and he swore, but only squeezed her more tightly.
“Let’s finish this!” he shouted, and the bearded man turned back, a knife catching the light as he stepped forward.
“Moira Lawson sends her best regards,” he said with a smirk, bringing the knife to her throat.
Lydia felt the sharp point nick her skin and closed her eyes, immobile as she was and unable to fight back.
“One more move and ye’re both dead,” came a familiar, deep voice.
Callum only heard the cries as he stopped at the loch to give Seamus some water.
He had paused after over an hour of constant galloping, refusing to believe that Lydia was dead, the fear gnawing at his heart with every step.
As Seamus began to tire, they came upon a lake. The rain had been in fits and starts, the storm following him from McCarthy’scastle, but now it was dense, and the deluge had soaked him and the horse right through.
He had been still for only a few seconds, calculating the fastest direction of travel, when he heard the cry. Even over the rippling water disturbed by the rain, he heard it. A voice he would know in a crowd of thousands.
Spurring Seamus away, he galloped in the direction he had heard it, the rain driving into his vision, making it impossible to see.
As he rounded the edge of the lake, he could just see the lights burning on the outside of the carriage.
There was a dark shape on the ground where the guard lay dead at his feet. The driver was slumped forward in his seat, too, but even as he watched, the man rose, holding a blade weakly in his hand, ready to fight, despite the arrow in his shoulder.
“It is Laird Murray,” he said hastily before the man saw him for another attacker. “Where is Lydia?”
The driver slumped forward again, one trembling hand pointing toward the woods in the distance.
As Callum squinted through the rain, he could see movement coming out of the tree line. His blood boiled when he saw two burly men carrying his wife like a common criminal out of the woods.
Those men will die today.
