Page 110 of The Highlander's Auctioned Virgin
Logan staggered backward, clutching his broken wrist to his chest. He looked up at his brother, a smile on his face.
Ciaran kicked him to the ground and straddled him, nothing but rage and boiling fury in his eyes. He raised his sword, feeling the hilt grow warm in his hands and the blade gleam in the sunlight.
“Ye can never be anything else, lad. Ye will always…alwaysbe a weapon.”
Ciaran drove down his sword. It sank through fabric and flesh and bone. Logan wheezed, and his eyes widened. A guttural sound escaped his lips.
“I am yer weapon,” Ciaran whispered. “So this is yer doing.”
Logan opened his mouth to speak again, but the words died in his throat. For a moment, they remained like that, close enough that Ciaran could feel the last breath leave his brother’s lungs. Then, he yanked back his sword and rose to his feet, watching droplets of blood slide off the tip of the blade.
Chills ran down his spine, not from victory or joy but from relief.
Elinor stood near the doors of the Great Hall, her fingers curled into the skirt of her dress.
Everything felt incredibly uncomfortable, and it was beginning to upset her, how irritable she felt. Her eyes were glued on the courtyard outside the nearby window, where a maid had run to see if Ciaran had returned.
She could feel the eyes in the Great Hall on her. Women pretending they were busy with everything except what had brought them to the castle on this very day. Katherine stood beside her, whispering words intending to soothe her, but for some reason, they only made things worse.
“I am certain he is on his way,” Katherine reassured for the hundredth time.
Something about her tone told Elinor that even the healer did not believe her own words.
Anna, on the other hand, was speaking with her husband, Gordon, who sat at the far end of the hall, plain concern written all over his face.
Elinor watched her sister lean down to speak into his ear, her bright red hair covering half his face in the process. A part of her wondered what her sister was telling her brother-in-law.
We kenned this was going to happen. It was her fault for marrying a killer in the first place.
Eyes turned to her again from all around the Great Hall, sending chills down her spine. She could see Jackson at the corner, watching her with nothing but pity in his eyes.
Suddenly, the discomfort she had been feeling earlier doubled. The fabric of her dress felt too heavy, the fitted bodice tight against her ribs. She thought if she breathed too deeply, it might tear.
The murmurs in the hall were worse than any noise she had ever heard. A hundred voices pitched low, all saying the same thing without daring to say it aloud.
The maid she had sent to check the courtyard ran back, and from the look on her face, Elinor knew this was not going to be good news. She kept her gaze on the maid anyway.
“M’Lady,” the maid panted once she stopped before them both, the apprehension in her tone making Elinor’s heart stutter.
A part of her wondered if Katherine felt the same, but she did not have the time to ponder it.
Katherine squeezed Elinor’s clasped hands tightly as the maid delivered the painful news.
“I didnae see him, M’Lady. He isnae coming.”
Elinor swallowed, feeling a low rumble in her stomach. The disbelief still hovered over her like the murmurs of the impatient guests.
“He said he’d come,” she whispered. Her mouth felt dry around the words. “He said he’d come.”
Katherine squeezed her hands tighter. “He will be here, I promise ye,” she said, the same uncertainty lacing her tone.
Elinor looked out again, and the guests—a lot of them—shifted in their seats, the rustle of fabric grating on her nerves like stones on walls.
No.She simply could not take it anymore.
She turned without thinking and bolted out of the hall.
“M’Lady?” Katherine called out.
