Page 38 of Highlander's Escaped Prisoner
“I see,” Bryce said evenly. He was seething inside, but he was not going to show Logan how angry he was. If Logan wanted to crow, then Bryce was not going to stop him. Every second his enemy was speaking gave him a little bit more time to recover. “And now that you have admitted it to us, what are you going to do?”
“Well, I have to kill you, of course,” Logan replied, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I cannot let you live. I am sure you understand.” He grinned.
“And me?” Nessa asked. “What are you going to do with me?”
Logan turned his back on Bryce to speak to Nessa, and that was a mistake. Bryce leaped up behind him, whipped him around, and swiped him across the face with a fist like a club. Logan would have fallen, but Bryce was holding him up by the front of his shirt and kept him upright until he judged that he had administered enough punishment. When he let go, Logan was dazed and bleeding and crumpled to the floor as soon as Bryce released his hold.
“So you think you are very clever?” he snarled. “You kept me locked in a cell for seven years and rejoiced in your achievement? Let me give you something else to enjoy since you like pain so much!”
“No, please!” Logan whimpered. “I am sorry, Bryce!”
“Not sorry enough!” Bryce snarled.
When Bryce ceased his assault on Logan and sat back, he looked down at Logan’s face; an ugly mass of bruises and blood.
Presently, he realized that Nessa was still bound hand and foot, and he hastened to untie her, then pulled her into his embrace. “I will never let you go,” he whispered. “Did he hurt you, my love? Did he...touch you?”
“No,” she answered, sighing with relief. “You came just in time, Bryce. When I think what could have happened...” She buried her face in his chest and began to weep bitterly, and he held her while her pain and anger drained away. “Thank God we found each other, Bryce.”
“Amen to that, my love,” he murmured, as he stroked the chafe marks on her wrists.
“At least he tied me up with ribbon,” she mused, trying to find a little humor in the dire situation. They both looked at Bryce’s bandaged wrists.
“The scars will always remind me of you,” he murmured, smiling. “Now, shall we go?”
“What about Logan?” Nessa asked anxiously as she looked down at the battered body on the floor. “Shall we leave him here? He is in a bad way.”
Bryce knelt down and felt for a pulse at Logan’s throat. “His heart is still beating, more’s the pity,” he said through gritted teeth. He bent down and put an arm underneath Logan’s shoulders and the backs of his knees, then stood up and deposited him none too gently on the bed.
Nessa looked on, amazed at Bryce’s raw strength. Logan was not tall, but he was a well-muscled man, and Bryce had lifted him as though he weighed no more than a feather.
“I will send a healer to take care of him,” Nessa said flatly. She should have felt something as she studied Logan’s prone form, but in truth, there was not a twinge of emotion anywhere inside her. “Come, let us go.”
He looked down into her stormy gray-blue eyes, wondering how he had been so fortunate to find her. “I will never let go of you,” he whispered.
“And I will never let you,” she replied, kissing his lips softly. “We are two halves of the same soul.”
21
“Iwas about to send out search parties again,” Roy Guthrie said, almost weeping with relief as he wrapped his arms around his daughter again.
“Father, I have only been away for a few hours!” Nessa laughed.
“But you have been crying!” the laird observed, noting the redness around his daughter’s eyes. He looked suspiciously at Bryce.
“He had nothing to do with it,” Nessa said sharply, noting the direction of his gaze. Bryce’s clothes and face were spattered with blood, and he had sustained a few cuts to his chin and jaw. He was not a pretty sight. “Blame Logan for Bryce’s injuries.”
“Where is he?” the laird asked, puzzled. “He should be here.”
Nessa and Bryce exchanged glances. “He is in a room not far from the dungeons,” she replied. She quickly gave her father directions. “Send a healer, Father, then leave a guard with him.”
“But why?” Roy asked. “Is he sick?”
“He is injured,” Bryce answered. “I caught him trying to harm Nessa.”
The laird’s face darkened. “I will kill him!” he growled.
“I have already done half the job for you,” Bryce replied angrily. “He will live, but he will never be handsome again.”
