Page 70 of The Cruel Highlander's Healer
“Blimey, would you shut UP!”
The sound of Alistair’s shout echoed in the night air around him. Eliza opened her mouth to yell back.
Mayhaps, if I can yell someone may hear me. They’ll find me. Or I’ll escape. I have to.
A crack filled the air and pain exploded, clouding her vision. Alistair had reared forward, headbutting her square in the nose.
For the first time in mere moments, Eliza found herself too stunned to speak or even breathe. Tears sprang unbidden in her eyes, falling rapidly and tracing lines down her cheeks and she blinked to try to clear them.
Her nose ached, a sharp stinging pain that had her gasping. When it finally subsided, slowly fading to a dull ache in the center of her face, Eliza’s wrists were already bound.
“Was that so damned difficult?” Alistair hissed at her.
His weight left her as he stood. She saw the shadow of him pacing throughout the clearing, moving back and forth. His silhouette appearing and disappearing as he crossed the path of trees in the background. But it was full dark now.
Eliza could make out very little of his expression.
“Why do ye want to trade me for Abigail?” she asked again.
Alistair may have bound her wrists, but he had not bound her mouth. She would get answers, one way or another.
“Why trade me for Abigail?” Alistair mocked, making his voice high-pitched as he tried to insult her. “Do ye ever just stop jabberin’!”
His dark form stopped walking, but Eliza couldn’t tell if he was facing her or not. The moon had not yet risen, so the world around them was in total darkness.
“I will stop askin’ if ye just answer me!” Eliza fired back.
Even though he couldn’t see her, she glared at him anyways. In her mind, they were staring at each other, so she kept her gaze hard.
“I am in love with her,” Alistair said eventually.
Some of the fight and animosity had left his voice, but not all of it. And the more that he spoke, the more Eliza began to realize just how much bitterness and resentment had been festering within this man.
“I admired her from afar for years,” he continued.
He resumed his pacing. And slowly, more and more of him became clear. Either the moon had started to rise, or more stars had come out. But Eliza did not want to look. She did not want to take her eyes off the man who occupied the meadow with her.
“When the Laird died, that’s when I thought me chance had come. I would finally approach her after all these years. After she grieved the death of her husband. But then, that MONSTER,”
He yelled the word, and its echoes rippled out into the world. Over and over again, the word trickled through the night sky. A few birds that had made nests in surrounding trees took flight, startled by the sudden sound, their caws mixing with the menace of his words.
“He locked her up in those dungeons to rot,” Alistair continued, frothing with the rage he’d held in for what seemed like years.
Something shifted in the trees behind him. Just a flicker of a shadow, but it was enough to catch Eliza’s attention.
Her eyes darted in its direction, but she couldn’t quite make it out. It was nothing more than a fluttering in the breeze, but she didn’t know what.
“Why did he throw her in the dungeons?” she asked, turning her attention back to Alistair.
He leveled his gaze at her, and even in the dark Eliza could make out the flash of his flinty gaze.
“Because of lies.” He hurled the final word, hissing the s on the end with more vitriol than Eliza though possible.
Another flash of movement behind Alistair, and this time when Eliza glanced toward it, it came more into view. Her heart jumped, excitement and worry fluttering through her.
Distract him.
“What lies?” Eliza asked, her voice coming out in a rush. “What do ye plan to do with me?”
