Page 9 of A Highland Healer Captured
Her pulse hammered hot in her throat. She had to try.
Her plan set, she bent her head as if for sleep, and waited.
The fire crackled. Men drifted to dice, to flasks, to idle boasts. Her gaze slid to Zander where he sat apart, a hulking shadow against the broken wall, sharpening his blade with steady strokes. His head was bent away from her, and his focus was fixed on steel.
Now!
Skylar eased up to her knees, slow as a cat. The ruin’s wind sang mournfully, covering the scrape of her boots. She slipped back into the shadows, heart leaping with each step closer to Daisy. The mare lifted her head as she approached, ears flicking, but did not whinny.
Skylar’s fingers brushed the rope. She held her breath, worked at the knot with quick, trembling hands until the rising sounds of the men around the fire halted her movements.
She waited there for several long, painfully slow seconds before she recognized the familiar rhythm of their banter once more. Her hands lifted, pulled the rope through the bridle once more.
Just. One. Last. Catch —
“Going somewhere, lass?”
His voice vibrated low behind her, deep as the deepest depths of hell, and before she could even spin, an arm like iron clamped around her waist. She yelped as her feet lifted off the ground, the rope falling from her grasp.
“Put me down!” she shrieked, kicking wildly.
“I just picked ye up,” Zander growled, dragging her back into the shadows. “And ye expect me to drop ye already?”
She writhed with all the force in her body, clawing at his arms, kicking at his shins.
Saints, he was solid as oak.
The world tilted sickeningly as he hauled her against his chest, her heels barely scraping the earth before he tackled her fully, pinning her down in the wet grass.
Skylar gasped at the sudden weight of him pressing her into the ground. His chest was a wall of heat despite the rain, his breathharsh against her ear. Her arms were trapped at her sides, his thighs bracketing her hips with unyielding strength.
“Get off me!” she spat, though the words came out more breathless than she wished.
“Nae until ye’ve gainedsomesense.” His voice was rough, the storm in it barely leashed.
Her heart thundered. She bucked beneath him, but the effort only pressed her body tighter against his, making her acutely aware of every inch of him. The hard line of his thigh, the strength in his chest, the sheer size that dwarfed her own.
Sweet… bleedin’… hell…
Heat rushed traitorously to her cheeks. This was her captor. The brute who had torn her from her home, who held her prisoner. And yet, her treacherous mind could not stop marking how handsome he was.
The cut of his jaw, darkened by beard. The fierce glint in his grey eyes, close enough she could count the flecks of silver in them.
She squeezed her eyes shut, as if darkness could banish the thought. “Ye’re crushing me,” she muttered.
“Aye,” he said, far too calmly. “That’s the point.”
Her eyes flew open. “Ye — ye savage!”
He arched one brow. “Ye call me a brute often enough. Best I live up to the title.”
Her lips parted in fury, but no words came. Her mind tangled between outrage and an odd, unwelcome awareness of the warmth radiating from him, of how safe she felt despite the danger. It was wrong. Utterly wrong.
His gaze lingered on her face, sharp as if he could read the thoughts she tried desperately to smother. “Ye’re flushed, lass. The cold should’ve chilled that right out of ye.”
“I — I’m furious, that’s all,” she stammered, though her voice betrayed her. “Get off me!”
His mouth quirked at the corner, the barest hint of a smile. “Aye. Fury burns hotter than fire. I like ye better that way.”
