Page 61 of My Scarred Laird
She heard the sound of someone hitting flesh. “Fook yeah. Get all the whores we want. If we werena being paid just ta deliver this bitch ta McGavin’s stronghold, then I would take her right here. But he said she wasna ta be touched.”
Islay felt relief at that knowledge. These men may have been big, but they were stupid.
They hadn’t checked to see if she was fully unconscious, and now she knew everything.
She had heard of the McGavin Laird. He wasn’t a good man. She heard he used his huge armies to take over smaller clans that couldn’t fight back.
He had amassed a huge amount of land, and not even the threat of the King could stop him.
He felt above it all. She knew he wasn’t, though. For him to steal her from Callum basically meant that he wanted war.
She knew he had written to Callum, referencing her and her sister. She just didn’t think he would actually take it this far. That he would pay to have her taken.
Callum wouldn’t stand for this. Neither would Culloden if the McGavin laird tried to take Daracha. He must have been at the keep. Somehow, he snuck his way in, but if he were found out? Callum and Culloden wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.
Knowing McGavin was in the keep right as they spoke made her angry. What if he tried to hurt Callum? Or any of their guests?
She was going to find a way to get back there and stop him if it was the last thing she did.
She was only grateful that, apparently, the McGavin Laird didn’t know two things. One, that she wasn’t Daracha, like these men thought she was, and two, while Callum didn’t have the biggest army, his men were the best warriors she had ever seen.
Even the men her father had didn’t hold a candle to the men under Callum’s command.
They weren’t lazy or incapable. They trained constantly, and she knew that while the man who stole her believed that Callum’s keep was unguarded, he severely underestimated Callum and his guards.
He may not have seen the men on the battlements, but they were there.
They were hiding in plain sight. She had found it hard to even see them in the daylight, so she knew that in the darkness they were nearly impossible to see.
She knew that they would alert Callum of her disappearance and the only reason these men were still alive was because she was with them.
Egan, Callum’s captain of the guard, knew she was to be looked after at all times, and she had a feeling that he and Callum’s men weren’t far behind these men. Same with her own personal guards, Lachlan and Fraser.
Those men were her own shadows, and there was no way they wouldn’t tell Callum.
She knew Callum wouldn’t allow her to be harmed, and she had absolute faith that he would come for her and take the life of these men.
She felt bad for them then, but they had stolen her and were going to deliver her to a horrible man for who knew what purpose.
She knew it wasn’t good, though. She just had to keep her wits about her until Callum came.
* * *
After another hour of riding,they slowed their horses deep in the woods.
A stream flowed nearby, and Islay opened her eyes slowly, looking around.
Her eyes landed on the man who stole her, and their eyes locked.
“Oy! She is awake.”
The second man lifted her in his arms, “Take her then. I got ta take a piss.”
Islay was handed off to the first man, who immediately bound her hands with a short rope.
“Aye. Do yer business then.”
Islay’s knees were still weak from whatever the man had given her, and she couldn’t stay standing.
