Page 46 of The Highlander Steals a Virgin
A small figure writhed in the dirt below, clutching their knee. Red curls. A shrill sob.
Daisy.
Amara’s heart stopped, but she didn’t hesitate.
Throwing her door open, she sprinted down the corridor. Myles’s voice rang out from further down the hall. “Oi! What’s happened?”
But Amara didn’t stop.
She tore through the stairwell, slippers barely keeping up with her as she burst through the back doors of the keep.
“Daisy!” she called, dropping to her knees in the dirt.
The little girl looked up at her, cheeks streaked with tears. “I tripped — the stone —”
“Where does it hurt?” Amara asked, already wrapping her arms around the girl.
“Me leg, right here, and me head — here!” the girl wailed, and pointed to her bright red leg and then to her temple.
“All right, I’ve got ye now, lass. Let me see.”
She pulled Daisy into her lap and examined the leg first. A bruise had already bloomed beneath the skin near her shin.
Nay blood, nay break, thank Christ.
“We’re going to the healer,” Amara said, gathering the girl into her arms. “Hold on tight."
Daisy sniffled and wrapped her arms around Amara’s neck. “Daenae leave me.”
“Never, lass.”
Amara carried her through the keep, ignoring the startled looks from passing guards and maids. The healer’s chamber was just off the main hall, tucked behind a set of double doors that looked more decorative than functional.
She kicked them open.
The old healer looked up from his bench, unimpressed.
“She’s hurt,” Amara said.
He frowned. “Aye? Doesnae look too —”
“She is the laird’s daughter!”
That did it.
The man straightened, looking at the child once more, and then started to apologize profusely. His entire posture shifting into something far more useful. “Right. Let’s have a look.”
He blushed forward, checking Daisy’s leg while muttering about children and gravel and chaos. After a few moments, he looked up.
“Nay break. Just a deep bruise. Bit of pain to follow and a limp, to be sure, but it’ll mend on its own.”
“Right, and her head?”
“Och! Her head?” The healer shifted hurriedly around the table, and lifted Daisy’s curls to reveal a bright red spot forming on her temple. “Oh…”
His hands went to work, in his tincture cabinet. “Here —” he tossed an incredibly cold rag toward Amara. “Place it on the red spot there until half-past. I’ll make something here for the aches that are sure to follow.”
He handed Amara a vial of tincture. “Ye will rub this on the sore spot on her leg thrice daily. She will be right as rain in a few days,” he placed it into one of Amara’s hands. In the other hand he placed a jar.
