Page 4 of The Highlander Steals a Virgin
Aye, he should be annoyed that she was giving him so much trouble, but he was more impressed than anything. Even now, she struggled against the hold on her, twisting and thrashing her lithe body from side to side and daring to stomp down on Myles’ foot.
“Ow!” Myles bellowed, but he didn’t release his hold on her.
William laughed until she bent and tried to take another chunk out of his arm. “Oh, nay nay!” he clipped. “Ye’ll nae taste any more ofmeflesh.”
“Let me go, ye… ye savages!”
Rhys turned, giving his back to his men and the lass, and started walking. The trio followed, albeit with the lass fighting every step of the way. She wouldn’t stop flapping her jaws either. She kept hurdling every dire warning she could think of. As if she had forgotten whohewas.
“Me faither is Laird Murdoch,” she screeched. “When he finds out –”
“Aye, he’ll likely thank us for taking such a foul-mouthed hellion off his hands,” Rhys snapped without turning around.
That shut her up for all of two seconds before she started yelling again.
“I’ll see yer heads on a spike,” she snapped. “I’ll walk by them every day and laugh. I’ll —”
Rhys had had enough.
He stopped so suddenly, Myles and William had to pull back on the lass to keep her from running into him. He turned to face her and stepped forward with purpose, a hand going to his belt and the several long lengths of leather he kept there. Her eyes dropped to his hand, then went wide when she met his determined gaze.
“Nay,” she said, shaking her head. “Ye willnae!”
“Ye act like an animal, ye’ll be trussed up like one,” Rhys said and quickly bound her wrists with the strips of leather. She tried to fight him, but with both men holding her still, she didn’t have much luck.
She opened her mouth, ready to scream at him again, Rhys was sure, but he cut her off before she could make a sound.
“Do it, lass, and ye’ll find yerself gagged as well.”
She clamped her mouth shut but her furious ochre eyes shot daggers and promises of retribution at him. Rhys didn’t care as long as she was quiet. Her constant threats and yelling had given him the beginnings of a headache at the back of his nape.
They walked in blessed silence for several more minutes until they reached the area where they’d left the horses. Rhys grabbed the lass by the upper arm and led her over to a thin tree where he quickly and efficiently used more of his leather strips to bind her to the trunk.
Rhys didn’t have to look at her to know she was glaring at him. He could feel her heated gaze stabbing through his back as he faced William and Myles.
“If ye two arenaetoowounded, go and check the perimeter,” he said with a sarcastic tilt to the corner of his mouth.
“God’s teeth, Rhys,” Myles curses. He paused long enough to take a long tug of the whisky in his flask before continuing. “We’ve taken raiding parties without a scratch, but she near put us in the ground with a twig and a jaw.”
William scoffed, glaring at his bloody arm.
“If I’d had a dagger, ye’d be hurtin’ a lot more. I would have gutted ye meself.”
“That’s enough,” Rhys said irritably. He shook his head and threw his head back, looking up into the heavens. “Saints preserve us!” When he lowered his head, he glared at them, who hadn’t left yet to check their surroundings to make sure Murdochs wouldn’t sneak up on them.
At the sight of Rhys’s impatience and fury, both men scrambled away without another word, leaving Rhys alone with the hellion.
“What do ye want with me?” she demanded a little later, though her voice was softer now. “I daenae think ye plan to murder me, as ye could have done so when ye caught me.”
Rhys ran a hand through his dark hair. He didn’t like frightening women. It went against everything inside him. But she didn’t need to know that. He needed her timid and docile while he carried out his plan. He nearly laughed out loud. Amara Hall didn’t have a docile bone in her bonny body.
He stared at her a long while. At how some of the tresses of her long blonde hair had escaped the braid they’d been bound into, whisps curling around her face like a loving caress. Her brown eyes were so dark and captivating, reminding Rhys of the chocolate treat he’d tasted from Italy. Sweet and mysterious. They met his gaze unfaltering with pride, stubbornness, and intelligence.
The last time he’d seen her he’d been a married man and she been a lassie of just seventeen. But he’d noticed her then and figured she’d grow into a beautiful woman. He hadn’t been wrong. In fact, he hadn’t guessed just how lovely she’d become. Until she opened her mouth, that was.
“Me faither?—”
“Slaughtered mine in cold blood,” he interrupted her. “Ye Murdochs are treasonous liars who havenayhonor.”
