by Paula Quinn
“Can ye no’ go anywhere wi’oot yer poison, Angus?”
Angus took a swig, belched, and then swiped his beefy knuckles across his thick auburn beard. “Brodie, ye know I like killin’ Campbells wi’ a bit o’ auld Gillis’s brew in me.” He grinned at his cousin stationed beside him. “It fires up me innards.”
Callum refused when Angus slapped the pouch of brew against his arm, offering his laird to take part. Callum did not need whiskey to fire his innards. Hating the Campbells was enough. They had taken much from his clan. But they had taken everything from him.
“The McColls are puttin’ a quick end to the Campbells. They’ll be less fer us.”
“Dinna fret over it, Brodie,” Angus said, corking his pouch. “We killed us enough o’ the bastards already at Kildun before we got here.”
“It will never be enough,” their laird growled low in his throat.
“If Argyll is there, the McColls might get to him before we do,” Jamie Grant, Graham’s younger brother and the youngest of Callum’s men, pointed out.
“There’s a lass fightin’ among the men!”
“That’s no’ a lass, Brodie.” Angus guzzled another swig of whiskey. “’Tis a Campbell wi’ mighty long hair.”
Brodie flashed his larger cousin an incredulous scowl beneath his dark whiskers. “’Tis a lass, ye dull-witted bastard.”
Callum heard the side of Angus’s sword smack against Brodie’s head, and Brodie’s subsequent oaths before he pounded his fist into Angus’s chest. The chieftain ignored his kinsmen and observed the object of their disagreement. The mounted warrior certainly looked like a lass. He’d never seen a lass fight before, though many times he wished he had. His mother’s screams still haunted his dreams. He’d been a lad when Duncan Campbell’s father raided his village and his men raped and branded the women, though no hand had been lifted against the earl’s men.
But here was a woman who had the spirit to actually fight to save her life.
“’Tis a lass,” he said, more to himself than to his men. “Mayhap Argyll’s niece.”
“Aye.” Graham nodded, watching her lush raven mane swing around her shoulders while she whirled her horse around and deflected another mighty blow. “She tires against the McColls. I know she’s a Campbell,” he said with only a hint of regret, “but it looks like a good enough fight. Shall we aid her, Callum?”
Graham smiled at his friend’s slight nod, and then he flicked his reins and took off a moment after Callum kicked his stallion’s flanks and raced toward the melee.
The MacGregor chief cut a straight path to the lass, swiping his claymore through anyone in his way. His men fanned out around him, killing the rest. The closer he came to her, the harder he rode, his dark hair snapping behind him like a pennant. Her arms were growing weary. She was having difficulty lifting her blade to parry the flurry of strikes hammering down on her. He told himself, while he hacked at a McColl riding up behind her, that he was rushing to her defense to keep her alive so that she could tell him Duncan Campbell’s whereabouts.
She whirled on him just as he reached her, and Callum felt something in his gut jolt. Her skin was pale alabaster against a spray of soft obsidian waves, dampened by exhaustion. Her eyes were beautiful as black satin, and when she looked up at him, they told Callum she had just lost hope in surviving this day.
He did not expect her to swing at him, looking as defeated as she did. For an instant, he merely gaped in stunned disbelief at the blood soaking his thigh. Then he lifted his claymore over his head and brought it down hard on another McColl. The lass turned away from the force of his deathblow, but a moment later she returned her gaze to his. Callum responded to the great relief in her expression by wheeling his mount around and calling out to his men to guard her on every side. There, they shielded her until the only men left in the yard, besides them, were dead or wounded.
When Callum turned his mount around to face her again, her sword slipped from her fingers. He glanced at it, then lifted his eyes to hers. “Are ye injured?”
She blinked as if emerging from a daze. Her breath still came heavy enough to part her lips.
“Are ye hurt?” he demanded again.
She shook her head nae. “Are you?” Her gaze slipped to his thigh. “My deepest apologies for wounding you. I did not know who you were, or—”
“Are ye Duncan Campbell’s niece?” he interrupted.
She either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore his query. “I must find Amish and John. They are old and—”
“Woman,” he cut her off again, this time his voice hard enough to make her blink. “Are ye Argyll’s niece?” When she nodded, his expression went hard. “Where is he?”
She looked around at the fallen, presenting him with the delicacy of her profile. “I had hoped he was here. But he must have run off with one of my sheep.”
A hint of amusement crossed Callum’s expression before he angled his head and barked out another order to the four men around her. “Brodie, check the keep with Angus and Jamie. If ye find Argyll, bring him oot to me.”
“Who are you, that I may properly thank you for aiding me?”
Callum’s gaze swung back to her. For an unsettling instant he lost all ability to reason, save that he knew he would be content to look at her for however many days he had left on the Earth. ’Twas not fear that made her bonny eyes appear so big, but reverence. Admiration from a Campbell! Since he had never saved the life of one before, he was not prepared for her awe. He shifted again, feeling damned uncomfortable and blaming her for it.
“I am Callum MacGregor.” Best to get it over with sooner rather than later, though a part of him regretted having to watch that veneration turn to hatred when he spoke his name aloud. He was not disappointed. Her face paled to such a milky white he thought she might faint dead away and tumble from her horse.
His eyes were usually very quick, and on any other day Callum MacGregor would never have missed an enemy reaching for a weapon. But for a moment her beauty made him forget about fighting and hatred and blood. A moment was all it took for her to slip her hand beneath her belt and retrieve the small dagger she had hidden there.
The glimmer of surprise that sparked Callum’s eyes belied his cold, impassive voice. “Ye have courage to point yer dagger at me.” She swung, and he moved in a blur of speed, yanking her from her horse to his. Pressing her chest to his, he closed his arms around her, pinning her dagger securely behind her back. “Ye insult the laird of the clan MacGregor with such a meager weapon, lass.”
“Let me go, vermin!” she hurled at him and spent the remainder of her energy kicking and wriggling, trying to free herself. “Let me go if you be a man, and let me fight you with my sword.”
Callum glanced at Graham, mirroring the commander’s expression of admiration at her furious promise. She was a fiery, braw lass, something all Highlanders valued.
But she was a Campbell.
“Is Argyll in the keep?” Callum asked her, barely straining a muscle against her attempts to be free of him.
“I told you I don’t know where he is, but when you find him, take him to hell with you!”
Aye, now this was more like the reaction he expected from a Campbell. She was no more innocent than the rest. “Graham, get me some rope. The wench tires me.”
Her fight came to an abrupt halt. She glared up at him with the promise of retribution frosting her eyes. “Will you prove yourself naught but a savage by raping me?”
Briefly, his gaze fell to her lips, then drifted over the rest of her body in a leisurely inspection of her feminine aspects, as if he were considering it. “Woman, I am much more than a savage.”
Her nostrils flared. “I would cut off your—”
Over her shoulder, Callum saw one of her uncle’s men exit from behind the house, cocked bow in hand. He had no time to shield her as the arrow whistled toward them and penetrated her right shoulder, just above her breast. Though it happened within the space of a breath
, he watched it pierce her perfect form, watched the breathtaking spark of life grow dull in her eyes. As Graham raced toward the guardsman, Callum’s eyes met hers again when she realized she’d been hit.
“Och, hell.” Her breath was a ragged whisper, sweet against his chin. “That was likely meant for you.”
Chapter Two
FIRE LANCED UP KATE’S ARM and seared her chest. Every inhalation of breath became more excruciating than the one before it. It wasn’t helping that her captor still held her firmly pressed against his body.
On second thought, mayhap it was. For she couldn’t move or flail about as agony gripped her. Her thoughts began to fade, but she fought to cling to consciousness. She had never fainted before, and she was not about to do so now whilst in the arms of a MacGregor!
“Be still with ye, lass.”
“Dear God, it pains me,” she groaned, covering her face in his shoulder.
“Let the pain settle.” His pitch lowered to a comforting murmur. His arms loosened around her while she tried to slow her breathing. He turned to his men, who were exiting her home.
“Argyll isna inside,” one of them called out. “We found only a few servants, nae old men among them.”
“They must be there.” Kate fought the MacGregor’s hold on her and then swooned as red-hot agony tore through her arm.
“Yer brew,” the chieftain commanded to another one of his men, and then caught something in his hand. “Drink this.” He held the nozzle of a small hide skin sack to her lips. “It’ll dull the pain.”
She glared at him with tears misting her eyes. “Did you kill Amish and John?”
He stared at her, unaffected by her sorrow. “I dinna kill old men. They are no’ here. Now drink the brew.” The intensity of his piercing gaze compelled her to obey.
She covered his hand with hers and took a long guzzle. Then she began to choke. Mother Mary! She had never tasted anything so foul! It was like drinking liquid fire. Her skin tinged green, and she shivered so violently her teeth rattled. She brought her hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying out . . . or from throwing up.
“It’ll pass.” Her captor moved slightly away and commanded her to look at him. When she did, his eyes fastened onto hers, and something in their ardent depths told her he did not expect to see weakness in her. She inhaled deeply. He would not find it.
“It’s poison,” she finally coughed.
“’Tis only whiskey.” A smile lurked at the edges of his mouth, but that was the only evidence of softness in his striking features. An instant later, even that was gone. “Where is yer uncle?”
“For the last time, I don’t know.” Kate closed her eyes to stop herself from weeping all over her enemy. Amish and John had been like foster fathers to her and Robert. Dear God, where were they? Where was her uncle? “He was here earlier. We were to leave for Inverary tomorrow. He must have fled when he saw the McColls.”
“True to his cowardly Campbell nature.”
Kate looked up at him. Cowardly was killing old men, or slicing open her father’s spine as one of this vermin’s kin had done. “Take your filthy hands off me, MacGregor.”
For a terrifying moment, Kate thought she might be looking at the Devil MacGregor himself. For his eyes were the color of fire: blue-gold embers that singed her flesh as they regarded her beneath the sable fringe of his lashes. Then his mouth crooked into a ruthless smirk as he opened his arms and released her.
Kate grasped his forearm to keep herself from slipping from his lap and crashing to the ground. She gritted her teeth as a fresh assault of withering pain ripped through her. “Damnation,” she swore, narrowing her eyes on him through a haze of tears. “You bastard.”
Her insult earned her a look of cool indifference. “Though ye look like ye could use some coddlin’, I dinna have the heart fer it.”
“I expected no less from a MacGregor,” she countered, then stiffened and grimaced when his arm snapped around her again.
The pain was beginning to dull, along with her senses. Dear God, she’d never been wounded so. Damn the McColls. Raiding her cattle was one thing. Trying to kill her was another. They had never done the like before. But today, because her uncle’s guardsmen had joined in the melee, the McColls had fought to kill. When two of the Highlanders swung at her, she’d had no choice but to unsheathe her blade and fight back. After over a quarter of an hour, her strength had been drained and she knew she could not hold them off much longer. She’d thought she was going to die. Though she had spent many years learning to wield a sword, no straw opponent could have prepared her for true fighting. She had been frightened many times in her life—three years ago, when the crop had failed and she’d thought her small family was going to starve. When her nursemaid Helen grew ill with the fever and did not recover. And after that, when Robert left and the wind howled and battered against her door at night, like a demon trying to enter. But she had never been as frightened as today, too weary to save her life, waiting for the strike of someone’s cold blade to cut through her flesh. Then he came.
She was not afraid of the MacGregor laird, though when she had first laid eyes on him sitting atop his great warhorse, the hilt of a bloody claymore clutched in his hand and a dozen dead McColls around him, she had been certain her death was imminent. But instead of killing her, he saved her life. Even after she had wounded him, he fought to protect her. Why would a MacGregor do the like?
Her head suddenly felt too heavy to hold up. Just before her eyes closed, she gazed up at the warrior cradling her in his arms. He smelled of heather and mist. The scent covered her, going straight to her head. The sun hovered just behind him, splashing light over his shoulders like a golden mantle, reminding her of Robert’s tales of Camelot. She smiled and then went limp in his arms.
Callum watched her head loll back, spilling her hair over his arm. His gaze fell across her throat, over the beguiling mound of her bosom pushed slightly upward by the brown bodice cinching her waist. God’s fury, he must be going daft, but he found her completely mesmerizing. She fit so perfectly in his arms. Indeed, he had the feeling that they had been crafted this way and he hadn’t known she was missing until this very day. Nae, he reminded himself, she was a Campbell, someone he was born to hate.
He had come here to kill the Earl of Argyll, not to save the bastard’s niece. He looked away from her, and his eyes burned with frustration. “Gather the men and let us be away from here.”
“And the lass?” Graham asked before turning to the others.
“Well, I dinna want her if she canna hold her whiskey.” Coming up behind them, Angus laughed when his laird tossed him back his pouch.
She had held it better than most, Callum decided, unable to help himself from looking at her again. Others usually retched after just one sip of Gillis’s potent brew. The way this woman had fought the whiskey’s worst effect revealed the kind of strength he valued and had never expected to find in a Campbell.
“I’m takin’ her,” Callum said, raising his gaze back to his men. “If Argyll wants to see his niece alive again, he will have to find me and finally face me in battle.”
“And if he finds our holding in Skye?” Graham asked.
“Let him.” Callum’s snarl was razor sharp. “He fears me and will nae doubt garner another army to bring with him. We will see them coming from ten leagues away and strike them doun as we did in Kildun. Argyll will die slowly, though.”
“What if the lass dies before we reach Skye?” Jamie asked, dropping a small pink bud he’d been inspecting in exchange for the girl. Her skin was deathly pale and her breathing shallow.
“Ye dinna die from an arrow in yer shoulder,” Brodie scoffed.
Angus swiped him in the chest with his fist. “How’s he supposed to know that? We’ve never seen an arrow in a lass before.”
“Women are more delicate than men,” Graham agreed, tossing a lingering glance on the lass in Callum’s arms. “She’s a bonny one too.”
“W
hat in damnation does that have to do wi’ anything?” Angus asked after another deep pull of his brew.
Callum glanced down at her again. “She will live. He shifted his arm to cradle her at a more comfortable angle when his thigh began to ache, and then scowled when she groaned—it sounded to his ears like a purring kitten after a healthy supper. She cuddled deeper against his chest, and his arms came up closer around her, mindful of the arrow jutting out of her shoulder. Here was something that certainly would have torn away his fierce reputation had anyone but his most loyal men witnessed it. A Campbell clutched in the crook of his arm!
“Should we no’ take the arrow oot, Laird?” Jamie asked, keeping a close pace beside Callum as they rode out of the vale.
Callum had considered it, but the thought of causing her any more pain did not appeal to him. Still, he did not want his men thinking he was going soft, and over a Campbell, no less. “We’ll take her to the Stewarts. They’re no’ far from here. Ennis’s wife is a healer. Once the arrow is oot, the lass’ll need herbs to fight infection. I’ll need her alive if I’m to use her as leverage against her uncle.”
“Ennis Stewart is a traitor,” Graham reminded him. “He might not welcome MacGregors into his home.”
“He will if he wants to live,” Callum growled back at him.
Graham studied his best friend with a spark of amusement gleaming in his green eyes. “Here, let me take her. Ye seem more sour than usual since ye put her in yer arms.”
“I’ve got her,” Callum warned succinctly. “Stop gapin’ at her.”
“Aye, stop gapin’ at her,” Jamie intoned with a forced scowl aimed at his brother. “Callum fancies her and willna have his woman fallin’ fer ye like them at Camlochlin.”
“I dinna fancy her, Jamie,” Callum corrected with an extra dose of disgust thrown in for the convincing. “She’s a Campbell.”
While Jamie often proved himself worthy to be ranked among the MacGregors’ most fearsome men, his downy flaxen hair and large blue eyes rivaled those of the most innocent child. “So ye hate her, then?” Those huge eyes looked up to Callum.