Kiss of the Highlander

The unnatural exhaustion he’d experienced while running toward the glen suddenly made sense. Someone had drugged him in his own castle! That was how his captors had managed to take him, and apparently they’d been keeping him drugged.

And that someone could even now be returning to the cave to force him to slumber again. They would not find him so easy to take captive a second time, he vowed silently.

“Are you all right?” she asked hesitantly.

He shook his head, his thoughts grim. “Come,” he warned before he dragged her along behind him.

She was so small that it would have been easier to toss her over his shoulder and run with her, but he sensed that she would vociferously resist such treatment and he cared not to waste time arguing. She was fine-boned and petite, yet prickly as a hungry boar. She was also lushly curved and scandalously clad and stirred a cauldron of lustful urges in him.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. Whoever she was, wherever she was from, she was unaccompanied by a man, and that meant she was going home with him. The lass made his heart pound and his blood roar. When he’d awakened to find her on top of him, he’d responded fiercely. The moment he’d touched her, he’d been loath to let go, had slipped his hands up her silky legs and been captivated by the notion that mayhap she removed all her body hair. He would find out as soon as his plight permitted.

In the fierce Highlands of Scotland, possession was nine-tenths of the law, and Drustan MacKeltar was the other one-tenth: Drustan was brehon, or lawgiver. He could recite the lineage of his clan back for millennia, directly to the ancient Irish Druids of the Tuatha de Danaan—a feat worthy of a Druid bard. No one questioned his authority. He’d been born to rule.

“Whence do you hail, English?”

“My name is Gwen Cassidy,” she said stiffly.

He repeated her name. “ ‘Tis a good name; Cassidy is Irish. I am Drustan MacKeltar, laird of the Keltar. My people made their home in Ireland for many centuries, before we took these Highlands as our home. Have you knowledge of my clan?”

Why had he been abducted? And once taken, why not killed? What must his father be making of his disappearance? Then a worse thought occurred to him: Was his father still alive and unharmed?

Fear for his father’s safety gripped him, and he repeated his question impatiently, “Have you news of my clan?”

“I’ve never heard of your cl—family.”

“You must hie from across the border. How came you here?”

“I’m on vacation.”

“On what?”

“Vacation. I’m visiting,” she clarified.

“Have you clan in Scotland?”

“No.”

“Then whom do you visit? Who accompanies you?” Women did not travel without escort or clan, and certainly not dressed as she was. Although she’d knotted a blue fabric about her waist before they’d left the main cavern, it failed to conceal her shocking undergarments. The woman had no shame at all.

“No one accompanies me. I’m a big girl. I do perfectly well on my own.”

There was a defiant note in her voice. “Have you any clan left alive, lass?” he asked more gently. Mayhap her family had been massacred and she displayed her body reluctantly, in hopes of finding a protector. She comported herself with the stiff bravado of an orphaned wolf cub, conditioned by savagery and starvation to snap at any hand, no matter that it might hold food.

She glared at him. “My parents are dead.”

“Och, lass, I’m sorry.”

“Shouldn’t you be busy trying to find a way out of here?” she changed the subject swiftly.

He found the display of toughness, affected by a woman so obviously wee and helpless, touching. It was evident that the loss of her clan was still difficult for her to speak of, and far be it from him to press such a discussion. He knew too well the pain of losing a loved one. “Och, but ’tis just ahead. See the daylight sifting through the stones? We can break through there.” He let the flame go out, and they were swallowed by darkness, broken by a few thin trickles of light a dozen yards ahead.

As they drew nearer, Gwen eyed the rubble blocking the tunnel with disbelief. “Even you can’t move those boulders.”

She knew so little about him. The only question was whether he would do it using his body or his other…arts. Eager to be quit of the cave, he knew using his Druid skills would be the fastest way out.

It would also be the fastest way to ensure he would never get her in his bed. A display of such unnatural power had driven three of his betrotheds from his life. The fourth had been killed two weeks past—nay, he amended, a month and a half ago if it was truly almost Mabon—with his brother Dageus, who’d been escorting her to Castle Keltar for the wedding. He closed his eyes against a fresh wave of grief. It still felt like two weeks to him.