Page 51 of Enchantment of a Highlander

It had nothing to do with the way Duncan smiled when he saw her or the spindly armed hug she’d finally started to allow him to give or the way Wynda fussed over her.

It had nothing to do with the way they both had worked their way into her heart despite her defenses.

She knew she should break away from them as she had with Alec. She knew that, and yet could not bring herself to.

Swirling threads of clouds dimmed the gray sky above and Celia’s ears felt stuffed with the roar of the raging ocean. The air trembled with the anticipation of a storm.

But there was something else. An undercurrent crackled against her skin and left the fine hair on her arms standing on end. Ruadh had been several feet from her the entire journey and now wove in an anxious back-and-forth pattern.

He sensed it too.

Celia hugged her pack to her chest, more for comfort than to keep the wind from tearing it free. The leather was damp with moisture, like her hair and the new dress she’d sewn after trading some herbs for a bolt of homespun cloth from a villager.

A jolt sparked down her spine and her skin prickled.

Someone watched her. Someone near enough to pierce her with the weight of his stare.

She turned slowly to look behind her and her heart slid into her throat, choking the air from her chest.

A man sat upon a great black horse about fifty feet away, but she could make out his face, his eyes. Cold gray eyes that watched her without flinching.

Her mind screamed at her body to run, but her feet would not comply, not with the way her limbs quivered.

His lips moved and the wind ripped the word to her ears.

“Witch.”

Ruadh raced a circle around her, breaking her paralyzing fear, before darting toward a patch of trees and low lying brush in the distance. The pack slipped from Celia’s fingers and her legs flew into action. She darted away from the jagged coastline, following Ruadh’s lead. At least in the trees she had a place to hide.

A scream locked in her throat and her legs burned with the effort of her escape.

The shuddering grew stronger. He was too close.

Several more feet until she got to the forest. Frantic breath rasped from her lips and singed her throat.

It mattered not.

All that mattered was living.

The first branch slapped her across the cheek, but she did not stop. She raced between the narrow trees, hoping his horse would not follow.

Pain lanced through the side of her waist and twisted tight across her chest so she couldn’t breathe. Her steps faltered. She could run no farther.

Ruadh darted toward a large bush with waxy green leaves and slipped inside. She followed his lead and dove beneath its cover despite the many sticks and branches stabbing into her flesh. A bird screamed at their invasion and shot upward.

“Witch,” the man hissed.

She chanced a look up from within her cover of bushes and found him watching the bird’s ascent, eyes wide with deranged fear. His hand tightened into a fist, and that was when she saw it.

The ring.

The dark red stone, like a pool of congealing blood encased in a band of gold.

She knew that red stone.

Her chest burned for air, yet she refused to draw a breath.

Not with him so close.