Page 4 of Sins of the Highlander

An angry swarm of crossbow bolts buzzed around them. Mad Rob whipped the stallion’s head around, and they plunged down the far side of the hill.

When they reached the bottom, he reined the horse to a slow trot along the base of the hillside.

Elspeth tried to wiggle free as soon as they slowed their pace.

“Hold still,” he snarled. “Dinna try me, wench. I’ve nothing to lose.”

She settled then, taking hope from shouts of the men following them. Their voices echoed from one rise to the next. The horses’ hoofbeats on the far side of the hill sounded like approaching thunder.

Mad Rob seemed not to hear them. He just kept scanning the craggy slope. Then he turned the stallion’s head back up the incline, making for an outcropping of dark granite.

“They’re almost upon us!” Elspeth shouted. “Surrender and live.”

He didn’t slow his determined flight toward the rocks. Then when they almost dashed into them, Rob brought the stallion up so short it nearly sat on its haunches.

“Get ye behind the rock.” He nearly threw her off the horse and leaped down behind her. He pushed her between a pair of cottage-sized boulders, leading the stallion behind him. “To the right.”

There was a yawning hole in the hillside, a cave whose entrance was hidden by the rocks. Elspeth staggered into the darkness as the MacLaren and his mount followed. The ground was uneven beneath her feet.

The cave was cool and dark and ripe with must. She extended her hands before her lest she walk into a wall.

“How did ye know—?”

Mad Rob clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her back against his chest. “Not a word if ye wish to keep breathing.” His whisper tickled her ear.

She stood perfectly still, inhaling the scent of leather from his gloved hand. She heard his soft breathing and the stallion’s trappings creaking as the horse shifted its weight. Then in the distance, she made out the tattoo of hoofbeats and muffled shouts as the men who were pursuing them overran their hiding place.

Then those sounds faded, and all she could hear was the pounding of her blood coursing through her veins. The heartbeat of the man standing behind her thudded against her spine. He relaxed his hold and removed his hand from her mouth.

She turned to face him and shouted out: “I’m here! Hel—”

His mouth descended upon hers and swallowed up her cry.

She’d been kissed sweetly before, stylized expressions of courtship during some of the dances favored by Queen Mary’s court.

This kiss bore no resemblance to those. This was a ravishment, a demanding plunder of her mouth.

He stole her breath, but she was so surprised by the sudden invasion, she didn’t think to pull away. She froze like a coney confronted by a fox.

He filled her with breath from his own body, warming her to her toes.

I should be revolted. I should be screaming to get away.

But then his mouth went suddenly soft and beguiling on hers. Elspeth had never imagined the like.

How strange, this shared breath, this mingling of souls.

Without conscious thought, her fingers curled around his collar. She received a flash of Sight. Not exactly a vision. More like a deep Knowing.

Rob MacLaren had a hole in his heart, a void nothing could fill.

He no longer seemed mad to her. Just empty. Her chest constricted in empathy.

An image forced itself into Elspeth’s consciousness, creeping in softly but with determination. The willowy form of a woman with long coppery hair took shape in her mind, distant and hazy. Elspeth couldn’t see her face. The woman turned and fled into the mist.

She sensed deep sadness in MacLaren, an ache that wouldn’t be stilled. A loss for which there was no comfort.

He’d abducted her from the altar, but she couldn’t feel anything for him but pity.