Page 81 of In Bed with a Highland Brute

Murdoch advanced quickly toward him, lunging without hesitation. The first few blows were muddled in his desperation to get to Eloise faster, and the attacker was well trained, but Murdoch soon got his eye in. Stamping down on the man’s foot, he crippled his ability to stand tall, then drove his elbow into the figure’s nose. The hood fell back, revealing a face that was bloodied with a broken nose. Murdoch swiped out with his sword next, cutting across the man’s hand. The weapon was dropped to the floor as from the force of the blow he rolled away across the ground.

“Murdoch?” Harper was shouting for him, though he didn’t bother looking around.

“Release her now if ye wish tae live,” Murdoch warned the man that still held Eloise to the edge, lifting the sword.

The man seemed to weigh up his options, looking between Eloise and Murdoch.

Please, Eloise, look at me.

Yet she couldn’t. Her face was out toward the ocean, and she couldn’t possibly turn around with the man’s grasp on her hair. She was so close to the edge that one wrong move could mean she’d die.

I cannae watch her die. I willnae see it happen!

The man’s lip began to curl, a sudden smile taking over.

Why is he smiling?

Murdoch was so focused on Eloise that he did not notice the other attacker had recovered until he felt the wind from an attempted blow behind him. Murdoch leapt to his left, narrowly avoiding the first blow, but the second was too fast. The sword cut across his upper arm, drawing blood and making his arm weak.

“M-Murdoch?” Eloise shouted for him, her voice stammering as she clearly recognized his cry of pain. “Murdoch! Ye cannae die fer me,” she said in a sudden strained voice. “Ye hear me? Ye are nae dying today.”

“Enough, Eloise,” he called back to her. “Neither of us are dying today.”

Eloise whimpered as the hooded man pushed her head forward. She was now leaning out over the drop and the only thing that kept her from falling was his grip on her hair.

“Stop this. Please, stop this, all of ye,” Harper suddenly appeared between Murdoch and the men.

She seemed even wilder than before, a woman possessed, her eyes flashing with unspoken emotion as she looked at Murdoch. The wedding dress she had stolen from Eloise was in tatters from the wild ride, and she reached out with curling hands toward Murdoch.

“This ends now.”

“Aye, it does end,” Murdoch insisted. “Give me Eloise back, Harper. That is an order.”

“I cannae dae that.” She shook her head, standing taller. “These men answer tae me.”

Why? Why do they answer tae ye?

So many questions filled his head, questions he did not have time nor the patience to ask when Eloise was so close to death. Somehow, Harper, a younger daughter of another laird, had men answering her orders. They couldn’t be soldiers from her father’s clan, for her father wished for her to marry Clyde too.

She has bought loyalty from elsewhere, but where?

“Give me Eloise, Harper,” Murdoch warned, turning his blade toward her. “Nay blood has tae be shed if ye dae what I ask.”

Slowly, almost calmly, and in a stark contrast to her maddening shouts from a few seconds before, she shook her head.

“I cannae dae that. I am the one with the bargaining power here. If ye want Eloise alive, if ye dinnae want a hair on her head hurt –” as if in emphasis to Harper’s words, the man tightened his grasp on Eloise’s hair, making a small squeal escape her lips “– then ye will step back now.”

“What?” Murdoch spluttered.

“Ye will step back from this cliff. Ye will stay married tae me.” Harper suddenly smiled as she stepped toward him, as if all her prayers had been answered. “Ye will be me husband, Murdoch. We will make a family together.” She curled her hand toward him, as if he was not pointing a sword toward her at all. “If ye want her alive, that is the price.”

Murdoch looked toward Eloise, feeling trapped.

What dae I dae now?

Every part of him rejected the idea at once, but he could not reject it if it was the only thing that would keep Eloise alive.

A sudden whistle sounded through the air. It was of a bolt that had been loosened from a crossbow. Murdoch knew the sound at once and jumped back into a bent forward position, ready to leap forward into attack, yet the bolt was not aimed at him. It landed in the knee of the second attacker, the one that now stood behind Harper.