Dark Side of the Laird (Highland Bound)

Bound by passion. Freed by love.

When the damaged and tormented Emma first meets the equally broken Logan, they embark on a torrid, emotionally provocative affair that irrevocably changed their lives. Emma has sacrificed her entire being and just when she thinks Logan is willing to do the same, he holds back. Reluctant for their love to be a thing of shadows, Emma issues an ultimatum: commit or say goodbye. Fearful of losing her, Logan agrees.

In order to keep her, he must gain permission to marry from the one man he’s sought to avoid: his brother, the King. His appeal is denied and instead, Logan is seized and sent to the dungeon with no hope for escape. While in Hell, Logan’s dark past haunts him, threatening to consume him. He must fight to remain the man he’s become with Emma by his side and relinquish the control he’s held onto for a lifetime.

Fearing her lover is dead, Emma decides once and for all she must leave history where it belongs and return to the present. But when she tries once again to break the bonds of time, she is struck down. Emma must choose her destiny. Must answer the cries her body makes in the dark for her laird. They’ve always been strongest when together, but now Emma must find the courage on her own to see her fate fulfilled—and Logan returned to her.

Praise for
BEHIND THE PLAID
…

4 ½ stars and a Top Pick from Night Owl Romance!
“Wickedly sinful, arousingly erotic, and delightfully delicious, Logan is the stuff that naughty Highlander dreams are made of.”

Dark Side of the Laird

Book
Three – Highland Bound Trilogy

By

Eliza Knight

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FIRST EDITION

December
2013

Copyright 2013 © Eliza Knight

DARK SIDE OF THE LAIRD © 2013 Eliza Knight. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part or the whole of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or utilized (other than for reading by the intended reader) in ANY form (now known or hereafter invented) without prior written permission by the author. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal, and punishable by law. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and or are used fictitiously and solely the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental.

Cover Design by Kimberly Killion @ The Killion Group, Inc.

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Dedication

For every woman who’s ever dreamed of a Highlander of their own, long may Logan bless your dreams…

Ac
knowledgements

Many thanks to my wonderful readers! I’m so blessed to have you all and I’m so incredibly grateful that you’ve enjoyed these stories.

prologue

Emma

Five months earlier…

T
his night would forever change me.

The storm raged. Stinging pelts of rain spiking against my cheekbones. Hair whipping into my eyes. I held my hands up, trying in vain to halt the rain as it blurred my vision from the castle rising in the dark, its tower ruins kissing the midnight sky.

Lightning flashed, startling me, jolting through my veins and then I was hurled to the ground. Somewhere in the distance I heard the cab driver tell me to come back. A voice that sounded disturbingly not like my own told him to go.

And then I woke, warmed by a different sun. A different time. No longer was I at the castle ruins of Gealach, but a place far altered. The castle stood tall, proud, and imposing. Each stone in its place, a shingled roof, and heavy wooden doors. Gone were the piles of rock and haunting ravens that pecked at what was left of any rotting wood.

Even still, the place was haunting, eerie in its quietness. And then the air started to vibrate. Literally pulsing around me. My skin tingled, hair on the back of my neck stood on end, vision blurred.

I could hear things that weren’t there. Voices. Shouts. Metal. I could smell things that were weren’t there. Animals, hay, peat fires and… fear.

And then nothing.

All at once,
it caved in around me, dragging me down in an overload of senses that made me cough and choke on an empty gag.

Cries of panic. Shouts of warning.

Startling utter silence.

Then more noise… clanging, running, screaming.

I crawled up the stone stairs feeling like every inch was a feat. My fingers scraping on the stone, I dragged myself to the top, intent on getting inside and away from what was sure to be my undoing.

Fingertips on the cool iron handle, I had it. But I couldn’t make it budge.
Whatever the noise and the smell, they were draining me, taking away every ounce of energy I possessed.

Was this punishment for running away from my husband? For leaving a marriage that was so very unpleasant, I might have flung myself from a window if I’d not been given the number for a cab service by the woman whose inn we stayed at for our holiday?

I don’t know… This felt…awful.

Fear rushed like a torrent of waves through my veins making me shake, sweat
, and freezing me in a moment of terror.

The door wouldn’t budge and with each passing second my heart beat faster and I couldn’t quit
e catch my breath.

“Open,” I said, but the words didn’t come out. Either that or the noise inside my head drowned out my plea.

I closed my eyes, praying both that I’d wake up at the inn with my husband, Steven, standing over me, just as much as I swore I never wanted to see him again. Which was it? I knew with all my heart I didn’t ever want to see Steven again. But this nightmare…

Could be a
new life. This is what escape was supposed to be about. Getting away from him. Leaving him for good. Starting out on my own and learning just who I had become—a shadow of my former self. A shell with its guts ripped out. I was empty. Soulless.

I tugged on the handle again,
hard, knowing this could be the start of something new. I had to move forward. This time it gave way. Gave way so hard, I went tumbling backward, elbow hitting the stone hard and landing on my hip at the bottom.

“What the—” But the words still
ed on my tongue, for there, standing at the top of the stone stairs, taking up the expanse of the monstrous wooden door was the devil himself.

A Scottish warrior. Broad, muscular, dark. He was dressed in a
red and green kilt and billowing shirt, tall boots and weapons covered his entire being. His dark hair was pulled back but wisps of it beat against his forehead and his murderous eyes.

His features were sharp, chiseled from stone. Darkly handsome. Wickedly sensual. Currents of longing and fear clashed inside me. I opened my mouth to speak but was too afraid of what would come out.

The people addressed him as laird. He was the lord of this place. But I could have guessed that. Power oozed from his every pore. Every taut, rippling muscle screamed of strength.

He addressed me. Came down the stairs and reached out a hand. Now was
the time to make a decision. Take his hand or run. On the outside, the laird was only offering to help me up, but I knew in reality… This offer was so much more than that. The promise of it was in his eyes. The way he assessed me and the way I shivered in response. Shivers I’d never felt before. A need, a craving that was so new and penetrating it nearly stopped my heart from beating.

Little did I know when I escaped Steven that I’d be hurled headlong into the arms of a dark and dangerous Highlander. A warrior
who with one look could make me burn.

The grass below me
had to be singed, from not only the intensity of his stare, but the way my body heated in response.

I could hardly look back
now. Instead, I warily looked forward, certain I was seeing the most dark side of this laird, and wanting desperately to sink inside his soul.

Chapter One

Emma

Scottish Highlands

Late November
, 1542

“
S
teady that horse, or I’ll have you run through!”

The king’s shout from the courtyard had me rushing to the small window and flinging open a shutter to see who he spoke with.

Heart beating fast, I knew the king wouldn’t shout at Logan that way, so I had no cause to fear for his safety, but there was always that lingering thought that he’d come crashing down on the brother whom he wanted no one to know about. The secret to which a kingdom could fall. What had Logan said? That he held the key to the future of Scotland and the power to tear the country apart.

I shuddered. It was enough to make me fear ever advising him against his king. Except… The king was hell bent on destroying not only Logan, but myself, it would seem.

A thin lad gripped the reins of a horse easily a foot taller than him and nearly a thousand pounds heavier. It was a beautiful chestnut with a snowy white mane, chest and forelegs. I didn’t know much about horseflesh, but even I could tell it was an expensive breed.

The king clunked toward him,
his armor chinking with each step. He raised his hand and whacked the poor boy on the back of his head. The sound echoed up the stones to my window. I cringed and jerked as though I’d been hit myself. The boy stifled a cry, biting his trembling lip and though I couldn’t see it, I could only assume tears pooled in his eyes. In the months I’d been at Gealach I’d grown to love and respect the people.

My heart constricted for the young squire. I
couldn’t have been more proud of the young boy if he’d been my own, though. For he didn’t cry out. Didn’t glare up at the man who treated him with injustice, and with one swift word could have him killed for what he would perceive as insolence. The boy simply bowed his head and appeared to murmur apologies.

Logan’s cruel brother
—the people’s king!—snarled.

Evident then,
were the many differences between Logan and his brother. Logan was fierce and powerful, a man no one wanted to trifle with. He put fear into his enemies. But he wasn’t a bully to anyone. He was a protector. He commanded respect, but he gave enough that he deserved it. King James was just an asshole.

A cocky son of a bitch that didn’t deserve a second glance, wouldn’t have gotten one in a modern era, but here, he commanded all.

I glowered down at him, safe in my room and away from prying eyes to see my contempt.

The man had come to the castle over a week ago and raised hell since he’d arrived. It was all Logan could do to keep his clan’s sanity in check. They all abhorred the king, and I couldn’t imagine how that made Logan feel—knowing his past.

He could have been—should have been—king. What a better monarch he would have made, too.

Born the first of fra
ternal twins to a dying queen, Logan was considered the weaker of the babes and a problem. The king had ordered him killed the night he was born, but several servants couldn’t see the deed done, believing that killing an innocent child would send them straight to hell. Instead, under the cover of darkness they sent him to live with the Highland lord and lady that Logan had grown up thinking were his parents. Only on the king’s deathbed did an elderly servant confess their grievous sin, and in turn that dying king relayed it to James.

I s
uppose Logan should feel blessed his brother didn’t see him murdered straight away, for Logan was the rightful king. But that didn’t make it any less wrong that he should so thoroughly have Logan clutched by the balls.

The king growled something el
se at the boy who scampered off, a look of relief on his face. One of King James’ knights stepped forward and held the reins as he put his foot in the stirrup and then lifted himself onto the horse’s back. Metal scraped on leather. He settled himself in the saddle and barked an order to a few of his men to prepare for departure.

Wait!
Where was Lady Isabella?

The vicious wench
should be leaving with the king. I frantically searched the crowd of riders. She’d arrived with him after all. Stoic, beautiful and utterly cruel, Lady Isabella had been brought to Gealach by the king—his intention to write a betrothal contract between her and my man. But she was a MacDonald, niece to Logan’s enemy, and the one man who threatened the kingdom’s safety beyond the two silently feuding brothers.

Logan had not agreed to marry her despite the king’s insistence—at least that I knew of.

Oh, my God… Had he changed his mind, in favor of appeasing the king? He’d promised that he’d never choose that woman over me. That he would seek the king’s permission to marry me.

A promise I’d been all too hopeful for.
Deep down, I must have known it could only ever be a dream. I loved Logan with an intensity that was probably unhealthy—but that was wholly a part of me. I couldn’t live without him. He was a part of my soul. Too good to be true. Was that why it was so easy to believe he might have changed his mind? Because if he wanted to live in peace with his brother he was better off marrying Lady Isabella. But I knew better. Logan would never do anything that could damage the country’s safety, the people’s freedom, and marrying Isabella was only bound to do just that.

I’d agreed
to marry him only after lamenting that he’d be destroying the unstable relationship he had with his brother. King James was bound to be pissed that Logan was going against his wishes. The ornery man would wage war, no doubt.
That
I couldn’t allow. Not for all the love in the world. And, wow, did I love the man. Fiercely. Hauntingly. Obsessively.

No matter how many times I’d tried to get back to my own time, Fate had kept me pinned to his side. We were bound. In some vision of destiny, we were meant to be together, heedless of time
limits.

If Isabella
weren’t leaving today, I might have murdered her. I was not a violent person, but she grated on my nerves more than anyone I’d ever met—and it was more than the fact that she was trying to steal Logan. She was alluring, seductive, and tempting. A real bitch. A home-wrecker.

The king shouted a final order before turning his mount around in the courtyard and pushing him into a trot.
Without a helmet, his hair flopped in the wind. He filed out the gate of Gealach in a line with his men and servants. The entire caravan marching with purpose, flags raised and trumpets blaring.

“No,” I
whispered, searching the rows of riders for Isabella’s back. No women.

Where was Lady Isabella?

Then a flash of red caught my eye. Standing directly below my window was the tart. Dark, glossy hair perfectly coiffed. A gown as elegant and regal as a queen. She shimmered, literally. So many jewels clasped to her fingers, neck, wrists, even her gown. They sparkled in the sunlight. Isabella waved a red, silk scarf in the air at the departing caravan. The way it wafted in the breeze with such peaceful intent filled me with rage. I wanted to trample her like a bull when taunted by a matador.

She was staying. No freaking way.

I slapped the stone casement of the window. A flash of memory spiraled through my mind—Logan’s heavy, erotic breathing, the feel of his hands on my naked breasts as he’d pounded into me while I leaned over this very spot. However much the thought should have heated me, I was filled with an icy dread.

Isabella was going to make my life a living, breathing hell.

As the last of the horses rode beneath the gates and the gatekeepers rushed to close the heavy wooden doors, the woman peered up at me. She’d known I was there all along. The cruel smile that peeled her lips back had me gritting my teeth. Her gray eyes, which I’d once thought were dull and lifeless, were in fact quite heavy with negative sentiment—mean and calculating. The bitch knew I wanted her to leave. Knew that I was against the king’s wish for her to marry Logan.

He was mine.

And she was determined to see that she was the only one he ended up with. Lady Isabella had a plan up her sleeve and given that her uncle was the worst of Logan’s enemies, I had a feeling that her plan was hatched not of her own accord but greedily accepted when broached.

I watched with mounting dread and pain in my heart as the king’s caravan rod
e over the dirt-packed road, disappearing over the ridge and rising again until all that was left of them was a cloud of dirt.

No one had returned for Isabella. No one in the courtyard seemed
confused by her presence. I wanted to scream in frustration to shred the shutters from the stone and toss them down on her head.

I could do none of those things. To the outside world, and even to Isabella, I was nothing. She’d asked me and I’d told her that there was nothing between Logan and I.
Having woman’s intuition, she’d guessed that he and I were an item. How could she not? The way we stared at each other across a room was hot enough to light a fire in the hearth.

I was screwed.

If Logan had indeed told King James that he wouldn’t marry Isabella, then the only reason she was here was because the king had chosen for her to remain behind in hopes of changing Logan’s mind. Maybe she wanted to seduce him. If he got her pregnant he’d be bound to her. Wasn’t that the way of things in this era? Even though I trusted Logan not to go after her… Isabella was a conniving, deceitful woman.

Despite her nature,
Lady Isabella
was
a noblewoman and
the
bride the king had chosen for Logan. Just as I’d suspected, there was little he could do to get out of it. He was bound, more so than anyone else, to his brother and what the king chose for him as his fate.

Damn it.
I slammed the shutters closed and stomped my foot, feeling powerless. I wouldn’t let Isabella come between us, and I just couldn’t share.

The thought of it made me physically ill. I doubled over, clutching at my belly.

Going back to my own time was out of the question. I felt too deeply for Logan to go back to that life. And I was scared of what I’d find there. My husband—
ex
was what I considered him—was a vicious worm. I shook my head. No way was I ever going back to him. Steven was dead to me. Logan was my future.

Another inaudible shout had me opening the shutters again, in desperate hopes that the king had realized Isabella was left behind. But all that greeted me was the normal routines of the castle’s inhabitants. How awful that everything should appear so normal when I felt so off.

Outside the trees were nearly barren, a few straggling red and orange leaves hanging on to branches as though their lives depended on it. They refused to let go, clinging to the tree with every last ounce of strength they had.

Much like me clinging to Logan and this time, fearful of the time when nature took its course and I would have no choice but to let go, swirling down into the depths of some place I didn’t want to be.
Dying.

I turned from the window and trudged over to the chair
. My cold breakfast looked pathetic in its austerity. I sat down determined to eat the bowl of porridge which had long since formed into a hardened blob of mush. Tunnels of honey and almond milk made rivulets in the center of the oats.

I’d barely slept in the las
t week since Logan had taken me through the secret door. The one I’d been through on my own before. The one that scared the shit of me. Down a hundred stairs and into the hidden chamber, he’d led me. Shown me the maps on the doors. Doors that represented different fates—life, death, honor and the unknown. Logan had opened up to me. Trusted me and shared with me the secrets of the castle. The thing that startled me the most was unearthing yet another clue that proved I was meant to be here. Evidenced by the rune tattoo on my hip was the same as the one etched onto the door holding a sealed treasure box, the contents of which even Logan wasn’t privy to. He trusted me. And I trusted him. That was all that should matter.

“Emma.”

I glanced up, startled.

From the doorway,
Logan cleared his throat, his face serious, worry lines etched at the corners of his dark eyes. His black hair was pulled back in a queue, longer than it was when I’d arrived at his stone fortress some months before. His shoulders were broad, nearly as wide as the door frame, and he had to duck an inch to get inside. Long, muscular legs. Thick, sculpted arms. Chiseled chest and abs. All regretfully covered except for his athletic calves. He stared at me intently, as though he would know everything that went on inside my head, my heart. Like he wanted to devour my soul, and lord help me, I would hand it to him on a silver platter.