Highlander of Mine (28 page)

The world suddenly blackened with the thudding presence of intense pain along her cheek and jaw. Opening her eyes, she was surprised to see the floor, the blurry floor.

Rory must have hit her, hit her so hard she’d fallen. Her vision was hazy at best, and she couldn’t think, couldn’t buck her body into action.

“Don’ ye ever do that again,” Rory seethed as he knelt in front of her.

Startling her into complete stupefaction for few seconds, he gently feathered his hand across her face.

“I don’ want to hurt ye,” he said softly. “Don’ make me do that again, ye ken?”

“Get yer hands off her.”

Fleur winced as she heard Jamie’s young voice. He sounded so threatening though. So cold.

Her vision started to define lines, becoming less fuzzy. She saw Rory darkly smile at the boy.

He didn’t say a word, but stood slowly, excruciatingly so. Rory reached behind him, and that was when Fleur noticed he wore a huge sword on his back. Just the pummel showing over his shoulder and the tip past his hip. With a sickening sound, Rory began to pull the blade from the leather when Fleur heard it, as if Coyote were in the room, as if her younger self were shouting at her, a wind humming through the house: “Get up! Get up! Do something!”

She knew what to do then.

Gripping the floor, she swung one leg then the other under Rory. He toppled over before he could extract his sword, his arms flailing over his head. Then she was on him, her legs holding his down, her hand gripping his hair, the other cocking back and punching him as hard as she could. With a sickening crunch, his nose gave way as she hit. The pain that radiated in her hand and up her arm was more severe than she’d expected. She’d never punched anyone before and wanted to wince, wanted to cradle her hand in her arm and cry. But as she saw blood spurt from Rory’s once perfect nose, the pain suddenly vanished.

She saw red-black rage. Clutching his hair with both hands, she pounded his head into the floor.

“Where’s Duncan? Where are you taking him?”

Rory gurgled and coughed the blood that rolled down from his nose into his mouth.

Slamming his head against the floor again, she yelled, “Where’s Duncan?”

He didn’t make a sound this time, but looked at her with glassy eyes.

About to smack his head into the floor again, she stopped when someone forcefully clamped his hand on her shoulder. She glanced up, angry to be interrupted.

“Greggor,” she whispered.

Jamie was close to the man who was now a MacKay prisoner, the man she’d nearly forgotten since she’d been kidnapped.

“I—I released him,” Jamie said quickly, staring at Rory. “Thought we needed as many men as possible when I realized what Rory was about.”

“The lad will make a great chief if ever given the chance.” Greggor smiled at Jamie, and tried to keep his calm grin as he looked down at her with his intense light blue eyes. “My lady, ye’ve pounded his head too hard. He’s no good now.”

Fleur glanced again at the man under her. Rory’s eyes rolled back, showing a sickening white. She jumped from him. “Did I kill him?”

Greggor knelt beside Rory, a hand over his nose. He shook his head. “Nay, but I reckon he’ll have a hell of a headache when he wakes, which probably won’t be for hours.”

The way Greggor had pronounced hell had sounded...weird. And at first Fleur didn’t recognize the word, as if he’d said hail instead. But she shook herself, trying to stay engaged in the moment.

Greggor looked up at Jamie. “Help me tie him to a chair.” Jamie jumped into action. Fleur didn’t know where they got the rope, but there it was. Instead of to a chair, they tied Rory to the couch, letting him lay down as he slept. Or was unconscious. Whatever.

After she’d been told the other English guards were down and restrained, she returned to her room, changing into her black jogging suit and running shoes. She felt gingerly along her jaw line. Sure, Fleur had wrestled with her cousins, but she’d never hit them. And they’d never hit her. She couldn’t believe Rory had struck her so fast she hadn’t seen it coming. It was a good lesson to learn, to keep her eyes on her enemies. Thank God, Jamie had been there to distract Rory long enough to return to her senses. She shuddered, wondering what Rory would have done to her, why he had touched her so gently afterwards, why he was so pathological.

None of it mattered though. Not when her man was somewhere out there with English soldiers.

She raced back to Jamie and Greggor. Eight of the lads had come in the house and bowed when she emerged from her room. As one, they said, “My lady.”

She waved off the formal greeting and asked, “How do we get Duncan back?”

Everyone turned to Jamie. “They have close to twenty men. At least twenty that I saw. They have only an hour’s time ahead of us. And they have a dozen of our men in chains, I’d guess, making progress slow.”

“Aye,” Greggor agreed.

“If we gather horses—”

“How much time will that take?” Fleur huffed, impatient.

Greggor shrugged and Jamie’s brows furrowed. “Another half hour. Mayhap faster.”

“Too long,” she said. “I have to track him down now.” She took a breath, thinking. Or trying to. “All right. I’ll take half the men and start running after Duncan, while Greggor and you, Jamie, get the horses.”

“Never good to divide when the stakes are so high.” Greggor shook his head.

“But dividing makes us faster,” Jamie argued.

Greggor crossed his arms over his chest, biting his lower lip. He turned to Fleur and slowly sank to one of his knees. “Ye saved my life, princess. In gratitude, I’ll give ye mine. My allegiance is with ye. I’ll go with ye, running on legs, while Jamie gets the horses.”

Fleur’s heart hammered at the sentiment. Greggor somehow had her hand in his and kissed it, not like a man wanting a woman, but like a man humbly giving her everything he had—his life. The gift was overwhelming, and she had no choice but to accept it, since she needed all the help she could to have Duncan back in her arms.

The other boys attempted to go down on one knee, murmuring something similar, and she blinked away tears as she shook her head. “Thank you, thank all of you so much, but we have to run now. We have to get our men back.”

In a whirl, they flew into motion. Fleur ran with Greggor beside her and about twenty boys ranging in age from fourteen to nine. Jeez, she couldn’t ask a nine year-old to keep up, let alone to fight for her. But she’d think about that later, after she found Duncan. Jamie had told her that the five boys trailing the English train were going to leave signs to help them find their trail. She’d found the first strip of white linen tied on a tree branch easily enough, but after a couple miles in, she panicked, not finding another sign.

“Over here,” Greggor called out as he found another piece of cloth tied to a heather bush. They hadn’t taken a torch, too scared the English would spot them. So they relied on the moon and stars to show them the way. As soon as they cleared Cave Smoo the smoke had lessened, making the sky brighter to see by. But it was damned difficult, and Fleur had never done anything remotely like it, except for playing hide-and-go-seek in the dark.

Fleur jogged to Greggor, to the sign.

“They’re walking through the fields now. It’ll be harder to find them. We’ll have to take our time to find the signs.”

She sighed, her patience already worn too thin. But she knew he was right.

The English, probably fearing being caught by the Highlanders, were marching through the fields. If they had walked through the wheat or oat lands, it would have been easy to spot the broken stalks. But, of course, the English were more clever than that. However, Fleur found traces of the men here and there. It was hard to hide the fact that more than thirty men had stumbled through an area, especially if it had tall grass. She guessed they were following a game trail, but being that there were many men, made the trail wider as they went, made more signs of their presence.

She could almost envision Duncan in chains, tormented and bloody. She’d guessed, since Rory paid her the visit so soon, what leverage Rory had used to force him to submit. They’d used her, probably telling him they’d kill her if he didn’t do as he was told. It yanked at her heart. She hated that she had been Duncan’s weakness. To make him think more of her wellbeing than his own.

But she knew she would have done the same if their positions were reversed.

Maybe weakness wasn’t the right word, especially when thinking of the asshole that had tried to take advantage of Duncan’s feelings for her.

As she searched for the next sign, she thought of the heady, pleasure-filled gift Duncan gave by wanting her. He was the best man she’d ever known. Ever. And he wanted her, had made love to her tenderly and gently and had planned a future with her. She felt so honored. So grateful. And so in love.

The knowledge gave her legs more speed as she raced across a flat field, watching for bent grass, broken heather branches and other marks that her heart had been there.

It seemed like an eternity, running, waiting for Jamie and the others to catch up, hoping to find Duncan. Just as Fleur cusped into despair, she heard the telltale sign of horses. On a hard surface, a horse’s gait can clearly be detected. The clop-clop-clop is unmistakable. However, on a field of grass, she knew the ground had enough absorbency to captivate the impact and sound, but the whish-whish-whish of a horse’s forearm whispering against tall grass was conformation.

The problem was, there were only two horses making the noise with about thirty men walking, some in chains. It wasn’t Jamie coming to her rescue with the other lads. She and Greggor and only twenty boys had caught up to the English soldiers. To her Duncan!

She shushed Greggor as soon as she realized what the noise was. Suddenly appearing like wee ghosts, five lads emerged, confirming with hand signals that over a hill were their men and the English. Greggor knelt, tilting his head the direction indicated, then nodded.

She fumbled to her own knees close to Greggor, as did one of the older boys, Owen.

“What do we do now?” She swallowed, hoping her whisper was quiet enough.

Greggor looked to the boy, probably almost fourteen, like Jamie, but a bit smaller. He swallowed too, but said, “Ambush?”

It had been what Duncan had done to rescue her, Fleur remembered. She thought back to how the men had charged at her kidnappers from both sides of the hill.

Crawling on her belly, she pushed closer to where she could see over the knoll. It took a while to gain a vantage, but there they were. At the front of the line were two men on horses, behind them were about ten soldiers, looking as though they carried pikes. Next, all clumped together in chains, making clanging noises, were their men. Their captive men. Duncan! Duncan was somewhere in that mix. And behind the captives were another ten or more soldiers. She couldn’t see any long weapons, but that didn’t mean they weren’t carrying any.

Fleur scanned for extra-wide shoulders, a head above most other men’s.

There.

At first, she hadn’t caught sight of him, because he wasn’t with the rest of the prisoners but pulled behind one of the horses. He was hunched over. His steps seemed clumsy. More than likely he was hurt.

Venom poured through her veins, clenching her stomach and heart tight.

A hand gripped her arm, and angrily she glared at Greggor.

“We need a plan before we attack.”

She hadn’t realized she’d moved. But after Greggor had whispered, she glanced at where she was. She’d crawled a few feet without even knowing it. So desperate to get Duncan back, she’d almost done something foolish.

Nodding at Greggor, she scuttled closer to him, farther from where the English could see her.

“Owen, take the lads on this side of the hill.” She pointed back and slightly to the side. “Greggor and I will take the other hill over yonder.” Again, she pointed. And everyone nodded. “First, we distract them. Scream as loud as you can after Greggor and I begin. Spread out and scream. They will think there’s a lot more of us.”

Then Fleur felt murmurs of noise in the ground, through the air, but not quite to her ears yet. Thud-thud-thud. Thud-thud-thud. Jamie and the gang were right behind them.

“Jamie’s almost here.”

Owen nodded. Fleur wasn’t too sure if he heard the horses or not, but he was following her lead. And wasn’t that something?

“We go now. Jamie will figure out the plan,” she whispered to both Owen and Greggor, looking at the other boys. She wasn’t going to tell them to attack. She’d try to protect them, keep them innocent as much as she could. Glancing back at Owen, she said, “Spread out. Greggor and I will start yelling, then you all scream.”

“Scream real loud,” Greggor added.

Owen nodded seriously.

If everything went as she hoped, Jamie and the horses would be upon them as soon as they started scaring the English. And then they’d...and then she’d . . .

Shit, she was going to attack English soldiers, carrying nothing but a couple fillet knives she’d fetched from the kitchen. Greggor had an ax and a blade, and Owen and a few of the boys had the swords from the unconscious English guards that had surrounded her house.