The Wolf and the Highlander (Highland Wishes) (4 page)

That gave her pause.

“I can’t help this.” He motioned to his prick. “But I won’t hurt you. I promise. I won’t hurt you.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. She looked like she wanted to speak.

He took his hand away.

“Why are you
naked?” Her voice rolled with a burr that pleased his ear.

“I was hunting.”

“You hunt naked?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

She frowned. “What are you?”

He felt himself grin. “I was just wondering the same about you. We can discuss it later. For now, we have to fly.” He offered her his hand.

She stared at it. Then she swallowed and took it.

At her touch, his chest gave an unsettling lurch. He ignored it and tugged her to her feet.

She got them under her with difficulty. A wince pulled taut her lovely mouth.

“
Look at that crippled gait,”
the soldier had said.

“You’re wounded.” He scooped her into his arms. With her bird-light bones, she weighed next to nothing.

She swatted his chest. “Put me down, you brute! I can walk.”

“But can you run?”

She glared at him. It was answer enough. He tucked her close to his chest and sped toward the border.

“You
mentioned there are more of them,” the woman said, winding an arm around his neck and peering over his shoulder. A thrill shot through him at the trusting gesture. He almost lost his footing. “How many more?” Her voice was steel. Brave lady.

“I don’t plan to find out.”

If Anya ever saw that blasted box again, she was going to chop it into a million bits. Laird Steafan hadn’t been able to manage it, but there was no force on Earth as powerful as an irate Highland lass. How dare that bloody thing interfere with her plans to face her laird and pay for her sins? How dare it thrust its magic upon her and cast her into a world of great mottled boars and enormous naked men?

Och,
make that a single enormous naked man. The other two she’d seen had been naked but not enormous. That hadn’t made them any less terrifying when they’d been trying to rape her.

The one now running through the forest at alarming speed while cradling her in the brawniest pair of arms she’d ever seen ought to terrify her too. He clearly wasn’t human. Not with those bulky teeth and animal eyes
, those pointed fingernails and that luxurious body hair covering his chest and stomach and growing thick and tempting between his legs. But for some reason she wasn’t afraid. Mayhap ’twas the way the skin of his cheeks above his thick black beard had turned a shy shade of pink when she’d noticed his cock-stand. Or the way his eyes had crinkled at the corners when she’d asked how many men might be after them. Or the way his scent of pine and clean, dusty dog made her think of home and happiness and safety.

Or mayhap she was merely addled from when the other man had hit her in the head.
Och,
it felt like someone had flayed her skull open upon the blacksmith’s anvil and pounded away at it with the Devil’s own hammer.

Furthermore, it seemed to be morning wherever
here
happened to be, yet to her weary bones and heavy eyelids, it felt like the middle of the night. The rocking motion of the man’s loping stride tempted her toward slumber. A great yawn stretched her mouth. After it passed, she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“To my home.”

Such guileless eyes. She could hardly look away from their captivating color. A brown as bright and pure as hardened tree sap glinting in the sun.

Content he hadn’t said, “torture chamber” or “slave house,” she rested her cheek on his firm shoulder and let sleep claim her.

A change in the soothing rocking motion woke her. She opened her eyes to bright sunlight. Her headache assaulted her afresh, as did other aches and pains, too numerous to count. But she didn’t fash about any of that. Somat was wrong. She recognized this
dip-rise-pause
sort of walk. Her rescuer—or was he her captor?—was limping.

While she’d been asleep, they’d passed into a narrow meadow of fluttering wheat-colored grass. He skirted the meadow, keeping close to the crumbling stone wall at the tree line. The sun kissed her face, but its warmth was a mere flicker of a candle compared to the raging bonfire of the man’s chest, which heaved with exertion and heated her through her dress and shift like a bed warmer. He’d been carrying her for what felt like hours. He’d slowed to a walk, but still, his arms didn’t tremble.

She let her head fall back on his shoulder to study his face. Tension pinched the skin at the corners of his eyes. “How long did I sleep?”

He startled, and suddenly his gait became smoother. “A while,” he said, avoiding her gaze. He did not wish for her to find weakness in him.

She understood that. “How far to your home?”

His gaze swept the path before them, alert, though his eyelids drooped with weariness. His skin had taken on an ashy pallor. “Not far.”

“How. Far.”

His lips twitched. He didn’t answer.

“Put me down.”

“No.”

“You’re weary.” And injured, if his complexion was any indication. When she’d first seen him, he’d been crouching over her with splatters of blood on his face, chest, and legs. She’d assumed it was because he’d just killed two men to save her, but what if some of the blood was his?

He shrugged, a powerful bunching of muscle beneath her cheek, as though the fact of his
weariness was barely worth considering. Stubborn man.

“I can walk. I can certainly keep up with a wounded man.”

“You’re wounded as well.” He didn’t deny he was hurt.
Och,
and he’d carried her who kent how far while she’d slept like a lazy cur.

“Mine are old wounds. I can walk.” She wiggled, trying to get free.

His arms didn’t budge. He glanced at her skirted legs. “The Larnians didn’t hurt you?”

Larnians? He must mean the other two men. “Gave me a bloody headache. But
no, they didna hurt me much.” Thanks to him. “Put me down. I’d like to walk.” Chi Yuen hadn’t made her walk every day the last few weeks simply for the joy of watching Anya grimace, like she’d assumed at first. The movement eased her aches and loosened her knotted muscles. She could use some easing of her pain now, even if initially she would suffer.

“These old wounds. They still pain you.” He was stalling. Why he’d want to continue carrying her when she’d given him an excuse not to, she couldn’t fathom.

“They’ll pain me less if I move about.”

His brow pinched with distress she didn’t understand. “I can’t put you down. But I’ll do what I can for you soon enough.”

If he thought that tone of gruff finality would dissuade her from arguing, he was sorely mistaken.

“My wounds pain me much less than yours. Put me down.”

“How did you get them?”

Stalling again.

“I’ll tell you about my wounds if you put me down.”

“Be easy,” he answered, his gaze soft on her in a way that made her stomach flutter. “Not long, and we’ll be there.”

“Unless ye keel over on the way. You’re pale as a sheet. Put me down. I won’t ask again.”

“Good. I’m growing tired of the request.”

Irritating rascal. “That was supposed to be a threat, not acquiescence. Put me down, you great oaf!”

He had the gall to grin. And that grin had the gall to worm its way into her chest and lodge there like it belonged. “Don’t worry. I’m strong.” He squeezed her, demonstrating the truth of the statement. His grin grew cocky, as though he challenged her to find him lacking in any way.

Clearly, arguing with him wasn’t working. She tried honesty. “If anything happens to you, I’ll be lost. If you must carry me like a thick-skulled fool, at least tell me how to find this home of yours so I can fetch supplies and come tend you when you drop like a stone.” She might be smarter to leave his carcass where it lay, given she had no assurance his intentions were decent, but she wouldn’t. If he fell, she’d do what she could for him. If only to repay his rescuing her.

His cocksure grin melted away. He met her gaze and held it. “Don’t worry, lady. I will make
it. For you, I would walk a hundred times as far with wounds a hundred times worse.”

Because she didn’t ken what to say to that, she said simply, “I am no lady. Call me Anya.”

* * * *

Anya.

A lovely, unique name for a lovely, unique woman.

Dark had fallen, and with the setting of the sun, the night-rich scents of the forest rose up to meet his nose. Damp moss, rotting bark, and decaying leaves. Not long now, and they’d be at his cabin. He’d be able to care for her like the lady she was, even if she didn’t consider herself one.

Why she didn’t, he could not imagine. There wasn’t a woman alive in Marann who wasn’t revered as a lady. But she wasn’t wolfkind, which meant not only was she not Maranner or Larnian, but she was from no place on Earth he had ever heard of. She had to have come from somewhere, though, since women didn’t just appear out of thin air.

It was a problem for later. For now, he had a potential party of trackers to elude. Turning against the
night breeze, he headed for the creek that bordered his land. His thigh hurt with each step, but the muscle was still strong. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle. With a good dressing and plenty of bread and tea, he’d be mended enough to hunt by morning.

He smelled the fertile mud of the creek and the musk of the creatures that came to it for drink long before its musical babble reached his ears.
Coming to the water’s edge, he loped down the bank, squeezing Anya tight to protect her from his jerky movements.

She’d slept much of the journey but
stirred as he climbed the opposite bank. “Water?” She spoke with her eyes closed. When she opened them, her pupils were large black disks. Even in the darkness, he could tell her gaze was unfocused. She needed to drink, but he dared not stop. Lingering, even for a moment, would make their scents thicker in the air. If trackers were coming for her, he needed to delay their discovery of his cabin as long as possible. And get Anya well away by the time they found it.

“Soon,” he told her. “We’re nearly there.” He changed direction, doubling back to confuse the trail. Another half-hour’s walk brought him to the branch of the creek that led to his cabin. He stepped into the creek and made the rest of the journey with water lapping at his knees.

The scent of freshly-chopped wood met his nose as he stepped from the brook into the clearing where his sire had built their log and stone cabin long ago. He strode past where his maul lay propped against the chopping block, ready for him to split more wood for the coming winter. Before he split any more, he had a precious treasure to see to safety. Unfortunately, he could think of only one place to take her where she’d be safe. And once he got her there, he’d have to leave her.

He
would know but a few days in this woman’s presence. The thought sent a stab of disappointment through him. Ignoring it, he shouldered his cabin door open and laid her on the furs covering his pallet. After lighting a lantern and pulling on his shirt and trousers, he filled his finest cup, a pewter tankard, with water from the rain barrel and brought it to her. With an arm at her back, he helped her sit up.

“Drink, lady.”

She did, deeply, cupping her hands around his and draining the cup in several swallows. He filled the cup again, and she drank that too, this time sitting under her own power while he sat beside her on the edge of his pallet. She’d been in his home less than five minutes, and her scent already permeated the air. His bed would smell like her for weeks if he didn’t wash his bedcovers.

He swallowed hard as he watched her throat work. The smooth column looked like
bronze in the lantern light. He wanted to feel its smoothness with his fingers, his nose, his lips.

She finished the water, and her tongue darted out to catch what moisture clung to her lips.

He felt that lick like she’d done it over the skin of his neck. A shiver passed through him. Shite. He’d have to get his reaction to her under control if he was going to walk across the country with her. Or he’d have to put up with tented trousers the whole way. “More?”

Thankfully, she didn’t look at his lap, only shook her head in answer. “But I’m hungry.”

“I have bread.” The wrapped loaf on his hearth was two days old, but it would do. He would bake some fresh later tonight, and they could take it with them when they left in the morning. He crossed the cabin and got the loaf. Before putting it in her delicate hands, he broke its grainy bulk in half, easier for her to manage.

She tore into the first half with her blunt little teeth. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she chewed. A deep moan came from her throat.

With burning cheeks, he turned from her and busied himself tearing strips of linen to dress his wound with. He set the strips and his medicinal salve on the workbench, relieved when the moist, rhythmic sound of her chewing and swallowing stopped.