Highlander The Cursed Lord (Highland Intrigue Trilogy 3)

So much had changed in such a short time and her heart ached over being separated from her sisters. She always thought that Elysia would wed and have bairns and the family would grow. She worried over Annis. She wasn’t particularly interested in marriage. She was far too interested in constructing dwellings to be bothered with a husband, especially one who would deny her a chance to do what she loved. At least they both were safe and were able to choose their own husbands and not be shackled to men who were complete strangers to them and would possibly harm them. Her sacrifice would not be in vain.

She jumped when a streak of lightning split the dark sky and she waited for the thunder and it came, rumbling the land with its enormous crack, and she shivered. She wiped the rain from her face, not that it did much good, the rain continuing to pour down on her. She would need to start a fire when the rain stopped. It was the only way she could dry her garments, but with how soaked they were, it would take forever for them to dry.

The night wore on and so did her strength and after a while, tears joined the rain that ran down her cheeks. She was alone and her heart ached at being separated from her sisters.

Bliss yelped when lightning struck, the bolt appearing as if it slashed through the tree. She heard the sound of a branch cracking somewhere overhead, and she fought to get to her feet, but her soaked garments were too cumbersome, slowing her down. She heard branches snap as the falling branch took other branches with it as it came tumbling down and all Bliss could do was squeeze her eyes shut and plant herself as tightly as she could against the trunk of the tree and pray that the branches missed her.

Another of her prayers went unanswered.

The crack of thunder woke Rannick, not that he had been sleeping well. He could not get the woman he had sent on her way out of his thoughts. Had she made it to safety? Was she stuck somewhere in this storm without shelter? And why the bloody hell should he care?

He had isolated himself here for a reason, a damn good reason. He would not let his cursed life touch another. He had lost three wives, two of which he had not wanted. His first wife, Cecilia, had been an arranged marriage he had agreed to. He could not say he loved her, but he had cared for her, and he had been delighted when she had gotten with child.

Rannick threw the blanket off his naked body and swung his legs off the bed to sit at the edge. It had hit him hard when she and their bairn had died in childbirth, her screams that had lasted throughout the night still haunted his nightmares. He had promised himself he would never wed again.

His father had thought differently and wed him again, though this time without his permission, to Phedra, a woman who spoke her mind and did as she pleased and believed no curse could touch her. She died in a riding accident, though she was a skilled horsewoman. Shona, his third wife, a sweet soul from what he had been told since he had wanted nothing to do with her for her own good, died in his arms only three days after his father wed them by proxy. It had been the one and only time he had touched her.

“Never again. Never again,” he whispered, staring into the flames of the small stone fireplace.

The image of the woman who had begged for water rushed into his mind. Why she haunted him, he could not say though he had gone far longer than usual without a woman. He had not touched a woman since his return home. He had coupled with many a woman while away, not one having meant anything to him. But then none had been a wife to him. He and his father had had a vicious argument after his father forced his return home. His father had insisted he wed and produce an heir for the clan. He had refused and made it clear that that would never happen. He had threatened that any wife his father forced on him, he would see dead before the curse could claim her. He left the keep that day and sheltered here in the remote cottage. And here was where he planned to stay until the end of his life.

Unfortunately, the woman’s arrival today had disrupted his plans. He could not keep her from his thoughts. He did not know what it was about her that kept her lingering on his mind. She was plain featured but not unpleasant to look upon and had little shape to her, being too thin. Her long brown hair had been secured tight in a braid and her eyes were brown in color and nothing to speak of, so why then did she continue to occupy in his thoughts?