The Highlander's Harlot (Sword and Thistle 1)

I’d hoped my time away would’ve softened him to me. That he’d forgive my disobedience and understood what I’d offered in sacrifice. Tears spilled over my cheeks. “Please, Papa. I’m no harlot,” I cried, even though I wasn’t entirely sure that was true.

“I’m not your father anymore,” he bit out, his eyes haunted. “You’re not welcome here. You can ply your trade by the roadside, but not here, so you can get back on that horse and ride off before I take a strap to you.”

“You’ll find your mouth bloody if you try it, old man,” Ian growled from atop his horse, as

if ready to swing down and defend my dubious honor.

My father spat on the ground with contempt. But I noticed the trembling of his hand upon the door. “Get on with you. I won’t have you under this roof.”

At this, Davy hissed, “It’s the laird’s roof, ye insolent—”

“It’s nothing to fight about,” I said, swiftly, hoping to prevent bloodshed. “If he won’t have me back, then I won’t stay.” Taking a deep breath, I wiped away the tears with the backs of my hands. “Just let me hug the the little ones.”

“No!” my father said, a strange intensity in his eyes when he refused me. “You’re spoiled now. Ruined. So I’ll thank you to keep your immoral ways away from the bairns.”

I didn’t think my heart could ache more than it did—but I reminded myself that it could have. My father could have been dead, swinging from a tree in front of the children. That would have hurt worse. And so I sobbed a little into my hand before straightening my spine. “Where’s Arabella? At least let me say goodbye to my sister.”

“She’s not here,” my father barked.

But just then, I thought I heard a sound from the barn. My sister’s voice. A shout. A cry. A scream. At the sound of it, the laird’s warriors all drew their swords. “Arabella?” I cried, lifting my skirts to run to her across the clearing, just as a band of strange men emerged and hauled her from the barn, a knife to her throat.

“Donalds,” Davy hissed.

Then it was madness.

With little regard to their own safety, and knowing they were outnumbered, all three of the laird’s warriors rode right at the band of men, their swords glinting in the sun.

“No!” my father called after them. “They’ll kill her.”

But the grim, dark, scarred Malcom cut through the men like a swath of fabric. Davy let out the Macrae battle cry while Ian tried drive off their horses from behind the barn. I heard shrieks and screams as the men battled, and realized they were my own. Realized too, that I had myself waded into the terrible melee, trying to get to my sister. Grabbing for the men who were trying to take her, reaching for Arabella’s hands, I took a blow to the face. Found myself sprawled upon the ground, bleeding from my mouth. And in horror, realized that the men were making off with my sister and trying to make off with me too.

But the moment one of them grabbed for me, Ian landed a cracking punch to my would-be captor’s jaw, and was rewarded for his trouble with a sword swipe that sent him down to the ground in a spray of blood.

The Donalds took my sister. They hauled her up onto a horse while Davy and Malcolm shielded Ian’s fallen body with their own until the Donald warriors left them in a sweating, cursing heap and rode off.

“Arabella!” I shrieked, hysterically after my sister.

But Davy tried to calm me. “Easy, lass. You’re bleeding.”

“It’s mostly Ian’s blood,” I cried, turning, trying to staunch the warrior’s wound with my once beautiful purple gown.

“Just a scratch,” Ian replied, though blood seeped through his shirt, onto his fingers, and the others had to help him to his feet. He wobbled, panting. “Warn the laird. It’s a scouting party, otherwise they wouldn’t have ridden off with a girl for their amusement. There must be an attack on the castle coming. Warn the laird!”

But Davy wasn’t having it. “You warn the laird. Take his woman to him before they come back for her. And get yourself a healer.” Then to me, Davy said, “We’ll go after your sister and find out what they’re planning.”

With that, Davy all but threw me up onto Ian’s saddle like a sack of grain. With help, Ian mounted behind me, and before I could question my father, he rode off with me again in a cloud of dust.

~~~

“Are you hurt, Heather?” the laird demanded, marching down the stone stairs into the castle courtyard to grab me in his arms. Seeing the blood on my gown, he went white, half-torn between rage and worry. “Have you come to harm?”

“Not much,” I said with a tiny sob, grateful for his embrace. More grateful for it than anything I could remember. Though my jaw ached intolerably and I could still taste my own blood in my mouth, I couldn’t think of myself. “But Ian…and my sister…”

“Ian’s wound isn’t deep,” the laird reassured me. “The physicker says he’ll complain and brood about it, but it won’t kill him. And as for your sister…” John Macrae took a deep breath, and gently pushed the hair from my eyes. “She’s just a crofter’s girl of no value to anyone. Even if Davy and Malcolm can’t stop the Donalds in time, they’ll only have a bit of sport with her and let her go.”

They’d rape her, he meant. And though I knew he meant his words to comfort me, they didn’t. Especially since he’d said, she’s just a crofter’s girl of no value to anyone…

Words I knew the truth of, all too well.