Alberti’s training kicked in. Lilia went limp, balled up, then shifted while jerking her captor over her shoulder. The man lost grip of her throat but snagged hold of her thick braid and swung her over, bouncing her flat of her back against the ground.
She wheezed in a strangled breath, struggling to regain her footing and the wind the man had knocked out of her.
“Ye be a spiteful bitch, I gi’ ye that.” The henchman cuffed her hard across the face, knocked her back to the ground, then snatched her up again by her hair.
Lilia pivoted with a sweeping heel kick aimed directly at his crotch. He caught her foot in both hands and twisted hard, nearly ripping her hip from the socket. With a bone-chilling guffaw, he flung her to her back again.
She rolled away, crab-crawling sideways to stay out of his reach. The son of a bitch was too big. Time to get free and run like hell. The man was three times her size and seemed impervious to pain. No way could she win bare-handed.
“Enough play. Time to take ye down to himself.” The man lunged, grabbing her by one arm and her braid, then started down the hillside, dragging her beside him.
She clawed and bit at the brute, doing her damnedest to wrap herself around his legs as he walked. If it worked for Kismet, it just might work for her.
He kicked her free, wrenching her upward until her boot tips barely scraped the ground. Blood roared in her ears. Blinding lights flashed from the bastard’s hard knee hitting her temple. She struggled to remain conscious. Graham would kill him. Soon as they were in range. One of the guys would kill him.She twisted and fought with every jerking step. The son of a bitch might win this round but she damn sure wasn’t going to make it easy.
As her captor drew closer to the base of the hill, he crushed her across his torso and pressed his dagger to her throat. His arm tightened around her rib cage. She swore she heard her ribs crack and bit her lip to keep from crying out.
The bastard arched his back, lifting her up higher as he shouted to the men taking cover in the ruins. “I’ll soak the ground with her blood if ye raise a weapon. Dinna think I won’t gut this witch here where I stand.”
Blinking against pain and dizziness, she barely made out the mixture of fury and fear on Graham’s face.I’m so sorry.She willed him to hear her thoughts, praying he would know what she felt right now.So sorry.If they got out of this alive, she’d admit that he’d been right and she’d been dead wrong.
As the man sidled the rest of the way into the camp, holding her as a shield, she struggled and clawed with the last of her energy. Nothing worked. The focused beast was impervious to everything. She finally decided to go limp again. By the Fates, if the bastard wanted to present her to the Buchanans, he could damn well carry her the rest of the way.
Her spirits lifted the barest bit as a deep warning growl rumbled from beyond the stones. Sweet Karma. He was pissed. If and when the men unleashed him, the Buchanans wouldn’t know what hit them.
Still holding Lilia between himself and the MacKennas, the wretched Buchanan sidled in front of his kinsmen still astride their horses. The bastard lifted her up by the back of her shirt and turned, presenting her to the Buchanan’s son for closer inspection. “Yer witch, Master Andrew.”
Two rapid-fire thuds sounded. A gurgling wheeze hissed free of the man. He dropped Lilia, staggered to one side, then collapsed with a pair of arrows protruding out of his rib cage.
Lilia balled up and rolled under Master Andrew’s horse, screaming at the top of her lungs while dodging the spooked beast’s frantic stomping. Clearing the animal’s sharp hooves, she launched herself up with a gimping hop, still yodeling out a high-pitched squeal and clapping her hands. All the horses reared and stomped, the first mount’s hysteria quickly spreading to them all.
Karma leapt out of the ruins, barking and gnashing his teeth. A streak of black sped past Lilia with a high-pitched yowl, then a Buchanan shouted and cursed as Kismet reached her target.
Arrows flew overhead as Lilia zigzagged toward safety, the treacherous route hindered by panicked horses and men swinging their swords.
Her heart leapt as Graham cleared the wall. Teeth bared and spear raised, he was headed to save her. A swipe of a Buchanan shield knocked her into a backward roll. She staggered to her feet, nearly back where she’d started.
A horse screamed beside her. She shied away from the lethal hooves pummeling the air.
The chieftain’s son lost his seat, cursing as he hit the ground in a controlled roll. With an agile leap, he gained his footing, a deadly mace clutched in one hand. Advancing on Lilia, he didn’t blink nor look away as he bent and scooped up his shield, never faltering a step as two arrows and then two more hit and stuck into the disc of metal-covered wood.
Oh shit. Got to get to safety. Now!Lilia turned and screamed, “Graham!”
“Die, witch!”
The roared words echoed in her ears as the hard blow cracked between her shoulder blades and lifted her up from the ground. Her lungs exploded, filled with unbearable fire. Pain crackled through her like a jolt of lightning.
Tumbling through the air, the first thing that registered in her mind was the horrified look on Graham’s face as he ran toward her. A dull roaring resembling the hollow growl of a gale force wind drowned all other sound. Lilia tried to reach out to him, clutching the air as she spun into a strangely muted darkness. She hit the ground with a sickening thud. A sharp popping filled her ears as she flopped across the rocky ground and rolled to a stop.
A strangely distorted clash of metal on metal sounded both close and yet far away at the same time. Men were shouting but for the life of her, she couldn’t tell what they were saying. Fighting. That’s what it was. Definitely, the sound of battle but it seemed so far away—as though she’d been lifted out of the chaos and tucked away into a secluded room. Excruciating pain radiated from the middle of her back and all the way through to her chest, making it hard to focus. The unbearable ache radiated out to her fingertips in throbbing waves.
She couldn’t breathe. Or could she? Was she the one making that high-pitched wheezing sound? She kicked—at least she thought she kicked but couldn’t tell if anything happened. She knew for certain her legs hadn’t moved. She struggled to roll to her side and make it the rest of the way to Graham but her body refused to obey.
The din of the skirmish grew ever softer. Almost hollow and so much harder to discern. Every sound seemed muffled as though wrapped in wool. Why was it suddenly so much darker? It was the middle of the day.
Strong hands gripped her arms, rolling her until she felt the cool wind brush across her face. An embrace held her tight. It was so dark. Her eyes were open. Why couldn’t she see?She tried to move her mouth, tried to speak.Graham?Why wasn’t her voice working? Flinching against the searing burn spreading through her lungs, she struggled to open her unseeing eyes even wider. She had to make it through the darkness. She had to make him hear her.
“Daren’t ye die! Can ye hear me, dear one? I love ye, Lilia! Ye must not die and leave me!”
