Margaret, for all her faults, was a beautiful young woman. She could have had her pick of suitors had her father not been so greedy, had he not searched for a way to expand his influence into the Highlands.
“What are you waiting for, then?” Elsie spat. “Kill me.”
Harcourt laughed softly. “Oh no. Death is far too quick.” He gestured vaguely towards the boat. “You will disappear, taken across the water. Sold, traded, hidden… whatever suits me best. And Halvard will spend the rest of his savage life knowing he failed to protect what was his.”
The waves surged higher, spraying cold salt across her face. Fear threatened to swallow her whole, her blood running cold in her veins. Harcourt wasn’t going to give her a quick end—he was going to torture both her and Halvard for the rest of their lives.
It was a sick, twisted plan. Death would have been more merciful, but Harcourt was not a merciful man.
Either way, it didn’t matter. There was one thing Harcourt had not accounted for, and that was Halvard’s strength, his resilience.
Halvard will come.
The thought was not a hope. It was a certainty carved into her bones. All she had to do was buy him some more time.
“What have you done with Selene?” she asked—finally, the one question that had been searing the back of her mind. “Where is my sister?”
Harcourt let out a short, bitter laugh. “Did you truly think I’d go into all the trouble of taking her? I don’t care about your sister. She can spend the rest of her life with MacLeod searching for you for all I care. I only used her to get to you. And it worked.”
Rage and relief mixed when Elsie heard those words. She had been foolish to have believed the man’s words, but knowing she had never been threatened flooded her with the kind of relief that almost made her knees buckle.
She didn’t need to worry about her sister anymore. She didn’t need to think of all the ways Harcourt could hurt her, all the ways he could break her spirit. Selene was home and she was safe, and that was enough for Elsie.
And then, somewhere behind her, she heard shouts—distant, furious. Harcourt heard them too, and his smile thinned as he stared into the distance, searching the dark for any sign of Halvard.
Elsie did the same, her head whipping back to stare into that abyss that stretched past the pier, but no matter how much she strained, she couldn’t see past the veil of night, but even so, she knew Halvard was coming for her.
“Quickly,” Harcourt snapped, urging his men to move once more, the two of them dragging Elsie along. Once again, she screamed and fought, resisting in any way she could as they tried to get her on the boat, knowing that if they sailed away, there would be little hope of Halvard catching up to them.
Digging her heels into the rotting wood of the pier, Elsie put all her strength into stopping those two men from getting her onto the boat. She kept glancing over her shoulder, kept searching for Halvard, kept calling out to him, praying that he would get to her on time.
But the men lifted her, their boots scraping over the pier as they hauled her toward the boat.
“Quit stalling!” Harcourt growled at his men. “Get her on the damn boat!”
But just as Elsie’s feet skidded over the pier, threatening to go over the edge of it, a flash of steel caught her eye. And when she turned her head, her eyes wide, her breath catching in her throat, she saw Halvard there, Sten next to him, the two of them hurrying toward her with their weapons drawn.
And Elsie had never seen rage such as that painted over Halvard’s face, as what drew him to her like a moth to the flame.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The rain came down hard and sudden, a storm that had been circling the village all day but had refused to fall until that very moment. It needled Halvard’s face as he and Sten burst from the darkness onto the pier, lifting a veil of obscurity over the sea. He blinked hard, trying to get the drops out of his eyes, trying to make them focus on the only thing that mattered.
“Elsie!”
Her name was ripped from his throat, the sound of it carrying far into the night. She called back to him, her voice thin and reedy, tinted with terror, and Halvard’s heart seized in his chest when he saw the men drag her to the boat.
Before he could take more than a few steps towards her, Harcourt’s men attacked. Halvard counted half a dozen of them—including the two who held Elsie in their grip. Steel rang out, sharp and screaming, as Harcourt’s men surged forward to meet him and Sten. The night fractured into chaos—boots poundingwet planks, blades flashing silver in the storm light, curses torn loose by wind and fear. Next to him, Sten let out a growl that cut through the night, his sword clashing with the enemy.
Halvard did not slow. He cut down the first man who came at him, his sword biting deep into flesh, the impact jarring up his arm. Another rushed at him from the side; Halvard turned, steel meeting steel with a sound like a struck bell. Rain slicked the pier, blood mixing with water under his boots, but his footing held.
When he swung his sword, his opponent ducked and jumped out of his reach. He was taunting him, trying to buy his master some time, trying to block Halvard from getting to Elsie. Halvard looked at her over the man’s shoulder, the way she was struggling to stay on that pier, the way every breath she took was used for her to fight one more second, one more moment.
He swung again, this time aiming for the place where the man’s neck met his shoulder, eager to put an end to the fight. But the man was quick to parry the blow, their blades meeting once more, the force reverberating through Halvard’s arm and travelling down his spine. With a roar, he threw himself at the man again, leaving him no time to defend himself. Once, twice, three times did Halvard attack him, and on the last one, he finally managed to plunge his sword through his stomach, tearing a gasp out of him. When he pulled his sword out of him, the man collapsed on the pier, saltwater and rain washing the blood that pooled under him away with frightening speed.
A scream echoed then, and Halvard turned to look at Elsie as Harcourt grabbed her. The two men who had captured her in the first place were now throwing themselves into the fight, shaken after seeing their fellow soldiers cut down so easily by Halvard and Sten—but not shaken enough for it to stop it from attacking. Whether they were too loyal or too fearful of what Hacourt might do to them, Halvard didn’t know. All he knew was that now, two more obstacles stood between him and Elsie.
Elsie.
