Piper clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from whimpering. He was so close. Just a few feet away. If he looked down, if he saw any movement?—
“There ye are!”
A hand shot into the thicket, grabbing for her.
Piper saw it coming—saw the dirt under his fingernails, the calluses on his palm—and acted on pure instinct.
She bit down. Hard.
The laird howled, jerking his hand back. “Ye little bitch! Ye bit me!”
Piper scrambled out the other side of the thicket and ran. Ran deeper into the forest, branches whipping her face, roots trying to trip her. Behind her, the laird was shouting, his horse crashing through the undergrowth.
“Ye’ll pay for that! When I catch ye, and Iwillcatch ye, ye’ll pay for it. This is goin’ to be fun.”
Piper wasn’t listening. She focused on running, on putting distance between them. The forest grew thicker here, harder for a horse to navigate. Maybe she had a chance. Maybe?—
She burst out of a dense patch of trees and ran straight into something solid.
Strong arms caught her before she could fall. Piper looked up, ready to fight, ready to bite and scratch and kick.
And froze.
The man holding her was tall. Broad-shouldered. Dark-haired. His green eyes stared down at her with an intensity that stole her breath. He wasn’t like the other laird—there was no cruelty in his face, no sick hunger. But there was something else. Something dangerous.
“Got ye,” he growled, his voice low and rough.
Behind her, Piper heard the other laird breaking through the trees.
She was caught. After everything, after all her desperate running, she was caught.
And the man holding her showed no sign of letting go.
3
“Got ye.”
The words left Elijah’s mouth before his mind fully caught up with what had happened.
One moment, he’d been tracking through the forest, disgusted by this entire sick spectacle that Hector, his ally and Laird of the lands where this hunt was taking place, had asked him to help destroy. The next, the most beautiful lass he’d ever seen had run straight into his arms.
She was breathing hard, her gray eyes wide with terror. Blonde hair tumbled around her face in wild disarray. And her body—soft, curved,perfect—pressed against his chest as she struggled to catch her breath.
For a moment, Elijah forgot why he was here. Forgot the plan. Forgot everything except the feel of this woman in his arms and the way his heart had kicked hard against his ribs when she’d looked up at him.
What in God’s name is wrong with me?
“Please,” she whispered, and the sound of her voice—terrified but not broken—did something strange to his chest. “Please, let me go…”
“There ye are, ye little bitch!”
The other laird—Elijah didn’t know his name and didn’t care—burst through the trees on his gray horse. His face was red with fury, and he had blood on his hand.
She had bitten him, Elijah realized, and had to suppress a smile.
Good for her.
“Let her go,” the man snarled, sliding off his horse. “She’s mine. I was chasin’ her first.”
