Page 13 of In Bed with a Highland Beast

Immediately, the clearing was flooded with men, all of them emerging from their tents, and Alaric was on his feet, his hand grasping the hilt of his sword. Next to him, Lucia didn’t seem particularly bothered by the fact that they were surrounded by several warriors, all of them ready to kill them both at their leader’s order.

Alaric searched among them for the man with his gaze, but it was difficult to tell if their leader was there. Then, someone walked through the crowd, emerging from the shadows, andAlaric instantly knew him to be the leader, even though he didn’t recognize the man. He seemed to be a little older, his dark hair streaked with grey strands, but he was tall and muscular just like Alaric himself—a man who didn’t shy away from action, that much Alaric knew for certain.

With a step to the side, Alaric positioned himself between Lucia and the men, acting as a shield in front of her. He couldn’t help it; it didn’t matter how skilled she was or that this had all been her plan in the first place. She may not have been a damsel in distress, but she was a damsel nevertheless, and Alaric would be damned if he let something happen to her.

“What is happenin’ here?” the man, the leader of the Ravencloaks—or at least the leader of this faction of the Ravencloaks—asked. “Who are ye?”

“I am Lucia an’ this is Alaric,” Lucia said, her voice loud and clear through the clearing, without a hint of fear in it. “We subdued three o’ yer men, stole yer supplies, an’ ye didnae even ken until now. What does that say about yer men?”

Alaric’s entire body was tense, ready to fight at the first hint of trouble. It didn’t help that Lucia seemed more than eager to insult this man and his people, when they were all so clearly prepared for battle. One wrong word could get them all killed, and it seemed to him that Lucia didn’t really care about that.

“It tells me I must kill those three,” the man said, glancing at the guards Lucia and Alaric had subdued. By then, all three had woken up, but there was nothing they could do when they couldneither move nor scream. “What need dae I have fer them if they cannae even keep watch?”

The men’s eyes widened in fear, but gagged as they still were, they couldn’t even make a noise of complaint. Alaric tried to swallow down the panicked knot in his throat. He didn’t want to watch those men slain in front of his eyes, even if they were criminals.

“I suppose ye dinnae,” said Lucia with a shrug, and with the kind of coldness that Alaric still didn’t expect from her, even though she had shown that side of herself to him a few times already. “But that isnae me concern. We came here tae prove tae ye we belong in yer ranks.”

The man laughed, the sound sudden and grating, so mocking that Alaric had to grit his teeth to stop himself from saying anything. As he walked closer, Alaric stood his ground, not moving an inch from where he was placed in front of Lucia.

“An’ what makes ye think I will allow ye intae me ranks?” he asked. “I could just as easily kill ye along with those three.”

“Ye could,” Lucia agreed. “But why would ye? If ye kill them, ye will need someone tae replace them, an’ we are worth more than yer three useless men.”

More muffled protests followed from the three guards, but Lucia, along with their leader, disregarded them. The two of them were locked in a staring contest, neither of them speaking and neither of them willing to look away first.

It was up to Alaric, then, to step in, as he was certain this man didn’t care about anything Lucia had to say. She had been right to assume they wouldn’t allow her in on her own; not just that, but they also didn’t care about anything she had to say.

The only problem was, he didn’t know what to say for the man to listen to him. Lucia had already made a good point; one he didn’t know how to follow. Still, he tried his best. Maybe if he reiterated what Lucia had already said, the man would be more likely to listen to him, he thought.

“We bested yer men,” Alaric said. “We could have taken yer supplies. In fact, we could have killed several o’ ye, an’ nae one o’ ye would even have kenned until it was too late. Aye, it’s true that ye can kill us, but we came here tae prove our worth an’ we did. Why would ye waste our potential?”

Alaric recognized it, that gleam in the man’s eyes as he finally listened to reason. Behind him, Lucia huffed in irritation, no doubt seeing the same thing. The man’s actions had only confirmed her belief that she wouldn’t be able to make herself heard without Alaric there, and suddenly Alaric found himself glad that he had agreed to come. Who knew what could have happened to Lucia had he not been there? The Ravencloaks wouldn’t have listened to her and she wouldn’t have backed down without a fight.

“Alright,” said the man. “We can always use more men. But the lassie… the lassie is an issue.”

Before Alaric could say anything on the matter, Lucia stepped forward and said, “I am his wife. He daesnae go anywhere without me.”

A stunned silence followed, most of all by Alaric, who didn’t know what to think or say. Lucia claiming they were married was the last thing he had expected to hear, and after that, he heard nothing else. His ears buzzed with the rush of blood to his head and his heart skipped beat after beat, the shock and confusion settling heavy upon his shoulders. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t reveal that Lucia was lying, nor could he claim she was somehow mistaken. Everyone in the Ravencloaks now thought they were husband and wife, and Alaric had no choice but to go along with it and hope that no one would figure out the truth any time soon.

“Is that so?” the man asked with an amused chuckle, turning to look at Alaric. “Dae ye truly go naewhere without her?”

Alaric swallowed with an audible click, gritting his teeth for a moment. “That is true,” he said. “She’s me wife. Dae ye have a wife?”

“Nay… nay, I cannae say that I dae,” said the man.

“If ye had one, ye would understand.”

“Ach… young love.”

“This means nay one here will ever put a finger on her,” Alaric interrupted him. “Is that clear? She is mine and mine only.”

“Well, it cannae be helped if she’s yer wife, I suppose. Is that nae right, lads?”

A chorus of whispers echoed around the clearing. Alaric couldn’t make out what everyone was saying, but he could tell some were agreeing with the man, while others were still grumbling, uncertain and displeased by the prospect of having a woman among them.

Eventually, one of them stepped forward and said, “there has never been a lass in the Ravencloaks an’ so it should remain. What does she have tae offer? She will only slow us all down an’ put us in danger.”

Alaric was still reeling from Lucia’s claim to say anything on the matter. He felt unmoored, as though the mere thought of being her husband was enough to rattle him down to the bone, more so than anything else in his life. He had been through countless fights. He had survived battle after battle, mission after mission, and yet this had shocked him to the core, leaving him unable to react in any way.

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