Page 66 of Intrigued By A Highlander

Owen was on his knees, blood dripping from his lip down over his chin. One eye was already swelling shut. Rona stood beside him, her face set in a grim line despite the crimson staining her mouth, her lip swollen. Wilbur had one arm wrapped around his middle, his nose broken, his breaths wheezing.

“You didn’t think we’d be watching you, foolish lad,” one of the warriors sneered, tapping the flat of his blade against Owen’s cheek. “Where is she?”

Owen spat blood onto the ground. “Who?”

The warrior drove a fist into his stomach, and Owen crumpled with a sharp gasp.

The warrior grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. “You know who. I’ve told you three times—Autumn. Tell me where she is or next time you’ll feel my blade instead of my fist.”

Dru’s vision blurred with rage. The thought of running, leaving her friends to suffer, never entered her head. Her mind quickly went through different rescue scenarios, fearful Owen did not have much time. She needed to at least even the odds some. She had to get rid of two men before facing the other two. And she had no doubt the trio would help her once she disabled at least one warrior.

Her eyes quickly searched along the ground, finding what she needed. She reached for the sizeable rock, gripping its rough edges until her palm burned. She rose just enough to get the one man in her sights and take aim. Then with more strength and speed than most would expect from her slim arm, she sent the rock flying.

The stone struck her target, hitting the warrior in the temple with a sickening crack. He collapsed like a felled tree.

Everything erupted at once.

Rona lunged for a fallen branch and swung it into another warrior’s ribs. Owen, still gasping for breath, forced himself upright and threw his weight into the man closest to him, sending them both sprawling.

Dru didn’t hesitate. She sprinted forward, grabbing the fallen man’s sword and whirling to block an attack from the third warrior. The clash of steel rang through the clearing. Her arm shook with the force of it, but she held firm, twisting her blade and driving forward.

The warrior grunted as she sliced across his arm, but it wasn’t deep enough to stop him. He managed to kick her legs out from under her.

Dru hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from her lungs and the blade from her hand.

He loomed over her. A brute of a man, his lip curled in a cruel grin.

“Well, well,” he murmured, grabbing her by the front of her tunic and yanking her up. “Look what we have here.”

She swung her small fists wildly, but he caught her wrist, twisting until pain shot through her arm.

“You should’ve run when you had the chance,” he said, shoving her back against a tree.

The cold bite of a dagger pressed to her throat.

Dru struggled, but he was too strong. The others were still fighting, Wibur helping Rona, but no one was free to help her. She sucked in a breath, bracing for the worst?—

A shadow moved behind the warrior.

Dru barely had time to register it before the man was ripped away from her, his body slammed into the ground with such force the air left his lungs in a wheezing gasp.

A blade flashed. Blood sprayed.

The warrior didn’t rise again.

Knox stood over him, his chest rising and falling, his dark eyes locking onto hers.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then, voice low and dangerous, he said, “You can run all you want, Dru. I’ll always find you.”

He turned and with not much more than a blink of the eye, Knox ended the other two. He went over to the only one left who was just about coming to. He yanked him up with ease and shook him like he barely had weight to him.

“Wake and hear what I have to say, Marley,” Knox said and shook him some more.

The man fought to clear his vision and when he did, his eyes sprung wide. “Knox!”

“Aye, and it’s your lucky day. You get to live and take a message to Phelan for me.”

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