Page 35 of My Scot, My Surrender
It was because ofthisman.
Brandt was more dangerous to her than any of them combined.
Chapter Ten
Brandt scanned the surroundings as their horses carefully picked their way along the rough gravel path of the mountain pass. They had ridden through the night, stopping to sleep for a scant hour before heading deeper into the hills once dawn crested. The pass was far too dangerous to ride by night, and a challenge even during daylight.
Sorcha rode ahead of him, and he could see her also alertly looking around, every so often throwing a glance over her shoulder to him. He liked their unspoken communication—a nod here and there to make sure each of them was faring well as they covered more and more ground. Sorcha was leading the way given her familiarity with the terrain, although the gentleman in him did not like the idea of her being so open to any oncoming attacks.
She had scoffed, of course, at his concern. Brandt smiled at the memory of her indignant expression, as if he had called her very honor into question by suggesting she ride behind him.
“I’m a Highlander,” she’d said, affronted. “How do you think ’twould appear if anyone were to see me riding behind a Sassenach? I’d never hear the end of it.”
Brandt had resorted to logic. “How would anyone know who you are?”
She jabbed at her face with a finger. “Don’t forget, everyone knows of the Beast of Maclaren, even old Coxley back there.”
“I don’t like that name.”
Sorcha had stared at him then. “Why?”
“It’s cruel, it’s untrue, and it’s no name for someone like you.”
Her eyes had sparked with affront. “Someone likeme?”
“A lady.”
She had clamped her lips together as if to stop herself from saying something she would regret before turning her back and galloping off. It was true. She was the furthest thing from a beast, and Brandt disliked the cruel moniker. He couldn’t imagine her without her scars…her beauty and strength were interwoven with them. But even so, she was still the daughter of a duke, and a highborn lady.
In London, he’d encountered his share of well-bred English society ladies. A vision of Sorcha’s savage expression as she stood like an avenging warrior goddess upon her horse in that thicket came to him. She was so much more viscerally appealing than any of those women. Now, Brandt could see why none of them had ever caught his fancy. It was like comparing a gentle sun-shower to a lightning storm.
“We’ll stop soon,” she called over her shoulder. “There’s a valley around this bend where we might find water and a cool place to rest. From what I recall, it’s below this rise, and there’s a village nearby.” She squinted. “We should be entering Dunwoody lands. We’re not feuding with them.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Ares is tiring.”
The horse wasn’t really tired. He was bred of sturdy Arabian stock and could go on for miles, but every so often, Brandt noticed the drooping slope of Sorcha’s shoulders and the rigid tension in her left side. Her wound had to be paining her, and yet she soldiered on. The rocky ground did not make it easier, and even with his full physical strength, Brandt found it difficult to keep his balance at the brutal pace they were maintaining.
The vegetation—and cover—was sparse, unlike the rest of the Highlands they’d traveled through with Ronan. At the thought of the Maclaren heir, he sobered. He’d said what he had to in order to convince Sorcha to stay the path and not go back. Though he had seen and heard enough of Ronan’s skill to know that he was more than capable in a fight, in a one-on-one match against Coxley, it would likely take a miracle to bring him down.
Brandt shook his head furiously. Malvern was bad enough, but thinking of Sorcha anywhere in the same space with someone like Coxley made his stomach sour. If the man ever got his hands on her, she would not make it back to Maclaren unviolated. His tone when he’d called hertheBeastsuggested his intentions as such. No, no one, especially not Coxley, would put their filthy hands on her. Not while Brandt drew an ounce of breath.
His anger returning in smoldering force, Brandt gritted his teeth as he followed Sorcha down the hill. Ares whinnied, as if sensing his master’s ire, and Brandt gave his mount’s sweaty flank a reassuring pat, forcing himself to calm. Ares had always been aware of his moods.
There was a reason he didn’t want anyone to touch Sorcha. Envy, he was beginning to realize, was a terrible companion. He was even envious of Lockie, and how Sorcha’s slender thighs were wrapped so lovingly around the horse’s sides. Her body rocked rhythmically in the saddle, the provocative flare of her hips the precursor to a punishing erection on his part. It couldn’t possibly be healthy to remain in such an engorged state for hours on end.
Jesus.
Brandt swore under his breath. Fury and fear, tangled with unrelieved sexual frustration, tended to make a man slightly insane. He wanted her with a desire that made him breathless. She wanted him, too. He remembered her excited breaths as he’d soothed her wound in the cave.
It had taken all of his control to not press his lips to her dewy skin, to push those trousers down and seek out the delectable heaven he knew the taste of her would be. He’d been hard as Scottish steel the entire time. Brandt had felt her thighs quiver, seen the seam of her legs press together, and only the sobering sight of her torn flesh had saved him from tearing her clothes off and thrusting into her.
Brandt expelled a sigh. This journey would be the sodding death of him.
He dragged his eyes away from Sorcha’s delicious rump and focused on the sheep dotting the rolling hills in the distance. In his childhood, he used to count them to put himself to sleep. Perhaps now he could count them to deflate the brute in his pants.
Some two hundred sheep later, the gravel turned to grass beneath Ares’s hooves as they left the path, and sprigs of purple heather brightened the landscape. They rode past more sheep grazing in the lush meadows, but Brandt had no more need of them, at least for the moment.
Now that there was more space, Sorcha slowed her mount to ride beside him. The hills were open enough to see if anyone was in pursuit, and the slackened pace gave the horses a chance to cool down after the grueling trek in the mountains.
