Page 4 of A Highland Healer Captured
Tall, broad-shouldered, astride a black horse that looked bred for war. A cloak snapped behind him, rain slicking his hair to his brow, beard glistening. His pale eyes were sharp and found her as if he’d been hunting her through the dark.
And the plaid across his shoulder bore colors she knew too well. Blue and black, striped with iron-grey.
Her stomach dropped.Clan Strathcairn.
Every tale she’d heard rushed back like cold water: the laird who’d razed an entire clan, who’d left no enemy standing. Merciless. Dangerous.
Skylar’s hand went to the knife strapped at her belt, though she knew steel against a Highland warrior was as useful as a thistle against thunder.
The man’s horse shifted, its breath steaming. His voice carried even through the storm, deep and unyielding.
“Are ye Skylar Dunlop?”
Her name on his lips scraped her spine raw. She swallowed, tried to keep her chin high. The river roared beside them; the rain battered down. She said nothing.
Her silence must have told him enough, because his mouth curved with certainty.
“I’ve an offer for ye.”
An offer?
As if he were inviting her to a fair, not blocking the road in the black of night. As if Strathcairn men ever offered anything without blood in the bargain.
Skylar felt her jaw tighten, fire sparking in her chest.
“Keep yer offer,” she snapped, voice sharp enough to cut the storm.
Daisy surged under her, muscles coiling. Skylar gave her the reins, and the mare leapt forward with a spray of mud.
Behind her, the man gave a low, dark, mirthless laugh. The kind of sound that promised that the chase was only beginning.
2
Zander Harrison couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his chest. “Foolish lass,” he muttered.
His blood thrummed as he pressed his destrier harder, eyes fixed on the small, fierce figure darting through the trees ahead.
Her dark cloak plastered to her curves, hair a bright amber ribbon against the rain which made her look more like a flame refusing to go out than a woman on the run. She rode like sin itself.
And it made him grin.
A heat curled low in his belly despite the cold rain. Irritation mixed with something else. Something foreign to him.
He leaned forward in the saddle, muscles taut with the hunt.
While he let her think she gained ground a moment longer, it was only to see the stubborn tilt of her spine. She reminded him of another storm long ago, when his men thought the O’Brian clan would break him. He hadn’t yielded then. Neither would he for this slip of a woman now.
He was within breaths of being alongside her. Hearing her passionate grunts, urging her mare on, did nothing to quell the tension in his body. She rode like the raindrops themselves parted for her.
Before she could veer again, he leaned, one arm lashing out. His hand closed on her cloak and yanked. The Dunlop girl cried out as she tumbled straight into his waiting grip.
Zander hauled her across the saddle in front of him, pinning her against his chest with practiced ease. She thrashed, heels and fists alike, but she was no match for the wall of his body. He yanked her in tight. One arm banded around her middle. His other hand fought the reins, trying to settle the horse before they both tumbled.
“Nay! Daisy!” the girl thrashed and lurched toward her mare, but Zander’s grip intensified around her.
“The mare kens where to go,” he said through gritted teeth against her squirming.
“Let me go, ye brute!” she spat, voice sharp as broken glass.
