Page 92 of The Cruel Highlander's Bride
Before Ciara could reach her injured father, Ewan jumped in front of her.
She screamed and clawed at the man, desperate to not be taken away again. But it was all in vain. He dodged all her swipes and quickly threw her over his shoulder.
“I told ye, I could keep ye safe,” he said to her, apparently proud of what he’d done, even as she pounded on his back and kicked her feet uselessly.
“Put me down!” she cried, twisting and writhing to get out of his hold. But his grip on her thighs was tight. Nothing she did loosened his hold at all.
“Bring her back!” Alexander shouted at him, still on the ground, tending to their father.
Ciara knew Alexander couldn’t take his hands off his father’s wound, and he definitely couldn’t leave him alone in the woods, not if they wanted him to survive. And she desperately wanted her father to survive, even if it meant Ewan took her away.
All of this, the marriage, had been for her family anyway. What was one more sacrifice? Besides, her father’s injury was her fault. She couldn’t be the cause of any more harm.
Ciara lifted her head from Ewan’s back and smiled sadly. She had stopped struggling against his hold, finally realizing the futility of it all. She wouldn’t be getting away again, not without risking her father’s life. And that wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.
Shaking her head, she quietly said to her brother, “Stay where ye are. I’ll be all right.”
“Of course, ye will,” Ewan cooed. “I’ll protect ye.”
They both ignored the man.
Alexander looked from her to their father, whose breathing had become ragged. Her brother was torn between two impossible options.
She saw it the minute he accepted what he had to do—what they both had to sacrifice if they wanted their father to live.
Alexander shouted, “I dinnae care where ye go, we will find ye!”
But Ewan was already throwing Ciara back into the carriage. “I didnae want to have to do this,” he warned, before grabbing a stick from the ground and jamming it through the handle so she wouldn’t be able to open the door from the inside.
Ciara was truly trapped now, inside the carriage, about to be taken to God knew where.
Her breathing quickened once more. She felt the walls of the carriage closing in on her, suffocating her. She drew her knees up to her chest and put her head between them in an attempt to steady her breathing.
Thankfully, her brother could no longer see her. He didn’t need to carry any more guilt for this choice than he likely already did. She had wanted this, wanted him to choose their father, but as the proverbial noose tightened around her neck, she wondered if she’d live to regret this moment.
Alexander was still shouting at Ewan, but she tuned him out. She didn’t want to hear the quaver in his voice. All she could do was pray that their father would be all right and do her best to survive.
The carriage jolted forward again, Ewan shouting and whipping the horses to speed up. The ride was bumpier than ever as he tried to put as much distance between them and her family as possible, as he took her away to this farm of his, wherever that was.
With each bump of the carriage, they got further away from her salvation. The taste of it had been almost worse, to be so close to freedom and then have it yanked from her once more.
Ciara curled into an even smaller ball at the far corner of the carriage and rocked herself.
Ewan continued to carry her away from her family. He had proven that he was not above violence in order to “keep her safe.” And if her family had not succeeded in freeing her, then there really was no hope.
This was her life now…
34
“I’m comin’,” Magnus said again as he raced through the night once more.
The woods passed by in a blur as he pushed his horse faster down the dirt road. The area was unfamiliar to him, but it didn’t matter. Ciara was out there somewhere, and it was his responsibility to save her.
She was his wife, and someone thought they could take her away from him. Magnus planned to show them how foolish that decision was.
That familiar anger had settled in his gut, the same one that took over the night he had killed his father. Even though he knew what he was capable of, it didn’t scare him tonight. No, his anger felt righteous. Anything he did in service of his wife would be fair and just in his mind.
He steadied himself as he pushed his horse faster. The anger, he could use, could sink into it to get his wife back, but he couldn’t let it overwhelm him.
