Page 4 of Claimed by the Clan Chief

“Och, get off,” Broc said, backing up until his shoulders hit the wall to the right of a sconce holding a thick white candle.

“Don’t like it so much now, do ye?” Isla snapped at him. “Being someone’s prisoner.”

McTavish turned his attention to her.

She quickly looked at the floor.

“Aye,” McTavish said. “He doesn’t like it. Perhaps you should choose… what’s your name?”

“Isla Dunoon, sir.”

“Well, Isla Dunoon, as this man was going to do anything he pleased with you, I believe it only fair you should now decide his fate.”

By the power of witches and mages. By the power of crones and sages. I wish thy blood turn black and I craft a curse upon your back. So let it be.

She clamped her lips together to hold the words in. Later she’d chant them aloud, and burn broom beneath the moonlight. That should do it.

“What do you wish it to be?” McTavish said.

Broc was trapped against the wall. He didn’t look so tough now. Beads of sweat sat on his forehead and over his top lip and his breaths were coming fast, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He glared at Isla.

“I would like,” she said, holding his narrowed gaze, “that it would serve him well to have his black heart gouged out and fed to the crows from the highest tower.”

McTavish chuckled. “Inventive. I like it.”

“What! No,” Broc gasped.

“Or maybe remove his eyeballs and replace them with pig’s eyes, that would suit him better… on second thought, what poor old pig would want that ugly face?”

McTavish chuckled some more. “I agree. He is bloody ugly. Filthy too.” He stepped back and re-sheathed his basket-hilted sword. “Go and get cleaned up, man, and not just your clothes, your mind too.”

“Hear, hear,” one of the other drunken visitors shouted. “Dirty bastard looks like he’s already been living in a pig sty.”

A roar of laughter followed, the tense atmosphere lifting now McTavish’s sword had been re-homed.

But McTavish’s mood didn’t appear lighter; he stepped closer to Broc and spoke quietly. “Go near this woman, or any of the laird’s servants, and I will personally slice off your balls, and I’ll shove them in your eye sockets, you ken what I’m saying?”

“Aye, I ken.” Broc paused. “I apologize, didn’t think it would be any harm to see to me needs.”

“By taking a woman against her will?”

“Ah, they like it.”

“I can assure you we do not.” Isla folded her arms and glanced at her laird. His attention was on his nephew and he was talking with enthusiasm. “We don’t like to be touched by men with newt fingers, dog breath, and cocks that remind us of tapeworms.”

“Oh, Lord, give me strength, you do have a way with words, woman.” McTavish smiled at her, his stern face softening.

For a moment his green-blue gaze bored into her, then she ducked her head and stepped away. “I have to go.” She couldn’t let him see into her soul, see the curse she was planning for Broc. “I’m sorry.”

“Wait,” he said.

But Isla didn’t wait. She rushed from the room and into the cool of the hallway that led to the kitchen. She dragged in several deep breaths. Her heart was thumping. She wanted to wash Broc’s touch from her arms. She wanted to stare into McTavish’s eyes again, hear his laugh, and admire his strength.

Stop it, you fool. You can’t look at him. Don’t even think of him.

Ever.

Chapter Two

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