Highland Dragon Read Free

o’ ye to keep a distance from her. She’s a witch,” he hollered to the captives. The mockery in his voice brought familiar tears to her eyes. She’d been dragged across the outer isles behind her captor’s foul-smelling horses only to be tormented by her secret.
    Cold air crept up her thighs as he raised the skirt of her kirtle, exposing the mark on her backside for all to see. The devil’s mark. Gasps echoed through the cavern, warning Akira she would find no pity here, nor friends or allies.
    Shame heated her skin, and an age-old anger erupted within her just as it had when the children of her clan had cast their stones and taunts. She refused to be displayed like an animal, regardless of what it might cost her. She pulled back, opened her mouth wide, and bit the heathen’s thigh so hard her jaw pinched.
    “Ach! Ye bitch!” Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he jerked her upright. The tip of his dagger made a painful dent in the base of her throat. “Fortunate for ye, ’tis against the code to mark the captives.”
    He led her toward the darkest nook in the cavern. Her struggles were futile against his warrior strength. He clasped an iron shackle to her ankle and chained her to a spike in the stone floor, then held her chin between his filthy fingers. “Mayhap I’ll return to dress ye instead of Auld Nattie.”
    He was vermin. A blood-sucking leech. She sorely wanted to bite him again or, better yet, gut him with his own dagger, but he turned on his heel and swaggered to the door. The bar clanked, and his fading footsteps left her in welcomed silence.
    Her body ached from days of being bound, and the stone floor offered no comfort. She cupped her cold hands to her mouth and blew into her palms. Akira didn’t have to scan the cavern to feel the women’s accusations. This wasn’t the first time she’d been treated like a leper, nor would it be the last, she suspected.
    Why was this happening to her? Why had the MacLeods taken her from her clan’s homelands? She bowed her head and prayed Kendrick would come to her aid. But in the three days it took her and her captors to make the journey, she hadn’t once seen any sign of her brother. Akira’s only solace was that the men from her neighboring clan hadn’t delivered her sister into the hands of these demons. Isobel would have never survived the journey across MacLeod soil.
    Kendrick would come. He had to.
     
    Calin studied his childhood friend’s size from the thick foliage of late summer. The wee runt grew up brawny.
    It would take a man of great force to take Kendrick Neish down—over six feet of raw muscle covered with tufts of dark red hair. Kendrick outweighed him by two stone as a lad, but Calin now matched his height and weight. He could take him.
    Calin emerged and cinched a forearm around his old friend’s bearded neck.
    Kendrick jerked, but quickly checked his initial shock and clutched his hands behind Calin’s head. Blue sky and green pine branches filled Calin’s vision as he found himself somersaulted over Kendrick’s back and into the thin trunk of a birch tree. It snapped. At least he won the battle against the tree, but he’d sorely misjudged his old friend’s strength.
    He jumped to his feet and swiveled. Kendrick’s attention diverted to his sisters frolicking beneath the pelting sprays of a thunderous waterfall. As soon as Kendrick conceded defeat, Calin would figure out which one of the lassies was his bride.
    He drove a clenched fist into Kendrick’s gut, doubling him over with a grunt. Before Calin could act again, his feet were hauled out from under him, sending him sprawling to the ground on his backside. The air whooshed from his lungs. His eyes flew open in time to see Kendrick lunge for him. Calin dodged, rolled over the forest debris and regained his position. Just once, he wanted to win a brawl against Kendrick. But Calin battled in play and his bride’s brother fought to protect his sisters. According to her