LITMIR.BIZ

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his mind to escape. By the faint light coming in through the chinks around the door, he dimly made out Rhys on the floor nearby. Ignoring the pain in his head, he rolled toward his friend. “Turn round. See if you can undo the rope on my wrists.”

      While Rhys plucked at the hemp, he described their captor’s home. Situated on a spit of land in the middle of a loch, Edin was comprised of two joined towers, four stories tall, with both an outer and an inner courtyard with barracks and an orchard. The few Border fortresses Kieran had visited consisted of a simple house and a peel tower, into which the laird and his people could flee in time of danger. Edin sounded more like the sort of estate that existed further north.

      Like Carmichael Castle. Kieran’s home, his heritage, stolen by his uncle.

      “I’d feel better about our chances of guarding Edin Tower did it have a stout curtain wall around it,” Rhys said.

      “There isn’t a wall?” Kieran cried, forgetting he planned to punish the MacLellans for the ambush, not protect them. The commander in him recoiled from the news that though there was a low wall around the perimeter, the tower’s main line of defense was the loch. “A party of men stripped of their armor could swim the damn thing in the dead of night and take the castle.”

      “Providing they made it into the valley. ’Tis our job to make certain they do not.”

      Kieran grunted, torn between an inbred need to protect and the desire for revenge. “This whole business sits ill with me.”

      “Why would Duncan send a man all the way to Berwick with orders to seek us out? Our horses and armor are valuable, but we’ve little coin.”

      “Mayhap he’s in league with the Carmichaels.” Kieran spat the last as though it were poison and not the surname of the powerful family from which he was descended.

      Rhys replied with a Welsh curse. “They’d not do such a thing. And ye dishonor the memory of yer parents by saying—”

      “I have no memory of them, as you well know. For which I can thank my dear Uncle Ross.”

      “Nay! Ye know in yer heart he did not kill yer father.”

      “Do I?” Kieran felt the ropes give and seized the moment to abandon a topic he hated. He sat up, swayed on a wave of dizziness and pushed it aside as ruthlessly as he did his past. He made short work of the ropes at his ankles and had just swung round to Rhys when a noise at the door warned time had run out. “Quiet,” he whispered, surging to his feet. Instinctively he reached for his sword, finding his waist naked of the belt that held it and his dirk. No matter, he was angry enough to do murder with his bare hands.

      Two steps and he was across the room, back flattened against the stone wall beside the door. A metallic clunk, the creak of rusty hinges and the portal swung open, letting in fresh air and a welcome flood of light. Nerves alert, Kieran watched a single, slender shadow cut through the beam and pause on the threshold, hesitant as a wary deer.

      You have reason to fear, you bastard, Kieran thought. Swinging around the door, he grabbed his enemy, lifted him off the ground and shoved him against the wall. A gust of air whooshed from his captive as Kieran slammed into him with his superior weight. The body beneath his was slighter than expected. Good. ’Twas the lad who’d shamed him. Kieran pinned his opponent’s right arm to the wall with his left hand, his right hand went for the throat...

      Soft. Soft as silk was the skin that encased that fragile neck. Unsettlingly soft.

      Kieran frowned. His narrowed eyes met the wide ones staring up at him from a face gone white as new snow. They were blue, like the sky over Edin Valley, fringed with ridiculously long black lashes. Woman’s lashes. The things he’d been too angry to notice now intruded. The scent of heather wafting up from the body pressed so intimately to his. The pillowy curves of the chest mashed tight to his. Breasts.

      His prisoner was a female.

      Kieran’s heart stumbled, then jerked to life again. Damn! In his blind haste for revenge he’d assaulted some poor serving wench. Horrified, he took his hand from her throat. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, the words rusty for he humbled himself to no man. Still the female said nothing. Concerned now, he eased his body away from hers. “Did I hurt you?”

      She exhaled and slumped against him, her body molding to his like a candle left overlong in the hot sun. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her so she wouldn’t fall. For the second time in as many minutes, Kieran’s blood began to boil. ‘Twasn’t the heat of rage that surged through his veins this time; ’twas a forbidden fire. One he’d avoided for eight years. Desire.

      It sank its claws in deep, heightening his senses. He felt raw, exposed, her skin burning his through the layers of clothes separating them. The musky scent of woman and heather taunted him. Nostrils flaring, he drew in her essence. Passion rose in a swift tide, threatening to engulf him. He wanted her with a fierceness that shocked him. Groaning, he tightened his hold on her, driven by the need to bury his aching body in hers.

      “I can’t breathe.” Laurel wedged her hands between them and pushed. Surprisingly, his grip eased. “What happened?”

      “You fainted.” His voice was deep, compelling.

      Laurel looked up. ’Twas him. His face was close. So close, eyes blazing with hot, needful things that ignited an answering spark deep inside her. “Nay,” she whispered, afraid of him, more afraid of what he did to her. “Let me go.” She began to struggle.

      Kieran blinked. Damn. He’d made a vow...before God. A sacred vow he’d just come within a hair’s breadth of dishonoring. Then her voice registered. “You!” he exclaimed. “You’re the one who tried to capture me.”

      He let go of her and stepped back.

      “Did capture you.” Angry, Laurel brought her knee up in an attempt to bring him down. In a move too swift for her to avoid, he turned aside, grabbed her leg and hoisted her up. Quick as that, she found herself held tight against his chest, her limbs clasped securely yet painlessly by arms as hard and unrelenting as steel. “Put me down.”

      Dark and condemning, his eyes bored into hers from a face gone stark as carved granite. Nowhere was there a hint of the man who moments ago had looked at her with such longing, such need that she’d felt herself reaching out, wanting to touch, to comfort, to—

      “Take me to Duncan MacLellan,” he snarled.

      “Why? What will you do?”

      “Teach him he cannot betray me.”

      Laurel forgot her own fears. “He had naught to do with that. ’Twas my idea, my orders that sent my clansmen af ter—”

      Kieran cursed. “What man would follow a female?”

      “Lady Laurel?” Ellis called from the doorway. “What—?”

      “Seize him,” Laurel ordered, snagging the initiative.

      “Attempt it and she suffers the consequences.” Kieran’s expression was murderous, but his hold didn’t turn bruising, nor did he ask for a weapon to hold at her throat.

      A hopeful sign. “He doesn’t mean it,” Laurel decided.

      Ellis frowned. “I cannot take the chance.”

      “Untie my man,” Kieran demanded in a voice that brooked no argument. But for an instant the fury blazing in his eyes muted to regret. A mercenary with a conscience? She saw it then, the gentleness he sought to hide. The contrast between dangerous and vulnerable shook her to the core. Almost causing her to forget her fear that he was a threat to her clan. Almost.

      The trip across the courtyard to the tower passed in a blur of neat stone buildings and curious faces. It took only a few moments, yet ’twas the longest Kieran had taken since he’d ridden away from home years ago. Every step of the way he was taunted by the scent and feel of the female in his arms. He should put her down, would have if her little body hadn’t been frigid with tension. Release her

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