Free My Highland Love: Highland Lords Series by Tarah Scott

gashed
and a bruise had begun to form on his forehead, but no blood gushed
from any part of his body.
    "Can you move?" Marcus asked.
    "My leg… broken," he said.
    Marcus nodded. "Hurts like the devil, I
wager."
    Allister winced with what looked like
laughter at the obvious understatement.
    "Can you manage until help arrives?" he
asked.
    A steely glint lit the young man's eyes.
"Leave me a pistol and any Campbell that comes near will die."
    "That's the spirit," Marcus said.
    "I got one."
    "What?"
    "My dirk," the boy said.
    "You did well." Marcus rose. "Michael will
leave you his weapon. If I overtake the bastards, I plan to use my
pistol."
    Marcus hurried back up the hill with Michael
close behind.
    Marcus mounted his horse. "You'll reach
Brahan Seer in ten minutes. I doubt any Campbells stayed behind,
but leave the boy your knife as well." Michael nodded. Marcus gave
the stallion a kick, and the beast lunged forward.
    "MacGregor!" Michael shouted.
    Marcus brought Alexis around in a sharp
turn.
    "Dinna' do anything foolish. We'll be no more
than an hour behind. If—when—you find the lass, wait for us."
    "Make it forty minutes," Marcus said, and dug
his heels into the belly of his horse.
    * * * *
    Elise blinked. The darkness around her gave
way to formless shadows that shifted before her eyes. She jostled
and groaned at the pain that spiked in all directions through her
body.
    "Awake, eh?" The male voice crashed through
her head like a wave against a cliff.
    She lay in the arms of the speaker, her back
against a muscular chest. A distant memory hovered. "Mar—" her
voice cracked. Then in a half whisper, "Marcus?"
    He grunted. She went rigid. This wasn't
Marcus.
    Elise closed her eyes, forced back the queasy
upheaval of her stomach, then opened her eyes again. All before her
looked as if she were looking through a fog. She squinted at the
blurring shadows. Slowly, images formed, and she realized she was
staring down at the moving ground. They were riding—her mind
registered the horse's rhythm beneath them. The horse's rhythm. She
had been riding—hard. The crystal-clear memory of the mare bearing
down on her when she'd been thrown caused her to shudder.
    Then she remembered Allister.
    Tears sprang to her eyes. The young man had
died because of her. His mother—Elise choked back a sob and a wave
of dizziness wrenched her stomach. She forced her breathing to
slow. At last, the nausea subsided and she shifted. Pain lanced
through her head, but she squinted at the blur that had come into
view on her right until the figure of a man riding came into focus.
He stared unabashedly.
    Elise ignored the tremor his stare elicited
and looked past him, skyward, where dim points of light showed
through thin, grey clouds. She shifted again and found herself
staring up at the jut of a square jaw. Above that, the bluish hue
of moonbeams filtered through clouds. The pain relaxed to a dull
throb and her stomach settled. The clouds parted and the moon
blazed in her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut, but registered
its position and estimated the time as just past midnight.
    "There's been no sign of MacGregor," her
captor said.
    Marcus would have expected her to be at
supper tonight. He might not notice her absence, but Allister's
mother would notice his.
    "The horses need rest," the other man said.
"They're spent."
    "We stop up ahead," the man who held her
said. "Leave them saddled and tether them."
    A few minutes later, they halted. Elise's
captor handed her down to the man who had stared at her. He pressed
her close to his chest. The hand wrapped around her legs slipped
beneath her skirt. She thrashed. Hot spikes of pain fingered out
through her body. His hand rubbed her outer thigh. She gave a weak
scream. He laughed, lowering his head toward her mouth.
    "Rory!" her original keeper shouted, and took
her into his arms.
    Elise fought tears as he turned and her heart
lurched when she caught sight of several more riders dismounting.
She kicked