Free Highlander Mine by Juliette Miller

Hamish in mind, too, making sure to keep true to our plan as we’d made it, in the woods behind the tavern. “Our parents have passed,” I said, with genuine feeling. This was, after all, true; at least in my case, it was a certainty. I didn’t allow myself, in that moment, to even think about Hamish’s parents. I tried to keep my voice steady as I continued. It was all becoming a bit more difficult than I’d imagined, this ruse, but I had no choice now but to follow through with it. “We were told by our father, in his final hour, that we have relatives in the Highlands, but we know none of the details of their identity or their whereabouts. So we set out to search for them.”
    “Until you were attacked,” he continued, not sounding as concerned by the detail as he perhaps should have, “by masked bandits dressed in black and wielding silver-hilted swords.”
    I felt my eyes narrow just slightly. “It sounds like you already know all the finer details of the story, Laird Mackenzie,” I said, vexed not only by the light dismissal in his tone but also by this ridiculous situation I’d landed myself in. How on earth had I managed to find myself on the run and at the mercy of this admittedly dashing laird in his admittedly idyllic empire, attempting to convince him that I’d been robbed by a gang of fictional thieves? “There’s not much point in me repeating it to you if you’ve already been told, in intricate, itemized flourish, of our plight.”
    He ignored this completely. “Tell me more about these bandits. From which direction did they ride? Describe to me their features, their clothing, their weapons, their horses. All of it. What exactly did they say to you?”
    Smug brute. He was domineering to a fault, I thought. The little devil in me wanted to somehow challenge his blatant attempt to intimidate me, and practically bully me into telling him what he wanted to know.
    This was where he would discover the extent of our deceit: it was all in the details. And I had a feeling Hamish would be explicitly imaginative when it came to the embellishments. So I kept it simple. The ale was, if anything, encouraging my dramatic flair. I willed myself to channel the fear I’d felt, when we’d fled Edinburgh, when I’d—only just—managed to slip through the hands of the man who hunted me. I believe I might have been somewhat convincing; the memory, to be sure, was still fresh and the terror was easy enough to summon. “I was so overcome that I can’t remember all of it. I feared for our lives. I thought they would kill us, and—” I thought they might hurt me. Violate me and break me in the most profound manner imaginable. And when I struggled and attempted to refuse, I thought they might kill Hamish. I faltered, falling silent as I remembered.
    He was coming for me. For us.
    “You must take my son, and yourself, away from here.” My sister grabbed my arm, pushing me away even as she pulled me closer. Her dark eyes shone bright with fear. “Take Hamish, Amelia. You must get him out of Edinburgh. Take him far away from here, where they won’t find him. And don’t come back.”
    “Cecelia, I’m not leaving without you.”
    “You must! For Hamish. He’s not safe here, and neither are you.”
    “Nor you, sister. Fawkes will take out my desertion on you if I leave. Either I give him what he wants or we flee together.”
    My sister was as horrified as I was by the thought of Fawkes possessing me merely to exercise his power over our family. Perhaps even more so. She remembered more vividly the lifestyle we had once led, of dignity and civility; she valued and coveted this ideal more than any other, as our mother once had. “You are not for sale, Amelia. ’Tis not an option.”
    “Neither is leaving you behind! You must come with us.” Sebastian Fawkes was one of the most powerful ganglords in Edinburgh. A man who hungered for power and would go to any lengths to gain it. A man who enjoyed the chase,