Free Her Wicked Highlander: A Highland Knights Novella by Jennifer Haymore Page A

no such thing.”
    “You did!”
    He stroked the blade of the dagger, his blue eyes flat and emotionless. “We’ll go back to your cottage, then.” He pointed the dagger at her. “It’d be poetic justice for the last MacKerrick to die by the blade of the King Richard Dagger, methinks.”
    She stepped back as far as the rope tied to her ankle would allow. “You promised not to hurt me.”
    Shaking his head, he lowered the dagger. “Too bad it hasna been sharpened. It would be an untidy death, and I canna countenance untidiness.”
    They walked back to the cottage, Aila’s mind roiling. There was no way to tell what Sutherland was planning to do to her at her cottage, but she had a terrible feeling it couldn’t be anything good. She had to get away. God knew, though, that she’d kept alert to any opening, any chance to escape, but he hadn’t given her any.
    Back at the cottage, he tied his end of the rope to one of the wall posts. “Why are you doing that?” she asked.
    “Och,” he said mildly, “just making sure you wilna be following me to Inverness.”
    He untied her hands but then yanked her arms behind her.
    Panic began to swell in her. “What are you doing?”
    “Tying your wrists behind you,” he said.
    “But how will I get free?”
    He simply shrugged.
    “Nay! You canna do this!” She began to fight, ignoring the pain shooting through her arm and the fresh trickle of blood she felt moving down her shin. “Nay!”
    The bastard was twice her size and far stronger. He threw her facedown onto her bed, the rope at her ankle going taut and biting into her skin. Digging his knee into her upper back to hold her down, he tightened the twine over her oozing skin.
    Then he stepped calmly off the bed. As Aila turned over to her side, she saw him through her bedchamber doorway, stepping over the strewn items on the floor and heading toward the front door.
    “Wait!” she called.
    But he swung open the door and stepped outside, his palm fondling the dull hilt of the dagger he’d strapped to his waist. Her dagger.
    The door slammed behind him, leaving Aila alone for the first time all day. She tested the rope at her ankle. If she went to her knees and turned, she might be able to work the knot loose from behind her. Then—if she could get to the kitchen, she could find a knife and cut her wrist bindings loose. It would take a while, but she didn’t think she’d starve to death before she was able to free herself.
    She sighed, her body shuddering with relief. The day had been like nothing she’d ever experienced. In the presence of an unstable, violent zealot who’d killed her maid and could very easily have killed her. She’d never been so on edge for so long, her senses so attuned to every little movement.
    She was absolutely exhausted. She couldn’t wait to fall back into her ruined bed and sleep until she couldn’t sleep anymore.
    But first, she had to free herself. And find Max.
    A smell wafted over her, and Aila looked up, suddenly alert all over again. It smelled like… Oh no.
    Fire.
    Outside, there was a crackling noise—the sound of burning thatch.
    Oh God. William Sutherland had set her cottage on fire.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Max opened his encrusted eyes painfully, then squinted against the harsh glare of light. Where the hell was he?
    He sat up carefully, fighting a surge of dizziness. Pain sliced through his skull, and he reached his hand up to feel a tender lump the size of an egg on the side of his head. Below the lump, his hair was caked with blood, and he felt dried blood streaked across his ear.
    He looked around, seeing that he was near the well behind Beauly Castle. Stumbling to his feet, he tried to remember what had happened.
    It had been night when he’d come out here, but it was daytime now—about eight in the morning, judging by the position of the sun. He’d spent the night unconscious on the ground. Thank God he hadn’t frozen to death. It had been an unseasonably warm