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

night, all the snow gone—melted away in the afternoon of the previous day.
    But why was he out here? What had knocked him in the head?
    And then he remembered—the face he’d seen for just a flash of a second before he’d fallen unconscious.
    Sutherland?
    Bloody hell. Max lurched toward the castle, battling through another wave of dizziness.
    Aila would have come out to find him if he hadn’t returned in a timely fashion last night, but she hadn’t. Which could only mean one thing.
    Sutherland had her.
    After a quick, fruitless search of the castle, Max rushed to the stable to saddle his horse. He was at least twelve hours behind Sutherland now. God only knew what that villain had done to Aila in all this time.
    He reeled to a halt just inside the stable.
    The horse was dead.
    The goddamned bastard had killed his horse.
    Rage knotting his innards, Max set out on foot at a jog—each step jarring his head and threatening him with unconsciousness. But he willed himself to stay alert. At the village of Beauly, he cajoled an innkeeper out of a horse and rode south as if the hounds of hell were lunging at his heels.
    It was well into the afternoon when Max finally arrived on the edge of Aila’s land, about a mile from her cottage. The poor mare was lathered and half-dead, he’d worked her so hard.
    At the top of a rise, he slowed her for a moment to see if he could spot Aila’s cottage in the distance.
    He couldn’t see the cottage—the terrain was rocky, hilly, and uneven, and the cottage was tucked in between two small rises. What he did see, however, made his blood curdle in his veins. A plume of smoke rose up from the treetops, creating a roiling black cloud in the watery blue sky.
    Fire.
    He urged the poor animal to a gallop, praying she didn’t trip in a hole in the uneven dirt of the road.
    Minutes later, Aila’s cottage came into view. It was nearly engulfed in flames—one side of it completely ablaze. It looked on the verge of collapse.
    Max raced to the burning structure, then stopped the horse, dismounted, and ran as close as he could to the heat. “Aila! Aila, are you in there, lass?”
    No answer. Probably because she wasn’t inside, he reasoned.
    But damn it. What if she was in there and gagged, or not able to speak for some other reason?
    The thought of her in there, of her being burned, did terrible things to his insides. He had hated knowing Aila was in danger all day. But knowing she might be dead… or near death… nay .
    If she died, he wouldn’t survive it.
    He loved her. He loved her vigor, her diligence, her hard-working spirit, her wicked intelligence, her adventurousness in their bed… He loved her petite body and her red-blonde curls and her green eyes and her quicksilver smile. He loved every single thing about her. In the past days, she’d become an essential part of his existence. He could no longer imagine a future without Aila MacKerrick.
    “Aila!” he shouted. No answer.
    But it didn’t matter. He had to go inside and make sure she wasn’t there.
    There was no time to waste. It would be too late soon. He touched the door handle, but it singed his hand. He stepped back, and as he had the first day at Beauly Castle, he kicked the door in.
    Half-burnt, it gave way quickly under the force of his boot. Covering his mouth with the back of his arm, he surged inside.
    The heat was so intense it felt like it was melting his skin, and the smoke so thick he could hardly see anything beyond a few inches ahead. By memory, he made his way from the main room toward the doorway leading to her bedchamber.
    “Aila!” he called, then coughed violently, his eyes watering.
    “Aila!”
    Nothing.
    He walked through the open door into her room. Her belongings were strewn all over the floor. What had happened here? “Aila? Aila!”
    His voice was growing weaker. The air hotter, the sounds of flames licking at the timbers intensifying.
    He might die in here. Which would be fine, as long as Aila