Bound by Wish and Mistletoe (Highland Legends, Book 1.5) (2 page)

With an arm beneath hers and a finger looped through her ribbon binding, he led her to a flattened part of the mossy, fallen trunk and pressed gently on her shoulders until she sat down. Duncan and Seamus approached the far side of the sheltered area with their harvested pine, shaking the snow off its branches as they argued about the best way to truss the limbs up as they’d been instructed.

Two seconds after her teeth-chattering stopped, the lass’s mouth opened. “You canna keep me prisoner. You’ve no idea what evil comes after me. You and your men are not safe.”

Robert barked out a laugh as he helped Duncan stack dry wood for the fire. “Ahhh, I see the way of it. You’re concerned for
our
safety.”

She glanced at Seamus and Duncan. “Aye. Yours and mine.”

He arched a brow and gave his companions a pointed look. Had she hit her head? Duncan and Seamus were among the largest in their laird’s guard. Robert’s own stature bested that of his men in height and breadth by several inches. Never having feared beast or man, he couldn’t make sense of her claim.

He turned back to her, assessing her expression. She believed the words she’d spoken. “What’s your name, lass?”

She tilted her head, weighing her answer.

He wondered if she’d utter a truth or a lie and carefully watched her eyes. They stayed locked onto his, never straying. She didn’t blink. Her body never flinched.

“Susanna.”

Truth.

“What’s this evil that comes after you, Susanna? Why are you in its sights?” he asked.

Her eyes grew wide, and her gaze drifted to the spot in the trees where she’d come flying into the clearing. Her voice dropped to a whisper as the first sign of fear flashed across her face.

“My father.”

CHAPTER
TWO

Susanna looked away from the depths of the ominous forest into the eyes of her imposing captor. Frightening memories taunted her mind, and she pinched her eyes shut, willing the thoughts away like she’d always done. She finally inhaled a deep breath, her lungs burning for air.

She focused on the only thing certain to calm her during one of her rioting panic attacks.
Mama.

“Child it will be all right. We live in a world we cannot control. Live for me. If we live for each other, no one can touch what lies inside.”

Her mother placed a hand over the fist Susanna clutched against her chest. With patience, Mama uncurled Susanna’s tight fingers and spread them open, covering her chilled hand with her warmer one. “Our hearts hold the greatest treasure.
Love.
We believe the suffering we endure is temporary, and that God will deliver us from it to a better place. Trust in that.”

“But Mama, why does God make us suffer so? Why us
...
at the hands of such hateful men? They enjoy inflicting pain upon us. Why does God allow it?”

Her beautiful mother’s blue eyes gazed down at her. “I do not know why. I only know their joy is brief, but ours will be eternal.”

Susanna closed her eyes. She gripped her mother’s hand and made the only wish she’d ever make, in a prayer bound tight in hope
...
that God would have love embrace them.

Something touched Susanna, pulling her out of her poignant reverie. She fluttered her lashes open to find her captor had hooked his finger under her chin and lifted her face. His lips hovered above hers. Coal-black hair fell like a silken drape, brushing against the high points of harsh cheek bones. His dark brown eyes stared deep into her soul.

Her breath caught. No one had looked at her with that kind of depth besides her mother. Shocked by the oddity, she stared up at him. Compassion and understanding washed across his face. Had she not seen those same things in her mother, she wouldn’t have recognized them.

“Your father will never harm you again,” he said, his voice almost a growl.

Susanna laughed. The man knew nothing, yet spoke with confidence, as if he commanded the world. She narrowed her eyes, remembering what he was...what they all were. “Aye. He’ll not hurt me. No man ever will.” She jerked her chin away from his touch, keeping a wary gaze leveled on him.

The Highlander pulled his hand back and straightened to his full height. He stared at her with scorching intensity.

His red-haired companion approached. “We’ve secured the pine.”

“Good,” her captor replied, not looking away from her. “We’ll camp here for the night.”

A shiver traveled through her. She did her best not to show the weakness, but his eyes traveled down her body in response to the involuntary action.

“Finish buildin’ the fire,
Duncan. Susanna needs the warmth of it.”

Susanna glanced beyond their shelter into the growing darkness as snowflakes fell more closely together. The storm continued to help camouflage her tracks, but if those who pursued her discovered t
he direction of her escape...

“You canna light a fire!” she shouted.

Duncan looked up from his squatting position and stood, still holding a large piece of wood in his hand. The other man, the one called Seamus, had been unfastening something from the back of a horse but stopped and turned fully toward her. Both men walked closer until they stood just behind her captor.

No one spoke. They merely stared at her as if she’d grown another head atop her shoulders. As the seconds ticked by with not one of them looking away—or blinking—she began to wonder if she had.

Duncan broke the silence. “She supposes to tell the commander how to best handle a situation. Bold.”

“Aye,” Seamus replied, a smirk twitching the corners of his mouth. “She speaks against the great leader of our guard, somethin’ no
man
has ever dared, let alone a woman.”

Their commander dropped his head, staring at a spot
on the ground between her boots and his. He took a deep breath as his jaw muscles clenched. “Do you seek to join her in such folly?”

Both of his men burst into laughter.
Duncan clapped his leader on the shoulder as they turned to leave. “Nay, Commander. We merely paused to commit a rare moment to memory.”

She’d had enough of people talking about her as if she wasn’t there. Cloistered her entire existence, she hadn’t dared to speak against a man to his face. But she’d abandoned that life.

A strength rose from deep within her as she vowed to be the liberated woman she had set free in her new world. “I’ll speak to you in any manner I choose. Do you have a name? I tire of callin’ you Highlander, and I refuse to call you Commander.”

He roared with laughter. The rare sound caught her off guard, and her lips twitched. She pressed them into a firm line, furrowing her brow, remembering they were the enemy—all of them.

“Only my men call me Commander.” His lips twisted into a smirk. “You may address me as Commander if you ever choose to show such respect. My friends call me Robert. You held a blade to my throat”—he lifted his fingers and gently touched the spot where a red mark remained—“but I’ll allow any address you choose...for now.”

“Can friends be untied?” she asked, hopeful.

He chuckled. “You misunderstand, lass. I doona keep female friends. Call me Robert if it suits you, but you’re simply a stray lass, and I’m your obligated escort...nothin’ else.”

To her left, his men had a sizable fire started. Much as she longed for its warmth, a daunting anxiety grew within her like the orange flames that licked up from beneath the logs. “They’ll find us,” she said softly, staring into the growing blaze.

Robert drew closer and squatted in front of her. She tore her gaze from the fire and looked into his dark eyes. Light and shadows danced across his features—a strong jaw line, straight nose, dark stubble below chiseled cheek bones—making his face look even more fierce.

“You’re safe from harm now, Susanna. If your father or his men chase you, they’d be fools to do so in this storm. We canna return to the castle ’til the morrow, but you’ll do so under our protection.”

She lifted her bound hands in front of his face. “As a prisoner?”

Robert laughed. “If I unbind your hands, will you promise not
to injure my men or flee?”

He asked a lot. She could guarantee neither. The only promise she’d ever made had been to her mother, and she intended to keep her word at all costs. One thing she’d grown adept at, however, was lying.

“You hesitate too long.
Friend.
” He winked and tapped a finger to the tip of her nose. “Maybe we’ll release you once you get those wild ideas out of your head.”

She snapped her teeth at his extended finger, but he yanked it out of her reach.

“Be careful, Susanna. I’ll easily bind that luscious mouth of yours as well.”

Her jaw dropped open. She snapped it shut. With her recent luck, one vicious retort would tempt him to make good on his threat the instant she let her thoughts fly free.

He waited, watching her, but she returned her gaze to the fire, acting uninterested in any further communication with him.

She sighed. If only she’d angled her mare a degree to the east or the west, she wouldn’t have come across a soul. A straight ride for a day or two, unseen by anyone, and she would’ve never been under the power of another man again.

By stumbling across Robert and his men, she’d inadvertently dashed her hopes of guaranteed freedom. What she’d been left with were chances. Earlier today she’d seized upon a chance to escape certain doom from her father. She’d simply have to keep steadfast watch for another opportunity.

“Are you hungry?” Robert asked.

Susanna followed the sound of his voice to where he stood by her horse that had been tethered with the others. He’d opened her satchel and now held up the parcel of food she had carefully wrapped for her journey. Since the package had lain at the bottom of her belongings, he’d obviously satisfied himself that she had no further weapons.

She shook her head. Robert shrugged, but surprisingly took her rations with him as he walked beyond his men. Duncan and Seamus sat on separate blankets spaced a few feet apart from both each other and the fire. Robert lowered down onto another plaid, which confused her because he’d given her the one she huddled under. She glanced at the horses to confirm hers was missing; he sat upon her father’s red-and-black clan plaid.

He knows.
Robert had to have figured out who her father was by her MacEalan plaid; Broc had boasted about wearing the newly adopted attire at diplomatic events over the last year.

She had no idea what outsiders thought of the tyrant who subjugated the women in his family, but she knew what those in her clan thought. They worshiped him. His ruthless hand had kept them safe from English domination, and to the people under his care, he’d become nothing short of a god.

Robert watched her with unconcealed interest. She narrowed her eyes, irritation brewing at the blatant rudeness of his confiscating her possessions. First her dagger. Now her rations. The only consolation was that he hadn’t taken a bite of her food, but instead had spread the small bread round, wedge of cheese, and her now quartered red apple upon the linen wrapping. He lifted his hand, offering her a piece of apple.

She shook her head again, refusing to be lured closer to the stranger with her food. The curious, soft expression on his face calmed her to a degree, but his very
maleness
overrode the alarming instinct to trust him.

As she stared at Robert, he held her gaze but addressed his men. “Duncan, Seamus, you must be hungry from your hard work.”

His men exchanged glances.

“Aye,”
Duncan said with a guarded tone.

“Aye,” Seamus added, the corners of his mouth twitching once again into a smirk.

Robert passed part of her food to his men, never breaking his assessing eye contact with her. Without asking, he gave away provisions she’d taken great care to steal and hide for her journey. Goading her. Yet with the intense gaze he blazed her way, and not one morsel of food nearing his mouth, he behaved only in small part like the men she’d been exposed to. Something more, an undercurrent of indecipherable emotion beneath his inconsiderate façade, threw her off-balance.

She gritted her teeth and forced herself to stare into a fire that had calmed without stoking. None of its heat managed to reach where she still sat upon the log, and an uncontrollable shiver racked through her from head to toe.

Aggravated by the grief the men seemed intent to cause, but reminding herself it was endurable compared to what she’d been through, she relented and stalked over to her plaid. She quelled her ire by realizing if they’d intended to camp for the night, they had food, and she’d take from them in kind before hunger became an issue. Without giving Robert the satisfaction of a glance or a word, she took a corner that he’d left clear, closest to the fire. She sighed and opened the front of her wrap, pulling in the fire’s remaining heat.

Robert snorted. “Susanna, doona suffer on my account. Eat. We’ve still a journey ahead of us on the morrow, and you’ll need your strength.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Robert moved the last of her bread and cheese near her, his fingers balancing a wedge of apple on the very top. By the time she looked up from the tiny pile of food, he’d reclined back, the opening of a waterskin between his lips as he drank.

Her throat was dry. Susanna swallowed, needing some of what he held to quench her thirst, but she refused to open her mouth. She’d never asked a man for anything
...and had no intention of beginning.

Robert’s eyes lit with mischief. “Would you like some water, Susanna?”

She nodded before her verbal response fully formed. He leaned forward and held the neck of the waterskin up. Her lips pursed around the opening, and cold, pure water filled her mouth. Each crisp, quenching swallow tasted more amazing than the one before. Once she’d had her fill, she tipped her chin up to stop the flow.