Page 19 of Highlander’s Bride

She turned away from him and stared at the road in front of them. “The future. I came here from the year 2021.”

The forest ended and opened up to a ravine, and the view took her breath away. The gray mountains of the Highlands were splotched with deep, brownish-green moss and vegetation. The silvery sky was endless, and rows and rows of mountains spread out to the horizon in all directions.

“Look how beautiful it is…” she whispered.

“I am,” he said, but when she met his gaze again, he wasn’t looking at the nature around them.

He was looking at her.

Their eyes locked, and she was gone, evaporated like a puddle under the Texas sun. She felt as weightless as air, drifting, soaring up and up.

Hold me, she thought, or I’ll be gone, dissolved in this breathtaking Scottish beauty, molten from the heat of your body and woven into the matter of this odd time. Hold me, or I’ll disappear into nothingness between epochs and dreams.

As though he’d heard her, he pulled the reins of the horse, bringing it to a halt. He jumped off the horse and stretched his arms to her. As if charmed, she fell into his arms, his hands sliding along her sides and up to her armpits, steadying her. When she stood on the ground, he didn’t let go of her. The skin where his hands touched her body was burning, warm and tingly, as though charged with electricity.

He held her in his gaze for a while, and when his eyes dropped to her mouth, that feeling of evaporating came back, and she stopped breathing, waiting for him to lower his head and kiss her.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he let her go and stepped back. “Ye wilna run from here,” he said. “We’re almost at Tigh na Abhainn, and ye wilna find yer way back to Eilean Donan by yerself. There’s nowhere to run, lass, and nowhere to hide. Ye’re mine before God and before men.”

Ye’re mine…

The words shot straight to her groin in a hot surge of desire.

“And as my wife, ye will tell me the truth.”

He didn’t believe her, after all. Should she be disappointed or elated? And this commanding tone… After all, he was a medieval man. He probably thought women were only good for raising children and sewing clothes.

“I don’t owe you anything. As I told you several times, I don’t want to be your wife. I don’t want to be your anything.”

Devils played in his eyes as an amused half smile spread across his lips. He grabbed her hand, bent her elbow, and put her arm behind her back, pushing her to him and locking her in a steely embrace. “What are ye hiding? Why do ye have to create a story as odd as traveling in time?”

She jerked, trying to free herself, but it was like trying to escape the embrace of a statue. “Let me go!”

“Ye ken, we already had an impostor just over one moon ago. The man appeared to be a friend, even saved my life. And yet, he was an enemy spy who tried to kill my family.”

“I’m not a spy.”

“Ye ken what I did to him?”

With his other hand, he searched somewhere and then with a quick movement, something cold and sharp bit against her throat.

“I’m guessing you killed him.” She straightened her back.

“See, ye’re a smart lass. So do ye understand how important ’tis that ye dinna insult me with some nonsense about time travel and faeries.”

Good grief, he wasn’t even joking. Every trace of warmth and admiration in his eyes was gone, and with a cold shock, she realized they were alone. If he truly believed she was a threat, he could kill her and throw her body off this mountain and tell his family she ran away. No one would ever know what had really happened to her.

He wasn’t an honorable man. The darkness within him was real and life-threatening, and she’d be a fool to trust him or let herself have a crush on him.

This man knew death, and probably more intimately than she could ever imagine.

But she wasn’t a damsel in distress, either. She may not know sword fighting, she may not even know self-defense, but she knew where every man’s weak spot was. She’d show him not to threaten her.

It was an odd angle, but she got all her strength ready and kicked him right between the legs with all her might.

He grunted in pain and lowered the dagger. His grip weakened, and she tried to free her arm, but he was still stronger. Goddamn muscles of steel!