Lucy Monroe - Moon Awakening

Emily and Cait were finished bathing and redonning their clothes when Cait went utterly still. She turned toward where the Sinclair soldier had gone as if trying to see through the thick plant growth.

"What's the matter?" Emily asked. "He's not peeking is he?"

Cait shook her head and put her finger against her lips in a sign to be quiet. Emily couldn't imagine what had her so agitated, but she did as Cait said and finished dressing as silently as possible. Cait did the same, her expression stark with worry.

She went rigid with tension, grabbing the small knife she used at mealtimes from her belt. Her eyes were fixed on the foliage several feet from the water's edge. Emily's gaze followed Cait's, though she had no idea what they were both watching for. A wild animal perhaps? But she hadn't heard anything and she had very good hearing.

The answer came a second later as five gigantic warriors, their faces painted with macabre blue designs and wearing a plaid of dark blue, green and pale yellow came out of the forest. They were riding the biggest horses she'd ever seen… bareback.

Emily thought she had been prepared for anything in this Highland country, but she hadn't been ready for this. If someone had told her the day before that there were warriors more intimidating than the Sinclairs, she would have laughed in the person's face. She wasn't laughing now.

Nay. She was too busy praying.

The giant men rode toward her and Cait, their fierce scowls made even more menacing by the blue war paint. It was not so much that they were bigger than the Sinclair warriors as that they carried themselves as if they owned the world and all that was in it. Considering they were on another clan's territory, that said something. She'd never seen such arrogance and she'd been raised by one ox England's most ruthless barons and was now betrothed to the formidable Sinclair laird.

The sound of Cait's frightened intake of breath reminded Emily she was not alone in facing the menace. Relief turned to chagrin in the space of a second. Emily didn't want her friend hurt… or frightened. She turned to Cait, whose face had drained of color. She was looking with terror at the warriors on horseback.

Emily tried to smile reassuringly. "Don't be frightened, Cait. It's only some friends of your brother, I'm thinking."

They looked mean enough to be friends to the Sinclair laird.

Cait shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving the approaching warriors. "Friends? Nay, Emily. These are Balmoral soldiers and they have already killed Everett," she said, speaking of the boy sent to guard Emily, "or they would not be here."

Emily turned eyes filled with fury to the warrior closest to her. "Surely, not. You did not kill that boy. For it would be a sin for a grown man to kill a child… even here in the Highlands."

The warrior she addressed, a redheaded demon with eyes the color of grass, raised his brows but did not answer. He watched her silently, causing her to nervously twist and untwist the folds of her dress. She felt goaded into speaking again.

"Do you not know it is impolite to ignore a lady when she is speaking to you?" She'd been using Gaelic the whole time, so she knew the heathen monsters had to understand her.

A warrior from her left spoke. He could have been the first one's twin but for his brown eyes. "We did not kill the boy."

Emily turned back to her friend. "There now. Do you see? These are merciful men. I'm sure we have nothing to fear."

She prayed God would forgive her for the lie, but she hated the look of dread in Cait's eyes.

Cait's snort of disbelief turned into a scream as the green-eyed warrior swiftly rode forward and swung her onto his horse. He disarmed her in a move too quick for Emily to see, but she saw the small knife fall to the ground. Forgetting anything resembling ladylike decorum, she dove for it.

Grasping it in her hand, she scrambled to her feet and went for the warrior's unprotected calf.

The horse backed up and the knife swished uselessly through air. She lurched forward to try again, but was caught from behind by an arm as big as a pine tree. At least that was how it felt ramming into her stomach and knocking out her breath as she was lifted off her feet and dropped into a totally indecent position in front of one of the Balmorals.

She couldn't even scream, but she could bite and that's what she did, turning and sinking her teeth into the shoulder not covered by the warrior's plaid.

He grunted.

She bit down harder and tried to stab him in the thigh with the knife. Suddenly, instead of the arm being around her waist, it was wrapped around both her arms, holding them tight to her sides. The thumb from his free hand pressed against her wrist and her hand released the knife of its own volition.

The horse beneath them started moving and the warrior growled in her ear. "Stop trying to eat me, woman. I dinna think even the English infidels practiced cannibalism."

Emily tasted blood and yanked her mouth away from the huge Warrior's shoulder. She spit to get the taste from her mouth and then turned to glare at her captor, but her attention was caught by Cait's wildly flailing body.

The other woman fought desperately, trying to free herself. The warrior holding her wasn't working too hard to subdue her, but was concentrating on protecting her from the tree branches as they rode swiftly through the forest.

Unconcerned about her own plight for the moment, Emily yelled, "Stop fighting, Cait. You'll hurt the baby."

"We can't let them take us!" Cait cried back. "If we do, it will mean war between the Sinclairs and the Balmorals."

Emily didn't see why that should be so upsetting to Cait. From what she had heard, the Highland clans were always at war with each other.

"If your brother did not want war, he should not have allowed his warrior to keep one of my clanswomen," the warrior holding Emily said.

Cait turned and glared at him, still struggling to be released, but not thrashing as wildly. "She was outside your holding… hunting on our land. Her loss is your own responsibility."

The man holding Cait said something to her. Emily could not understand the words, but his harsh tone was unmistakable. Cait said a word that Emily didn't know and the warrior's profile hardened with anger. Emily's own captor stiffened with affront, indicating he knew just what the word meant and it wasn't good.

Apparently there were worse things than being likened to a goat.

Suddenly the horses picked up their pace. There was no chance to speak for the next several minutes as the men rode hard. Emily worriedly watched Cait and was glad to note her friend no longer struggled for release. She must have realized a fall from a galloping horse could make her lose the babe.

They came to a clearing and stopped as suddenly as they had begun.

Her captor swung down from his horse, taking her with him, and then turned her to face him. Standing, he was huge and she had to tilt her head back to see his face.

Dark brown eyes encircled by gold stared down at her, no softness in evidence. They were wolf's eyes, but instead of making her shiver, they made her burn in places she could give no name. She could not believe she was noticing something so shameful, especially in her current predicament, but the man was altogether too much for her senses to remain unaffected.

"Leave her alone," Cait yelled.

Emily's gaze skittered to her friend. Her redheaded captor had a more effective hold on her now and Cait's arms were pinned to her sides much the same as Emily's had been.

Her own captor's hands squeezed her shoulders in a demand for her whole attention. "Tell the laird we are keeping his sister and the babe in her. 'Tis fitting retribution for Susannah."

She stared at him in horror. "You can't mean that. Please, you mustn't take her away."

He didn't bother to reply and she hadn't expected him to. After all, why should he care for her pleas? The man's mind was obviously made up to do this heinous deed.

Still, her mouth opened to argue further, but he squeezed her shoulders again, this time his thumbs brushing along her collarbone. She gasped, no words making it past her suddenly tied tongue. She couldn't think. Not with him touching her in that inappropriate manner. She wanted to tell him to stop, but something about him mesmerized her.

He had not hurt her.

It was a puzzle, but even more so was the question of why he stood staring down at her, saying nothing.

He was frowning, but he didn't look particularly angry.

Didn't the men in the Highlands ever smile? What a foolish thought. Was he waiting for her to agree to be his messenger? If so, he would be waiting a long time.

"You cannot mean to take Cait on an arduous journey on horseback. Surely you have noticed she is with child."

He said nothing, giving her a glare meant to intimidate and it worked.

He was the most daunting man she'd come across in her life. He was also the most appealing one. The blue paint on his face could not disguise the masculine beauty of his features. Hair like shining obsidian hung past his massive shoulders and even the intricate tattoo around his bicep added to his appeal. It looked like a blue armband and none of the other soldiers had one.

Not that she would have seen any such thing on the Sinclair warriors. They had the decency to cover their upper torsos with saffron shirts under their plaids. Not so with these barbarians. His chest and one shoulder were bare. She could see a purplish bruise forming where she'd bit him as well as a smear of blood.