To Tame a Highlander (The Runaways’ Highland Haven #4)

Chapter 1

The Luxury Of Forgetting

One Month Previously

The fire had spread fast. Una wondered whether they could see it from the convent, and if so, what it looked like. A wall of fire, perhaps, advancing towards them. The stone walls of the convent wouldn’t burn, at least.

She wiped her forearm across her face, smearing away ash, grime, blood, and sweat. She had a cut across the outside of her upper arm, and it was stinging, blood oozing out. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten it. Somewhere in the melee, no doubt.

The battle was nearly over. There were a few pockets of enemy Dickson soldiers fighting here and there.

Do they even know that the battle is over?

Una wondered idly. The last of her strength was gone.

She clutched her sword with a grim determination—letting go of it meant death in battle, she’d seen that—but her limbs hung numbly by her side.

She wasn’t sure if she could lift her sword arm, not even to save her life.

Smoke drifted across the battlefield, stinging her eyes.

Men and women ran here and there in varying levels of urgency.

She could hear voices but couldn’t make out the words.

It didn’t matter, did it? The enemy had been slaughtered or driven away.

The convent at their backs, the Priory of St. Deborah, was safe for now, as were all the people within it.

It’s not over, though. The battle’s won, but what about the war?

Una became dully aware that her name was being shouted.

She blinked around her, frowning, and a man materialized out of the smoke.

He lurched towards her, coughing and limping heavily.

She recognized him as Finnegan, the whip-thin Irishman who’d helped to train most of the army, Una included.

It was odd seeing him without his friend, the hulking Janson.

He was the one who’d insisted on putting a sword in Una’s hand and sending her to fight along with the infantry instead of with the archers.

A pang of fear rolled through her. Finnegan was trying to say something to her, but her ears still rang, and she couldn’t hear him. Lurching forward, she grabbed his shoulder and squeezed.

“Where is Janson?” she yelled. “He isn’t… He’s not…”

“He lives,” Finnegan confirmed, nodding. “He survived. Of course he did—it’ll take more than a few Dickson warriors to kill a man like Janson.”

This was faintly reassuring, but Una had a new fear.

“And…” she paused, licking her dry lips. Suddenly, she was so thirsty that she was tempted to drop to her knees and slurp up water from a puddle at their feet, thick with mud and blood and worse. She didn’t, of course. “And Thomas?”

“Thomas is well, too,” Finnegan assured her, giving her a wry smile. “Dinnae ye fret.”

Una let out a long, ragged sigh. Finnegan eyed her curiously, then cleared his throat.

“I believe he wants to hurry back to the convent to find the Abbess and assure her that all is well. And to find Kyla too, of course,” he added.

Una didn’t bother to respond to this. She guessed that Finnegan thought that she was in love with Thomas, on account of all the time they’d spent together training.

Well, she wasn’t.

While it was true that she admired him, love was out of the question. Besides, Thomas was clearly head-over-heels with Kyla, a girl who’d lived at the convent with the nuns for quite some time now. Kyla had enough worries of her own.

Kyla’s father had sent the army to destroy them after all.

It had been a shock to learn that her friend’s father was none other than Laird Dickson, a man determined to crush all rebellion to his rule out of the Highlands, but Kyla’s parentage could offer them an advantage, too. Not much of an advantage, but it was something.

Wordlessly, she and Finnegan began to trudge through the mud.

Bodies littered the ground, so soaked in mud and blood that it was impossible to tell whether they wore Dickson or some other tartan.

Back at the convent, Una imagined that politics was being discussed.

Some Highland lairds stood up to Laird Dickson and his warmongering, resisting his attempts to invade and his constant, viciously violent raiding parties.

But Laird Dickson ruled the largest piece of land in the Highlands. He had the most powerful armies, the latest war weapons at his control, and what was more, he had his son at his side. Sometimes, Una thought that Struan Dickson was feared as much as his father.

She should know. She’d spent countless years as a slave in Keep Dickson.

Una let her eyes flutter closed. She would not allow herself to think of those days. The Abbess had told her once that if she wished to banish unpleasant thoughts, she could do so if she trained her thoughts.

“Think of a wall, lass,” the Abbess had said. “Think of that and nothing else.”

Una frowned. “What sort of wall?”

She could hear the older woman’s laugh even now.

“Whatever sort of wall ye prefer. Just make sure ye think of it in detail, and think of nothing else.”

She did that now, conjuring up the image of a rough stone wall. She imagined the cracks between the stones, the uneven surfaces, the tendrils of plants coiling down. She even added a small insect scurrying over the surface.

That method didn’t always work, but this time it did. The half-forgotten echoes of screams and pleas for mercy trailed away from her mind.

She glanced sideways at Finnegan, who’d made no attempt to engage her in conversation. He walked fast, head down, with a frown between his brows. He was covered in filth, and she thought that he must have hated it. Finnegan was always bathing, shaving, always keeping himself clean.

They passed a mound of bodies, already starting to stink, and a bear-like figure rose up from behind it. Una’s instincts reacted before she could think twice. She sprang back, lifting her sword, but Finnegan rushed between them.

“It’s only Janson,” he said, his voice tired and cracking.

“Oh, aye,” Una responded, feeling silly. Her vision kept blurring, and she was sure that it was due to exhaustion. She’d gone past the threshold of tiredness a little while ago, and this was something beyond.

Janson strode out from behind the bodies, his blond hair streaked red.

“Ye fought well,” he said bluntly, nodding at Una. “The first battle is always… difficult. It’s all well and good to stab at bales of hay and shoot at tree trunks, but the real thing…” he trailed off, and nobody bothered to finish his sentence for him.

Una thought about the stone wall again. There was a ladybird perched on one rock now, instead of the insect.

Janson glanced past her at Finnegan. “Did ye tell her?”

Finnegan shook his head. “Nay.”

There was a long silence, and Una glanced warily between them both. “Tell me what?”

Janson sighed. “We found him, lass. Alive.”

Her skin prickled.

Towards the edge of the battlefield, there were a couple of old croft cottages. The fire had taken them and burned itself out, destroying the thatched roof and burning up anything inside. All that was left now were the four stone walls, blackened and still hot to the touch.

A group of men wearing Grahame tartan—two clans, Grahame and Kenneth, had come at the last moment—circled one of the sad little structures.

They faced grimly out, clutching their weapons.

It was clear that they hadn’t been engaged in the fight, since their faces were clean, and so were their clothes.

One of the men, a scrawny man with an axe strapped to his back, stepped towards them.

“Janson,” he said, nodding. “I cannot give ye entry, ye know that. Laird Grahame’s orders. Who is this?”

“Ye know Finnegan, of course. This lass is Una. Una Alcorn. Perhaps the name is familiar to ye?”

The man’s eyes widened in recognition. “Aye, but their land is no more. Hasn’t been for a while.”

“And yet here I am,” Una spoke up, lifting her chin. “So why don’t ye show me what’s in that croft, eh?”

She had no idea what she looked like. Filthy and bloodied, most likely.

Her black hair hung in tangles down her back.

She’d braided it before the battle, and now it seemed like it had solidified into a single matted patch.

She had been dreaming of a warm bath and a soft bed for hours, but it seemed that sleep was still a long way away for her.

She was tall and carried a longsword in her hand, the point dragging in the mud.

She complacently hoped that she made a fearsome picture with her mask of blood.

I’ll never be that terrified woman cringing in the dirt again. I’ll never beg for mercy again, for as long as I live. Never.

The man clenched his jaw, glancing between Una and Janson, then at Finnegan, and then back to Una.

“Will Laird Grahame be angry at me for letting ye see him?” he asked at last.

“Nay, lad,” Janson said, sounding more tired than ever. “He won’t.”

The man heaved a sigh and then stepped away. “Go on, then. Beware. He’s unarmed now, but dangerous still.”

Una’s feet carried her forward, although she felt as though she were suddenly moving through water, her movements restricted and uneven.

The croft consisted of one room. It wasn’t a large space, but Una knew that families, whole families, must have lived here at one time. The floor was hard-packed earth, scorched in places, and it stunk of smoke.

A man knelt in the middle of the room, hunched over, chin to his chest. He wasn’t tied up, as far as Una could see, but then light glinted off a chain, cuffed around one wrist and snaking across the earth to where it was fixed to the wall.

It was a rough-looking chain, rusted and chipped. Would it hold him?

He glanced up at Una as she approached, and old, cold anger flooded through her.

“Remember me?” she said aloud. “Do ye remember dragging me up from the kitchens to show me off to my brother? Do ye remember warning Kai that if he stepped out of line, my life would be forfeit? Do ye remember that?”