A Virgin for the Highland Dragon (Healing Highland Lairds #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

"We searched every glen, me Laird. She wasnae there."

The words landed wrong. Anthony turned from the training yard wall slowly, the way a man turns when he's deciding how much of his temper to use.

Fergus stood his ground. Cautious, but steady, the only man in the yard who didn't take a step back.

Around him, steel had gone quiet. Men who'd been mid-clash stood still, blades lowered, watching the way you watch weather that hasn't decided what it wants to do yet. Even the horses had shifted uneasy, ears back.

"She wasnae there," Anthony repeated.

"No, me Laird."

"Ye searched every glen."

"Every one ye named. Aye."

"And the western pass? The ridge above Loch Dair?"

Fergus's jaw tightened, barely, but Anthony caught it. "Aye. Those too."

Anthony looked at him for a long moment. Then he turned back to face the yard.

"She was there." His voice came out low and even, which was worse than shouting and every man present knew it. "She simply doesnae wish to be found."

"Me Laird." Fergus stepped forward, lowering his voice. "It's possible she's moved on. These wanderin' healers daenae stay in one place."

"She's there." Anthony turned back to him. "Annabeth of MacLennan's keep doesnae send men on stories. She said western glens. She said red hair and a fox." He held Fergus's gaze flat and steady. "That woman exists. Find her."

From the tower above, faint, unmistakable, came the sound of coughing. Thin, strained, familiar in the way that things you dread become familiar. It moved through the courtyard and settled.

Anthony's hands closed at his sides.

He faced his men.

"Spread out." The command carried the full length of the yard without effort. "Ten of ye east, ten west." He held them a beat, held the way a man holds something he doesn't intend to drop. "I ride north."

Nobody spoke.

"And hear me well." His gaze moved across them, even and certain. "I return with that healer. Or I return alone."

He was already walking toward the stables before the men began to move.

"Me Laird." Fergus fell into step beside him, quieter now. "And if she willnae be found?"

Anthony pulled on his gloves. "Then I search every glen meself until she is."

Fergus was quiet a moment. "Ye could send more men."

"I've sent men." He didn't break stride. "Now I go."

He found her by the falls.

The fox appeared first, red, unhurried, standing on a flat rock above the water as if it had been waiting.

It looked at Anthony without fear. Didn't run. Didn't flinch. Just watched him with amber eyes and held its ground.

Anthony dismounted slowly. Scanned the rock face above the falls, the narrow ledge carved by water and time along the cliff side. Nothing moved.

He took one step forward.

Powder hit him full in the face. Sharp, blinding.

He jerked back, eyes slamming shut, one hand coming up too late. He wiped his face against his sleeve and by the time his vision cleared, she was already twenty feet away, running the ledge beside the water with the ease of someone who knew every stone by weight.

She was fast. He was faster.

He closed the distance in a hard sprint, cut the angle, and caught her wrist as she turned, spinning her back against the rock face and pinning her there before she'd finished the movement.

She twisted immediately, sharp and deliberate, skilled enough that his grip nearly didn't hold. He adjusted, pressed her firmly in place, and looked down.

Not what he'd expected.

He didn't know what he'd expected. Someone older, perhaps. Someone who looked like they belonged to legends and Western Glens.

Not this. Not her.

Green eyes. Furious. Bright.

Not frightened.

That was another thing he registered. Not the fight in her grip, not the powder still stinging his eyes. That she wasn't afraid of him. Not even slightly.

She was breathing hard, but her chin was up, and there was nothing frightened in her face. Only outrage, fully formed, like she'd had it ready.

"Well," she said, breathless but crisp. "Ye're larger than expected."

"And ye attack every guest?"

"Only the ones creepin' poorly."

He looked at her. Looked at the satchel on her back, the fox now sitting calmly at the base of the rock as though this were a scheduled event.

"I've nay time for games," he said. "Ye're comin' with me."

Her eyes sharpened. "I answer calls for help. Nae commands barked by men."

"Me heir is dyin'."

"Many are."

Flat.

Not cruel, the flatness of someone who'd seen enough dying to stop flinching at the mention of it. He held her gaze.

"Me nephew," he said. Quieter. "Six years old. He breathes wrong and has done so since the night of the fire."

Something moved in her face. Not softness, but the flatness shifted. A crack she didn't entirely control.

"Lady MacLennan sent me."

That stopped her. Something shifted behind her eyes, not softness, but a pause. A crack in the wall.

"Annabeth," she said carefully. "The healer."

"Annabeth of Marcus's keep. Aye."

She said nothing. He could see her pulling the name apart, testing it for truth.

"She could have sent word," she said finally. "She didnae need to send a man with rope."

"I sent word. Three times." He kept his voice level. "Ye were never findable and never found. So here I am."

"And what exactly did yer word say?" Her eyes didn't waver. "Come or we'll drag ye? Nay wonder I didnae answer."

Something that wasn't quite amusement moved through him and was gone. "She said ye would argue."

"Did she?"

"She also says ye would come, if a child's life hangs in the balance."

Something moved across her face, brief, almost buried. A memory surfacing and being pushed back down. Then the defiance settled back over her features like armor fastened in place.

"Then ask," she said. "Daenae take."

"I have asked." He held her eyes. "Now I take."

Her jaw tightened. She pulled against his grip, controlled, not panicked. Testing. He didn't move.

Then his men reached the bank behind him.

He heard them pull up and go still, and watched her register the sound.

Eight men. The ledge at her back. The water below. The only open path blocked by him.

The calculation moved across her face and landed somewhere he recognized.

He lifted her over his shoulder before she could decide what to do about it.

He didn't let her finish it.

She struck his back immediately, closed-fist, aimed with intention.

She'd fight. Of course, she'd fight.

Good. Fighting meant she was strong enough to make the journey.

He told himself that was why he almost admired it.

“Let me down. Now.”

He tightened his arm across the backs of her thighs and kept walking.

Then she bit him. Hard, through the wool of his tunic, enough that a curse came out of him before he could stop it.

“Dammit, lass.”

Behind him, his men had gone absolutely silent.

He set her down at the horse, turned her by the shoulders, and bound her wrists with the cord at his belt.

She stood straight through all of it, chin up, watching him with the particular fury of someone who hadn't finished with him yet.

He secured her to the saddle before him and mounted.

"Unhand me," she said.

"Heal the boy." He took the reins. "And then ye may curse me freely."

He turned the horse toward the glen. The fox fell into a trot alongside without being called, keeping perfect pace as if this were entirely ordinary.

She was warm.

That was the first thing, an inconvenient fact his body registered before his mind could dismiss it.

The movement of the horse pressed her back against his chest at every stride, and she didn't lean away from it the way he expected. She held herself straight, rigid with fury, which somehow made it worse.

He was aware of her spine. Of the exact place where her shoulder met his arm. Of the way she breathed. Measured, controlled, not giving him the satisfaction of discomfort.

He fixed his eyes on the tree line.

She twisted in the saddle to look up at him. The fury hadn't dimmed, but underneath it something assessed and calculated and refused, entirely, to be afraid of him.

"If he dies," she said, voice level, "because ye dragged me here like cattle, Laird, the blame is yers."

He didn't slow. Didn't look down.

"Then see that he lives."

She faced forward. A beat of silence.

Then, quieter, but no less sharp: "What is his name?"

Anthony glanced down at her. "James."

"And ye say he has been like this since he was an infant?"

"Aye."

She went still, and he learnt it was the way she goes still when she's thinking, processing, and filing things.

The fury hadn't left her face but something else had joined it now, something that had nothing to do with him.

“So what is wrong?”

“Cough. A wild one.”

"What brings it on? Cold air? Exertion?"

"Both. Dust. Sometimes nothin' at all."

She absorbed that. "Fever with it?"

"Recurrin'. All his life."

Her mouth pressed into a line. She turned forward and said nothing more. But her posture had shifted, fractionally, barely, and Anthony caught it.

The fight was still there. But he could see she was already thinking about the boy.

He kept his eyes on the path ahead and said nothing more.

The falls faded behind them. The wind pushed through the glen cold and steady and he thought about one thing only: James in the east wing, breathing thin through another night, and the woman currently bound to his saddle who Annabeth had said could fix what no one else had managed.

He'd found her. He'd brought her.

The rest was hers to carry.

He told himself that was all he felt, relief. The clean, functional relief of a problem moving toward its solution.

He almost believed it.