Stolen Bride of the Highland Bloodhound

Prologue

Blake MacFarlane slipped away from MacFarlane Keep, moving swiftly and silently through the darkness that had become so familiar to him.

Young warriors in service to the clan were not permitted to leave the keep without permission, and despite Blake’s shared surname with the laird, he was too distant and lowly a member of the clan to receive such permission.

But his family needed him. His mother and his brother and his sister needed him. And he needed to know that they were well.

Besides, tonight was the festival. And he had promised Maisie, his wee sister, that he would be there, that he would take her dancing—even if, as she had informed him pertly on her last visit, she would prefer fighting to dancing.

He smiled, thinking of the wee firebrand he called a sister and made his fingers move more quickly as he saddled his horse, Cagar.

Blake had initially chosen the mount for his size; it was a rare horse that could bear up against Blake’s height, and he could not be certain that he would not grow even taller as he made his way out of the final stages of adolescence and into true manhood.

He supposed that his height was one thing for which he could thank his father…

Cagar was a full eighteen hands tall, however, and more than equipped to keep going as long as Blake needed him. And, true to his name, which alluded to shadows and whispers, he knew how to be stealthy despite his bulk.

All of which were the precise qualities a man needed if he was going to sneak off as regularly as Blake did.

The ride was familiar and brief. Blake let himself be lost to the rhythm of hooves beneath him and, before he knew it, his family’s small cottage had appeared before him, the warm glow of the fire inside beckoning him home.

Cagar whinnied at the sight, which he knew meant that he was about to receive treats.

“Ye’re proper spoiled,” Blake said affectionately, patting his horse’s neck. Perhaps it was his words or the sound of the horse, but the door burst open at that, to reveal Maisie, already done up in her finest frock.

“Blake!” she cried. “Blake, ye are here!”

She threw herself at his legs, her arms coming around his waist.

“Oof,” he said, pretending to be knocked back. “Watch yerself there, lassie. Ye arenae a wean any longer, and ye are liable to break my leg, and then where would we be.”

She gave him a skeptical look. At twelve, Maisie constantly wavered between the easy joy of childhood and the desire to be seen as grown. Apparently, his making jokes turned her into a right fussy lady.

“I’m nae that big,” she protested. “I’m nae going to be like ye. Ye are a giant.”

“Ach, ye dinnae ken.” This came from Fergus, who appeared next in the light of the doorway.

“Ye might still have a chance to grow taller. And then, when it comes time to marry ye off, we could bargain with the giants in the mountains. I’m sure they’d be verra grateful with their bride price.

After all, why do ye think I told ye all those stories about giants when ye were wee? ”

There were eight years between Maisie’s twelve and Blake’s twenty years, which meant that she’d always treated her eldest brother with a certain level of awe and respect. Their middle brother, only three years Maisie’s elder at fifteen, received no such treatment. Maisie scowled at him ferociously.

“One,” she said, every inch the aggrieved little sister, “giants arenae real. And two, I’m nae going to be married off to anyone, let alone something that ye have made up in your daft head, Fergus MacFarlane!”

Fergus grinned. He’d always had an easy temperament, had always been quick with a joke and a laugh.

Blake knew that his younger brother was eager to follow in Blake’s footsteps and train as a guard at the keep, but Blake wanted to let his brother enjoy as much of his youth as possible before that happened.

“I understand, Mais,” he said, his grave tone in contrast with his expression. “Ye expect to be an old maid. Well, with that great mop of red hair of yours, ye are proper ugly. That’s why we’ve the giants as a reserve.”

“Blake is going to teach me how to fight,” Maisie sniffed, ignoring the stab against her looks, not that she’d been meant to take it seriously. All three MacFarlane children had the same flaming locks.

“Blake isnae going to do any such thing,” Blake said firmly. “Swords are great dull things, Maisie. Ye should keep to your studies instead. That will make ye far more dangerous than any warrior.”

“Swords are nae boring,” she retorted, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue in a gesture of displeasure. “Ye are thinking of sums. Sums are dead boring.”

“Excuse me, ye wee heathens.” A fourth voice entered the chaos, melodic and sweet.

Fergus was unceremoniously shoved aside by a woman practically half his height and with gray streaks starting to form in her hair.

“Get out of the way so that I might greet this great tall boy that calls himself my son.”

“Sorry, Ma,” Fergus said.

Mary MacFarlane swept forward to embrace Blake, even if he did have to bend at the waist to do so.

Blake looked at her closely, checking to see if she looked rested, to see if she looked as though she’d been eating properly.

It wasn’t that his mother couldn’t hold her own—she was as fierce as any Scotswoman could be—but Blake remembered all too well what it could be like, living in this house.

“How are ye, Mathair?” Blake asked, pecking a kiss on her cheek.

She brushed away the question. “Och, I’m fine, as ye well ken. I’ve been pecked half to death by these two, who havenae stopped asking about when ye will take them to the village festival for nigh a week now.”

“It’s nae our fault that it doesnae happen on a reasonable day,” Maisie grumbled. “Why are we having a festival on the same day as some other clan’s celebration?”

Her tone made it clear that she could not imagine why anyone would possibly want to be part of any other clan but Clan MacFarlane.

“It’s the alliance, aye?” Blake reminded her. “The agreement among many clans. It will strengthen us all.”

Maisie made a face, but he suspected that it was less a matter of disagreeing and more that she found such politics dreadfully dull.

“Well, no matter the reason, we should enjoy ourselves,” his mother said briskly. “Blake, come in and greet your father, and then we shall all walk together to the celebration, aye?”

“He isnae coming, then?” Blake asked as mildly as he could manage. Not that he had suspected any such thing. Iain MacFarlane didn’t spare time for such trivialities as enjoying himself with his family.

“Nay,” Mary said, her tone completely even. “He has much to do verra early tomorrow morn, so he plans to get himself to bed early.”

Blake tried to hide his relief. If his father stayed home, they might actually be able to enjoy themselves.

His father wasn’t cruel, not in the way that many men were cruel to their wives and children. He didn’t use his fists. He didn’t shout. It was more that he had a way of looking through a person, like they were so insignificant that they didn’t even merit his gaze.

That was unpleasant. But when he looked at you, it was worse, because he only ever did so to criticize.

As Blake entered the house, his father did just that: looked around as if he couldn’t possibly understand what was making things move of their own accord, then sharpening his gaze on Blake, the look sharp as a blade.

“Son,” he said in tones so icy that it practically made the fire gutter in response.

“I shall nae be wasting any of my hard-earned coin on this tomfoolery, ye ken. But I suppose that ye are a man full grown now—” Blake was even taller than his father, even if the man had bothered to rise to greet him, but Iain looked at his eldest like he was a mere mouse—“and I cannae tell ye how to spend your own pay, for good or for ill.”

Blake gritted his teeth against a sharp response. He could stand one moment of this; his siblings and mother would have been dealing with barbed comments for weeks.

“Good evening, Fathair,” he said lightly instead, deriving a grim sense of satisfaction from the way Iain’s mouth turned down at the edges. He always preferred his victims to cower, so that he could ridicule them for their emotions, too. “We will be off now.”

Blake turned and left before he could say anything more.

As the four members of the MacFarlane family walked down the lane, the pallor of their patriarch’s presence gradually began to fade. Maisie was the first to shake off the effects, skipping merrily and trying increasingly outlandish reasons why Blake should teach her to fight.

“What if I need tae chop verra large vegetables?” she asked eventually.

“To make stew for your giant husband?” Fergus asked innocently—which Blake felt was fair, as Maisie really had walked right into that one.

“Stop bedevlin’ your sister,” Mary told Fergus, not sounding terribly stern, though her son still obeyed. “And Maisie, stop bedevilin’ your brother. And Blake, well, ye are fine as ye are. As handsome an escort as I’ve ever had.”

Blake bent to peck a kiss on his mother’s cheek.

“Ye dinnae need to flatter me,” he teased, rifling his purse so a few coins jangled inside. “I’ve been saving my pay so that ye can have one of those big sweet cakes that ye like.”

“Only one?” she asked with a laugh, which caused Maisie to spiral into a new set of raptures about all the things that she would like to eat at the festival.

They heard the music first, then saw the lights. This celebration wasn’t as large as some of the ones that Blake knew happened in other clans, but the inn, the courtyard surrounding it, and the main street of the village were all full of revelry.

They stopped at the inn first, Blake clapping a hearty hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“I think ye are old enough that I can buy ye a pint of ale,” he said.

Fergus’ eyes went wide, his excitement palpable, though he hastily schooled his expression, lest this show of boyish delight encourage Blake to renege on his offer.

“Ach, thank ye, Blake,” he said, clearly torn between acting mature and grateful.

At the bar, Blake ordered two pints of ale, meat pies for the family, and a glass of wine for his mother, which he knew she would protest as an extravagance.

She had too little extravagance in her life, though.

Iain felt it his duty to only provide his family with what they needed and not a single ounce more.

He had almost made it back to the table, where his mother was laughing at something Maisie was saying, when the world ripped in two.

The warrior’s instincts responded before Blake’s mind could even come close to understanding. He grabbed Fergus, abandoning the food to the dirt, and threw himself over Maisie, trying to block both his siblings with his body.

Everything was light and sound and disaster.

For a moment, Blake blinked, trying frantically to rearrange his mind.

He was on the ground. Maisie’s legs were beneath him. Something on his shoulder burned, though he could not pause to look at the injury. His family. Where was his family?

He pushed himself to an upright position, swiping against wetness on his brow. When he pulled his hand away, it wasn’t sweat or ale on his hand, though—

It was blood.

“Nay, nay,” he muttered as he seized his sister, turning her over. She was filthy, coated in muck, and as he searched for a sign of life—breath, the thrum of her pulse in her neck—he found nothing.

“This cannae—” He didn’t know who he was talking to. People were screaming, others picking themselves out of the rubble of what could only have been an explosion.

What the hell had happened?

He found Fergus next. His brother’s eyes were still open, a hint of surprise still etched across his face. Dead.

Grief ripped through Blake, hotter and sharper than any blade, but he could not succumb to it yet. Where was his mother?

For a brief, terrible instant, when he saw her shock of red hair, he was relieved.

He’d found her. Then he realized that he wasn’t seeing the right coppery brightness at all; the color matting her hair was that of her lifeblood, and when he turned her, he saw that her head had suffered an injury that no person could ever survive.

Blake was a warrior.

He’d seen things before.

But he had never seen anything nearly as terrible as this.

He tried to push to his feet. To do something, to help, or maybe just to get away from the horror around him, but when he did the pain in his shoulder flared, sparking to life a dozen or more other pains that wracked his body.

As Blake felt himself succumbing to darkness, he prayed that this injury would take him, too. At least if he died, he would be reunited with his family, and surely there were far worse deaths to suffer.

It was his last thought before blackness swallowed everything whole.