Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Asharp crack of breaking timber echoed from the ridge, making Finn’s horse rear. Before he could fully rein the beast back under control, the heavy brush along the slope parted violently.
Three mounted figures burst from behind the tree line, their horses kicking up great clumps of dark mud and crushed heather.
They wore no colors, their faces obscured by the grease and dirt of men who lived in the high caves, but the rusted iron of their backplates gleamed wickedly in the pale afternoon light.
"The raiders, they came back!" Claire said, her voice rising in a frightened gasp as she lunged toward the carriage window, her small hands gripping the wooden frame until her knuckles turned a deathly white. Inside the coach, Molly let out a sharp, terrified shriek, burying her face in her apron.
When strangers saw they were noticed and the MacRae Laird blocking the path with his hand on his broadsword, they did not charge. Instead, they yanked their reins, their mounts skidding on slick grass as they turned and fled toward the hills.
“After them!” Finn barked immediately, his voice booming across the valley like a clap of thunder.
Douglas did not hesitate. With a fierce Highland yell, the old man-at-arms dug his spurs deep into his horse’s flanks, the beast leaping forward in a frantic sprint that tore up the trail after the fleeing riders.
Finn’s blood surged hot, a familiar, burning adrenaline that drowned out every other thought in his head.
"Stay inside the coach!" Finn roared down at Claire, his voice raw. "Douglas, cut them off at the ravine!"
Finn didn't wait to see if she obeyed. He wheeled his black stallion, planning to circle through pines and flank the riders before reaching the high rocks.
His horse tore through thick brush, branches slicing his doublet and thighs as he pushed it to the limit.
The wind howled, carrying Douglas's frantic shouts as the chase neared the mountain.
Finn had just cleared the first thicket, his eyes locked on the narrow pass ahead, when a sound pierced through the roar of the wind and the pounding of hooves.
It was a scream. Sharp, terrified, and unmistakably Claire’s.
Finn’s heart stopped, a sickening ice-cold grip seizing his chest before his fury doubled. He didn't think; he simply yanked the stallion's head around so hard the animal nearly lost its footing in the clay. He didn't care about the riders on the ridge anymore. He didn't care about the ambush.
I willnae forgive meself if anything happens to her.
He tore back toward the path like a demon possessed.
The carriage driver was on the ground, groaning and clutching a bloody knot on his temple. Molly was hanging out of the coach door, crying hysterically, her hands clawing uselessly at the air.
And Claire… she was fighting for her life.
A fourth raider, a massive brute hiding in the ditch, seized Claire from beside the carriage. He wrapped his greasy arm around her waist, dragging her toward the forest while she fought fiercely, kicking and hitting him in the face and throat, her velvet skirts twisting around his boots.
"Let me go, ye miserable bastard!" she shrieked, her elbow driving hard into the man's ribs.
"Quiet, ye little southern bird," the man grunted, yanking her off her feet.
Finn hit the raider like a storm.
He didn't even wait for his stallion to fully halt. He threw himself from the saddle while the beast was still moving, his massive boots striking the mud with a deafening splash. Before the raider could even turn his head to look, Finn’s large, scarred hands slammed into the man's collar.
With a guttural roar, Finn ripped the man backward, the sheer force of his strength snapping the brute away from Claire so violently that she fell hard into the wet heather.
The raider flew through the air, his heavy body crashing into the dirt and rolling twice before he could even raise his weapon.
Finn didn't give him a chance to breathe. He closed the distance in a fraction of a second, hauling the man up again by the front of his filthy leather coat, lifting him until his toes barely touched the ground.
“Who sent ye?” Finn snarled, his face twisted into something entirely monstrous, his green eyes burning with a homicidal light that made the raider’s wild expression freeze.
The man spat a mouthful of blood onto Finn’s chest, his lips curling into a manic, broken-toothed grin despite the fingers crushing his windpipe. "Ye are too late, MacRae," the man wheezed, his eyes darting toward Claire as she tried to scramble to her feet.
Finn didn't let him finish the sentence.
With a swift, practiced motion born of a hundred battles, Finn drew his dagger from his belt and drove the steel deep into the man's chest. There was no time for interrogations, not when the man's words were a direct threat to the woman shivering in the dirt behind him. He twisted the blade once, his jaw locked in a grim, unyielding line, and watched the light flicker out of the raider’s eyes.
He let the corpse drop into the mud, not wasting a single look on it, and turned immediately toward Claire.
The fury was still pounding violently through his veins, his breath coming in ragged, heavy gasps that clouded the cold air around him. He closed the distance between them in seconds.
Finn dropped to his knees in the wet heather right in front of her, his large hands immediately reaching out.
“Are ye hurt?” he demanded, his voice rough, lacking any of the flat composure he usually forced upon himself.
Claire shook her head shakily, her dark, wavy hair falling across her face in wild, damp tangles.
Her gray eyes were wide, the pupils completely blown with terror, but as she looked at him, the panic seemed to steady into something else.
She reached up, her trembling fingers brushing against his arm.
"Nay. Nay, I... I bit him. I think I broke his nose. "
"Lass, this is nae a jest," Finn growled, but his actions belied the harshness of his words.
His hands moved frantically across her arms, gripping her slender wrists to ensure they weren't broken, his calloused palms sliding up to her shoulders, squeezing gently.
He checked her waist, his fingers searching for any hidden tear in the blue silk, any sign of blood, any injury whatsoever, despite the absolute madness still raging in his head.
She is so small, he thought, a sudden, terrifying wave of protectiveness crashing over him as his hands lingered on her narrow waist.
A bit of a thing, just as Douglas said. If I had been a second later... if he had taken her into the dark glens...
"Finn," she whispered, her voice a small, breathless sound that cut right through his internal panic.
He stilled, his hands remaining anchored to her waist, his palms absorbing the frantic, rapid thudding of her heart against her ribs.
He was so close he could see the tiny flecks of silver in her gray eyes, could feel the rapid, warm puffs of her breath against his mouth.
The scent of her… that sweet, southern scent of lavender mixed with the sharp smell of rain and crushed heather, filled his senses, dizzying him.
"Ye are shaking," he murmured, his voice softening into a register he had not used in ten years.
"I am nae shaking," she lied, her lower lip trembling despite her best efforts to look fierce. "It is just... the wind is cold."
"Lass, ye are a terrible liar when ye are frightened," Finn said softly, his thumb tracing a slow, completely unconscious circle against the silk over her hip.
The touch sent a jolt of heat flaring in the space between them that had absolutely nothing to do with the violence that had just occurred.
Her gray eyes drifted down to his mouth, her lips parting as she leaned into his body, her small hands flattening against his broad chest for support.
"Laird MacRae!" Douglas’s voice broke the spell like a stone shattering a mirror.
Finn pulled back instantly, though he didn't rise from his knees, his hands dropping reluctantly from her waist to rest on his thighs. He cleared his throat, his expression instantly hardening back into chiseled stone as Douglas rode back into the clearing soon afterward.
The old man-at-arms was breathing heavily from the chase, his horse lathered in white sweat, its nostrils flaring as Douglas reined it in near the carriage. He looked down at the dead raider on the ground, then at the groaning driver, an aging man Douglas had hired from the inn's stable.
“Killed all but one,” Douglas reported grimly, wiping a mixture of sweat and rain from his silver-streaked beard with the back of his leather glove. “One bastard escaped into the hills. He had a faster mount than me, Finn. He’ll be miles away before the sun hits the ridge.”
But Finn barely heard him. The old man's words were nothing but noise against the loud, roaring silence in his own ears.
Because Claire was still trembling beneath his hands, her gray eyes fixed on his face with an intensity that told him everything had just changed.
The false betrothal wasn't just a game anymore.
The enemy was already at their gates, and the woman in the mud had just become the center of his entire world.
"Douglas," Finn said, his voice low and dangerous as he finally rose to his feet, offering a hand to haul Claire up from the dirt. "Get the driver into the coach. We arenae stopping again until we are behind the walls of Rosewood."
He looked down at Claire, his fingers tightening over hers, refusing to let go even when she was safely on her feet. "Welcome to the MacRae clan, Lady Claire. I hope ye are as clever as ye claim, because tomorrow, the real fight begins."
Claire looked at his scarred hand wrapping hers, then up at his grim, green eyes, a small, reckless smile touching her lips despite the mud on her face. "Don't worry, Laird MacRae. I always finish what I start."
And as the carriage doors slammed shut once more, Finn mounted his stallion, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs as he looked toward the dark mountains ahead. The game had just become deadly.