The Highlander's Harlot (Sword and Thistle Book 1) by Laurel Adams Page B

the laird demanded, marching down the stone stairs into the castle courtyard to grab me in his arms. Seeing the blood on my gown, he went white, half-torn between rage and worry. “Have you come to harm?”
    “Not much,” I said with a tiny sob, grateful for his embrace. More grateful for it than anything I could remember. Though my jaw ached intolerably and I could still taste my own blood in my mouth, I couldn’t think of myself. “But Ian…and my sister…”
    “Ian’s wound isn’t deep,” the laird reassured me. “The physicker says he’ll complain and brood about it, but it won’t kill him. And as for your sister…” John Macrae took a deep breath, and gently pushed the hair from my eyes. “She’s just a crofter’s girl of no value to anyone. Even if Davy and Malcolm can’t stop the Donalds in time, they’ll only have a bit of sport with her and let her go.”
    They’d rape her, he meant. And though I knew he meant his words to comfort me, they didn’t. Especially since he’d said, she’s just a crofter’s girl of no value to anyone…
    Words I knew the truth of, all too well.
    But the laird treated me that night as if I were of great value to him. He took me to his chambers and sat next to me, holding against my cheek a cool pouch from the ice house while Brenna washed the blood from my face and arms. “The dress can’t be saved,” the maid murmured, with a sigh. “This blood can’t be washed out.”
    “I’ll buy her another,” the laird snapped. “Just take it away. I don’t want her looking at the bloodstains all night.”
    With that, he dismissed her, so we were again alone in his chambers. Me still trembling and in my shift, but not because I was afraid of him. “What’s going to happen now?”
    “The Donalds are going to try and throw themselves at this castle and find themselves drowning in the sea, as always happens,” he said, confident, his shoulders squared.
    “To my father, I mean. Please know that he hates the Donalds. Always has. He wouldn’t have sheltered them willingly. They had my sister hostage—”
    “Lass,” he said, to stop me from my rambling panic. “Set your mind at ease on that score. I’m just pleased to learn your wretch of a father has a care for at least one of his daughters.”
    I nearly swooned as the pain slowly spread from my jaw up into my head. “I’m feeling a bit dizzy from the blow.”
    “You should rest,” he said, rising at once to scoop me out of my chair. Though I was sure I could’ve walked there myself—mostly sure, anyway—he lifted me up into his arms as if I weighed not more than a feather, then carried me to the big bed where we had kissed all those nights ago.  
    Then he laid me down upon his pillow as gently as a mother might put a bairn into cradle. “You don’t mind me in your bed?” I asked, softly. “I could go back down to the chambers you gave over to me before, if it would please you.”
    “It wouldn’t please me,” he said, smoothing my hair. “I want you here tonight, where I can watch over you.”
    I made room in the bed for him and he crawled atop it. He took my hand in his and I felt cherished. Cared for, in a way I’d never been in my whole life. So I kissed him, hoping it would crowd out my worries for my sister and the man who lay bleeding below stairs for my sake.
    He groaned at the kiss, but returned it, with as much gentleness as he seemed able. He pressed the length of his body against me, and I felt a familiar and delicious thrill of his skin to mine. I loved the feel of him, the scent of him, the way it seemed as if he were some dangerous beast upon a tether that might snap any moment. But he held those impulses back, tracing his fingers down my bodice, reaching up beneath my skirts and hoisting one leg over his hip. Whatever he was going to do, I wanted badly, and I hissed when his hand softly stroked between my legs. “Ah, does that feel good, Heather?”
    A little sob of overwrought