Page 230 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
Ava planted her heels and tried to wrench free. For one brief second, she dragged him half a step off the path. But then a slap landed across the back of her shoulder, not enough to throw her down, but enough to tell her they would hurt her as much as needed and think nothing of it.
She stumbled and caught herself.
Her heart had been pounding so hard for so long that it had become its own kind of sickness. She had screamed when they first took her. She had shouted for help until one man shoved a cloth into her mouth and threatened to kill her if she did not keep quiet. She had bitten him anyway, and he had cursed and struck her hard enough to make her ears ring, then tied the gag so tight her jaw still ached from it.
The gag was gone now, but the danger remained.
No one had come to save her. Not yet.
For some reason, that thought sat inside her more heavily than the ropes.
The castle had vanished behind them long ago, and the guards who had ridden with her were nowhere in sight. She had listened for pursuit until the sounds of the men around her swallowed every other hope.
She stumbled again on a loose stone. The man at her left cursed under his breath and hauled her upright without a care for how the motion jarred her shoulders.
Ava rounded on him with all the force she had left and drove her foot down hard on his instep. He barked in pain. She twisted, swung her bound hands at his face, and nearly got him before another man caught the back of her dress and yanked her back against his chest.
“Hold still, ye little devil.”
She kicked backward and caught his shin, which earned her another bruising grip on her arm.
There was no point in saving her strength. She fought because the fight was all that kept her from feeling like a bundle being carried to market.
The men muttered to each other in low voices she could not fully catch. One rode close enough that she smelled horse sweat and leather every time his mount shifted. Another kept falling back, then returning, as if checking behind them for pursuers.
Someone had planned this. That fact was clearer than anything. This had been orchestrated so well that it could not have been random.
One of the men closest to her leaned in. “Be good, lassie. We’re almost there.”
Ava looked at him through the dark. “There?”
He did not answer. However, the single word had done its job.
There was a place. Adestination. A waiting point. They were taking her to someone, and for some reason, that knowledge heightened her fear and cleared her head at the same time.
She began watching more closely. The path climbed now, and the wind had grown a bit stronger. A gust of air hit the side of her body and sent the most minute relief. She could feel a drop somewhere near even before she saw it.
Soon, the men slowed down, and her breath caught.
They had reached a cliff.
The night opened wide there, and the ground fell away into a darkness so deep she could not see the bottom. Wind came up hard from below and whipped at her dress as the man finally released her arm, only to grip her bound wrists from behind and force her a few steps forward.
And there, waiting where the ground leveled, stood an old man.
He was wrapped against the cold in dark wool, his silver hair fluttering around a face cut deep with age and somethingharsherthan age. He did not look like a guard or some rough hill thief. He looked like the sort of man who commanded respectand knew that he did. Like a man others made room for, even when they hated him.
She was brought to a stop before him.
He looked her over slowly, from her loose hair to her bound wrists to the dirt on the hem of her gown. His gaze held no surprise. Only satisfaction, and something she could not ultimately describe.
Ava knew at once that he was the reason she had been taken.
When he spoke, every part of her body tensed.“So this is the woman he chose.”
Ava lifted her head almost immediately. “Who are ye?”
The old man released a short breath that might once have been a laugh. “Ye should ken me, lass. Me grief has paid dearly enough for the privilege.”
