Page 102 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
He would have time later to hate himself properly for that. He had no use for the feeling now except as fuel.
He drew his sword and lifted it. “Ride!”
The gates opened wider, and horses surged forward. The castle dropped behind him, and the road stretched ahead.
With the morning breaking cold around him, Ciaran rode out with one single purpose: to find his wife.
CHAPTER 29
The first thingAva felt was the pain in her wrists.
The rope bit hard each time the horse jolted or the man beside her yanked her forward.
She had stopped trying to count turns; the ground changed too often beneath her feet. Grass gave way to stone, stone to rough earth, then rough earth to a narrow path that forced her half sideways while the men moved around her. From the way they did, she could tell they knew exactly where they were going. She, on the other hand, did not.
The cold wind whipped at her face, and her hair had come loose long ago and kept blowing across her mouth. She spat it away and twisted again against the grip on her arm.
“Let go of me.”
The man holding her only tightened his grip.
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.
