Page 75 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

“She’s got teeth, this one,” the nervous guard said, mostly to fill the silence Kerr had left behind. “MacGregor fancies her.”

“MacGregor,” the older guard said, “is about to find out what it costs a man to want somethin’ this badly.” He said it almost fondly, the way a man speaks of a trap he’s proud of.

Kerr straightened and resumed his pacing, unbothered, and Alba turned her face away and dug her nails into her own palms until the sting gave her something else to hold onto.

Then she heard a horse, the ragged thunder of a single rider pushing a mount past sense, past caution, straight through wet undergrowth that should have slowed any sane man to a walk. Every guard around the fire sprang to their feet at once, blades half-drawn, eyes fixed on the black wall of trees.

“One rider,” the nervous one said, cocking his head to listen.

“Told ye,” the older guard said, already grinning.

Kerr straightened slowly, unbothered, already smiling before the rider broke into the clearing.

Sebastian burst through the tree line at a dead run and jerked his horse to a stop so abruptly that the animal reared, hooves sinking into the mud less than ten feet from the fire. Mud covered him up to the thigh, his cloak torn along one shoulder, and his hair plastered flat with rain and sweat. He did not look at Kerr. He did not glance at the ring of drawn steel closing around him.

His eyes found her and stayed there.

Alba’s whole body strained forward against the rope before she could stop it, her wrists tearing fresh against the raw skin, a broken sound catching somewhere in her throat that she refused to let out.

“Sebastian.” His name came out cracked, half a warning, half a prayer.

Kerr crossed the space between them in three strides and closed a fist in her hair, hauling her head back hard enough that the clearing tilted. “Drop yer sword, MacGregor.”

Sebastian jumped off his horse. His hand went to his hilt without a flicker of hesitation. The blade came free and hit the mud with a wet, final sound.

“Release her.”

Kerr laughed, a short bark with no warmth in it at all. “First ye surrender.” He nodded, and four men closed in aroundSebastian’s flanks, close enough to grab him the moment he so much as flinched wrong.

“Careful, lads,” the older guard said, circling behind Sebastian with his blade still raised. “I hear he killed six men with his bare hands at Blackthorn.”

“Aye,” Sebastian said quietly, not looking at him. “Six. And every one of them talked less than ye do.”

The guard’s grin faltered, just slightly, before he shoved Sebastian’s shoulder hard enough to make him stagger.

“Sebastian, daenae…” The rest of it never left her mouth.

“Quiet.” Kerr’s voice cracked through the clearing like a whip, and even the rain seemed to hesitate. His grip in her hair tightened until her eyes watered, until she went still to make it stop.

Sebastian’s jaw worked once. He held his hands out from his sides, palms open, and lowered himself to his knees in the mud without being told twice.

Kerr’s men swarmed him instantly, wrenching his arms back, one driving a knee into his spine to keep him down. He did not fight it. He did not so much as grunt. His eyes stayed on her the entire time, steady, burning through the rain like the only fixed point left in the world.

A rider Alba had not noticed before nudged his horse forward, calling out loud enough for the whole clearing to hear. “The agreement stands. The Lady leaves. MacGregor stays.” He gestured toward the dark break in the trees where the road curved away south. “A man disarmed and unhorsed is waitin’ for the Lady just before the clearin’, to see her safely to the Ridge road.”

“Generous of ye,” the older guard muttered, sheathing his blade halfway. “More generous than I’d have been.”

“That’s why Kerr gives the orders, and ye carry the rope,” the nervous one shot back, and earned himself a shove for it.

Kerr released her hair and swept into a bow so deep and so mocking it might as well have been a slap. “Yer time to leave, Lady MacLaren.” He drew a small blade from his belt and sawed through the rope at her wrists in two strokes, careless enough to nick her skin.

The moment her hands were free, she started moving, stumbling through the mud toward Sebastian before anyone could stop her.

“Go,” he said, low and rough, not looking away from her face even as two guards closed in on either side of him. “Leave!”

“Absolutely nae.” She dropped to her knees in front of him, hands finding his jaw, his shoulders, anywhere she could touch to prove he was still whole.

“Alba.” Just her name. It cost him something to say it that quietly with Kerr standing three feet away, watching them both clearly enjoying himself.