Page 12 of Moon Awakening

Cait shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving the approaching warriors. "Friends? Nay, Emily. These are Balmoral soldiers and they have already killed Everett," she said, speaking of the boy sent to guard Emily, "or they would not be here."

Emily turned eyes filled with fury to the warrior closest to her. "Surely, not. You did not kill that boy. For it would be a sin for a grown man to kill a child… even here in the Highlands."

The warrior she addressed, a redheaded demon with eyes the color of grass, raised his brows but did not answer. He watched her silently, causing her to nervously twist and untwist the folds of her dress. She felt goaded into speaking again.

"Do you not know it is impolite to ignore a lady when she is speaking to you?" She'd been using Gaelic the whole time, so she knew the heathen monsters had to understand her.

A warrior from her left spoke. He could have been the first one's twin but for his brown eyes. "We did not kill the boy."

Emily turned back to her friend. "There now. Do you see? These are merciful men. I'm sure we have nothing to fear."

She prayed God would forgive her for the lie, but she hated the look of dread in Cait's eyes.

Cait's snort of disbelief turned into a scream as the green-eyed warrior swiftly rode forward and swung her onto his horse. He disarmed her in a move too quick for Emily to see, but she saw the small knife fall to the ground. Forgetting anything resembling ladylike decorum, she dove for it.

Grasping it in her hand, she scrambled to her feet and went for the warrior's unprotected calf.

The horse backed up and the knife swished uselessly through air. She lurched forward to try again, but was caught from behind by an arm as big as a pine tree. At least that was how it felt ramming into her stomach and knocking out her breath as she was lifted off her feet and dropped into a totally indecent position in front of one of the Balmorals.

She couldn't even scream, but she could bite and that's what she did, turning and sinking her teeth into the shoulder not covered by the warrior's plaid.

He grunted.

She bit down harder and tried to stab him in the thigh with the knife. Suddenly, instead of the arm being around her waist, it was wrapped around both her arms, holding them tight to her sides. The thumb from his free hand pressed against her wrist and her hand released the knife of its own volition.

The horse beneath them started moving and the warrior growled in her ear. "Stop trying to eat me, woman. I dinna think even the English infidels practiced cannibalism."

Emily tasted blood and yanked her mouth away from the huge Warrior's shoulder. She spit to get the taste from her mouth and then turned to glare at her captor, but her attention was caught by Cait's wildly flailing body.

The other woman fought desperately, trying to free herself. The warrior holding her wasn't working too hard to subdue her, but was concentrating on protecting her from the tree branches as they rode swiftly through the forest.

Unconcerned about her own plight for the moment, Emily yelled, "Stop fighting, Cait. You'll hurt the baby."

"We can't let them take us!" Cait cried back. "If we do, it will mean war between the Sinclairs and the Balmorals."

Emily didn't see why that should be so upsetting to Cait. From what she had heard, the Highland clans were always at war with each other.

"If your brother did not want war, he should not have allowed his warrior to keep one of my clanswomen," the warrior holding Emily said.

Cait turned and glared at him, still struggling to be released, but not thrashing as wildly. "She was outside your holding… hunting on our land. Her loss is your own responsibility."

The man holding Cait said something to her. Emily could not understand the words, but his harsh tone was unmistakable. Cait said a word that Emily didn't know and the warrior's profile hardened with anger. Emily's own captor stiffened with affront, indicating he knew just what the word meant and it wasn't good.

Apparently there were worse things than being likened to a goat.

Suddenly the horses picked up their pace. There was no chance to speak for the next several minutes as the men rode hard. Emily worriedly watched Cait and was glad to note her friend no longer struggled for release. She must have realized a fall from a galloping horse could make her lose the babe.

They came to a clearing and stopped as suddenly as they had begun.

Her captor swung down from his horse, taking her with him, and then turned her to face him. Standing, he was huge and she had to tilt her head back to see his face.

Dark brown eyes encircled by gold stared down at her, no softness in evidence. They were wolf's eyes, but instead of making her shiver, they made her burn in places she could give no name. She could not believe she was noticing something so shameful, especially in her current predicament, but the man was altogether too much for her senses to remain unaffected.

"Leave her alone," Cait yelled.

Emily's gaze skittered to her friend. Her redheaded captor had a more effective hold on her now and Cait's arms were pinned to her sides much the same as Emily's had been.

Her own captor's hands squeezed her shoulders in a demand for her whole attention. "Tell the laird we are keeping his sister and the babe in her. 'Tis fitting retribution for Susannah."