Page 8 of Fierce Highland Magic

Not hard enough to hurt.

Hard enough that I knew it could.

I was pulled sideways with enough force to make me stumble off the cobbles and into the narrow space between the old woman's stall and a display of mirrored masks.

The silver cup flashed in the lantern light. The old woman's expression changed. Her smile remained in place, but the warmth emptied out of it.

"You are interrupting," she said.

"I am rescuing you from a tedious evening," the man holding my wrist said pleasantly.

I twisted toward him. "Let go."

He did not.

At least, not immediately.

He stood close enough that I could see rain caught in the dark waves of his hair, though he had not been in the rain a moment before. He was taller than I was by enough to make that fact inconvenient. His coat was black, cut close through the shoulders, the collar open at his throat. Gold embroidery curled over the cuffs like thorned vines.

His face belonged in a painting hung somewhere expensive and haunted.

Strong mouth. Sharp cheekbones. Dark brows. Eyes that looked brown until the lanterns shifted and green light moved through them.

My mind, traitorously, supplied an assessment.

Seventy-thirty he was dangerous.

Eighty-twenty he knew exactly what he was doing.

Ninety-ten I should not notice the warmth of his hand around my wrist.

His thumb shifted once against the inside of my pulse. My breathing became a logistical concern.

The old woman looked from him to my collar.

Her black eyes narrowed.

"Oh," she said softly.

I glanced down.

The silver thistle was there.

Fastened through the wool just below my left collarbone.

I had put it in my jacket pocket.

Very carefully. Wrapped in tissue. After it had pricked my thumb and whispered a warning in a dead woman's voice.

The pin had moved itself.

The man's fingers tightened on my wrist.

Only for a moment.

Then he smiled at the vendor with easy, infuriating charm.

"She is new," he said. "She did not know."