Highland Wolf (Highland Brides, #10)(90)

Conall didn’t even hesitate, he dropped the sword at once. He even held up his hands to show him they were empty before propping them on his hips, placing his right hand close to his own sgian dubh. “Let her go, Hamish. ’Tis me ye want. Claray has naught to do with this.”

“Oh, aye, she does. She’ll either marry me or die,” Hamish assured him as he released Claray and walked around her toward him. “Mayhap after I kill ye, I’ll swive her a time or two. She seems to like japin’, and I’m told I’m good at it, so I might yet convince her.”

Claray snorted at the claim. “No’ if what the lasses say is true. They say ye’ve a prick like a string bean and can no’ get it hard without hurtin’ a lass first. Pathetic,” she pronounced.

Hamish struck out at her so quickly he took them both by surprise. Or perhaps he was the only one, Conall thought grimly when Claray took the blow with equanimity, simply turning her head slowly back from where his blow had turned it to the side. She licked away the blood that ran from the corner of her split lip before asking dryly, “Did that excite ye?”

Conall saw Hamish’s hand tighten around the sgian dubh, knew he was going to hit her again, and couldn’t bear it. He started forward, only to pause when Hamish whirled back and raised his sword, poking him in the stomach with it.

“I was plannin’ on killin’ ye quickly as a kindness fer setting Deagh Fhortan to rights fer me,” Hamish growled. “But now I’m thinkin’ I’d rather kill ye slowly. Mayhap I’ll even leave ye alive long enough to watch me rape yer woman before I finish ye both off. That,” he added grimly, turning to glower at Claray, “would excite me, I think.”

Conall started reaching for his sgian dubh the minute the man turned his head. His fingers had just closed around it when Squeak suddenly launched himself off of his shoulder and leapt the few feet to the other man. He landed in the center of his face, slid down and clamped his sharp little teeth down on Hamish’s lip to catch himself, or perhaps just because the man had hit his Claray. Whatever the case, Hamish roared in pain and instinctively dropped his sword to reach for the wee stoat, to pull it off.

Conall quickly bent to snatch up his own sword and then thrust it into the man as he brought it back up. Much to his relief, Hamish’s hand squeezed into a fist inches from Squeak, leaving him unharmed as his eyes, widening with confusion, found Conall. It looked as if he was bewildered as to how he’d ended up getting stabbed when only a moment ago he’d held all the cards. Then he dropped to his knees.

“Squeak,” Claray cried with alarm, and the wee stoat reacted at once, launching himself sideways into Claray’s lap just before Hamish fell forward, flat on his face.





Chapter 27




Claray glanced from Squeak to Conall as her husband kicked aside Hamish’s weapons and bent to roll him over. She grimaced when she saw the man’s wound. Conall had jabbed the sword in from below, driving it up under his ribs, and probably piercing his heart. But when the man had dropped to his knees, the sword had still been inside him and still held by Conall. It had ripped up through his chest before it was pulled out. If the sword hadn’t pierced his heart with the first blow, the gaping chest wound he’d ended up with would have killed him.

Straightening, Conall moved to her now.

“Are ye all right, love?” he asked, kneeling before her to begin untying her legs.

“Aye,” she breathed, managing a smile.

“Yer bleeding,” he growled, his gaze sliding up to her neck and then back to the ropes he was trying to undo. Finally, he gave up trying to untie her and simply sliced through the ropes around one leg with his sgian dubh.

“’Tis fine,” Claray assured him when he didn’t immediately move to the other leg to remove the rope there, but reached up to tip her head back instead so that he could look at her neck.

“Ye’ll ha’e a scar to remember this day,” Conall growled as he examined the wound. Scowling, he met her gaze and added, “Ye ne’er should ha’e angered him. What if he’d killed ye outright? I could no’ live without ye, lass. I love ye.”

Claray’s eyes widened, tears springing to film them at the claim, and then movement behind him caught her eye. Shifting her gaze past her husband, she saw with horror that Mhairi had regained consciousness. She was now rushing at them with her sgian dubh in hand and raised, ready to plunge it into Conall’s back. Claray had barely opened her mouth to scream a warning when she heard a growl from behind her and a gray streak flew overhead, crashing into the woman.

“Lovey!” she cried with concern as Mhairi struck out at the wolf with the knife, just before his teeth closed on her throat and they both crashed to the ground.

Conall was moving at once to help the beast, his body blocking her view as he knelt over the pair.

“Is he all right?” she asked anxiously.

Conall didn’t answer, except for a curse as he quickly began to cut a strip of plaid off of his great kilt. That was answer enough, and Claray immediately started tugging at her arms, but they were still bound tight to the chair. His freeing one leg had done nothing for her arms.

Cursing now herself, she glanced to Conall and asked, “How badly is he hurt?”

Conall finished what he’d been doing, which turned out to be his binding the wound on Lovey’s side, she saw as he now turned quickly to help her.