Margaret Mallory - The Sinner

Glynis forgot about the horses until she heard a loud whinny. She scrambled low over the ground until she could see into the clearing where she’d left them.

“Goddamned beast!” A tall warrior with a claymore strapped to his back was trying to grab Rosebud’s rope, but she was snorting and pawing at the air. “I’ll show ye who’s master!”

Glynis watched in horror as the man brought a switch down on Rosebud’s neck again and again. Now both horses were rearing up and straining against their ropes.

She had to do something. There was only one man, and she had surprise on her side. She picked up a hefty stick from the ground. While his back was to her, she should do it. Still, she hesitated, hoping Alex would burst through the trees.

But the horses were frantic, their whinnies like screams in her ears. She couldn’t bear it. Raising the stick over her head with both hands, she ran toward the man.

Argh! With all her might, she whacked him on the back of the head. It made a sickening thud, and he crumpled to the ground. Oh, God, had she killed him?

“Hush, hush.” She tried to soothe the horses. But their eyes rolled back, and they grew wilder still. Glynis felt a prickle at the back of her neck—and suddenly she knew why the horses were still upset.

She screamed and pulled her dirk as she turned. A half dozen warriors had entered the small clearing.

“Stay back!” She stood in front of the horses, holding the bloodied stick in one hand and her dirk in the other.

Her gaze flew from one to another. God, no. She recognized these men. They were members of Magnus’s personal guard.

“We’ve been looking for ye for days.” The one who spoke was Fingall, a huge man with broken teeth who was known for terrorizing the weak among his clansmen. “Magnus sent men in every direction looking for ye, but we got lucky when we came upon some Campbell fishermen who saw ye.”

“We were beginning to wonder if they lied to us about which way ye went,” another of the men said. “But we couldn’t go back and ask them again because we left them all dead.”

This brought a round of laughter from the others.

“Ye murder defenseless fishermen, and ye call yourselves warriors?” Glynis said. “Ye disgust me!”

“Ye always did have a sharp tongue.” Fingall said. “But we’ll soon wear the fight out of ye.”

He signaled to the others, and they all started moving toward her. Behind her, the horses were rearing and whinnying again.

“Magnus wants ye back alive, that’s all,” Fingall said. “We’ll have some fun with ye on the way back.”

* * *

Alex whistled to himself as he walked down the side of the hill through the tall, wet grass. Glynis wasn’t just another woman, but this was just another affair for him. All he’d needed was some time to roam on his own to realize he’d exaggerated it all in his mind. When it came to women, it didn’t pay to think too much.

A scream echoed off the hills and reverberated through his bones.

Glynis.

Alex ran hard for the camp, icy fear coursing through his veins. The camp was empty. Without pausing, he continued running in the direction from which her scream had come.

“Alex!” Glynis screamed his name this time.

His feet pounded down the path toward the lake. He drew his claymore as he burst through the low-hanging trees into the clearing.

The details of the scene before him ticked in his mind in an instant. Glynis, her dirk in one hand, a stick in the other. A body at her feet. Six warriors, their weapons out, in a half circle in front of her. They had Glynis backed up against the horses, who were rearing dangerously close to her.

Alex shouted to draw the men’s attention as he ran straight at them. As he jumped over a log, he threw his first dirk. It caught the man closest to Glynis in the chest and dropped him. Another of the attackers reached for her, and Alex threw his second dirk into the man’s throat.

Four men left. Alex swung his claymore into the one brandishing an axe. When Rosebud reared, he shoved another under her hooves. Red fury pounded through him as he swung his claymore into yet another.

“Move away from the horses before they trample ye!” he shouted at Glynis, as the last man came at him.

Alex pulled another dirk from his boot as he ducked below the swing of the man’s sword. As he came up, he buried the dirk under the man’s rib cage.

The last attacker was down. Alex blew out his breath.

Then Glynis screamed again. When he turned, Alex saw that the man he’d thought was dead when he first came into the clearing had gotten to his feet. Blood poured from a wound on his head as he stumbled toward her. She swung too soon with her dirk.

Alex was running hard toward them as the wounded man caught Glynis’s arm that held her knife. Before the man could pull Glynis in front of him to use her as a shield, Alex skewered the wretch. He pried the dying man’s fingers from Glynis’s wrist and pulled her into his arms.

“Are ye all right, lass?” he asked when he could get the words out.

“Aye,” Glynis said into his shoulder. “They were Magnus’s men.”

Christ have mercy. He never should have left her for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a shaky voice. “I didn’t realize I could be seen from the loch.”

“It’s my fault. I never should have brought ye.” Alex was so accustomed to these sorts of dangers that he hadn’t recognized how foolish it was to take a woman by himself on this journey.

“I did hide,” she said, “but then I saw one of them hurting the horses.”

“ O shluagh! ” Alex called on the fairies for help. “Ye risked your life for the horses?”

“He was whipping Rosebud.” Glynis leaned back and looked at him with wide eyes. “I only saw the one man at first, and I knew ye hadn’t gone far. As soon as I saw the others, I screamed for ye.”

“What if I hadn’t gotten here in time?” In the blink of an eye, one of those men could have slit her throat or had her on the ground with her gown up to her waist. “Ye are a danger to yourself, woman.”

He was furious with her. And at the same time, he wanted her so badly his teeth ached.

* * *

The hillside was covered with wildflowers, with a few sheep grazing here and there.

“I thought you had tired of me,” Glynis said, in her usual direct way, as she lay in his arms.

After the attack, Alex had brought Glynis straight up to the top of the highest hill where he could see for miles and miles. Once he was certain no one else would surprise them, he’d made love to her first frantically and then quite thoroughly.

“The truth is, I can’t get enough of ye,” Alex said, brushing his thumb across her bottom lip.

There was no point in pretending he could resist her. They would be in Edinburgh in a few days, and it would end. Why deny themselves the pleasure in the meantime?

Alex noted how high the sun was and knew they should be on their way. But the smell of her hair was in his nose and the silk of her skin under his fingertips. So, instead, he watched two hawks soar back and forth against the blue summer sky as he and Glynis talked about the rebellion, the new regent, and whatever else came into their heads.

When Glynis snuggled closer, Alex exhaled a breath and closed his eyes. God help him, he wanted her again. Surely, this could not go on. His desire for her would eventually fade, as it did with every single woman he had ever been with.

In the meantime, he would enjoy the present, as he always did. When he tilted her head up with his finger to kiss her, Glynis’s gray eyes searched his, as if she were trying to see into the heart of a sinner.