Cates, Kimberly Read Online Free

would shove a crumbling bannock into her hands or press an otter skin full of water to her lips. Yet as time ticked by, even Rachel had to admit that it would be more and more difficult to track her in this immense Scottish wildland.
    That admission left her two choices—give way to blind panic, or summon her courage. She must prepare to confront the despised enemy of her betrothed as though she were a captive queen, to face the rebel who was almost a legend....
    She swallowed hard, imagining a primitive Scot warrior with tangled hair and bestial eyes, lust twisting a cruel mouth—the very object of every maiden's worst nightmare in the days of the border wars. She shivered, recalling the tales Dunstan had told her, the ruthless savages that had murdered his father and brother and countless other ancestors through the ages.
    She was just dismissing the image as one more folly when a shrill sound shattered the silence, drawing a stifled cry from her own lips.
    Not even her wildest imaginings had prepared her for the barbarian war cries that erupted around her as her captor pulled the horse to a halt. The Gaelic cries cut at her like the blade of a claymore, left her knees shaking no matter how desperately she tried to stop them.
    "You've got her! That bastard Wells's woman!" A high-pitched voice pierced her ears through the cacophony of sounds.
    "I hope to hell I've got the right one," her captor called out, dragging her down off the horse with him. "It'd be damned inconvenient to have abducted the wrong woman."
    He flung Rachel over his shoulders like a sack of grain, crossing to God knew where with long strides. Rachel could feel fingers plucking at her, poking her.
    "Did she scream and faint?" someone demanded to know.
    "If she didn't already, the Glen Lyon'll make her wail like a pig with its tail caught in a gate," another voice insisted.
    "The Glen Lyon can go to hell!" Rachel snarled despite the sack. "Take your hands off me, you—you traitor scum." Yet it was unnerving—the voices pounding her like battle clubs, the chill that seemed to envelop her, the hard hand of her captor smack in the middle of her upturned rump. Without another word, he dumped her unceremoniously onto something cool and hard.
    She struggled to stand up. She'd be damned if she was going to face these traitors on her knees. But before she could, a swarm of fiends engulfed her— crawling over her legs, tugging at the sack, their hands sticky-sweet... with blood? The gruesome possibility teased her mind.
    Dear God, what had she stumbled into?
    Garbled, indecipherable babble pounded against her, as if some evil horde of gnomes or mythical demons had been set upon her.
    One of them ripped the blindfold from her head, taking a good-size hank of her hair with it. Light from blazing flambeaus bored all the way to the backs of her eyes, blinding her for long seconds, yet when her vision began to clear, she wanted to grab the blindfold again, to draw it over her eyes.
    She was staring into the face of the most hideous gnome she had ever seen. It was barely a hand's length away from her nose. Thick white paste stiffened its hair into gruesome spikes, and primitive, painted symbols traced grimy paths on skin dark with filth. One side of the creature's face was horribly distorted, its cheek bulging, its upper lip twisted. Despite all her brave intentions, Rachel couldn't keep from shrinking back. Dear God, what was it?
    "We're not going to feed you even a crumb, Sassenach!" The gnome's hate-filled voice echoed through what seemed to be a rough stone cavern. "We're going to starve you until your bones stick right out of your skin."
    "No!" A creature that looked half human leaped with wild excitement. "We're going to pull her skirts all up and let someone jump on top of her and she'll scream and scream!"
    Her captor cut in. "The Glen Lyon will be the one meting out justice here. Of course, I'm certain he'll take your suggestions under advisement."
    She