Healing the Highlander Read Online Free Page B

burden such as that was not something to expect any woman to shoulder.
    "Master Drew! I dinna realize you'd returned."
    The young stable boy's feet came to a quick halt only a few paces away.
    "Aye, James, I'm back, but no for long." Pushing his weight away from the stall, he tossed the reins in his hand to the boy. "Care for him well, lad. We'll be off again on the morrow."
    It took all his concentration to avoid favoring his leg as he crossed the distance to the great stairs leading up to the entrance of Dun Ard.
    Argeneau, the alchemist he'd spent the last week with in Inverness, had heard of a potion used at the abbey on Iona. A good night's rest and he'd be off once more, chasing the elusive miracle that might allow him to be whole again.
     
    THREE
    Was this what Fate had planned for her, no matter how hard she worked to escape it?
    Leah huddled in the corner of her darkened room, the unattended fire dying down to embers as she clutched her arms around her legs, her forehead balanced on her knees. Stomach-squeezing fear swirled and melded with hateful memories, growing into a harsh burden too large to fight. The whole of it swarmed thickly around her head and she tightened her arms, as if she could hide from the oppressive weight by shrinking into herself.
    The tactic didn't work any better this night than it had when she'd been held captive by the Fae all those years ago. She could not ignore the threat away.
    Her wrist tingled and she jerked her head up, her eyes darting to the spot on her arm as if she expected the metal chain that had held her prisoner to be fastened there once again.
    "This is crazy," she whispered into the silent room.
    It was happening all over again and she was just sitting here, waiting to be a victim once more.
    "Oh, no I'm not." She spoke with more strength this time, denying into the dark as she straightened her back and dropped her hands to her sides.
    She had been a frightened sixteen-year-old when the Nuadians had kidnapped her, helpless to change her situation. While she might still be frightened, at twenty-eight, she had long ago sworn she'd never be helpless again. She would take charge of her own destiny.
    All she needed was to come up with a plan.
    "Which sure as heck isn't going to happen if I just sit here on my butt, feeling sorry for myself," she muttered, pushing herself to stand. However many hours she'd wasted moping over this was that many hours too many.
    There. That was better already.
    "Deciding to take action makes all the difference in the world." A shiver ran down her spine as she uttered the words, but she shook it off.
    Okay, maybe not all the difference, but it certainly beat waiting passively for someone else to decide her fate.
    Someone like Dick.
    Grabbing up the long metal poker, she leaned down and prodded at the embers in the fireplace before tossing in another stick of wood.
    How was she going to avoid Dick's plan to hand her over to some old English guy as breeding stock?
    "I could run away," she said decisively, dusting the ashes from her hands. It was what she'd done before. She'd run from her time to this one to escape the Nuadians. She could run again.
    Even though this time running away was easier said than done.
    Guards were posted throughout the keep and at the gates. And even if she could somehow manage to work her way past them, where would she go? It wasn't as if she had neighbors or family to run to. With Robert's supposed death and Dick's abandonment of the tiny clan, there had been no marriages to seal alliances with other families. She certainly hadn't been any help to them in that regard either. Perhaps if she'd ever indicated any interest in marriage, there might be an alliance for them to rely upon now. As it was, clan MacQuarrie was on its own with no one to turn to for help.
    Not to mention, it was a big, empty Scottish countryside out there, with plenty of bad guys wandering around.
    Leah scrubbed her fingertips against her forehead, trying