The Runaway Highlander (The Highland Renegades Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

have counted the man a friend. Hell, if he’d been free to choose, he might even have joined their cause.
    But he wasn’t free to choose, and he needed to remember that.
    “You stand over there.” Anne pointed to a stretch of the table near William’s head. She stood at his hip and poured some of the water over the wound, dabbing at the edges with the cloth. Water pooled in little crags on the table’s surface and then washed down in the cracks between the slats and onto the floor below. It mixed with what little blood had escaped.
    The slow in bleeding was a good sign. Perhaps the man would live after all. And Aedan intended to question him once Anne de Cheyne was out of the way. He had to know where Andrew and Elizabeth made camp. And he had to find them. That would finally pay off the last of the debts and he could go home.
    “I’m going to start up near the top, where there seems to be the most skin.” Anne took the long thread and needle in her hand, knotted one end, and pointed toward his side. “Now, you press the wound together so I can work at it.”
    Aedan put a hand on either side of the wound and pushed the skin together. William let out an animal-like yowl. “Do you have something for him to bite on?”
    She looked around, exasperated, but shimmied to the far side of the room and returned with a nice leather belt. She offered it to William and he chewed the thick end, letting the other drop across the other side of his body.
    Anne nodded at him, then plunged the needle into his skin and shuddered. His cry affected her, Aedan could see. Whatever her reason for doing this, it wasn’t to inflict pain.
    He could only really spare a finger, so as her hand came near his, he stroked the side of it with his pointer and she looked up at him, her lips parted in a silent question. The warmth he’d felt before returned with a force and Aedan found himself staring into this beautiful face, unable to speak or even breathe. Certainly, her beauty was arresting—he’d known that the first time he saw her—but this was something else. Perhaps the artless gaze, perhaps the wet promise of her lips and the tiny indrawn breath when their eyes met, perhaps the memory of Brighde.
    He’d wanted to comfort her at first, but his touch lingering on the soft, round underside of her palm suddenly seemed the most intimate thing he could have done.
    Aedan cleared his throat and pressed his lips together, giving her a gentle nod. She could do this. He hadn’t known her long, but he’d seen her resolve. She could handle a little pain.
    Her icy blue eyes cooled and her mouth spread into a smile. She returned the nod and plunged the needle into William’s skin again. This time, the cry was less, and Anne finally set a pace that allowed William a bit of time before each stitch to prepare himself.
    Anne pulled at the last stitch and tied the two ends together, then used one of the knives to trim the end. With a backward step, her whole demeanor changed. He couldn’t decide what it was, but as soon as the stitching was complete, the whole feel of the room changed.
    “You have done well,” he said.
    She smiled tightly and took another step in retreat from William. Aedan stepped between Anne and her patient and reached for her hand, as much because he wanted to touch her again as to congratulate a job well done.
    “I wasn’t certain, at first, that you’d done this before. But in the end…” Aedan initially stopped to turn his head, but he couldn’t be certain if there really had been a movement, or if he was just being paranoid.
    But the blinding pain on the side of his head put the questions out of mind. As he fell against the shelves, he reached out for Anne, not wanting to leave her to the savagery of this fugitive. William took one more swing at Aedan and black crept from the edges of his vision to the center, no matter how hard he fought it.

 
    Chapter Three
     
    Anne couldn’t breathe as she watched Aedan collapse