The Wicked Ways of Alexander Kidd (The MacGregors: Highland Heirs) Read Online Free

share this island with, then I fear my aid willna’ be forthcoming.”
    “If by shock,” she said, pushing him out of her way so she could reach the others, “ye mean my refusal to marry Kevin MacKinnon last winter, I—”
    “And Alistair MacDonald the summer before that.”
    “And dinna’ ferget Jamie MacLeod the spring before that.”
    Caitrina turned around to glare at Kyle for jumping into the fray.
    “Should I wed men I dinna’ love?”
    “Nae, ye should not,” Kyle answered her, his smile audible in the fog. “Now quit fretting over it and let us show these lads who the better hunters are.”
    “We already know, Kyle,” said Braigh MacGregor, youngest son of the MacGregor chief. “They are ye and Edmund.”
    “Nae,” Tamhas, Braigh’s paternal sixteen-year-old twin, argued. “The best are Malcolm and Cailean. Uncle Connor and Aunt Mairi made certain they practiced weaponry every day.”
    “And I was there with my brothers at the end of each day,” Trina reminded them. “’Twould do well fer ye both not to underestimate any lass in this holding. Fer if ye do, ’twill be doubly difficult to accept the next clan chief.” She said nothing more but left them to whatever they thought of her prediction. She stepped through the frail curtain wall and disappeared in the mist.
    She knew she was fortunate to live with men who, because of women like her grandmothers, Claire and Kate, and Mairi, her mother, respected women. But there were still restrictions, like not being able to travel off Skye without escort, and having to marry men their fathers chose for them because their fathers thought they needed protecting.
    She heard Kyle’s footsteps behind her. Even he didn’t think she could protect herself. Was that why he always seemed to be tailing her? She clenched her teeth, wanting to prove to him that she was no defenseless maidenin need of a champion. Och, those books about knights in armor, courtly love, and butterflies and unicorns were ruining her life!
    She moved left, then backtracked a dozen silent steps, passing her brother and her cousins on their way to the hunt. She’d scouted the braes and glens all day yesterday and tracked deer prints. She knew where to go. She would bring home the biggest prize on her own.
    Soon, she heard the call of the sea in the distance, beyond Loch Scavaig. She listened only for the sound of movement in the fog, ignoring everything else. She had a point to prove. She couldn’t track prints presently but she’d memorized the path, and raced farther up the craggy slope. The chill of an early spring numbed her face and slapped her dark hair behind her. It wasn’t that she didn’t love this place. She loved it with her all heart. In its vast, wide-open magnificence she’d learned to run, to fly.
    It was only natural to want to fly away, wasn’t it?
    She slowed, trying to concentrate on her task. She heard a sound and stopped. She remained silent, waiting… waiting. When no other sound came, she continued on. Reaching the crest, she paused again at the odd sound of creaking wood reaching her from what seemed another plane. She turned toward the loch and the mist rolling over it beneath her. She blinked at the sight of something dark drifting across the shallows, its high peaks—were they masts?—piercing the fragile mist.
    A ship? What in blazes…? She inched forward. It couldn’t be what she thought it was. Ships didn’t come to Camlochlin without invitation, and never at night, unless they meant harm.
    Whatever it was, it disappeared in the fog. Should she alert the others? To what? A shadow? They would tease herand accuse her of creating a distraction because she hadn’t caught anything. She wanted to continue on and win but she should investigate. She began to descend the slope, doing her best to do so as quietly as possible. No reason to frighten away any potential game she could hunt later.
    A movement along the shoreline caught her eye. Immediately,