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

and smash it over his head. She’d never seen a pirate before. She wanted to take another look at him. He had to be lying. Why would a pirate come here? It was more likely that he was a captain in the Royal Navy come to arrest her uncles and brothers for something they did on one of their excursions to the Lowlands.
    “We should shoot him,” she called out to her kin. “Set the dogs on him.”
    She could feel his eyes on her, hard, dark eyes that cut through the moonlight.
    “After I’ve surrendered?” he said in her direction, sounding disappointed.
    “Caitrina, step away from him,” Cailean commanded, provoking a deep-throated growl from the wolfhounds at his feet.
    “What d’ye want?” Kyle demanded, slowly moving closer.
    “I want an audience with yar chief,” the intruder announced. “He has somethin’ that belongs to me.”
    Trina laughed and began to step away from him. “Kill him and let us run home and warn—”
    The remainder of her words was cut off by one arm coiling around her waist and another around her throat. The cool edge of a dagger against her throat set her heart to pounding against his hard angles.
    “Ya’re beginnin’ to tempt me to take more than just me map.”
    The husky timbre of his voice along her neck sent bolts of charged, fiery energy through her. Caitrina closed her eyes, hating her body for betraying her.
    “Now, be a good little lady and call off yar lads or me men will open fire.”
    She blinked at the mist as shadows began to appear, one after the other. He was telling the truth, at least about having a small army at his back. She opened her mouth to call to Kyle when her captor sank to the ground behind her, hit in the head by a rock from Braigh’s sling.
    The shadows hurried forward. Hell, Trina had to think quickly! Her small troupe couldn’t fight the Royal Navy
or
a shipload of pirates. But there was a way to hold them off. She drew her dagger and reached down, taking the unconscious intruder by the hair.
    “Stop!” she called out, holding the dagger to the captain’s throat. “Any one of ye takes another step and I’ll leave him to the seagulls!”

Chapter Three
    T he sun rose quickly, spilling light into one of the most cavernous great halls Alex had ever been in. The place had to be big in order to accompany the giants it housed. Even their dogs were huge, six in all. Ugly, scruffy looking beasts that growled under their breath if he all but looked at them. He didn’t remember other Highlanders being this tall and broad of shoulder. Even with his entire crew, Alex doubted any kind of victory over these men. Presently, he didn’t have his crew. None of his men were allowed entry into the castle save for Samuel and Hendrik Andersen.
    Despite the growing knot on his head and the pounding that accompanied it, he managed a smile for a pretty red-haired lass who set a cup down on the table in front of him.
    “The chief will see ye shortly,” she said, or rather sang.
    One of the Highlanders seated at the table tugged on her skirt and she inclined her ear to him. She smiled behind a veil of sunset and fire curls and turned to Alex. She nodded at what the man was whispering to her. Alexdidn’t need to hear what the lad was saying. When one grew up at sea, sometimes with raging winds snatching voices from the air, one learned to read lips.
    When the girl covered her mouth and giggled, Alex’s lips cocked to the left, as did his head. He didn’t mind folks thinking him a scoundrel, but he wouldn’t tolerate them thinking him lily livered. “I assure ya,” he corrected the lad at her ear, “I have not shit meself since I was a babe. Even if yer chief sports two heads and a bolt of lightnin’ shootin’ out of his arse, me streak will remain unblemished.”
    Beside him, Samuel laughed softly and shoved at Alex’s shoulder. “Remember that wench in Tonga who pushed a snake out of her—”
    Alex silenced him with a heel to Sam’s toe under the table,