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LATER THAT MORNING, Sorcha cornered Bram. “Have you heard anything from my kin?” she asked.
“Not yet, but I dinnae doubt they will be here soon.”
“Twould save you a lot of trouble if you just let me go,” she said.
“Dinnae worry, lass, when the time is right, I will let you leave.”
“Your word on it?” She held out her hand for him to shake.
Bram clasped it and pulled her closer. “Aye, I give you my word, but it needs to be sealed with something else.”
Sorcha looked confused. “What else is there?”
“One kiss.”
Sorcha blushed. And her heart soared. She had never been kissed before. She had longed for her first kiss to be memorable. But was this man worthy of it?
“You are unsure?” Bram raised his brow.
“I have not been kissed before,” she whispered.
Bram was stunned. He could not believe she had survived so long without one.
“I was hoping to kiss a man at the village dance—”
Bram growled at the thought of any man enjoying her lips, and before Sorcha could finish her sentence, he lowered his head and claimed her first kiss.
When their mouths touched, Bram felt it then. A powerful surge of emotion linking Sorcha to him. Sorcha gasped at first, then slowly opened her mouth as his tongue sought entry.
Bram grunted and wrapped his arms around her, devouring her mouth and pulling her tighter against his chest.
Sorcha moaned with excitement. Finally, she had experienced her first kiss and boy was it a grand feeling. She wound her arms around Bram’s neck and stood on tiptoes to deepen the embrace.
They were locked in their intimate exchange when they were interrupted by Michael saying, “I told you she was his woman.”
“Aye,” Domhnall replied.
“Will she become our new ma?” Mysie asked.
“No, silly, she will become your aunt,” Michael said.
Sorcha and Bram immediately separated. Sorcha tried to straighten her clothing, and Bram cleared his throat.
They were both panting for air.
“She’s not my woman,” Bram said.
“I’m not his woman,” Sorcha said at the same time.
The children just looked confused.
“Now go on with your chores and mind your own matters,” Bram said before walking off in one direction.
“I must go help your aunt, Tyra,” Sorcha said, blushing as she walked in the opposite direction, trying to straighten her hair.
***
BRAM CURSED HIMSELF. He was becoming far too attached to Sorcha MacGregor, and he needed to stick to his plan. There was no room in it to fall for his captive. He knew that is exactly what was happening to him. He was falling for the enemy and that would ruin all his carefully laid plans.
Bram met with his men and informed them it was time.
***
SORCHA SENSED A CHANGE in Bram’s attitude towards her since that one kiss. For the rest of the day, he was distant and colder. As if she had done something wrong. It hurt her but made her even more determined to escape. The man played havoc with her emotions, and she was tired of being kept in the dark.
That night when she had returned from the river after bathing, Bram stood outside his door.
Bram said, “You will stay in Willa’s cottage from now on. A guard will keep watch over you. Tis best if you’re kept separate from my family. You are my enemy and my captive, nothing more. Gather your belongings, Niall will walk you to the cottage.”
Sorcha felt as if she had been slapped in the face. To think she gave that brute her first kiss. But she did not flinch or show any emotion. She stormed past Bram and gathered her things from the longhouse.
The entire family sat in silence watching her, and they glared at Bram, who ignored them all.
When she had gathered some things from the room and the kitchen, she moved towards the door.
“Tis an excellent decision. That way I too will remember my place, so when my clan comes for me, I’ll not feel any remorse when they thrash your hide!” she growled.
Sorcha made her way with Niall to Willa’s cottage, her head held high. Once inside, she slammed the door, then grinned when she peered at her hand. She had swiped Bram’s dagger and a small amount of valerian in the process.
All she needed was a sword and to retrieve her makeshift bow and arrow from the hollowed-out tree by the river. Then she was gone.
Sorcha had spent years being tutored by the best in ways of survival. And by the saints, she was going to use every one of her lessons to her advantage.
***
IT WAS EARLY THE NEXT morning and Bram was returning to the longhouse after bathing in the river. When he noticed something odd. Niall was supposed to be on guard, but he was not there. There was smoke rising from the chimney and some light, but something seemed off.
He knocked and there was no answer, so he knocked again, then pushed the door opened and his blood boiled.
Niall was passed out against the wall, and his sword was missing. Sorcha was nowhere to be found.
He roused Niall awake. Bram was gripped with fear at what could happen to her. Not just by strangers or mercenaries in the forest, but if Cruim and his men got hold of her, she was good as dead.
Bram pounded on Iain’s cottage door.
Iain answered and asked, “What is it?”
“Sorcha has escaped. We ride in ten.”
“Aye, I’ll be there, cousin!” Iain said.
“Iain, come back to bed, tis cold,” a woman’s voice said from inside the cottage. Iain looked embarrassed.
Bram gritted his teeth, “Tell me you have not taken up with her again.”
Iain stared at the ground, and Bram just shook his head.
“You deserve better cousin,” Bram said, then ran back to the house.
When he entered the longhouse, he roused his mother. “Sorcha has escaped. We are going to find her.”
Within minutes Bram, Iain, and Niall were riding out in search of Sorcha. They headed towards the village thinking she would seek help there, unaware she was headed in the opposite direction, taking the least traveled path.
***
SORCHA GRINNED AS SHE made her way keeping to the shadows and following along the river. She had hidden when Bram, Niall, and Iain rode off along the pathway above towards the village, no doubt in search of her. It would be some time before they realized she headed in the opposite direction.
She was weaving her way along the riverside, crunching on dead leaves and fern fronds when she heard movement ahead. Sorcha quickly ducked behind thick vegetation and hid. From her vantage point, she watched men run along the pathway from the woods. They headed to the longhouse. Sorcha was curious why they had their swords already drawn. But it was the words one of them spoke that chilled her to the marrow.
“Tis three men, two women, and three bairns. We kill them all.”
Sorcha knew they were talking about Bram’s family. They did not know the men were away, which meant Tyra, Fia, and the bairns were going to be slaughtered.
She could not let that happen. It was her fault the men were not there to protect their kin. They may have taken her captive because of a misapprehension, but she did not wish ill upon the Hendersons. Sorcha took off in a sprint back towards the glen. She only hoped she made it in time to warn them and that she did not die.
***
SORCHA REACHED THE homestead and remained hidden. The men had spread out, starting at the far end of the cottages. This gave her time. She knew the family would break their fast in the main house. She sprinted behind the longhouse and climbed in through the back window. Startling them all.
“Sorcha what the devil —”
“There are five men outside. They mean to kill you all. I came to warn you,” she whispered.
Fia, Tyra, and the children instantly became alert.
Fia glanced out the window and moved fast. She ran to her room and emerged with two swords. She threw one at Tyra, who caught it by the handle.
Tyra ran to the wall and pulled down a targe. She threw it like a disc at Fia, who caught it. She then grabbed a second one from the wall.
Fia then addressed Michael, “You ken what you must do?”
“Aye,” Michael nodded. Grabbing Mysie and Domhnall by their hands. The three of them ran behind the partition to hide.
Tyra and Fia stood facing the doorway, their legs apart and swords and targe ready.
Sorcha stood between them, lifted her makeshift bow, nocked two arrows, and faced the doorway, waiting for the men to enter.
When the door was kicked open, the first two men through it met their deaths instantly.
One with a makeshift arrow through his eye and the other with an arrow in the neck.
Sorcha heard the alarm and surprise in the voices of the three remaining. The element of surprise, something they had not expected. She nocked another two arrows and aimed at the doorway. She heard a noise to her left as a man broke through the side entryway. He ran straight at Fia. Fia turned and braced, blocking his sword with her targe. Then she hit back with her sword, which he blocked.
They were locked in combat and circling each other.
“The men are not here!” he yelled to the others outside. Sounding triumphant that their odds of success were good against mere women. A second man entered the side building and charged straight at Tyra. She blocked him and was also engaged in combat.
Sorcha tried to hit both men with arrows, but the risk was too great, so she kept her eyes on a third man who yelled, “Find the bairns.”
To Sorcha’s horror, she saw two more men approaching. This time, they had their shields up against her arrows.
Sorcha threw her bow down. Grabbed Bram’s dagger, which was strapped to her belt, and dropped to her knees as the third man ran at her swinging his sword.
She plunged the dagger deep into his belly and sliced across it.
He staggered, holding his stomach, and slumped backward. Unable to move.
Sorcha heard a scream and watched as a blade sunk into Fia’s shoulder. Her attacker withdrew it and was getting ready to strike the killing blow. Sorcha ran and leapt onto the attacker's back and stabbed him several times in the neck. He groaned in pain and fell to the ground.
Tyra had slain her assailant and was now locked in combat with another.
Sorcha glimpsed the children and was relieved to see them running into the woods.
“Sorcha! protect my grandchildren. Keep them safe,” Fia shouted before passing out.
“Go!” Tyra yelled as she used her targe to block the sword aiming for the head.
Sorcha jumped out the window and ran into the woods after the children. She feared there may be more men in the brushland. It was not long before she caught up to them and Mysie ran towards her and wrapped her arms around her. “I am scared,” Mysie whispered.
“Tis normal to be scared when in danger little one.”
Michael and Domhnall stepped out of the woods also and ran to her.
Sorcha heard a sound close by as two men with swords drawn in the distance were running towards her. They were large, and she knew they would not be easy to fight.
“Listen to me,” she said to the children. “You must run and stay hidden, you ken.”
They nodded.
“I will hold them off as long as I can, but you must survive, you hear me, and someday, tell my family that I love them.”
Sorcha made sure the children had a head start. Then she gripped her sword, which she had stolen from Niall, and braced to take on her attackers.
One of the attackers scoffed at her as he drew closer, but Sorcha did not waiver as she stood her ground and held the sword steady. She just had to keep them distracted long enough for the children to escape.
He came running at her, and Sorcha sidestepped and managed a slicing cut to his arm.
The other moved in and also received a swiping cut to the arm as Sorcha dodged his fist.
Sorcha knew that men often underestimated a woman’s strength. She could use that to her advantage.
Sorcha bent over pretending she had been hit. Her assailant became cocky. He walked towards her and said, “This is why lassies should not fight. Your role is to rut and cook and that is all.”
When he was still chortling, he got a shock when Sorcha stood and plunged her blade into his chest.
“This is why men should never assume women dinnae ken how to fight.”
She grabbed his sword out of his hand as he hit the ground, and now she held two swords.
“You bitch!” the other one yelled as he ran at her.
She braced and twirled both swords in her hand. She knew this was a fight to the death, but she was prepared. If this was how she was going to leave the world, at least it was doing a good deed.
As swords clashed, Sorcha moved fast, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and circling her opponent just as Zala had taught her. He was larger, but he was also heavy-footed. Sorcha could tire him out little by little.
“Come on, you big bastard! Is that all you can do?” she taunted, praying that the children were well away by now.
From the side of her eye, she saw another two men emerge, but she kept on taunting them.
And that’s how Bram, Niall, and Iain found Sorcha. Standing in the forest, swords drawn, fighting like a warrior of old, while the children were scrambling to escape.
Sorcha MacGregor provided the only line of defense between the enemy and the Henderson children.
Bram felt a lump in his throat. She was fighting to the death to save his family.
His only thought was that he was going to keep her. Her brothers be damned. Bram drew his sword, nudged his horse forward, and roared as he rode down the hillside.
Several minutes later, the attackers were dead, slain by the Henderson men and a MacGregor lass. One of them let it be known before he died they were mercenaries hired by the laird.
Niall and Iain had retrieved the children, and Bram had his arms wrapped around Sorcha, refusing to let her go.
That night the family gathered for a meal. Fia was wounded but otherwise alright. Tyra was also safe, and Bram’s men had cleared the bodies and put the longhouse to rights.
Too exhausted to stay awake Sorcha excused herself to go to bed early. The thought of escape was far from her mind now as she just wanted to sleep. She was just dozing when the door to her cottage opened, and Bram stepped through it.
He closed the door and stood over her bed.
“Why did you not escape?” he asked.
“It was my fault you were not home, and I did not want your family to die because of me.”
Bram just gazed at her with an intensity she had never seen before. Then he undid his sword belt and placed it on the table. He pulled his tunic off until he was bare-chested.
“What are doing?” she asked.
“I am going to sleep, in here with you.”
Sorcha opened her mouth to protest, then stopped because Bram’s lips were on hers and his body caged hers. His lips seared her skin as he kissed a path from her mouth down her neck as his hands roamed her body. She could feel his arousal prodding at the juncture between her thighs. They were both still clothed, but it felt positively sinful.
Bram reluctantly pulled away and wrapped her in his arms. They were both hot and flustered. “I’ll not ruin you because you deserve better than that, but from now on, you sleep with me, you ken?”
Sorcha nodded.
“Good,” he said. Kissed her once more, then pulled her into his arms. “Sleep, love, tomorrow is a big day.”
***