Highlander Untamed Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Preview of Highlander Unmasked

  Excerpt for Highlander Untamed

  Praise for Highlander Untamed

  Copyright

  To Jami and Nyree, who have gone well beyond the call of CP duty. I promise, this is the last time you need to read it (I think a hundred times should suffice). Long live the SSRW!

  And to my first two readers, my husband, Dave, and my sister, Nora: Your enthusiasm from the start made it all seem possible. And Dave, I’m sorry the Cover Model gig didn’t work out, but I still love you anyway.

  Acknowledgments

  The road to publication is often a long and arduous journey, with many twists and turns along the way. Mine was no exception. There are, however, many people who have eased my travels.

  First, I’d like to thank the entire team at Ballantine who made this dream a reality, especially my editor, Charlotte Herscher, whose comments are always dead-on. Thank you for your faith, enthusiasm, and hard work in making this project come to fruition.

  The Fog City Divas, especially Barbara Freethy, Candice Hern, and Carol Culver, for taking me under your generous wings and sharing your wisdom about the business of writing—you guys are terrific.

  A special thanks to Kathleen Givens; your kindness and encouragement to a newbie author (who also happened to be a huge fan) will never be forgotten.

  Thanks to Annelise Robey and Maggie Kelly, who got it all started.

  Finally, to my fabulous agents, Kelly Harms and Andrea Cirillo, who made it all possible—thank you.

  Two households, both alike in dignity,

  In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

  From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

  Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

  From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

  A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;

  Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

  Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.

  The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,

  And the continuance of their parents’ rage,

  Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,

  Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;

  The which if you with patient ears attend,

  What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

  —William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Prologue

  Prologue

  Dunscaith Castle, Isle of Skye, 1599

  The ground shook with the heavy pounding of hooves as the score of warriors approached Dunscaith Castle. Their leader, Roderick MacLeod, Chief of MacLeod, urged his mount ahead, surging across the rocky crags at breakneck speed. He had to reach her before…

  Just then a great roar rose above the thunder of the horses, and with it hope shattered. Rory cursed, knowing that the jubilant cries of the crowd could mean only one thing: The warning had come too late.

  Refusing to accept what he already knew, Rory pushed the mighty destrier harder, climbing faster up the steep pathway. Finally, horse and rider crested the hill, at last giving vision to the cruel spectacle orchestrated by Rory’s most despised enemy.

  Not a furlong below them, Rory’s sister sat atop a horse, slowly winding her way through a crowd of jeering villagers. She looked so tiny, so painfully alone among the madding crowd. Her hair, a thick, glorious halo of riotous curls, shone like white gold in the mid summer sun. But neither the magnificence of her hair nor the remnants of her once fey beauty could distract the villagers from the conspicuous black patch that covered one eye.

  Even from afar, Rory could see Margaret’s pain. The rigid line of her spine, the nearly imperceptible shaking of her hands as she clenched the reins of her maimed horse, the slight flinch as the taunts pelted her pride like stones.

  He could make out only snippets of their hateful words. “Face…hideous…one-eyed…mark of the devil…”

  Rory pressed on, though the damage had already been done.

  None but the MacDonald of Sleat could be capable of sending her away with such a monstrous procession. Sleat had gone to great lengths to shame his sister, mocking her misfortune with outrageous cruelty. For Margaret, who’d badly injured an eye in a horrible riding accident only a few months after arriving at Dunscaith, sat atop a one-eyed horse. A horse that was led by a one-eyed man and followed by a one-eyed dog.

  It wasn’t enough that Sleat had decided to repudiate the handfast and send Margaret back to her kinsmen. He did so in a manner designed for one purpose only—to strike right at the heart of the MacLeod pride in a way that could only demand retribution.

  Damn Sleat, the devil’s spawn, for dragging an innocent woman into a feud among men.

  Rory’s heart wrenched as a small tear slid down Margaret’s pale cheek from behind the black patch. She wobbled, as if searching for strength. When she found none, her chin slumped forward to her chest.

  Blood pounded in Rory’s ears, rage finally quieting the cruel voices of the MacDonald clansmen. A piercing battle cry tore from his lungs as he raised his claymore to rally his clansmen. “Hold fast!” he roared the clan’s motto. “To a MacLeod!”

  Sleat would regret what he’d done. The MacLeods would be avenged.

  Chapter 1

  That mighty stronghold of the west

  In lonely grandeur reigns supreme;

  A monument of feudal power,

  And fitting haven for a king.

  —M. C. MACLEOD

  Loch Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, July 1601

  Isabel MacDonald had never thought of herself as lacking in courage, but over the past few days she’d begun to reconsider. The long hours of travel, with little to do but think, had tested her mettle. What had seemed in Edinburgh a well-conceived plan to help her clan, now, as they neared their final destination in the farthest outreaches of Scotland, felt more like a virgin being led to the sacrifice. An analogy, she feared, that was disturbingly close to the truth.

  Huddled among her MacDonald clansmen on the small birlinn, Isabel felt strangely alone. Like her, the other occupants of the boat remained both watchful and silent as they approached their enemy’s keep. Only the droning sound of the oars, plunging into the black depths beneath them, pierced the eerie quiet. Somewhere ahead of her in the loch beyond lay Castle Dunvegan, the impregnable stronghold of Clan MacLeod.

  An icy wind swept over the loch, sending a chill deep into her bones. Eilean a Cheo, she recalled the Erse name for Skye. The “Isle of Mist”—what a prodigious understatement. Cursing her inappropriate traveling attire, Isabel wrapped her fur-trimmed cloak—the only warm garment she was wearing—tighter across her body in a futile attempt to warm herself. But her garments provided such scant protection from the elements, she might as well have been sitting here in a sark.

  Given