Highland Lover (24 page)

was too late for him to save himself. Alana rammed her knee up between his legs. He screamed and

shoved her away before dropping to his knees, clutching himself and retching.

Her sense of triumph lasted for only a heartbeat. Pushed back to the very edge of the gorge, she felt the ground slowly disappear from beneath her feet. She grabbed out at empty air even as she began

to fall. Her frantic attempts to catch onto something to halt her fall only succeeded in causing her to slide and bounce her way down the rocky wall of the gorge. She hit the ground at the bottom hard

on her back. The last thing she was aware of before darkness swallowed her was a sound very much

like that of an enraged beast.

Gregor woke, stretched lazily, and looked around for Alana, frowning when he did not see her.

Deciding that she must have slipped outside for a few moments of privacy, he dressed and did the

same. It was not until he had seen to the horse, washed up, and tended to the fire that he began to be concerned. Alana should not be taking so long. When Charlemagne came to sit beside him, his

worry for Alana increased. If Alana had only stepped out to relieve herself, she would have let

Charlemagne out as well.

He sighed and told himself he was acting like an old woman. Alana had wandered all through the

woods around the camps they had stayed at and never come to harm. She knew how to care for

herself in the forest, and on her own. Had he not felt useless from time to time because she was so

capable at caring for herself?

Then again, she had been caught by the Gowans, he mused as he chewed on a honey-sweetened

oatcake. But so had he, he admitted reluctantly, so he could not count that against her. There was

also the incident with the adder to consider. That could have happened to anyone, but it did reveal

that there were dangers out there one could not always protect oneself against. Hidden dangers, both

of nature and of man.

Scowling at the door, he carefully debated going out to look for her. There was probably nothing

wrong. She might even have decided to catch a fish in the burn they had crossed, or a rabbit.

Although he suspected the water in the burn was icy cold, she might have even gone to take a quick

bath in it. There were a dozen good reasons for her not to be in the cottage to smile at him when he

woke up. He could look very foolish if he went out looking for her.

“Curse it,” he muttered as he stood up and reached for his sword. “I cannae shake the feeling that

something is wrong,” he said and cursed again when he realized he was talking to the cat. “That lass

is driving me mad. I am talking to a cat and fretting o’er her like an old woman. ’Tisnae to be born

and I shall tell her so. She cannae keep skipping off on her own as if the world is a peaceful haven

where naught will e’er happen to a lass.”

When Charlemagne meowed, Gregor scowled at him and then strode out of the cottage. He had to

shut the door quickly to halt the cat’s attempt to follow him. The animal was a strange one and, he

thought, he was even stranger to be thinking about what a cat did and did not understand when his

woman was missing.

His woman, he repeated in his mind and decided it sounded right and gave him a great sense of

satisfaction. He had felt a bit of satisfaction over the possibility of marrying Mavis, but it had been over the prospect of gaining his own land and a heavy purse. With Alana, he simply did not care

what she had. He would take her if all she brought to him was herself and that annoying cat. Today

they would reach Scarglas if they encountered no trouble, and he would immediately begin to

untangle himself from the Kerrs. The only thing that would take time was the need to be kind to

Mavis when he did so, but he would not allow it to take too much time. He needed to openly claim

Alana as his own, to convince her to stay at his side as his wife before she rejoined her family, and he could not do so until he dealt with the Kerrs.

The way she had made love to him this morning gave him confidence that she would be willing to

be his wife, even if he did not have all that much to offer her besides himself. No woman could do

that to a man with the tenderness and passion she had if she did not care for him. Her every kiss and caress had held the promise of a depth of feeling that he now craved.

Gregor suddenly realized that he wanted her to do more than care for him and desire him; he wanted

her to love him. It was probably unfair of him to expect her to love him when he was not ready to

put that name to what he felt, but he still wanted it. He would care for her, give her pleasure and

give her bairns, and he would never betray her with another. That, he decided, should satisfy any

woman.

A little voice in his head scoffed at him as he made his way through the trees to the burn. He was

being a hypocrite but he did not care. Despite how content Sigimor and Ewan appeared in their

marriages and how clearly they revealed their love for their wives even if they did not speak of it,

Gregor mistrusted the emotion. He had also seen far too many suffer for it. It stirred the sort of

fierce emotion he wanted nothing to do with.

At the fording place they had crossed yesterday, Gregor could not see Alana and he felt his concern

grow stronger. Crouching down near the bank of the burn, he found signs that she had been there

but had left. Since she had not returned to his side, he had to wonder where she had gone.

The sound of shouting drew his attention, and he looked through the thinning trees toward a

clearing. At first he thought he was watching hunters trying to catch a bit of meat for the table,

although he saw no sign of a buck or doe. Then he saw Alana and realized these men were hunting

her. There was no doubt in his mind as to what they intended to do when they caught her, and the

thought of any man touching his Alana with violence made the bloodlust rise swiftly in his heart.

He leapt to his feet when he saw a man tackle her to the ground, but struggled to restrain the keen

urge to race into the crowd of men with his sword swinging. That would just get him killed, and

then Alana would be at their mercy. It was hard to move cautiously as he watched the man turn her

over and slap her face, but he knew the only way he could possibly win against such greater odds

was with stealth.

A sigh of relief escaped him when he saw Alana break free of the man, but his relief was short-lived.

As he moved closer it was easy to see that they were herding her, slowly surrounding her. Even as

far away as he still was, Gregor could see the exact moment Alana realized what was happening,

but it was too late for her to save herself. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from calling out some words of encouragement, so strong was his need to ease the fear she had to be feeling.

Despite how desperately he wanted to cut to pieces the man who threatened her and then grabbed

her, Gregor forced himself to take advantage of the way all the men watched Alana struggle with

the man. He felt pride in the way she did not cower, and almost smiled when she nearly gelded the

man with her knee. Those good feelings faded fast, however, rapidly replaced by a cold, hard knot

of fear when he saw the way she stumbled at the very edge of the gorge. He stood watching

helplessly as she disappeared over the edge. The silence that followed was chilling.

Gregor heard a bellow of pain and rage and realized it came from him. He charged the men

gathered near the edge of the gorge, too blind with fury and grief to weigh the odds against him. All he wanted was to kill the men who had taken Alana away from him. In a small part of his mind he

noticed that the men on horseback did not wait to see that he was alone but fled, leaving him with

only three men to face. Instead of being pleased by the evening of the odds against him, he only

became angrier that he would not be able to rid the world of all these vermin.

The first man fell quickly to his sword, and now Gregor faced only two. For all the trouble his

feckless father had caused over the years, one thing the man had taught his many sons was how to

fight and fight well. Gregor had no fear that he would fail to kill these two men. He only had to

decide whether to do it quickly or make them suffer for stealing the joy out of his life.

When a small, sane voice in his mind whispered that he could not be certain Alana was dead, he

decided on killing the men quickly. The chances of her surviving such a fall were small, but he

could not risk leaving her there too long just to satisfy the need to make these men suffer as much

pain as he could possibly inflict. Alana might be in need of his help, and he could not hesitate just to satisfy his strong need for vengeance.

He killed the one who had caused her fall first, slicing the man through the middle as he held the

second man back with his dagger. For just a moment he let the man think he would be left to die the

slow, agonizing death such a wound brought, and then he stabbed him through the heart. When

Gregor turned to face the second man, he could see the sweat of fear running down the man’s face,

but he offered him no chance of mercy. Impatient to get to Alana now, he quickly put an end to the

man’s fear, feinting with his sword to draw the man’s attention and then sinking his dagger into the

man’s heart.

After looking to make sure that the cowards who had left their companions to die were not creeping

back, Gregor moved cautiously to the edge of the gorge. The sight of Alana sprawled on her back

on the bottom nearly made him cry out again. She was not moving, but he told himself that could

just be because she was unconscious.

He cleaned his sword on the jupon of the closest dead man, sheathed it, and started to climb down

into the gorge. When he reached the bottom, he stood and stared at her for a moment, afraid to

touch her and find only the coldness of death. Shaking free of his unease, he knelt by her side.

When he saw her chest rise and fall, he felt weak with relief. Placing his hands over his face as he

struggled to calm himself, he was not all that surprised to find tears upon his cheeks. That brief

moment in which he had thought she was dead had stripped him of all his defenses and made him

accept the truth he had been denying to himself for too long. She was more than important to him;

she was his heart. He loved her.

As gently as he could he tried to ascertain the extent of her wounds. Her braies were intact, which

implied that she had been saved from the horror of rape, or so he prayed. From what little

knowledge he possessed he did not believe she had broken any limbs, but he needed her awake to

tell him how she felt and to move before he could be sure of that. What frightened him the most was

that she had fallen onto her back. An injury there could leave her unable to walk. She would have

cracked the back of her head against the ground as well, and he had seen the sad results of such

head wounds. There could also be injuries he could not see, ones deep inside of her that would not

stop bleeding.

She was alive, he told himself in the hope of stilling the worries building inside of him. He had to

decide how to safely get her back to the hut and then to Scarglas. Fiona had skill in the healing arts and he would get Alana to her as quickly as he could. Sitting by her side, he lightly stroked her head and prayed for the first time in far too long. Just let her wake up and smile at me, he asked.

A soft moan escaped Alana, and he tensed. There was a little movement of her body and he took

hope in that, seeing it as a sign that she might have escaped the pain of broken bones. Crouching

over her, he waited for her to open her eyes, needing her to look at him, recognize him, before he

could begin to relax and have hope that she had survived this ordeal with no more than bruises and

scrapes.

Chapter 15

Alana slowly opened her eyes and found Gregor crouched over her. “Ye are looking verra pale,”

she said and wondered why her voice sounded so soft and weak.

“Pale? Aye, I suspect I am. Watching ye plummet off a cliff did worry me a wee bit.”

“A cliff?” she asked and then the memory of the reivers returned a heartbeat before the pain struck.

“Nay! Dinnae move yet,” he ordered her when she tried to curl up into a ball, whispering curses all

the while. “I need ye to help me see if ye have suffered any broken bones.” He gently stroked her

forehead until she grew still and quiet. “I dinnae think ye have, and ye just moved about as if naught is broken, but I need ye to slowly, carefully move each limb. Easy, lass. Do it easy.”

“Those men?” she asked as she cautiously tested the soundness of her right arm and then her left,

relieved to feel none of the excruciating pain a broken bone would give her.

“Three are dead and the rest ran away.”

“Three? Three are dead?” She moved each leg and, although there was some pain, she knew she

had not broken them, either.

“I was angry.” He sighed and dragged his hand through his hair. “Ye fell off a cliff!” He took a few

deep breaths to calm himself down. “When I saw ye fall, driven to the edge by those animals, I went

half mad. So I gave them no mercy. The ones who lived were the ones who ran away, and I am

certain they willnae be back.”

“Ah, weel, thank ye for coming to my rescue.”

He grunted. “A good rescue would have been if I had saved ye from falling off a cliff. Now, can ye