MASTER OF THE HIGHLANDS Excerpt

MASTER OF THE HIGHLANDS
A story of love…

As he led her down the dark and twisting hallway, she made a conscious effort to keep her eyes off the sight of his powerful back, a rippling triangle of lean muscles that led down to his belted plaid. Instead, she tried to note every twist and turn of the low-ceilinged stone corridor. If the varying sizes and types of stone were any indication, several additions had been made to the original castle and the result was a confusing warren of back passages and dark corners.

Lily was engrossed, counting how many of the dimly lit wall sconces they had passed when she felt a wall of cold air hit her leg and foot as she abstractedly wondered just where the floor went.

The laird spun in time to catch her by the elbows and swing her up against a small rough-hewn doorway. She looked down to see a cavernous stairway winding down into blackness below.

Lily gasped at his touch. As he grabbed her, his hands had managed to push her sleeves up and they felt warm and powerful on her skin, yet his grip was gentle. He gave a quick squeeze and Lily lifted her eyes to meet his. His features burned with a dark intensity, yet a mischievous hunger played at the corners of his smiling eyes. He wore a devilish grin, like a tiger eyeing prey that he planned to toy with before devouring.

A jolt of desire shot through Lily. She tried to fight it by crossing her arms purposefully across her chest. “Wh- what do you think you’re doing?”

“Easy lass. I can’t let you fall down the stairwell.” Ewen wrapped his arm tightly around her for emphasis.

Cocking an eyebrow, he said, “Who knows where you’d end up this time, aye?”

Ewen slowly slid his hands down her arms and gently uncrossed them. Stroking his thumbs in her palms, he clasped her wrists and raised Lily’s hands over her head. Standing this close, she could see the faint stubble of his beard, dusted like charcoal along the strong line of his jaw, and she felt it as it scraped along the tender inside of her arm as he brought his face to hers.

(This scene continued...)

And war…

“Hear me, men!” Ewen’s baritone rang through their makeshift camp and the laird was at once surrounded by his clansmen, with grim resolve and an almost childlike eagerness for the battle ahead warring on their faces.

“We will strike this very morning, before the sun rises too high overhead.” Ewen silenced the muffled cheers of his men. “Silence, lads. Mark me. Some men fear to fight with England and her troops. But we are not those men.” The men nodded forcefully, a chorus of “nay’s” sounding through the camp. Ewen continued, his voice intensifying, “Some spy a redcoat and see a shining musket and the might of Cromwell’s coin. But a Cameron man sees different. A Cameron man sees only another man.” The laird finished with a shout, “And this morning we will see that man, with sleep still fogging his brain and morning’s hunger gnawing at his belly. A man with breeches about his ankles and his morning bannock still in his throat. Just a man.”

Ewen let the sentiment resonate and resumed, his voice low with subdued intensity, “But you are not just men. You’re Cameron men. And today we bear the words of our clan. The words that formed us when we were but knots in our mothers’ bellies. They were our lullaby when we were wrinkled bairns wrapped tight in bunting. The words that drove us as we cut our second teeth on cattle raids and wooden swords. The words that made each and every one of us a man, and more than a man.”

“Chlanna nan con thigibh a so's gheibh sibh feoil!” he roared. His men cheered wildly, then were silenced as their laird continued in a dangerously quiet voice.

“These are the same words that we declare today, they are the lullaby we’ll sing to Monk as we send his soldiers to their own very long sleep.

“Sons of the hounds…come here and get flesh.”

(Read more from this scene...)

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