by Becca Van
Highland Warrior Woman
Maeghan Fraser has just bartered her woven cloth for food and is kidnapped from the market by the evil MacLeod Laird and his commander. She puts up a fight and manages to escape, only to fall into the clutches of the Campbell clan.
Laird Calum Campbell and his brothers, Ewan and Hamish, stumble upon the battered and bruised angel in the forest. They take her back to their castle knowing she is the lass they have been waiting for.
The three Campbell brothers declare their intent to wed the angelic-looking Maeghan and don’t care about the rumors of her upbringing. They woo her into their beds, but they are so used to giving orders they aren’t quite sure how to capture her heart.
Danger from within threatens their Maeghan’s life, and even though the Campbells vow to protect her, sometimes a woman has to protect herself.
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.
Genre: Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 38,865 words
HIGHLAND WARRIOR WOMAN
Becca Van
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
HIGHLAND WARRIOR WOMAN
Copyright © 2012 by Becca Van
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-898-5
First E-book Publication: December 2012
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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HIGHLAND WARRIOR WOMAN
BECCA VAN
Copyright © 2012
Prologue
Calum Campbell held up his hand in silent command to bring his brothers and warriors to a halt. The hair on the back of his neck prickled in warning that not all was right. Listening intently to the quiet, he realized he couldn’t hear any birds chirping nearby or the rustle of small animals in the underbrush.
Dismounting his steed without making a sound, he pulled his claymore sword from the leather scabbard belted at his hip. He studied the ground intently and saw, amid the crushed grass, the imprint of a small foot in the damp earth and foliage. Following the signs, he crept toward a large tree and heard the rapid breaths of whoever was hiding behind it.
He raised an arm and lifted a finger to indicate there was only one person nearby. Taking a step to the side, he gasped when his eyes landed on the small flaxen-haired woman leaning against the tree trunk. Her face was badly bruised, and one of her eyes was swollen closed. She was clutching at her stomach as if she was in great pain or about to be ill.
“Are ye all right, lass?” Calum asked gently.
She jumped about a foot into the air and then doubled over in pain and groaned.
“Easy, lass, I’ll no’ hurt ye,” Calum stated calmly and watched as the little color the woman had in her cheeks dissipated. Her legs began to buckle.
He moved quickly, catching her slight form before she hit the ground and hurt herself even worse. Being careful not to jostle her and cause her more pain, he resheathed his sword and placed an arm beneath her knees. The arm which had caught her around the waist he slid up to her shoulder.
He hardly felt her weight, but for some reason she felt so right in his arms. Frowning down at her plaid, he realized she was of the MacTavish clan and wondered what the hell she was doing so far away from home and obviously without an escort. She had been beaten so severely he could barely discern the natural shape of her face.
Calum vowed that, whoever she was, he would protect her with his life and the bastards that had hurt her would pay with theirs.
Chapter One
Earlier that day…
Maeghan Fraser slipped around the timber wall of a cottage and came in sight of her horse. She let out a quiet sigh of relief that old Bessy was where Maeghan had left her, grazing a deserted strip of pasture at the outskirts of the village. As she reached the mare, Maeghan glanced over her shoulder and checked that her purse of coins was still securely hidden beneath her plaid. A successful day’s trading wouldn’t have done much good if her horse was stolen, so she had left Bessy well out of sight of the activity of the village.
She patted Bessy’s neck, admitting to herself that only the most desperate horse thief would want her poor old mare. Bessy should have been left alone to spend the rest of her days grazing the green grass in the meadows, but it was the only horse she owned and she would never ask to borrow another mount.
As for coming to the village without an escort, Maeghan didn’t like to take the warriors of the MacTavish clan away from their training and duty. I can look after myself. She had her dirk and her wits, which were better than a lot of women’s.
She stepped up to Bessy to mount her, thinking already of what she would do when she got home, when a pair of hands grabbed her from behind. Maeghan yelled and felt herself shifted against a man’s solid body. One of his arms wrapped too tightly around her waist, and a filthy-smelling hand was clapped over her mouth.
She kicked her feet and twisted, digging her nails into the arm around her wai
st, but the man holding her seemed to be an immovable force. Even when her heels connected with his shins, he didn’t budge.
Bessy snorted, her eyes rolling nervously. Maeghan heard another horse nearby. If she could just reach her dirk, she could attack the man holding her, leap on Bessy, and be away.
Then another man stepped into view. He was well dressed. For a moment she couldn’t place his features, and then she knew him. Laird MacLeod, whose land abutted the village, was eying her up and down.
Maeghan was not of his clan and couldn’t think what this man would want with her. He assessed her coolly, standing a safe distance from her thrashing legs.
Until she saw him, she had assumed that this was a mere robbery. It would be a devastating one, no doubt, as she was relying upon the money she had earned from selling her woven cloth to supplement her own supply of game, but a robbery was something she could survive.
The man standing before her, however, would have no need of her money. From the way he assessed her, Maeghan had a horrible idea of what he might want.
Her panic rose, but at that moment she heard her father’s voice in her mind. Save your strength for when you can use it. He had trained her for situations like this, and his advice had never yet failed her. Maeghan stilled, hanging limp in her attacker’s arms.
Breathing deeply around the hand over her mouth, she became aware of the silence. Apart from a nervous snort from Bessy, it was silent. They were too far from the main road to hear the sounds of business.
That meant they were too far to call for help, too. Maeghan cursed her own foolishness. Why had she tethered Bessy so far away?
She still waited to see what the laird wanted. He seemed to take his time in examining her, but at last he nodded.
“She’ll do.”
He turned and drew his dagger. Maeghan saw what he meant to do and tried to call out, but her captor’s hand muffled her cry.
Laird MacLeod swiped the dagger across Bessy’s flank. The old mare reared, whinnying, and then took off across the pasture at a gallop.
The man holding Maeghan chuckled. She kicked his shins again, furious to the point of tears. I’ll never get home on foot! And what will I do if I can’t find Bessy again? A horse was valuable, and she couldn’t afford another.
Her problems, though, were about to get much worse. The laird approached her holding a piece of cloth. Maeghan thought nothing of it, focusing instead on how satisfying it would be to kick him between the legs, until he threw a rough hood over her face.
They tied her hands. Maeghan’s panic had abated in the face of her rage, but now the fear returned. She was thrown over a horse. Through the fabric of the hood, she could smell leather and horseflesh, and her head rubbed against what seemed to be Laird MacLeod’s leg, but she had no other knowledge of her surroundings.
She knew neither where they took her nor for how long they rode. It was long enough, though, for her reason to catch up with her fear. The men did not know she was armed. Apparently they thought a mere female could pose no threat to them. She could use that against them.
The two men conversed a little as they rode. From their tones of voice, they might be out enjoying the fine weather, not kidnapping an innocent woman. She learned that the man who seized her was MacLeod’s second-in-command, but she couldn’t glean much about where they were going.
It was difficult enough to keep her wits about her, much less make a plan for escape. When she was finally let down from the horse, her head ached from being nearly upside down for so long and her ribs were sore from her perilous position slung over the saddle. She was not set on her feet so much as she was tossed to the earth, which jarred her bones. She bit her lip and tasted blood.
The first kick to her ribs was so unexpected that she could not even draw breath to cry out.
Another kick followed. Someone cuffed her face then smashed her against the ground. Her legs were free, but even if she stumbled to her feet, it only presented an opportunity for her captors to trip her. Pain overwhelmed her. Her own breath sounded deafening inside the hood.
Finally someone spoke. “Enough. She won’t go anywhere, now.” The voice was the laird’s. “Take this off before we have our fun. This one’s a great beauty, after all.”
The hood was pulled off. Gasping, Maeghan blinked at the sunlight. They were in a clearing. The men’s horses were tied up some distance off, where the trees resumed.
MacLeod laughed cruelly. “She was a great beauty, in any case.”
The man who’d bound her laughed as well. “Untie her hands,” MacLeod said. “She’s got some fight in her. I like that when I take a woman.”
The laird’s words sent a renewed throb of fear through her. These men meant to rape her, now that they’d beaten her too badly for her to flee.
Maeghan tried to force open her eyes, though only one obeyed her. The other was swelling too much to be of use. She felt the big bastard behind her untying her bonds and realized she had a moment to look around and catch her breath. Best of all, she had a moment to make a plan.
Her father had taught her to hunt with bow and arrow and also how to defend herself against any unwanted attention. She knew how a well-placed knee could bring down the tallest and strongest man. He had also taught her how to use her dirk and to use any means necessary to escape if the need arose.
Though she needed to keep her attention focused on her surroundings, Maeghan found herself thinking how it was her father’s fault that she was here at all. Patrick Fraser was dead, but he alone had raised Maeghan. A man of respect and duty, he’d had no time or inclination to raise a daughter. He’d raised her like a son because he knew nothing else.
Now, as an old maid at the advanced age of two and twenty, she was too set in her ways to change and ask for help. The women of her clan told tales about her and scorned her company, and the young men did not know what to do with her.
Because of her father, she had gone to the village alone and had been captured by these men. But because of her father, she would escape. Or she would die trying.
“Much better.”
Someone’s foot rolled her onto her back. Her hands, though freed, tingled painfully as blood returned to them. Suddenly the laird was kneeling above her, his knees straddling her hips. He brought one hand down on her shoulder, pinning her. She felt his other hand reaching among the folds of fabric around her waist.
He was in the perfect position. She wasted no time.
Maeghan drove her knee upward as hard as she could. It connected with something soft, and the MacLeod Laird doubled over, grunting. Seizing her opportunity, Maeghan scrambled backward on the grass. Her hand, still clumsy from being tied, reached for her dirk.
Before her fingers closed on it, MacLeod’s second-in-command yanked her up by her shoulders. “What did you do?” he roared in her ear.
She drove her elbow back hard into his ribs. The hands gripping her shoulders loosened. She tried to wiggle free, but the man threw her to the ground.
“You whore!” His foot connected painfully with her hip. Maeghan curled up, using her sheltered position to hide what she was doing. When she freed her dirk, the second-in-command was readying another kick.
She met it with her blade. Maeghan sliced across the front of his ankle, and the man let out a deafening bellow as he stumbled backward. Maeghan regained her feet. She ran three quick steps toward him and thrust her leg forward like the thrust of a pike. The sole of her foot connected with the man’s stomach. He fell, clutching his ankle.
The laird had rallied. Maeghan heard him grunting and snarling curses at her on the grass behind her. As she turned, she realized how close he was to her. He clutched at her plaid.
She drove her fist into his nose. The MacLeod Laird stared at her, astonished, but then he recovered. When he clawed at her again, she drove the dirk downward into his arm as hard as she could.
As soon as the fingers holding her released, Maeghan ran. There was no time to take one of the horses
nor to retrieve her dirk from the laird’s flesh. He was roaring in pain behind her, but she had only bought a little time.
The woods were thick, but she didn’t let them slow her. She ran as fast as she could, scratching her face and hands on branches and tripping over roots. She did not look back and she didn’t dare stop running.
It was her injuries that finally forced her to stop. The throbbing in her ribs where she had been kicked grew too painful to ignore. She came to a stop, trying to pant quietly and listening for sounds of pursuit. There were none. If the men pursued her at all, they were a long distance off.
More likely, she thought, they had been hampered by the thickness of the woods. Their horses would hardly be able to follow through the tangle of branches, and the men themselves were much bigger than Maeghan.
Now if only I knew where I am…
MacLeod would likely have ridden onto his own land to avoid antagonizing Maeghan’s laird. But she knew nothing about the MacLeod clan or their lands. She couldn’t even use the sun or other signs of the direction to guide her, not when she didn’t know where she was going.
She wandered. As the terror and excitement of the fight left, her blood slowed and her injuries seemed to hurt her more acutely. She made her way through the undergrowth slowly, clutching her bruised ribs and aching stomach, biting her lip to keep her groans of pain at bay. Brushing the tears from her cheeks, she concentrated on each step. She didn’t have the luxury of stopping, not when the laird might yet pursue her. And if she stopped, she might not be able to make herself start again.
