Claimed by the Highland Wolf
Page 8
I set out as fast as I could while keeping control of the second horse. I was sure that I had killed my uncle, but if by some miracle he survived, I did not want to leave him a way to be able to catch up with me before I could make it back to castle Meggernie. Blessedly, they hadn’t taken me very far. I was sure I could thank Allina’s eagerness to spill my blood for that.
Once I had ridden for a few hours I released the second horse, leaving him to be found by some lucky traveler. Pressing my horse on, I gave him his head and pushed him to his limit. There was no time to waste. I had to reach either my father or Alastair before the battle began.
Soon I could hear the clamoring of voices and shouting coming from the other side of the hill before me. I crested the rise and in the valley below stood the two armies of clansmen preparing for battle. I blazed down the hill just as the battle began, the men running headlong toward each other, their swords held high.
“Stop!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Stop!”
But it was no use. I was drowned out by their war cries. I watched Alastair lead his men but I could not see my father.
I continued to drive my horse straight toward the rapidly shrinking gap between the two armies and did not stop when his hoofs hit the battlefield but continued to ride out to the center of the field. I pulled hard on the reins, bringing him to an abrupt stop, and the stallion reared back in protest. I turned him in a wide circle, struggling to bring him to a halt as the men continued toward me from both sides.
I looked around frantically for Alastair at the head of his men and upon spotting him screamed his name.
“Alastair! Alastair, you must stop. You must all stop!”
As the men got closer they began to slow, confused by the presence of a woman on the battlefield.
“Glenna?” Alastair hollered when he got close enough to make out my features. “Glenna!”
He ran to my horse but had to step back quickly when it reared up again. Reaching up, he grabbed the horse by the bridle and helped to pull it under control.
The men around us on both sides began to murmur in confusion.
“Miss Glenna? Miss Glenna, is that you?” came a voice from behind me.
I turned to find my father’s man Angus shoving his way toward me. I had never been so glad to see my brother’s sword master before in my life.
“Angus. Oh, Angus, thank the Lord. You must find my father and bring him to me,” I told him.
“Right away, miss.”
I turned back to Alastair, who raised his arms up to me. I let him pull me from the saddle only to be crushed in his embrace before my feet had a chance to touch the ground.
“Where have ye been?” he asked, holding me at arm’s length and shaking me before pulling me back into a tight hug again. “Ye were gone. Ye were just gone. I thought that there had been another attack. I thought you were dead. I thought that you’d left me. And I’ll be honest with ye now, lass. I don’t know which thought was breaking my heart more.”
I threw my arms around him and kissed him with all the force I could muster, clinging to him as if he were the lone life raft in a raging sea.
“I was angry with you, so angry, but I never meant to leave you. I was taken by force,” I explained as I kissed his lips, his cheek, his jaw. “I will never leave you. I love you.”
He shouted with laughter and lifted me off the ground, kissing me again.
“Glenna?” My father’s frantic voice reached me. “MacGregor, I demand that you take your hands off of my daughter!” he shouted.
“Da!” I said with glee.
Alastair released me and I threw myself into my father’s arms. I had missed him fiercely.
“Glenna, my sweet Glenna, are you all right? What have they done to you?”
“I’m all right, Da. I’m safe.”
“I’m here now. I’m taking you home.”
I pulled away from him and shook my head. For the longest time I had wanted nothing more than to go back home. To see my father and brother again. But I had a new home.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not going back with you,” I told him.
“Why not? Has he threatened you, Glenna? Is he forcing you to stay?” My father looked past me to Alastair, glaring at him with the promise of murder in his eyes.
“It’s nothing like that. I… I love him,” I confessed.
“You what?” he exploded.
“I love him. The MacGregor has been good to me, Da. He saved my life. We wrote to you, to tell you that I was safe and that all was well, but Dougal betrayed you. The letter you received was a lie.”
“Dougal?”
“It was he who kidnapped me. He took me to the MacGregor and offered him a bargain. Only the MacGregor wasn’t the type of man that uncle expected him to be.” I turned to smile at Alastair. “He’s not the man that any of us expected him to be. So I’ve chosen to go back with him.”
“Have you, now?” my father said suspiciously. “And has he offered you marriage, then?”
I froze and dropped my head. “No.”
“Then this is unacceptable.”
“Gordon.” Alastair stepped forward to face my father. He towered over my da, but my father held himself tall, every inch of him a highland chief. “I love your daughter, and I would have her come with me. I will cherish her, sir, I swear it to ye.”
“But you will not wed her?”
“Da, stop, please stop. Can you not see that this is what I want? Now is not the time for this. Please. You will both have time to discuss it. But right now is it not more important that you put an end to this war?” I opened my arms wide, to gesture to the men standing on either side of us.
“I would have peace between us, Cameron Gordon,” Alastair said, holding out his hand to my father.
My father looked at me and his expression softened. Taking Alastair’s outstretched hand, he shook it firmly.
“And I would have peace with you, Alastair MacGregor. But do not think that this discussion is over.”
Grim-faced, Alastair nodded once and I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
***
Alastair and I lay in my bed, wrapped in each other’s arms.
“What’s on your mind, love? Ye seem troubled,” Alastair asked me as his hand ran up and down my spine.
We had spent our entire afternoon simply holding one another, happy to be safe and together again, the threat of war no longer hanging over our heads.
“I was simply thinking of something that Allina said to me when she held me captive,” I confessed.
The hand on my back stopped moving and I looked up into his troubled face.
“I don’t want you to waste another moment thinking about that wee bitch,” he spat. “I would strangle her with my bare hands for what she’s done to ye.”
I stroked his face and kissed him lightly. “I know you would. But what she said to me… there was some truth in it. She said that you could not marry her, or me, because we do not have the wolf within us. That your clan would never accept it of you. Because any child you have must be a wolf as well.”
He said nothing and I dropped my hand with a sigh.
“So it is true, then, is it not? You cannot marry me,” I said sadly.
“I’m so sorry, lass. I love ye. I love ye with all that I am. I will not give ye up. They cannot make me. But no, we cannot marry. Not unless I can find some way to change their minds.”
“And will you?” I asked. “Will you try to change their minds?”
“I will try, lass. I will fight every day to keep ye by my side. They will all know of my love for ye and that ye are my choice. I will do everything I can to make them see.”
He pulled me close and kissed me deeply until my tension and doubts began to melt away and I was filled with nothing but the feel of him.
We would be together, and I had to believe that he would find a way for us to marry before long. Because now that I had found him I would never be able to let him
go. My highland wolf.
COMING SOON!
Glenna and Alastair’s story continues in…
THE CLAN MACGREGOR – BOOK 2
Taken
by the
Highland Wolf
OTHER BOOKS BY STEPHANIE MARKS
SILVERLAKE CITY STORIES
HIDDEN FALLS
HUNTING CRIMSON
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