by Raina Wilde
"Isaac is gone," she said after a moment.
Shane nodded, looking at his feet. "He'll be back," he said, and when he looked up at Evita his eyes were pained.
"We'll be ready," she whispered.
Shane looked doubtful. The doctor bustled into the room, interrupting them. Shane squeezed her hand and left the room.
Three weeks later Evita was finally released from the hospital. She hadn't seen Shane since that day she woke up, and she figured he had chosen to keep hiding. When she got home her house smelled stale and unused, and she threw all of the windows open and spent the afternoon cleaning. Her arm was still tender and wrapped, the doctors said it might not ever be the same. For now field-work was out of the question, she would have to hire an assistant. She was to keep office hours to a minimum and only handle small animals as to not exert too much pressure on her wound.
After the house was clean she sat on the back porch with a steaming cup of tea and a book. It was Halloween, and the leaves had mostly fallen from the trees. She didn't expect any trick-or-treaters since her house was so secluded, but she had a bowl of candy ready regardless. Evita lost herself in the novel with a wool blanket pulled up to her shoulders. She had been on the porch for an hour when she heard a noise at the door. She got up and grabbed the bowl of candy, expecting a group of children in costumes. When she opened the door she saw a large figure with a bear mask on. She gasped and stepped back, still skittish from the encounter with the coyotes. But the bear had begun to laugh. He pulled off the mask and it was Shane, smiling down at her.
"You scared me half to death!" she cried.
"Oh, wouldn't want to do that," he replied and stepped inside. He pulled her in close for a kiss, tenderly holding her so he wouldn't hurt her arm. She looked up into his eyes and kissed him, so deeply and passionately it was as if her life depended on it. He picked her up easily and carried her to the bedroom, where he gently undressed her, kissing her skin as he exposed it. She shivered at the touch of his lips. He lay her down on the bed, drinking in the sight of her. The way Shane looked at her, with such love and longing, took Evita's breath away. In that moment she knew they were tied together for eternity. He pushed inside her and she gasped with pleasure. Shane gently made love to her, holding and caressing her body until she screamed and writhed in pleasure. Afterward, they lay tangled in the blankets, sneaking kisses between hushed whispers about what each of them did in those few months they were apart.
"So you're staying?" she asked finally.
"Do I have a choice?" he replied with a smile.
"No," she said, and kissed him.
"Well, that's settled then," he kissed her back.
They lay in bed together in the darkness, Evita happier than she had ever been, but still apprehensive at the thought that Isaac might return. She thought of the gun tucked away in her bedside table, and knew she would do anything—anything—to keep Shane in her life. She snuggled closer to him, and felt his arms wrap around her. She closed her eyes and slept.
THE END
Flip the page for Bonus 4!
Bonus 4: Claimed by the Enemy Highlander
War is everything to Aigneis McGowan. Since her father's death, her life has been driven by one thing: revenge.
She is twenty-one—a beautiful, fiery woman; leader of her clan and undisputed swords-woman. But when she comes face to face with the object of her hate—the heir to the clan who killed her father—the views which have shaped her life are challenged in ways she did not think possible.
On the battlefield, leading her clan against the man she has come to love, Aigneis finds that some questions have no easy answers, and sometimes vengeance entraps us.
Will she find the truth? Will she triumph? And, most important: will she follow her heart?
Claimed by the Enemy Highlander
Chapter 1
“Go, Douglas! That's the way! Strike!” A grating blow; metal grinding on metal. “Lift your arm! Lift!” Aigneis shouted the instructions as she worked. The blows of blade on blade rang out, the only other sound around the chalked-out square.
The sun shone in through the window; late autumnal gold. It caught the red fire of her hair and set it aflame as she moved; a river of fire flowing with every step. Her lithe body whirled and ducked as she thrust and parried and blocked, the sword an extension of her arm, its motion slow and seamless.
“Yes! Good, Douglas.” She encouraged the young man opposite her, who was looking, by then, slightly pale. Aigneis felt her throat strain from the shouting, and gratefully accepted a glass of water. She saluted Douglas then with her blade, who returned the motion and then walked wearily from the square.
She leaned back against the wall. All around her, the hall was full of men engaged in single combat. The clash of weapons filled the air, lifting and mixing with grunts of effort and shouts of triumph when a blow was struck.
Aigneis McGowan, chief of Clan McGowan in all but title, closed her eyes and smiled. It was the sound that has filled her days for most of her adult life, and she has always loved it. Aigneis breathed out, wearily. It was not a warm day, being late in Autumn, but the perspiration was strong on her brow. Running down her lithe body, it made her shirt cling to her back. She had been training with the men, and as always made it her goal to work at least as hard as they did.
“Alright, lads!” she called out, hoarse. “We'll end for the day.”
There were weary groans, mixed with triumph from the current winners, and general out-breaths of exhaustion and relief. Aigneis was always a merciless leader, and drilled her men each day, keeping them fit, and wearing them out. The men filed out, congratulating each other, or still sparring, playfully. They headed towards the main hall for dinner.
Aigneis smiled and breathed the close air of the hall. It smelled of sweat and chalk and iron, a heady mix that had filled her days since childhood. She turned to the master-at-arms, who awaited her instruction.
“Thank you, Gareth. Same tomorrow?” She suggested
“Good, my lady.” He replied.
“Anything to add?”
“My lady...we should concentrate on use of the dirk? Some men are unfamiliar with it, and we both know how necessary it is for single combat.”
“Yes, Gareth. Good.” She nodded enthusiastically. “We'll make tomorrow's session focused there.”
“Very good, my lady.”
“I will retire now; prepare for the meeting.” Aigneis nodded.
“Good evening, my lady.”
Aigneis took the stairs to the wing of the house reserved for the incumbent Laird. She reached her chamber, and shut the door. Inside, the last light of evening soaked oak-paneled walls. The room was all in white and oak-gold, decorated with tapestries in mauve and green on white linen. Sparsely furnished, but pretty. A low fire was in the grate.
Aigneis sighed and sat down on an embroidered seat. It had been a long day. Long, but satisfying. And the night could bring important outcomes. That night was set aside for preparation for war.
The year was 1638, and the Covenant had just been signed, in which many of the clans declared their support for the Covenanters against the Stuart king, who believed himself the head of the Church. Only Christ was head of the Church in the eyes of the Covenanters, and this was the essence of the conflict. Or so it was said.
In reality, there were other, private, wars and feuds that fed this greater conflict. And one of them was the war between Aigneis and her clan, and the Learys. Aigneis herself was not religious, but she would pick any side the Learys were not on. She would end the feud. And it would not end for her until each Leary lay dead in his blood.
It was her feud. At twenty years old, Aigneis had nursed this war inside her since she was thirteen; scrape-kneed with plaited hair. Since the day her father had died.
That day, she was in a room like this one, on the other side of the castle. In her mind, it was night, and she was ready for sleep. She sat, remembering the cry that had echoed throug
h the floor, a wail so unearthly it lifted the hair on her head.
Annabelle, her aunt, had appeared then, just behind her maid. Annabelle never visited her chamber—something was very, very wrong.
“Aigneis, my dear? We must pray. Your father, bless him, is with Christ.”
What? It made no sense to Aigneis. “Aunt...what?”
“Be strong, my child. Your father has passed. He was safe, now; with Christ.”
No, Aigneis remembered thinking. No. He isn't. My father belongs here, with me. Fighting, and racing, and ruffling my hair. Laughing and lifting me on his shoulders.
But she knelt, as she was told, and closed her eyes. All she saw behind them was a blank. Her mind whirled, painting pictures of her father, laughing. Her father, carrying her, winking at some joke. Vital and immediate and larger than life.
I need to know what happened.
She found out, the next day. She listened at the door, while the master-at-arms talked to his men. Her father had been killed. It was a sudden raid, completely unexpected, when he was returning from a skirmish at the border. It was the Learys.
I hate the Learys, she remembered thinking. They will die. They will die on my blade. She made an oath then, behind that door, in the silence.
From that day, the training with sword and shield, started as a game to play with her father, became deadly. Every spare minute, with her cousins, Hal and Jamie, was spent training. She had become as good as any man, and better than most. And, since the death of her great-uncle, she was the war-leader of Clan McGowan—in fact, if not in name. All the men knew that.
Almost all the men knew, too, of her hatred of the Learys, if not how deep it ran. Each day she honed that hate. Sometimes she wondered at how much it had become the focus of her life.
She looked, then, at the face in the mirror—lean and elegant —and noticed the slender lines in her forehead and beside her eyes. She thought, then, how many years had passed since a thirteen year old swore death to her father's enemies. Her face looked back at her: wide pale green eyes, sun-kissed skin, full lips, bronze-red hair, thick and loose and wild.
Not bad, actually, she thought, and smiled. Those years were not unkind. A sharp-edged grin showed back, wild and dangerous and full of vitality. She blinked. Time to get ready, she thought to herself.
She was preparing to meet with the war-leaders of the most powerful clans in the region, to win their support for her cause. This was her greatest chance, to strike a blow at the Learys that could utterly obliterate them.
She inspected the dress laid out for her. The green tartan of McGowan, embroidered at wrists and collar; low cut. Floor-sweeping and elegant.
Half an hour later, she was ready to leave, long, red hair loose and flowing, in a gown that swept the floor as she walked lithely down the stairs. She was off to make an army and lead a war. Off to shed the blood of her foemen. She felt content.
Chapter 2
The hall smelled of pine; the logs blazing on the fire sending their resin-y scent into the air to mingle with the rich, heavy smell of roasted boar.
Brian Leary, son of Laird Will, was seated at the top of the table. He was surrounded by the warlords and leaders of a dozen clans. He was in his element.
“So, Brian? You'll lead the detachment on the right?”
“I will.” Brian inclined his head, a gesture that would have looked modest on any other man. On him, it was simply imbued with the easy arrogance that always surrounds him like the sheen on a newly brushed racehorse.
The servants moved in then, bringing the boar to the center of the table. The rich, meaty smell spilled out across the air.
Their host for that night, Brian's uncle James, stood and addressed the group.
“Friends, welcome to this feast!” His genial voice filled the hall. A few clapped, and some lifted their tankards. “We are lucky to have so many allies here tonight,” he continued. “and, as I will not lead this war, I would like to take the chance to introduce to you my nephew, Brian. He will lead on the right flank.”
There were some congratulatory yells, and some of the warriors lifted their tankards towards Brian in salute. He inclined his head briefly.
When the applause died down, Uncle James continued. “And so, if Brian will carve the boar for us..?”
Brian swallowed. He thought the task might fall to him. That made him the leader of this gathering. His uncle had placed him even higher than himself in the leading of the force. He stood, and, in the weighty silence, took the knife to cut.
Everyone cheered as he passed the first slice to His uncle. Some of the men began to stamp, rhythmically. “Lear-Y, Lear-Y!” The room erupted in a battle cry of sorts. Brian looked down, a flush flooding up his neck and into his cheeks, burning.
He had never been the center of so much attention. He was, to all intents and purpose, the spoiled and arrogant son of the most aspiring of the local clan chieftains, but he had never taken the lead in anything before. His father, with his crushing reputation, had always come first. That night, that month, in fact, his father was away.
Brian looked up again. His dark eyes were warm. “Thank you,” he said. Again, the words should have been modest, but were not. “Welcome, all of you, to this hall, and to this fighting force.”
The room erupted in cheers again. Wild, hard men, all of them, and born to fighting. This war was the best news they had had in years, it seemed.
Brian walked back to his place, a slow, swaggering ceremony creeping into his lithe gait. He sat down, and grinned, suavely, at his friend across the table.
The man, Arthur, returned the smile with a sourness beneath. He was the chief rival for the leadership. If Brian noticed the sharpness of that smile, he glossed over it.
The servants returned, taking on the duty of cutting and portioning the meat. A plate arrived opposite Brian, a haunch of blood-dripped meat upon it.
Brian looked past the plate to the girl who held it. She was young, and full-breasted, her face oval and smooth; her hair pale and curly. His dark, brooding eyes meet hers in a demanding stare. As he took the plate, his fingers closed over hers, possessively.
She looked down, her hand cold and yielding in his. He released her fingers and let her go, after another meaningful glance. She would yield to him; the aspiring Laird. They all did. Brian ran his hand through his cropped dark hair, and settled to his food.
At thirty, he was a darkly handsome man, tall but dense-muscled, so that his walk and every gesture were fluid with a lithe grace. His eyes were black and watchful, his mouth hard. He was, or should have been, stunningly handsome; but there was in him a hardness, a cruelty, which made the striking features brooding and forbidding.
The evening wore on. The wine circulated, flowing freely and with it, the volume of talk rose. Brian was drinking heavily, his mug refilled with dark red wine each time he drained it by the man stationed discreetly at the wall. The flush of perspiration on his brow made his smooth skin glow, and the fire gleamed in his dark, wide eyes.
Arthur, also drinking, leaned across the table. “So..? You going to the meeting tomorrow?” He asked, casually.
“What...meeting?” Brian focused on his friend's mouth, his concentration blurred with wine.
“The one at the McGowan's?”
“That meeting? Yes.” His voice was firm. It would be against his father's dictates: he held himself distant from the McGowans and would not condone that any of his people visited their lands. That was why Brian had chosen to do it. His father's ways were old, and he would build them new. Be a better man; a better war-leader. The modern alternative.
Arthur raised his eyebrows. “Good.”
They toasted each other with the wine. Brian tipped his head back, letting the dark wine drip down his chin. He was getting rather drunk.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes and Arthur's met. They shared a smile. The next day, Brian would take the first step on the path to be a rival to his father.
> Chapter 3
Evening had fallen at the McGowan estate. The hall was brightly lit and smelled of rushes and the high, clear smell of tapers, pure beeswax that burned in the many sconces of the chandelier.
Aigneis moved through the hall, and the light from the tapers caught her loose hair and made it flow and waver, a river of red gold. Her new-brushed hair was exactly in contrast with the rich, dark green of the dress she wore: McGowan tartan, worn with harsh pride. It lapped the floor when she walked, a slight train that had made her look even more regal, like a queen. Yet few queens walk with the muscled litheness of a warrior. Aigneis did as she moved seamlessly across the room and talked with allies at the high table. She was radiantly happy. That meeting was the culmination of so many years of planning, and she was proud to host it.
Everything had been perfectly planned, from the wreaths of pine-branches on the tables to the tapers and the guest-list. Aigneis threw herself into it with her natural dedication and energy. She smiled that night and discussed warfare with her men. They were all sworn to her, would all die for her on a reflex.
She was alone a while in the hall. She smiled, breathed out, and looked around the room. There is Rufus, there Seamus, she thought, scanning the room. And there...is that Luke? She grinned at a thickset older man, pale red beard gleaming in the candlelight. There's Dougal MacLennan. She decided to go and speak to him, thank him for his offer of cavalry support.
She glided across the hall. As she did, a movement at the door caught her eye. She looked up, and there was a new detachment she had not noticed, near the shadow of the arch.
No! She thought. It cannot be. But it was. They were dressed, flagrantly, in the deep red tartan she hated. The tartan of the Learys. Aigneis felt her blood boil, with something like battle-rage that throbbed in her chest. She fought it down, and stalked across the room. She had to pass them, to reach the MacLennan group. She lifted her head, and walked like a queen. I will ignore them. Filth! Her mind spat the word as she glided past, regal and aloof.
