Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Morgan’s roar of anguish shook the rafters, drowning out everything but Sabrina’s shrill scream.

Dougal Cameron shoved his wife down the nearest corridor to safety, then bent to cradle Angus’s body. He lifted his hands, staring at his fingers as if bewildered to find them stained with blood. The MacDonnells fumbled for their scabbards and reached into their plaids, only to have their hands return empty.

Morgan had seen too many dead men fall to waste time coddling his father’s corpse. His wide-eyed gaze lit on Sabrina. Alex and Brian reached for his arms, but he flung them away as if they were no more than puppies nipping at his heels and bounded over the table. Everyone thought he was diving for the pile of weapons.

Everyone but Sabrina. She had seen the murderous flare of accusation in his eyes. She knew what he believed as surely as if he had shouted it. That she had been a lure, a distraction to draw his attention from his father’s impending assassination.

She was mesmerized by his charging approach. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No time to beg for mercy. If he had snatched up his ax in that moment and swung it, her feet would have remained rooted to the stone long after her head had flown.

His arm circled her waist. He jerked her against him and turned them both to face the hall. Sabrina felt his hand dip into his plaid, reaching for a pistol he’d surrendered to her only minutes before. Bereft of any other weapon, his big hand closed over her jaw, tilting her face upward to show them all that the slightest twitch of his fingers would break her neck.

A strange calm flowed through her. Even hanging helpless in Morgan’s grip, her weight braced against his splayed thighs, she knew she would bear no bruises from his touch. His hands were almost gentle, their violence restrained by a ruthless competence more terrifying than cruelty. She had little doubt that her death at his hands would be as brutally tender. One jerk of his blunt fingers and her life would wink out like a star at the approach of dawn.

Every man in the hall, even Morgan’s clansmen, stood frozen with shock. Impotent fury glazed Brian’s eyes. Alex was breathing hard, his face flushed redder than his hair.

“Your hospitality leaves much to be desired, Dougal Cameron,” Morgan snarled, his hot breath fanning Sabrina’s hair.

Dougal lifted his bloodstained hands in plea. “Don’t do this, Morgan. I had no hand in killing your father. If you’ll give me the chance, I swear I’ll help you find the scoundrel who did.”

“My father gave you a chance. And look what it got him. Gather your arms,” he commanded his men.

The MacDonnells fell on the weapons like a pack of ravening dogs. Their greasy hands snatched the rusted hilts of swords and dirks, caressed the scarred butts of their pistols. As each man straightened, his eyes narrowed to hungry slits at the thrill of approaching bloodshed. They were in their element now, poised for open warfare and prepared to kill the men they’d just so amiably dined with.

Sabrina’s own eyes narrowed as she spotted the bonny dark-haired MacDonnell among them. How had he gotten back into the hall? Had she simply overlooked him in the chaos? Her questions were swallowed along with her dread as she realized her own clansmen stood before the MacDonnells as unarmed and helpless as lambs for the slaughter.

Morgan backed toward the door, using Sabrina as a shield.

Dougal slammed his fist on the table. “Damn you, Morgan, free her! She’s only a child! This fight is between you and me.”

Morgan’s voice rumbled down Sabrina’s spine, his words meant only for her ears. “You killed the wrong MacDonnell, brat. You should have cut off my head when you had the chance.”

Morgan rarely made tactical errors in the heat of battle, but indulging himself in that taunt proved to be a costly one. For Sabrina, time swept backward. He was no longer a dangerous stranger who held the fragile thread of her life in his hands, but that same vexsome, arrogant boy who had trod upon her tender feelings at every turn.

“Always have to have the last word, don’t you?” she said, her voice deceptively soft.

Every snippet of ruined embroidery, each of her tarts he’d so gleefully fed to Pugsley, every tear she’d never shed was in the force of the blow as she swung her fist behind her and smashed it into his face.

Morgan’s eyes crossed at the pain, and he knew she had broken his nose. “Why you wee bi—”

Suddenly he was holding a flailing dervish in his arms. Her sharp little heels tattooed on his shins. Between grunts and pants of exertion, she managed to choke out, “If you’d…use…that thick skull of yours for something other than hanging a…b-b-bonnet on, you’d listen to my…father.” She bit the hand he shoved over her mouth, drawing blood.

His men exchanged uneasy glances. None of them had ever bested Morgan in any contest, and they had the scars to prove it. Now this half-English slip of a girl actually seemed to be holding her own with him. Her black hair streamed over her face; her white teeth snapped at the air in a quest for fresh flesh.

“Want me to shoot her, Morgan?” Ranald suggested hopefully, cocking his pistol.

Morgan saved him the trouble by slamming her to the floor and pinning her beneath his weight. His men cheered, thinking a new sport was in the offing. What better revenge for Angus’s murder than to defile the Cameron’s daughter while he and his sons were forced to watch? They licked their lips in anticipation, hoping for a turn of their own when Morgan was done with her.

Brian lurched forward only to find a MacDonnell dirk pressed to his throat. Alex cast his father a desperate glance, but Dougal stood silent, his expression almost pensive as he watched the two locked in a battle of wills on the floor of his hall.

Morgan had trapped Sabrina’s thighs between his own and captured her slender wrists in one of his hands. Both of their chests were heaving as their gazes locked. Morgan tasted blood where the back of her head had split his lip.

“Shag her once for me!” one of his men called out.

Morgan saw the color drain from Sabrina’s cheeks. Yet even now, when they both knew he had the power to leave her broken, bleeding, and debased on the stones, she refused to beg, refused to cry.

“Give the wench a taste o’ yer blade, Morgan. I’ll wager ’tis heartier than the one that killed yer da.”

Morgan drew back his fist, knowing he had no choice but to cuff her unconscious before his clansmen’s ugly mood veered beyond his control. Her struggles were only whetting their lust. She wasn’t going to make it easy on him. Her soft body trembled beneath his, but her unflinching eyes taunted him, dared him to strike her.

Her hair fanned around her face in silky black waves. It was the kind of hair a man dreamed of wrapping his hands in and pinioning to his pillow. The kind of hair…

Morgan hesitated, praying his blow wouldn’t be hard enough to shatter the defiant tilt of her jaw.

That brief flicker of compassion cost him dearly. He felt the cold muzzle of the pistol jammed against the base of his skull an instant before he heard the click of its hammer being raked back.

Elizabeth Cameron’s cultured tones were crisp with fury. “Get off my baby, Morgan MacDonnell, or I’ll send you to join your father in hell.”