Highland Warrior by McCollum, Heather (good summer reads .txt) 📕

Her face was a mix of agony and determined fury. Teeth gritted and eyes narrowed, she yanked her arm from him. “The hell I can’t.”

He followed her into the barn, stopping her at her horse’s stall by pinning her arms against the door. “Let go of me,” she ordered.

“I will when ye have moved past blind hatred, which will only see ye dead, into rational thought.” He leaned forward so they stood face-to-face.

He stared into her eyes until her rapid breathing slowed. She blinked. “They will kill him,” she whispered, and he could see the fury give way to despair as the sheen of unshed tears washed across her gray-blue eyes. “Or worse. Torture.” She shook her head and swallowed. “He is only nine.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “Right now…he is so frightened. I know he is.”

Joshua slid his hold on her wrists to her hands, intertwining their fingers. “Geir has the bravery of both his mother and father, Kára. It will keep him strong until we can free him.”

“I must free him,” she said. “I gladly give myself for him.”

He pulled her into his arms even though she was stiff. “I know. Let us do so with a plan instead of running headlong into Robert’s clutches.” He tipped her chin up to meet his eyes. “Trust me. Can ye? To do everything I can to help ye get him back whole?”

Several heartbeats thudded through him before she nodded. “Aye,” she whispered. “I trust you.”

He pulled in a full breath with her words. “Let us go inside and form a plan.”

She gave a small nod and pulled away, but her hand found his on the way to the door. Her fingers tangled with his, and the returned gesture made his chest squeeze with something he had not felt before. It made him want to wrap Kára up so nothing could hurt her. The fact that he could not made the feeling painful. He breathed out, forcing his muscles to relax.

Erik Flett stood in fresh clothing before a group of Hillside men at the top of the hill. Their faces grim, they turned to look at Joshua as he came up. “Have you come to help us fight or continue to talk about my people abandoning their home?” Erik asked.

Joshua wished he’d been born with his other brothers’ patience. As the trickster who was never told to pull back when angry, since he was the Horseman of War, the act of staying calm was almost too hard. His jaw ached with the control he exerted on himself. He allowed his familiar mask of brutality to surface across his face as he stared at Erik. “And what are ye going to do to help, weakened from torture and healing?”

Erik raised his chin. “I will command them in their attack and throw down my life to help.” Several men nodded around them.

Joshua let go of Kára, his hands fisted at his sides to stop him from scrubbing them down his face in frustration. “So,” he said, “ye plan to throw yourself on Robert or trip his men with your dead body in the middle of it.”

No one said anything. Let them be shocked at his candor. He had no talent or time to walk carefully around their tempers. Joshua let his gaze meet those of the men he had been working with over the week. “Will ye do the same then? Run in there to be shot down, adding to Erik’s barricade?”

Joshua scratched his chin. “I know Robert is a fool, but his men know enough to march around your bodies. The still-warm corpses will hardly slow them down as they proceed on to Hillside to imprison or slaughter your women and children in retaliation.”

“What do you want us to do then?” Osk yelled from the back. “Abandon Geir along with our isle?”

Joshua didn’t care what Kára’s brother thought, but what did she think? He looked to her, and she lifted her gaze to the men. “Joshua will not leave Geir behind, but when we retrieve him, I will be taking him to Scotia, and I advise you all to follow us.”

Erik’s face was still hard as granite. “And what if Geir cannot be saved? Will you leave the isle where he is buried?”

She looked straight at him. “No, because I will then be buried with him.”

The thought tore through Joshua. He had seen death, lots of death in battle. He remembered his mother’s death three days after she gave birth to Bàs, his youngest brother. How his father had cursed the sky and God and the world around him. How he’d turned his sorrow into rage, going on to name his sons the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as if the end of days were near. Would he go insane, too, if he saw Kára cold and lifeless, her blank eyes staring up at the gray sky?

“I will prepare your warriors,” Joshua said. “Prepare them to fight and lead them into battle against Robert Stuart.” The promise tumbled from his mouth despite the warnings shooting through his head.

His hand curved over the tops of her shoulders as he stared into her eyes, hoping she would see the resolve in his gaze, in his soul. “I will save Geir and take ye both to my home where a Stuart can never touch ye or anyone ye love again.” Could she hear the oath in his words? For he felt them as if he held his fist over his heart and his sword in his hand.

Pastor John stood with the men, his eyes wide, but he said nothing. Did he realize Joshua was endangering the Sinclair clan by going up against the royal house of Stuart?

Joshua looked away. He would not let Kára die, so there was no question of him reconsidering. He looked to Calder who stood next to Torben. “We need pitch from the bogs. Your men must soak their wooden shields in water. I want arrow tips wrapped in wool