The Hellion and the Highlander Read Online Free PDF

on for now, biding his time. Strength and skill with a sword were not the only reasons he had been a renowned warrior before being captured and imprisoned. Intelligence was an important factor and, despite his illness, he still had that. Kade knew when to bide his time and await his moment, and this was one of them. He didn’t wish to make Will’s sister uncomfortable or upset her, so he would await his chance, Kade decided, and turned his attention to her, as she asked, “Are any of your men riding out with messages for your family?”
    When he hesitated, she added, “Will told me that your mother passed on before the Crusades, but that you have a sister, two brothers, and a father still. He didn’t wish to write and give them false hope until we were positive you would recover, but I am sure they must be very anxious to hear news of you.”
    Kade’s mouth tightened slightly at the suggestion. He doubted his father and brothers had been sober enough even to wonder about him the last three years, but his little sister was another matter entirely. Merry would be fretting over him.
    “I sent all three men,” he admitted, then explained, “I had more than the one task for them to perform.”
    “Ah,” she said, and proved her understanding of the male mind by asking curiously, “Did they fuss about leaving you here alone?”
    Kade smiled faintly at her intelligence, for indeed they had fussed at leaving him here at Mortagne without someone to watch his back. He considered denying it, but decided to give her the truth. “Aye, they fussed like old women, insultin’ yer brother mightily, I’m sure, but I insisted they go.” Grimacing, he added, “I doona need them hangin’ over me while I recover, and I’m safe enough here in Will’s home. I trust him.”
    “And he trusts you,” Averill said softly.
    Kade nodded silently, not doubting it for a minute. They’d had to learn to trust each other while enslaved. It was how they’d survived, by watching each other’s backs. He, his men, and Will hadn’t been the only prisoners in their jail. There had been others, former residents of towns and cities that Baibar had razed. Most of the populations were killed, he’d been told, but some had been kept to perform manual labor for their new “masters,” men who had fed them little but dribbles of gruel and rotten vegetables, and had worked them quite literally to death under the hot desert sun.
    Wanting them weak and malleable, the food had never been enough for everyone, and men had been killed by their own prison mates for little more than a crust of bread or a mouthful of swill. But the number who died at the desperate hands of one of their own was nothing next to those who were beaten and worked to death. Kade had quickly stopped counting the men who had died under the baking sun.
    “Will said the escape was your plan.”
    He smiled wryly but didn’t tell her that the plan had come to him quite suddenly, and his only regret was that it hadn’t come to him before that. Had he come up with it sooner, more of his men would yet be alive.
    “Will said you threw the keys to him and ordered him to let the other men out, then took on both guards yourself with the stolen sword while he did,” Averill continued quietly. “That was brave.”
    “That was desperation,” he countered dryly, and admitted, “After our time in prison, I was in no shape to fight two on me own.”
    “And yet you did,” Averill said simply.
    Kade shrugged where he lay, his ego not allowing him to explain that it was sheer good fortune that had helped him in this instance. Before he’d been captured and starved for three years, hewould have taken on three men or more without a thought or worry…and been the victor, but he knew it was only the fickle hand of fate that had seen him through their escape alive. Had Will not managed to free the others from their cells as quickly as he had to help him in the battle, they would no doubt all be