The Highlander's Sin Read Online Free PDF

least he wouldn’t have to hear this nonsense. It was a stalling tactic. Had to be.
    “I know,” she said, her voice softer, as though she were thinking about something else entirely.
    He glanced over at her, studying her. She was looking toward the ground, her hands wringing one another.
    “What is it?” he asked harshly, disbelieving himself that he even asked. He wasn’t supposed to care.
    “Nothing,” she said too quickly, glancing up at him with widened eyes.
    “I doubt it,” he mumbled. With the way she’d so openly run her mouth since the moment they’d met, she was certain to give him grief about something fairly soon.
    But he wasn’t going to wait to find out what it was. He was surprised that there weren’t shouts coming from the castle already.
    As if on cue, a loud whistle sounded from that direction. ’Haps the switching guards would have now found the bodies of the four he’d disposed of—or just found them missing. Didn’t matter. He had little time now.
    Heather heard the whistle, too. She whirled her head around sharply , staring back at the castle, her lower lip sucked into her mouth.
    “Get on the horse,” he ordered.
    Heather turned away from the castle and approached Blade. Too easy.
    “What are ye about, lass?” he asked, stepping closer, the air around them filled with tension. Would she bolt?
    “Ye keep asking me that. There is nothing.”
    He doubted her. Narrowing his eyes, he studied her all the more. Her face was innocent enough, but lurking behind the beauty of her heather-colored eyes was a keen intelligence that had he seen it in a man it would have made him fearful.
    Heather planted her hands on her hips and glared at him fiercely. “Maybe I should ask what’s bothering ye? But ye’re my captor , so I’m not supposed to ask ye questions.”
    How easily she’d taken the reins. “If ye must know, I think ye’re up to something. No woman who’s being abducted goes so willingly.”
    The lass had the audacity to shrug. “If ye want me to fight, I will. But I’d rather go without the bindings or a gag.”
    “Ye’d run if ye got the chance?”
    “Should I nay want to?”
    “Aye. But there’s been many chances for ye to run, to scream , and ye’ve not used any of them.”
    “Maybe I want to leave Dunrobin.”
    That made him laugh. Hard. “A princess in her castle, spoiled rotten, the boss of everyone , and ye’d want to leave?”
    “Believe it or not, I am more than a spoiled child as ye seem to think.” Her words were spoken calmly, with a cool edge that made him pause.
    “Run then. I should like to catch ye.”
    Heather didn’t hesitate. She ran—but not back toward the castle. She ran in the opposite direction.
    “What in bloody hell?” Duncan stammered.
    The woman lifted her skirts, revealing creamy, sculpted calves—athletic legs—and hauled her arse up the densely foliaged hill.
    Not at all what he’d expected. Grabbing hold of Blade’s reins, he flung himself into the saddle and gave chase. He couldn’t very well leave the horse, especially since she was running in the direction he wanted to go, and Sutherland warriors would be after them soon. Duncan leaned low over his warhorse’s withers, gaining on the lass. She didn’t look behind her, but kept a steady pace forward. A pace any normal male would have found daunting. She sprinted full force, without a falter in her footing, as though this were an action she enjoyed and practiced often.
    No matter how well she raced, the lass was no competition for a horse. Blade nudged her in the middle of her back with his muzzle, and as she fell forward, Duncan swerved the horse to her left, bent low and lifted her around the waist, sitting her on his lap.
    “Got ye.”

Chapter Three

     
    H eat flushed through Heather as though she’d been doused in boiling water. But it wasn’t a painful burn. It made her wish for a fan to blow a cooling breeze over her face and neck. Made her want to curl into