The Wolf and the Highlander (Highland Wishes) Read Online Free PDF

didn’t tremble.
    She let her head fall back on his shoulder to study his face. Tension pinched the skin at the corners of his eyes. “How long did I sleep?”
    He startled, and suddenly his gait became smoother. “A while,” he said, avoiding her gaze. He did not wish for her to find weakness in him.
    She understood that. “How far to your home?”
    His gaze swept the path before them, alert, though his eyelids drooped with weariness. His skin had taken on an ashy pallor. “Not far.”
    “How. Far.”
    His lips twitched. He didn’t answer.
    “Put me down.”
    “No.”
    “You’re weary.” And injured, if his complexion was any indication. When she’d first seen him, he’d been crouching over her with splatters of blood on his face, chest, and legs. She’d assumed it was because he’d just killed two men to save her, but what if some of the blood was his?
    He shrugged, a powerful bunching of muscle beneath her cheek, as though the fact of his weariness was barely worth considering. Stubborn man.
    “I can walk. I can certainly keep up with a wounded man.”
    “You’re wounded as well.” He didn’t deny he was hurt. Och, and he’d carried her who kent how far while she’d slept like a lazy cur.
    “Mine are old wounds. I can walk.” She wiggled, trying to get free.
    His arms didn’t budge. He glanced at her skirted legs. “The Larnians didn’t hurt you?”
    Larnians? He must mean the other two men. “Gave me a bloody headache. But no, they didna hurt me much.” Thanks to him. “Put me down. I’d like to walk.” Chi Yuen hadn’t made her walk every day the last few weeks simply for the joy of watching Anya grimace, like she’d assumed at first. The movement eased her aches and loosened her knotted muscles. She could use some easing of her pain now, even if initially she would suffer.
    “These old wounds. They still pain you.” He was stalling. Why he’d want to continue carrying her when she’d given him an excuse not to, she couldn’t fathom.
    “They’ll pain me less if I move about.”
    His brow pinched with distress she didn’t understand. “I can’t put you down. But I’ll do what I can for you soon enough.”
    If he thought that tone of gruff finality would dissuade her from arguing, he was sorely mistaken.
    “My wounds pain me much less than yours. Put me down.”
    “How did you get them?”
    Stalling again.
    “I’ll tell you about my wounds if you put me down.”
    “Be easy,” he answered, his gaze soft on her in a way that made her stomach flutter. “Not long, and we’ll be there.”
    “Unless ye keel over on the way. You’re pale as a sheet. Put me down. I won’t ask again.”
    “Good. I’m growing tired of the request.”
    Irritating rascal. “That was supposed to be a threat, not acquiescence. Put me down, you great oaf!”
    He had the gall to grin. And that grin had the gall to worm its way into her chest and lodge there like it belonged. “Don’t worry. I’m strong.” He squeezed her, demonstrating the truth of the statement. His grin grew cocky, as though he challenged her to find him lacking in any way.
    Clearly, arguing with him wasn’t working. She tried honesty. “If anything happens to you, I’ll be lost. If you must carry me like a thick-skulled fool, at least tell me how to find this home of yours so I can fetch supplies and come tend you when you drop like a stone.” She might be smarter to leave his carcass where it lay, given she had no assurance his intentions were decent, but she wouldn’t. If he fell, she’d do what she could for him. If only to repay his rescuing her.
    His cocksure grin melted away. He met her gaze and held it. “Don’t worry, lady. I will make it. For you, I would walk a hundred times as far with wounds a hundred times worse.”
    Because she didn’t ken what to say to that, she said simply, “I am no lady. Call me Anya.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Anya.
    A lovely, unique name for a lovely, unique woman.
    Dark had