A scream tore through the night, a ghastly, blood-chilling sound that stopped him dead.
Jean stumbled and fell beside him, looking up from her knees, terror in her eyes.
And then again.
It was the lass. Shrieking a sound of such horror, as if she'd been beset by demons, that MacColla's skin crawled from it.
He dragged Jean to standing and shoved her back into a run with force enough to launch her feet from the ground.
“Ruith!” he commanded. Run.
He turned, squinting to make out the figures in the darkness. The men had overtaken her. Moonlight limned their bodies, making them appear like fallen angels come seeking evil mischief from beyond. She struggled madly in their hands.
MacColla took off at a lope. Then the lass's scream broke. A hideous sound, it tore from her body until her voice grew ragged, then cracked finally into a wail of despair.
And MacColla broke into a run.
He didn't spare a thought as to the why or the how of it, but she was being attacked by her own kinsmen, and he'd not let a man get the better of any woman.
Especially this woman.
They had her pinned now, all atop her like wild dogs worrying a bone, and MacColla dove toward them, grabbin g wildly, catching a man in his hands and peeling him up by his head, breaking his neck and shucking him away from the pile like so much garbage.
That left two on her, and, just as he was leaning down to tear away another, the lass surprised MacColla by kicking her own self free.
He was stunned, looking at her - wild-eyed, but focused. The moon cast a white bolt of light along her smooth cheek. Her full mouth parted as she breathed heavily. She caught his stare and returned it. Fearless. Proud.
The most beautiful creature MacColla had ever seen.
He felt it too late. The hands damp and hot on his calf, tripping MacColla, pulling him down before he knew what he was about. He fell hard, the dead weight of seventeen stone of muscle slamming onto the glen, an d the two Campbells were on him in an instant.
Haley edged away. She was loose. She could run. Where?
She looked down at the scrum. The man called Alasdair fought for dominance, trying to best the odds. He had released her, leaving her to three attackers and a worse fate.
But then he'd come back.
She saw a hand - she didn't know whose - draw a knife.
Haley looked behind her. The stone building at her back loomed tall in the darkness. Not a lighthouse. Not a McMansion either. Looks like a damned Scottish tower house.
She scanned the night. The girl stood on the horizon shivering, whimpering. Haley could run, but if Alasdair were bested, would that girl be next? She knew with certainty that the pathetic creature wouldn't survive five minutes with those men. And Haley might not like the girl, but that didn't mean she wanted to see her brutalized.
Besides, Haley could run, but she doubted she'd be able to escape these two men who clearly had a taste for blood.
One of them was on top of her kidnapper now, h ands around his throat. The other one knelt, and she once again saw the flash of steel in the night.
She and her dark-haired stalker appeared to share the same enemy, which made him her ally. For the moment.
If she wanted to save her own life, she'd have to save
Alasdair.
Scampering backward, she dropped to her knees, frantically combing her hands through the cold, damp grass, her eyes never once straying from the scuffle in front of her.
All the years of training with her father, and the most frustrating thing had been realizing she'd never have a shred of hope in a fight if pitting her strength against a man's. The average woman didn't, against the average man. And so Haley had learned to fight dirty.
There. The sharp edge of a stone at her fingertips . Ignoring the soil jamming under her nails, she dug, pulling the rock free. It was small, just smaller than her palm, with one end coming to a point. It was the best she could hope for.