The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,74
groups of men on their way to the warehouse, the rest having slipped inside the building, not knowing the rest of their army had been defeated. He’d charged through the door, Graham and the others at his back, fighting his way through men, looking around as he could for Elspeth. Graham’s men shot several of them and were defeating the others with their fists.
Alexander’s head came up when he heard a guttural scream and watched as a man was shoved out of a small room. Elspeth looked like a warrior queen, fighting and gouging and kicking and biting as he pulled her against him. There was blood streaming down the man’s side onto the floor. She was covered in blood too, her hair streaming down her back, her feet bare, and her blue gown torn and filthy.
Alexander walked toward her, letting all the fighting and killing drop out of his consciousness, knowing that he must save her somehow. He continued slowly as the man holding her pulled a gun out of his pocket and put it against her temple. Alexander locked eyes with the man.
Wallace yanked the knife out of his side and dropped it, his blood glistening on his hands, and pulled Elspeth in front of him, holding her back tightly against him. She was wild, fighting him, grabbing his hair and ears and anything else she could reach. She threw her legs up in the air, pushing back on his chest, trying to throw him off balance, but he held her firm and screamed.
“Where’s the boy? Do we have the boy so I can kill this bitch?”
But his men weren’t responding; they were being held on the ground, several dead or dying, as other men swarmed them. He backed up slowly, pulling his gun out of his pocket and putting it against her temple. There was one man walking toward him through the carnage, staring at them, focused and deadly. His face was covered with black polish, and his mouth was bleeding. Elspeth wanted to cry at the sight of him, but she kept still and quiet.
“Stop,” he said. “Stop or I’ll blow her brains out.”
“The boy is coming,” Alexander said. “We’re bringing him here, but you won’t get him if you kill her. Put the gun down.”
“I want to see him!”
MacAvoy walked forward from the back of the room, his arm wrapped around Payden, a knife at the boy’s throat. “Get rid of the woman and follow me. I’ve got men and horses outside. We can get him to the ship, I tell you.”
“Who are you?”
“MacAvoy be my name, and my family died at the hands of the MacTavishes. Leave the woman. We’ll be able to make the tide. Hurry!”
Elspeth’s eyes widened in disbelief, and she struggled as Wallace dragged her around the side of the room toward the door.
“Go,” MacAvoy said. “Go! I’m right behind you!”
Wallace pushed Elspeth away and lurched through the door.
Alexander charged for Elspeth as she landed hard on her side, her body going slack. He picked her up in his arms, leaned back against the wall, and slid down until he touched the floor. He was crying. He couldn’t stop himself and didn’t care who saw him.
“Elspeth. My God, Elspeth,” he whispered against her hair.
She was moaning softly as she regained consciousness, tossing her head back and forth until her eyes opened and she recognized him.
“Alexander.”
Suddenly, she tried to wrench out of his arms and sit up. “Hurry,” she said, her words slurred due to the side of her face and her lips being swollen twice their size. “Hurry! How could MacAvoy do this to us? And James is dead! Hurry! We’ve got to save Payden.”
He shook his head and held her shoulders. “MacAvoy is not a traitor to the MacTavishes. He did it to get him to release you. It was our only chance, with a gun at your temple.”
Tears filled his eyes again just as James knelt before him. He looked quickly away while Elspeth scrambled to her knees and threw herself into her brother’s arms.
“My dearest girl,” James whispered and closed his arms around her. “You’re alive.”
Elspeth sobbed against James. She turned and reached out her hand to Alexander. He took it and kissed her bloody and torn palm, the rope burns above it raw.
“They said you were dead,” she said to James.
“I’m here and alive, and we need to get you to a doctor,” he said. Payden knelt down beside his brother.