Unwilling (Highland Historical #2)

safe with me,” she
shrugged.  Best not to antagonize the fellow.  Who know what a desperate man
would do? 
    “Yer lucky she’s a sweet wench.”
The other burly man cackled.  “Or ye’d likely not live to see yer next—” 
    An axe imbedded in his skull,
effectively cutting off the rest of his sentence. 

Chapter
Two
     
    A dark demon stalked the mist.  As
soon as the axe had appeared, it was retrieved by a monstrosity who moved too swiftly
for her eyes to track.  The panicked sounds of dying men, muffled by the heavy
vapor, rose like the crescendo of a macabre dance. 
    Lindsay froze at the window.  Her
mouth formed a silent scream as she watched the man with the head wound slump
from his horse and disappear into the haze.  She’d never seen a man die
before.  Not violently.  She’d never known what the matter inside a skull
looked like. 
    She knew now.
    The grimy man waved his sword
about, calling for various compatriots.   “How many are there?” he bellowed.  “What
colors are they wearing?”
    Only the crunch of bone and the
screams of the dying answered him. 
    The blurred form she’d briefly seen
didn’t wear a tartan or clan colors.  Only black.  Lindsay could feel tears of
fear burning in her eyes, but she couldn’t bring herself to blink.  If she did,
perhaps the demons would find her in the darkness behind her eyelids. 
    A handful of men rallied to duck
behind her side of the coach.  Their backs to the heavy cart and their
shoulders together, they frantically traded what little information they had.  They
kept their swords at the ready.
    “There has to be at least ten of
them.”
    “Fucking swift bastards.  They
killed five at once!”
    “They’re even killing the horses.”
    “How can they see through the
mists?”
    Lindsay clung to the windowsill and
frantically scanned the vapor.  She could maybe see three spans in front of the
men’s heads crouched beneath her window.  The sounds of death abated, and an
eerie silence hung as thick as the mist.  No birds sang in the trees.  No
insects hummed in the meadows.  No horses moved or whinnied in the distance. 
It was a though the earth held her breath.  It took a grave burn in her lungs for
Lindsay to realize she did the same. 
    A soft gasp escaped her.  It
sounded as loud as a scream in the permeating silence.  Lindsay couldn’t tell
if the sudden rushing in her ears was the nearby river or her own blood.  Were
they gone?  Had they allowed a few survivors?  Maybe they were horse thieves,
and they only killed the ponies they could not keep or take with them.
    A knife sailed through the air and
found purchase in the ledge of the window.  Lindsay stared dumbly at it vibrating
in the wood not three inches from her eyes.  A choked sound escaped her, but in
a flash of inspiration she wrapped her fingers around the handle and pulled. 
    It wouldn’t budge.  Throwing a
panicked glance into the swirling fog, she tried with both hands to no avail. 
    The axe came out of the mist next. 
A stream of blood and gore slung from its honed blade before it claimed yet
another victim.  A MacKay head rolled to the earth, and the axe rested atop of
the head’s former post.  That left five men alive.
    Lindsay dove to the floor of the
coach.  If only this wretched contraption had another exit on the opposite side! 
Not even a window to create a crosswind.  She would have made a frantic dash to
the west.  That is, if they didn’t have the entire conveyance surrounded.  
    She frantically looked around for
something, anything she could use as a weapon.  Faded cushions on the
sparse and uncomfortable benches, her blanket, and cloak were her only
companions. 
    Maybe she could use the cushions to
block out the gruesome and horrific sounds from outside.  She grabbed for one,
but something stopped her.  The thundering roar of a raging beast.  The gurgling
cries ripped from throats filled with blood.  Metal slicing the air.  Bones crunching
beneath heavy weapons. 
    As soon as those warriors finished
dying, she would be next.
    If those villains murdered her today,
they would not find her body cowering beneath ugly cushions.  Not Lindsay Ross. 
They would say that she died bravely.  Fighting like a hellion for her life and
her virtue. 
    She hoped it wouldn’t come to
that. 
    With grim resolve and trembling
limbs, she forced herself to sit back on the bench.  The moment she settled in,
the latch burst and