Excerpt of My Fierce Highlander by Vonda Sinclair

Scottish Highlands, 1618

A stiff breeze carried the scent of bruised grass and blood on its icy breath.

Death.

Gwyneth Carswell dropped into a crouch and peered through brambles at the tartan-clad bodies, a dozen or more, lying in the dusky gloaming. While gathering herbs earlier, she’d heard the sounds of battle—men shouting, steel clanging, horses screaming.

A chill shook her. The men of the MacIrwin clan, her distant kin, lived and died only for a skirmish. Her sheltered upbringing in England had molded her into the person she was, a lover of peace, but she’d been in the Highlands long enough to expect brutality at every turn. Thank God her son had stayed in the cottage with Mora.

"More senseless death," she whispered, yearning to run and hide in the cottage, curl up beneath the blankets, and forget she was a healer. Forget all the drained blood and horrifying wounds that would never heal.

But she must not. She must again face death all around her. Dread and nausea rising within her, she covered her nose with a handkerchief. After peering about to make sure she was alone, she crept onto the soggy moor and forced herself to look at the butchered bodies of her cousins…and their enemies. Who had they been fighting?

Pressing her eyes closed to block out the slit throats and other mutilation, she murmured a prayer, both for their departed souls and for strength that she might keep going.

Please, allow me to save the life of at least one.

A haunting groan floated on the breeze. A sign? Her prayer answered? Gwyneth froze, listening. The groan sounded again, straight ahead.

She rushed to the far edge of the clearing.

Daylight dwindled, but she knew she’d never before seen the injured man, a large warrior with long dark hair, obviously from the enemy clan. She could not tear her gaze from his clean-shaven face, smeared and spattered with blood. Never had she seen such a striking man. But something more captivated her, something she could only sense with her woman’s intuition. She yearned for him to open his eyes, but he didn’t.

Blood soaked through his white shirt and fine, pale-blue doublet.

Kneeling on the damp ground, she attempted to press her hand against his chest to feel his heartbeat, but a rolled-up parchment lay in her way within his doublet. She removed it and checked his heart. The thump was slow but strong and steady.

Her eyes locked to his face again. Enticing, yes, but still an enemy.

Wary of him and what message he carried, she stripped the ribbon from the missive and flattened the thick paper. In the dim light, she could barely decipher a few of the Gaelic words inscribed in bold letters across the top.

A peace agreement? Had the MacIrwins ambushed them? She stared down at the man again, lifted his hand and found a seal ring on his finger. A chief?

For a second, it seemed the very ground had a pulse. The vibrating sensation disoriented her.

Horses!

Distant hoof-beats grew louder and thundered in her direction—the MacIrwin reinforcements coming to finish off their enemies. Her pulse roared in her ears.

If they discovered this man hanging onto life, they’d cut his throat. Especially if he was a chief who wanted peace. Gwyneth crammed the parchment back inside his doublet and stood.

She grasped the thick leather belt that held the man’s plaide in place at his waist and struggled to drag him a few feet into the yellow blooming gorse and weeds. Good lord, he was heavy, comprised of honed warrior muscle. Another tug, then she rolled him down a short incline and behind the bushes, praying all this shifting wouldn’t worsen his injuries. She spread her dull-colored skirts and plaid arisaid over him to conceal the visibility of his light-colored doublet in the dusk.

Her body trembling, she gently bit her knuckle to quiet her chattering teeth. Please, do not let them find us. She hardly dared to breathe.

The horses’ hooves thumped over the grass, and the riders yelled in Gaelic—mostly vows of revenge against the cursed MacGraths.

Through the bushes and gorse, she watched as they loaded the dead bodies onto horses.

Warmongers!

Several minutes later, the MacIrwin men rode away. After a while, silence descended and naught could be heard but the nearby stream and a faraway owl. Gwyneth calmed by slow degrees.

Taking a deep breath, she rose on shaking legs. The man lying at her feet was so large she couldn’t move him again, not alone, uphill, for the strength that had come with fear had ebbed.

She ran up to the stone cottage, her feet tangling in the rocks and low-growing plants.

Breathing hard, Gwyneth burst through the door, the bitter scent of peat smoke and tangy drying herbs replacing that of fresh air. "Mora, did you hear the battle?"

"Aye, I reckon they were fighting the MacGrath. ’Tis always a blood feud betwixt them." Her friend and fellow healer bent over her knitting, her gray head wrapped in a white kerch. The fire smoldering in the center of the room provided little light.

"One man still lives. He’s been knocked out, but his breathing is strong. We must bring him here and see to his injuries."

"Who is he?" Suspicion laced through Mora’s thick brogue.

"I know not."

"One of the enemy?"

"Likely."

"Mmph. I won’t be helping the MacGraths."

"A dozen men are dead. For what purpose? All this fighting is madness!"

"Easy for you to say, English. Lived here nigh on six years, you have, and still you ken naught of our Highland ways."

She knew enough about their violent way of life and hated it. Gwyneth glanced at her five-year-old son sleeping in the box bed on the other side of the room and lowered her voice. "I would die before I’d let Rory become one of them, giving up his precious life over a senseless dispute." She had to find a way to take him out of the Highlands before Laird Donald MacIrwin forced him into the ranks of his fighting men. "And you’re right, I cannot understand so much bloodshed over nothing."