Page 43 of Enchantment of a Highlander

He did not fear her cutting him. The tremble of her hand told him she would not.

No, it was his own loathing chasing him from her cottage and into the black, black night where he belonged, where he could be alone with the demons who shrieked in his mind what he already knew.

He was just like his father.

Chapter Thirteen

The savage wind howled off the coast. It swept through Alec’s clothes to the deepest part of his bones, where a chill settled. He forced one foot in front of the other and fought off the fatigue pulling at him. Sleep promised a place where his head didn’t ache and his insides didn’t squeeze with painful regret, but he couldn’t give in.

The nearer he drew toward the village, the more he cursed his own weakness.

Celia would be arriving at Duart Castle soon to wait upon Duncan. He should have waited for her, to explain himself. But there was nothing to say that could make any of this right.

Several people milled around on a dirt road between rows of simple cottages when he arrived. The wariness on their faces had long since given way to gratitude and most smiled in his direction.

He nodded in greeting, sober enough now to acknowledge etiquette. His gaze scanned each face with great care.

He found himself always looking through the faces of the men and seeking out the familiar ones from his memory, the warriors his father once held in his employ.

If he found the soldiers he sought, his force would be strong enough to defend the villagers. He would not need the marriage to Saraid. He couldn’t, in good conscience, marry her with his thoughts fixed on Celia.

Even if she had taken a lover, Alec could not ease her from his mind.

Not yet.

Alas, none of the men he saw were the ones he needed.

No doubt the villagers knew where the men hid, but they still did not trust him enough to divulge the whereabouts of his father’s former soldiers.

Never before had he needed them as badly as he did now.

All he had to do was convince them he was a better man.

His chest ached so badly it squeezed the breath from him.

His actions the previous night made him just like his father, the very man he’d tried to convince everyone, including himself, he was better than.

He never should have had the whisky. It let the darkness come too quickly and left him too weak to fight it off.

A powerful lack of control.

He thought back to his father, to how the man drank without shame and raged without mercy.

And Alec thought back to how many times he’d sat in front of his mother’s door through the night, ready to protect her. He flinched from the sting of the memory.

The scent of fish mingled with briny ocean in the whipping gusts. New roofs showed light against the dinginess of the homes. There was still much to do in the way of repairs, but those would come another day. Nothing would sway Alec from his mission.

Two people leaning into one another along the side of a building caught his attention.

Almost nothing.

All the energy he lacked earlier swirled up in him like the red hot embers of a fire. He stalked across the worn road to where Grant propped himself against a building with one arm while he whispered to a comely redhead. The woman giggled behind her hand.

Alec wasted no time with speech. He cocked his elbow back and smashed his fist into Grant’s high cheekbone. It connected with a dull slapping sound and Grant staggered backward.

The ache in Alec’s hand was one of the most gratifying pains he’d ever felt.

A gasp hissed from the woman and she pressed herself back against the wall. Alec turned to her and found her mouth hanging open in shock.