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The Scot tugs it down over my head. "Now you're ready."
My pulse has sped up, but that is not anxiety. It's…exertion. They've dragged me through the castle compound at a brisk pace.
I hear a thump which I recognize as someone opening the door to the green. Then a hand settles on my back, between my shoulder blades, and the owner of that hand pushes me through the opening. I keep walking, at my captor's insistence, until I am finally allowed to stop. The warmth of the sun penetrates my hood, and I feel a cushion of grass under my feet. We have reached the green.
Now what? Not sure I want to find out.
Someone whisks the hood off my head.
I blink several times until my brain at last understands the change in my environment. I see lots of MacTaggarts as well as Dixons and Hunters. Then I notice a familiar figure standing a dozen yards away, maybe a bit more, and my pulse accelerates for a different reason.
Kate Wagner stands at the front of the crowd. When she sees me, she waves and gives me a tight smile.
Did these twats abduct her too?
Logan grasps my shoulders and turns me away from the crowd. That's when I see it.
Callum stands several yards away with his cousin Lachlan beside him. Lachlan holds a canvas hood in his hand, which I assume he just removed from Callum's head. What these people have in mind, I can't even guess. Kidnapping, manhandling, and now…who knows what.
"Please don't kill each other," Kate shouts.
I glance back at her, and she winces. Why would she do that? Perhaps she knows what this lot has planned for me and my former best mate. Wincing doesn't bode well, does it? Not that I'm worried. These blokes don't scare me, and their wives certainly do not.
"Now that you're both here," Lachlan says, "we can get started with the intervention."
Jack MacTaggart emerges from the crowd, taking up a position between me and Callum but off to the side a bit. "This is a radical intervention. Lachlan and I are the referees."
"Referees?" I say. "You'd better explain, or I'm leaving."
Behind me, Logan chuckles. Yes, I know it's him, though I can't see the man. No one else laughs the way he does. "You aren't leaving until we say so. Do ye think ye can get away from all these people? They're the hunting party, if it should become necessary to retrieve you. That will only happen if you try to run. I donnae recommend that."
"Yes, you're so terribly frightening, Logan. Get on with it, would you? Whatever rubbish you have planned doesn't scare me."
"Just be glad Magnus isn't here. He would snap your neck for what you've done."
"Me? What about your lying arse of a cousin?" I flap a hand in Callum's direction. "This is all his fault."
"Haud yer wheesht," Callum snarls. "Not my fault Kate didn't want you."
Before I can respond, Lachlan announces, "Here are the rules of the match. There are no rules."
"Match?" I say. "What are you on about?"
"The wrestling match."
"I don't know how to wrestle."
"Neither does Callum. That makes it a fair competition."
This is insanity. They want us to fight?
Lachlan takes a deep breath and shouts, "Ready! Set! Go!"
Oh, bloody hell.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kate
