Highlander’s Twisted Identity (Highlanders 0f Clan Craig Book 2) Read online

  Highlander’s Twisted Identity

  She is the woman of his dreams, but he must become her nightmare…

  Shona Thompson

  Contents

  Thank you

  Highlanders of Clan Craig

  About the book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Afterword

  Highlanders of Clan Craig

  Do you want more Romance?

  Highlander’s Buried Identity

  Never miss a thing

  About the Author

  Thank you

  I want to personally thank you for purchasing my book. It really means a lot to me. It’s a blessing to have the opportunity to share with you, my passion for writing, through my stories.

  Highlanders of Clan Craig

  Book#1

  Highlander’s Buried Identity

  * * *

  Book#2 (this book)

  Highlander's Twisted Identity

  About the book

  Revenge never tasted so dangerously sweet…

  Ever since he was a wee bairn, Wallace was deprived of everything. He never knew his father and he was robbed of his right to become the Laird of Clan Craig. Instead, he and his mother have been living in shame and bitterness.

  Now the time has come; Wallace must punish his father’s murderers and claim what is rightfully his. The plan includes the bewitching lass who has been invading his dreams.

  Being the Laird’s adopted daughter and forbidden to go anywhere without guards, Freya feels confined in Craig Clan. Secretly, she cherishes the memory of a peculiar lad whom she met in one of her childhood adventures.

  Now trapped in a fire, Freya is saved by the same boy, who has turned into a handsome Highlander. When their eyes meet, their old flame is rekindled.

  But how come Wallace is always present, whenever Freya is in danger? Surely he doesn’t have anything to do with it…or does he?

  Maybe her decision to bring him home with her isn’t a wise one…

  She is the woman of his dreams, but he must become her nightmare…

  * * *

  Chapter One

  “Get yer dirty hands off of me!”

  The red-haired girl snarled fearsomely, holding the sword up high in the direction of the brigands.

  She hadn’t heard them coming, their footsteps silent as mice, or maybe the slithers of snakes, as they advanced through the bare winter landscape.

  Probably it was the hounding wind, pursuing her since leaving the keep, which had blanched out all warning of their approach.

  She should have expected it, she thought. This was bandit country, after all. The girl hitched up her skirts and trudged through the little pocket of trees, but there was no way out. She was trapped.

  “Ah, she’s a wee spark this one. I like a lassie wi’ spirit!” said the brigand.

  The man’s lean, weather-beaten face contorted in something that looked like pain, but from his bovine grunts, was evidently amusement. In an instant, he wrestled the dagger from the girl’s small hands. It wasn’t hard.

  “Aye,” agreed a second man, coming forwards to leer closer at the girl. This one had greasy dirty blond hair that hung around his face. She could not help but flinch as he pressed his unattractive features towards her young face.

  He smelled, and badly. The young girl was not used to such rough ways. Despite her bravado, she knew she was out of her depth. They could do anything to her now.

  The young girl prayed silently up to the heavens for something, anything, to allow her to get away. Oh, where on earth were Robbie and Brodie—the bodyguards her father had assigned her? How she wished she hadn’t given them the slip.

  Her clothes didn’t help either. She stared down at the heavy linen shift and fine tartan plaid—which looked impressive, but was almost impossible to walk in, even without the shoes. But her father had insisted.

  “Yer a lady now, so start looking like one!” he said as his daughter pouted angrily. “Ye cannae go about like some serving wench!”

  It wasn’t intentional, but his poor turn of phrase had pierced her heart. “Some serving wench”—the words rang through her ears, tauntingly. Without meaning to, her father had immediately invoked the circumstances of her birth.

  Her parents had always been straight with her; she was adopted as a baby, —the child of a serving girl who died upon childbirth.

  She remembered her mother telling her about her birth, and if she was vague about the details, she was clear about one thing.

  “We chose ye, remember, which is more important than anything,” her mother Sine had explained. And she believed them. The girl knew that her parents loved her, but some days, it was too much.

  “An’ if we’re strict, it’s for yer own good,” her father Finlay had shouted. “The clanless lands are just tae dangerous for a wee lassie!”

  These were the last words her father had yelled at her as she slipped away. She hadn’t really put much thought into where she was going. She just needed to get away from them, from him. Sometimes he smothered her with his love.

  And so, she had found herself running in impractical silk boots, out of the keep and across the moors to that forbidden place: the clanless.

  Despite its risky status, the small plot of trees in the desolate glen was the best place for miles around to hunt deer, which she could do as skillfully as any man.

  Almost as though it was chiding her, a whistle of wind blew across the woodland and straight into her face. It was so hard that it rippled her porcelain skin and sent her long, wavy red hair flying into the air.

  An errant cloud scuttled across the noonday sky, bringing with it a sudden shaft of light that fastened upon the young lassie’s face. Even in the grips of panic, she was strikingly pretty, her jade green eyes gleaming out from her white-as-clay complexion. It outlined perfectly her snub nose and rosebud lips, drawing a line under her determined chin.

  She didn’t want to hear it, but her father’s voice wafted into her head once more. “Whatever ye do, keep away from the clanless. Anything could happen to ye…ask yer mammie!”

  Back in the reign of James VII, her father had rescued her mother, Sine, from vagabonds in almost identical circumstances—in this very spot.

  But the girl hadn’t listened. Of course she hadn’t. Headstrong, she had simply tossed back her wavy red hair and bounded away from the claustrophobic keep, into the uncertain sunshine of a wild February day. Now his words replayed in her head, full of reproach.

  But she wasn’t done yet! This trio of scoundrels might have the upper hand for now, but she was not going to give up without a fight! The girl was her mother’s daughter in every way, except blood. And if her mother had come out fighting, then so would she!

  “I said let me pass,” she commanded imperiously. “I’m the Maid of Craig…once my father hears about this, ye’ll be sorry!”

  If she’d hoped this would impress them, then she was to be disappointed.

  “A dainty maid, ye say?” sneered the first one. He poked his crooked nose into her face.

  She shrank back from his foul breath. He was thin and weathered, and his toothless jaw rendered him sli
ghtly pathetic, but his rangy arms were stronger than they looked. As he dug his dirt-stained fingers into her flesh, he leered.

  “Aye, yer sweet as summer fruit…” he cackled lasciviously.

  “Tak’ yer dirty paws off me! I’m not of age, nor am I chattel for sale!”

  “Yer auld enough for what I have in mind,” he chuckled.

  She felt herself go hot and cold simultaneously. The dagger that had been in her hands was now pressed deeply into his. Taking it, he ran the smooth contours of its silver handle down his callused digits.

  The jewel-encrusted dagger was the only thing she had left of her grandfather, the former Laird of Craig. Her father would be heartbroken if she lost it. She wanted to weep, but it wouldn’t do to show weakness to these cowards.

  “Give me that back!” screeched the girl. “I’ll kill ye with my bare hands if I have tae!”

  “Easy, lassie!” laughed the dirty man, as his disheveled companions leered yet closer. “Ye dinnae want tae be saying things like that now!”

  “She’s a real wildcat, this un’!” sneered the mousy blond one, as he drew nearer, too near. She spat venomously onto his greasy mane.

  “You shouldnae ha’ done tha’!” the first one said. He turned his surly face round to hers, giving her a rough shake of the head as he did so.

  “You don’t scare me!” she said, but it was a lie. Beneath the bravado, the young girl was trembling. Desperately, she tried to conceal her shaking hands. She hated to admit it, but her father had been right. This place was dangerous. Now she was trapped with no escape from these vagabonds.

  Then, something startled them all—“Now scuttle off and find yer spine!” a voice commanded.

  Stunned, she looked round to see a wild-looking boy of roughly her age—no more than fifteen—wielding a wide dagger straight at the throat of the main blackguard.

  The frightened wretch was almost panting in terror. The lad had him in a headlock, neck taut against the blade. For a moment, the lank-haired bandit looked as if he might fight back. But the boy was too swift. Without seeming to move, he launched a knife into the bandit’s side, and he went down with a terrifying wail. This was more than enough for the third man. He ran off, leaving his friend at the young lad’s mercy.

  The girl opened her eyes in amazement at the lad, juggling swords and fighting three men singlehanded. He wasn’t tall, but he was well-built, with ginger hair that tumbled crazily around his shoulders.

  She could not help noticing that, although it was cold, he was only wearing a simple léine, overlaid with a raggedy scarf—which on closer inspection, may have been the remnants of a plaid cloak.

  And his eyes…. she wasn’t a girl who was easily impressed, but the fire that crackled in his treacle brown eyes instantly ignited her. Whoever this lad was, he had come at just the right time!

  “Come on, lassie, let’s gang awa’!” he hissed, suddenly turning to face her and marveling at what he saw.

  The girl did not need a second invitation, she lifted up her skirts—which, the boy saw were of the finest quality—and placed a dainty foot forward.

  “That’s if ye can run in all that finery!” he mocked. “What on earth made ye come out here on yer own?” he demanded, wrapping his strong, toned hand around hers as they ran. “Did ye lose yer mammie?”

  This was more than the young girl could take. She stopped and bristled visibly. “Watch yer mouth, laddie. I’m fourteen tomorra’!”

  “They’re getting away!” yelled one of the men. The lad didn’t waste any time looking back, but pulled on her arm to lead her away. She was rooted to the spot.

  “Faster, come on!” pleaded the boy. The hot breath of the men was hard on their heels and almost touching the back of their necks.

  “I’m trying!” squealed the girl frantically. But she was irredeemably mired in a ditch.

  “If ye weren’t done up like the Queen o’ France, then we might not be in this shambles!” he said.

  “Shut yer trap!” she hurled back, stubbornly refusing his gestures of help. “I was daein’ just fine without yer help!”

  He laughed. “What? Aye, it really looks like it!”

  Then he paused for a short while, looking her in the eye—although when she turned to look, he quickly glanced away.

  "So, who are ye?" he asked, intrigued.

  "I'm Freya, Maid of Craig! And ye'll be sorry for mocking me!" she said in her stiffest voice. "So, what about ye?" she asked.

  The lad was about to open his mouth when the words were taken from him.

  “Get her, lads!” the greasy brigand’s voice burst suddenly into their midst. Without hesitation, the boy hoisted the stuck girl out of the muddy ditch, barely looking back. Then he ran as fast as he could with Freya draped over him.

  “Put me down! Put me down!” she squealed, but he did not listen. Not until they were both over the ravine and past the little river which ran to the side of the wooded glen and back up the hillside to safety.

  “You left my shoe!” Freya screeched. “Put me down…where are ye taking me!”

  “I’m not taking ye anywhere!” the lad said, beginning to tire of her noise. “Just away from here…”

  “Well, they’ve gone now, so stop!” she commanded.

  He looked about him for a minute. The howling wind that had been circling the glen had finally dropped to a whisper, and the robbers had all disappeared. They were there alone; boy and girl, head-to-toe in mud, cast against the squally winter skies.

  There was nothing for miles around, just small bramble bushes poking out from the barren lands. But none of it detracted from her beauty. She was such a picture, her bright ginger hair tumbling wildly over her shoulders. Her white petticoats completely submerged in thick layers of mud. The lad couldn’t help himself; he laughed.

  “What are ye laughing at?” she flashed angrily.

  “You! The state you’re in! Seems to me from the waist up, yer a noble maid, and from below, yer naught but a waif!”

  Freya looked down. It was true. Her beautiful gown, the one that Sine had spent such a long time sewing, was completely ruined. She was going to go mad when she saw it. Worse still, she only wore one shoe now, and her feet were almost numb from the cold.

  “What madness took hold of ye to come out like that, wee lassie?” he asked mockingly.

  It was a good question, and she was asking herself the very same. “It was my father’s idea!” she found herself explaining to the boy.

  He cast his mocking brown eyes over her disparagingly. They were large, honey-colored pools framed with dusky lashes that were overlain by a determined set of eyebrows.

  And his hair—in the fleeting glints of sunlight that the cloud would permit—would turn from rusty amber to tawny red.

  Suddenly, Freya felt a creeping irritation with the way this older boy was laughing at her. Impetuously she leaned down, scooped up a clod of wet earth, and aimed it squarely at the lad’s lugholes.

  “There!” she steamed, triumphant, as he looked up in disbelief. “See how ye like being pelted with muck, if ye think it’s so funny!”

  “Hey!” complained the lad, brushing the wet dirt from his shabby plaid. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t already wet and dirty enough.

  “There’s more where that came from!” promised the fiery maid, reaching to pick up another handful. A sudden voice intercepted their play.

  “Freya! What on earth are ye playin’ at—look at the state of ye!”

  Both the girl and boy were rooted to the spot in surprise as the slender, but muscular, frame of Finlay came into view.

  Only in his forties, Finlay cut a noble figure against the dark gray skies.

  Not tall, but commanding somehow. He was known to be gentle and fair with his servants. However, Freya brought out his fiery streak.

  “That is enough tomfoolery. Gather yer shawls and come with me. Robbie is bringing a cart…” her father said, displeased.

  “That turncoat!” spat Freya
, disgusted. She knew it was unfair. It was Robbie and Brodie’s job to follow her everywhere, but they could have come for her themselves. They didn’t have to summon her father. “Wait till I see that tattle-tale!” she blazed.