Secrets to Seducing a Scot - By Michelle Marcos Page 0,1

not show his face to a battle alongside his own clansmen? A battle in which he is not only duty-bound to present himself, but honor-bound by the loyalty he’s sworn to the chief?”

Malcolm didn’t recognize any of these men, but they were unified by the tartan that made up their kilts. The same tartan that Malcolm wore.

“I made my case before the chief personally. I have no quarrel with the McBrays—my son Hamish is to be married to a McBray lass. I could no’ fight them.”

“Ye mean ye would not fight them. Ye and yer tenants would have increased our showing on the battlefield. It may not have come to a head if they had seen us strong in number. But without ye we were outnumbered, and the McBrays saw it. They tore us to strips. The battle was lost in only two hours.”

A sheen of perspiration broke out on his father’s lined forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” A man stepped out from the pack. He was unwashed, his thinning hair matted to his head, and he had deep, dark circles under his eyes. “I saw both my sons slain on that battlefield. I found my William with a claymore in his chest. My boy Robert had his neck broken. It took an hour for him to die.” Despair gnarled the man’s face. “Ye don’t know the depths of sorry yet!”

John swallowed hard. “I know ye’re grieving. But the blame for yer boys does not rest on me.”

“Aye, it does,” said the bearded man. “His sons’ death, as well as every man out there who lost life or limb, is on yer head. Ye and every man jack of yers who hid with yer womenfolk inside the safety of yer homes. Lads, let it no’ be said that there is no justice among our clan. An eye for an eye. If Angus here lost two sons, then John must not be allowed to keep his!”

“No!” his mother screamed as she dove in front of her older sons.

A heavyset man punched her in the face, and she crashed to the floor. Malcolm’s brother Thomas barreled into the man, but he was overtaken by two more. John flew to his rescue, his dagger raised in the air.

War had broken out in Malcolm’s home.

Malcolm’s heart pounded in his ears. His breathing raced inside his hairless chest as he helplessly looked on at the melee.

And suddenly he remembered … he was not helpless. In his sweaty palm was the sheathed dagger he had taken from Thomas’s room.

Could he do this? Could he use this knife to kill a man?

He heard his father scream in pain, and a geyser of righteous anger spewed from inside Malcolm’s belly. He unsheathed the weapon and flew into the tangle of men, a war cry tearing from his adolescent throat.

But before he could plunge it into a man’s back, someone grabbed him from behind and threw him to the wooden floor. The man with the ginger beard fell on top of him, driving the air from his lungs. Malcolm tried to wriggle out from underneath him, but the man didn’t let him go until he had wrenched the weapon from Malcolm’s weakened hand.

Malcolm came to his feet, snarling. Hatred welled up inside him as he stared at the bearded man. Fear dissolved into bloodlust, and Malcolm now knew that he needed no weapon to kill his opponent. His fingers curled like claws.

The man didn’t show the slightest fear of Malcolm, but Malcolm was about to make him regret that. A wildness came over him, like the fight of a cornered animal. Though he was unarmed, Malcolm lunged at the bearded man. He used his fists, his feet, his teeth … anything to defeat the man who had brought the attack against his family. In the back of his mind, Malcolm knew that the man held not only a claymore, but also Thomas’s dagger. Any minute now the bearded man would plunge the dagger into Malcolm’s body. But he didn’t care. Malcolm had lost all fear of death.

What he lacked in strength he made up for in speed. Again and again, Malcolm pummeled the man in the face and body. Finally, the man dropped the dagger on the floor, and Malcolm dove for it. He seized the dagger from the floor. But just as he straightened up again, he realized he had walked into a trap.

The bearded man swung his meaty fist into Malcolm’s face. It hit him squarely on the cheek,