A Highlander Christmas by Sophie Renwick Cindy Miles Dawn Halliday

flourish of his sword, swiped it in a downward angle across Logan’s shirt.
    Logan sucked in a breath. Maggie moaned softly. Red spilled over his chest, pasting his sliced shirt to his skin. He brought his fingers up to touch his bloody chest, blinking hard as if trying to focus his vision. His sword arm dropped to his side, and Maggie took a sobbing breath.
    “Do you yield, Douglas?” Innes asked loudly.
    Logan clenched his teeth.
    “ Do . . . you . . . yield ?” Innes screamed.
    A muscle twitched in Logan’s jaw.
    “No!” What was happening? Acidic tears pricked at the back of Maggie’s eyes. “Don’t yield! Don’t give up. Attack!”
    Torean’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “He cannot, Maggie.”
    “What?” she breathed.
    “They vowed beforehand to grant quarter after first blood.”
    Maggie’s breath froze in her throat. She stared at the two men on the stage. The ruckus of the screaming onlookers around her dimmed to a background hum.
    Logan had lost. Even if he wished to fight Innes to the death, even if he could kill him right now with one well-placed blow, honor wouldn’t permit him to renege on a vow.
    Innes raised his sword and swiped it down the opposite direction on Logan’s chest, creating a bloody X.
    “Do you yield?” Innes shouted. He was all but jumping up and down with victorious glee. “Do you? Do you?”
    Logan fully turned his sword away from Innes, pointing it behind him. “Aye,” he growled. “I yield.”
    The crowd groaned, unhappy that its entertainment had been cut so short. Maggie blinked through cloudy eyes as Innes raised his hands, bowed, and beamed in triumph.
     

    “I’m going home,” she said harshly.
    Maggie stood in front of the long head table in the great hall, her hands on her hips, facing Torean and his closest advisors. Including Innes Munroe, who sat two seats away from her cousin. The bastards had promised her that Logan was all right, that he’d survive his wounds, but they hadn’t allowed her to go to him. Because, of course, she was Innes’s chattel now.
    Logan had been taken straight from the duel to the castle healer. After the doctor dressed his wounds, he would continue on his journey north as agreed.
    Logan had somehow lost. She didn’t understand it—he seemed to have simply given up. When she confronted Torean with the oddness of Logan’s behavior in the duel, her cousin just gave her a strange look, then turned away to continue the discussion of the fight with his men.
    None of it made sense.
    In the end, though, Logan’s behavior during the duel didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he’d lost. Her heart had shattered. Logan was leaving. Innes intended to rape her into submission, and Torean intended to permit it.
    A shudder twisted down her spine as she met Innes’s gaze. His intent was obvious in the way he eyed her over his roasted goose leg.
    Over her dead body, she thought dispassionately, staring at him through narrowed eyes as he leered back at her. Goose grease smeared his thick lips and dripped from his chin, and meat chunks were wedged between his yellowed teeth.
    From the beginning she’d known it was folly to place her life in the hands of men. Logan’s intentions had been honorable, but in her heart she’d known it wasn’t his responsibility to save her.
    It was up to her to free herself from Innes Munroe. But how? Hopelessness swelled in her chest.
    “I think you should stay, cousin,” Torean said pleasantly. “We’ve marvelous entertainments planned this night. My bard—”
    She grimaced at him. “No. I want to go home.”
    Torean’s gaze flitted from her to Innes and back. “Very well.”
    Innes smacked his hand down on the table. “What?” he roared. “You promised I could take ’er after the duel!”
    “Today?” Maggie croaked in panic. Torean had promised the brute he could marry her today ?
    Torean made a placating gesture with his hands and smiled at Innes. “My lady cousin is a touch upset