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pause. He was not used to disobedience—that was obvious. His gruff manner, his brusque tone, his natural authority, all spoke of a man who was used to giving orders. But he was too rough around the edges—a leader, not a laird. Probably one of Coll’s luchd-taighe guardsmen. Or a captain of one of his castles. Or, more likely, his henchman.
    Yet despite what she’d done to him, he’d treated her with remarkable courtesy. But she sensed that he did not make idle threats. So unless she wanted to be tied up, next time she tried to escape she’d better make sure she wasn’t caught.
    She sank her chin in her hands and stared at the large standing stone at the edge of the grassy meadow. Watching as the rising sun created a shadow across the ground. These odd stones that were scattered all over Scotland had always fascinated her. Some said they belonged to the Druids, but most believed the stones were placed there by the faerie folk.
    Though normally she did not give much credence to the rampant superstition that seemed part of the very fabric of the Highlands, the stones did have a magical quality to them. It wasn’t hard to understand why such abundant lore surrounded them.
    A large shadow fell over her, this one from a living rock, and she glanced up to see him standing before her. With the sun shining behind his head and the enormous sword slung over his back, he looked like some Norse god of war coming to wreak havoc and destruction—on her.
    “Here, eat this.” He held out a bit more of the beef. “It will be the last until we reach Drimnin.”
    She took it with a nod.
    “You found the faerie circle?”
    “You mean the standing stone,” she corrected.
    “No.” He pointed to the circle of rocks around her. “The circle of stones you are sitting on.”
    She jumped up, not realizing the stone she was sitting on was one of about thirty low boulders set about in a circle.
    He smiled. “Afraid you will have bad luck?”
    “I’d say it’s rather too late for that.”
    He ignored her barb. “Are you superstitious?”
    She shook her head. “No. Not exactly. Respectful, perhaps.” She looked around and thought for a moment. “There is something magical about the place.”
    “It’s the Highlands, lass. There is magic everywhere you look.”
    He was right. It was impossible not to be struck by the beauty of the landscape around her. The hills, the lochs, the brilliant shades of green for as far as the eye could see. But she knew it was as deceptive as the men who lived here. She knew how quickly this place could change, turning cold, brutal, and remote. Barbarous. An unforgiving place of ancient feuds and endless killing. A place where men raised in war took what they wanted with no thought to the lives they were destroying.
    It had happened to her mother, and it had happened to her. Abducted like Persephone on her own descent into Hades.
    A hell that looked like the Garden of Eden.
    It had been different when she was a child. The few times she’d seen one of her brothers or sisters, they’d recounted stories of how she used to run wild around the hills of Dunvegan. But she didn’t remember. Her father had died when she was only five, and she’d left Dunvegan and never returned. Rory had tried repeatedly to bring her back, but her mother always made some excuse to prevent her from going. Soon, she’d stopped wanting to.
    But once in a while, something would jog her memory—like a whisper of something that was just out of reach.
    She shook off the memory. No matter what she’d once felt for the Highlands, it had all changed when she’d learned the truth of what had happened to her mother. Of why she rarely smiled. Of why she hated the Highlands and the brutal men who lived there.
    Janet Maclean Maclean (twice) MacIan MacLeod née Campbell had been sold from husband to husband, a pawn in the political machinations of men. Manipulated by those who should have protected her. Used. She was a commodity, and