Read Online Captured Heart by Heather McCollum - Free Book Online Page A

was more alive here than ever before. He reached up for her and before she could react, he plucked her off Pippen and set her on the ground.
    She would have gasped but there wasn’t time. Pippen was now at her back and Caden stood tall as a mountain before her. She glanced down and then straight before her. Both positions seemed awkward. She finally tipped her head way back until her gaze met his again.
    “You mean fight for it , the land, the mountains,” Meg corrected.
    “Aye.” He stepped back and pulled Meg away from the horses. He pointed toward one mountain.
    “Druim Beinn,” he said.
    “Ridge Mountain,” Meg translated.
    “Druim Keep, my home, sits at its base.”
    “You own all this land?” she asked. “Up to that mountain?”
    Caden’s finger traced along three mountains to the east and west. “From there to there, all the way to where we stand, lass, belongs to the Macbains.”
    Meg’s eyes roamed the vastness. “And which way are the Munros?”
    When she turned to him, his face resembled stone, his eyes dark.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked.
    “Much.”
    He touched her hair and the space between them seemed to dissolve as he moved closer. A shiver ran through her that had little to do with the cool wind.
    “There are things ye must be told and I will tell ye, Meg.”
    He touched her back and she instantly registered his rushing blood, his contracting biceps, and his tight muscles. The vessels in his head flexed with tension. He must have an ache in his head.
    Meg concentrated on his physical parameters instead of the way his fingers threaded down to the ends of her hair. She should move away. She should breathe. Meg drew in a breath as he cupped her cheek in a warm palm.
    “First…” he trailed off as his lips lowered.
    Good Lord, what is he doing?
    Meg’s heart pounded as his breath touched hers. His lips followed. Warm and powerful, Caden’s mouth moved gently over hers. She inhaled his piney masculine scent. Twisting bubbles tickled inside her stomach. Her head slanted on its own, unknowingly allowing the kiss to deepen. She sensed the energy filling his body, blood rushing even faster, heart thumping in rhythm with hers.
    Good Lord, what am I doing back ?
    Caden growled low and lifted her into the shelter of his body. Meg’s fingers moved up to the soft waves of his hair, the same waves she’d been staring at for days. Giddy excitement, mixed with something far deeper, ran through her body like a poison, spreading to the ends of every extremity. She all but clung to him as her legs wobbled like a freshly born colt. She breathed and kissed and tasted while a tingling ache grew heavy in her abdomen. What new malady was this? Madness and necessity all wrapped together.
    Pulling back, Caden rested his forehead against hers. She breathed in his essence, not wanting to let go.
    “Meg,” he said, his lips so close to hers that they brushed them in a feather-light kiss. He was talking again. She tried to pay attention. “There are things ye need to know—”
    Nickum howled. The warning snapped Meg out of her fog and into alert.
    “Nickum?” She pulled out of Caden’s arms. Something was wrong. Nickum stood at the crest of the hill near the tree line. Her wolf wouldn’t expose himself in daylight and wouldn’t call out unless under dire circumstances.
    Meg took two steps away from Caden and turned at the same time Ewan’s voice rang out through the glade.
    “Macbains! Batail!” His tone poured ice water through Meg’s flushed body.
    “Meg!” Caden shouted at the same instance she heard an arrow zing through the air. A small patch of meadow grass beside her leapt into the air as the arrow punctured the serene hillside.
    “God’s teeth!” she swore on a gasp.
    “Get down!” Caden ordered.
    Zing!
    The sharp pain ripped through Meg’s shoulder, slamming into her with enough force to yank her body to the ground. She flew off her feet and into the lake.
    Icy mountain lake water