Highlander's Kiss

Chapter 13: Colin

Colin had been waiting for a moment like this. After roving around the highlands for the last couple of days and making his way toward the lowlands, he was ready. He laid low in the underbrush while a cart passed by, and then he rolled out and struck the wheel, frightening the horse and throwing the driver from his seat.

The haggard old man that Colin had knocked down looked around in confusion. Colin stood over him and cackled, looking exceptionally pleased.

"Who are ye?" the man cried. "What'd ye do to my horse?"

"I'm going to take it off yer hands, auld man," Colin said. He snatched up the reins of the horse. He climbed on top of the animal, somewhat clumsily, and sneered at his victim. "Good luck out here, it's vicious. Especially with winter setting in..."

He lashed the reins and the horse darted off down the path. Despite Colin's lack of experience with riding horses, he had picked it up pretty quickly as he rode with Barron's men across the highlands. It wasn't too complicated for him, just controlling the beast through force of will.

He left the old man and his over turned cart in the dust. Colin hadn't been this thrilled for a long time, and his heart surged with adrenaline. For so long he had been deprived, kept back, punished for trying to step forward. When Robert had tasked him with taking care of the prisoners, he finally found his calling. Dominance.

There was one problem, who to go to now? Surely, Barron had been successful taking back Iverlochy, and if that were the case, Robert would be no where to be found. Colin rode the stolen horse down the trail, following its gentle curves over hills covered in decaying and brown grass. He headed south. Kinfauns might not come to his aid, but he had a feeling a small country further south might.

If he paid the right price, and said the right words, that is. But perhaps he would stop by Kinfauns first, just in case any slighted Maxwell clansmen might want to join him. He recalled a cousin of his, who Robert had callously left back in Kinfauns when he moved to Iverlochy to join the King. Dominic.

He would need any help he could get. But after his run-in with the MacKenzies, he wasn't willing to feel that powerless ever again. He could borrow power, certainly. It was within his grasp already.

The End