Raising Hell in the Highlands Read online

  Raising Hell in the Highlands

  A Timeless Love, Volume 2

  Abbie Zanders

  Published by Abbie Zanders, 2016.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  RAISING HELL IN THE HIGHLANDS

  First edition. January 10, 2016.

  Copyright © 2016 Abbie Zanders.

  Written by Abbie Zanders.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Raising Hell in the Highlands (A Timeless Love, #2)

  Before You Begin

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Thanks for reading Aislinn’s story

  Special Thanks...

  Excerpt from Maiden in Manhattan:

  Also by Abbie Zanders

  About the Author

  Raising Hell in the Highlands

  A Timeless Love Series, Book 2

  (Originally Published as Lost In Time II)

  Before You Begin

  Please note that due to strong language and some steamy romantic interludes, this book is intended for mature (18+) readers. If this is not you, then

  Shame on you.

  Give this book to your mother (or other mature adult) and let them enjoy it.

  Prologue

  Aislinn Isobeille McKenna was a survivor.

  When the brutal car crash took the life of her family - including her mother - a full month before Aislinn was even supposed to draw her first breath, she pulled through – tiny, wrinkled and screaming, but alive.

  She was lucky, they’d said, to have been spared.

  When the much bigger kids in the low-income housing parks where she grew up bullied her, she became quite a scrapper. She learned how to turn the most mundane items into weapons – rocks, sticks, rusty pieces of tailpipe ripped from rotting junkers – and fought back. More often than not she wound up bloodied and slightly the worse for wear, but stronger and a little smarter, too.

  She was lucky, they’d said, that she was quick and resourceful enough to hold her own.

  And when she entered her last tour of duty overseas with the elite Rangers – though she herself could not officially be called one at the time because of her double-X chromosomes - and her assault vehicle was blown off the road by a land mine, the medics somehow managed to piece enough of her back together to send her home, though no one else in the convoy had been so lucky.

  Lucky, they’d said.

  Luck had nothing to do with it.

  Chapter 1

  “You are lucky you get that check from the government every month,” the landlord said, greedily snatching up the cash she held out to him. His fingers brushed against hers in the process, sending shudders of revulsion up and down her spine. In Aislinn’s opinion, the man was one step up on the evolutionary scale from a dung beetle.

  Beady black eyes leered at her, blatantly looking her up and down. The pungent aroma of his rank body odor mixed with his rancid breath; it was only through years of training and discipline that she managed to control her gag reflex. There was odious, and then there was Manny.

  “Some people actually have to work for a living,” he sneered.

  Aislinn didn’t rise to the bait. Manny had probably never done an honest day’s work in his life. Slum-lord, drug dealer, and part-time pimp didn’t count. The man was literally a boil on the ass of society.

  Or at least he was. By tomorrow, it was doubtful Manny would be anything. Assuming, of course, Manny did what he always did – that is, skim a little off the top for himself before handing over the rent money to the real owners. They were a group of highly-motivated individuals who preferred not to be ripped-off, and were less than pleased when they received anonymous tips concerning Manny’s entrepreneurial endeavors to create a little side-business of his own.

  Yep, tomorrow was Christmas, and the hard-working, blue-collar tenants of this building would be receiving a gift in the form of one less vile rat-bastard to make their lives miserable. It wasn’t much, perhaps, but it was the best she could give them under the circumstances.

  “Yeah. Everyone should be so lucky,” Aislinn responded in a voice devoid of emotion. She forced the door closed in his unshaven face and exhaled heavily.

  If he only knew what she had done to receive that monthly check. What she had seen. War. Blood. Carnage. Death. All of her life people had been telling her she was lucky, but she sure as hell didn’t feel that way.

  So she had a knack for not dying when everyone else around her did. Could that really be considered luck? How was it a good thing to be the only one left behind, to have people look at her, wondering why? What made her so fucking special?

  Maybe the ones who didn’t make it were the lucky ones. Freed from living in a world of violence and hate, they were beyond the pettiness and greed that polluted the land and the air and the hearts of so many. Whether you believed in some utopian form of afterlife or not, whatever came next had to be better.

  Unless, of course, you were riding the express lane straight to Hell.

  Aislinn didn’t think she was, but what did she know? Maybe the road to Hell really was paved with good intentions, in which case there was already a special pool of fire and brimstone with her name on it.

  These dismal thoughts and a thousand disheartening memories drifted through her mind. She surfed over them on the half-bottle of Jack Daniels, looking down impassively as if she was watching someone else’s life instead of her own.

  Had it been a movie, it would have done lousy at the box office. One unfortunate occurrence after another, without the occasional comic relief or romantic interest to make it bearable. Scenes of death, of malice, of poverty and cruelty flowing seamlessly from one minute to the next. By the halfway point, most people would have left their seats in search of something better. Those who managed to grit their teeth and last a bit longer would have no doubt been those rare, optimistic souls who always held out hope for a happy ending, though there seemed little chance of that at this point.

  Was this the end, she wondered? Or would there be another day, and another, a seemingly endless series of days that stretched out farther and farther, until there just wasn’t anything left?

  She was so tired. So very tired. At barely twenty-five years old, Aislinn McKenna could feel things were drawing to a close.

  The sad little solitary string of Christmas lights – an impulse buy from the nearby Walgreen’s - winked at her. The prism in her vision was the only clue that she had been crying. She hadn’t even realized it. Aislinn, as a rule, didn’t cry. There wasn’t much point, really. Not when it only signified a weakness. Not when there was no one there to hold you, or wipe the tears away, or offer some comforting words. When you were alone, and all was said and done, tears only depleted you of fluids that could be more useful elsewhere.

  She had no family. No friends. No life. A status known in the Army as SNAFU – Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. It was right up there with FUBAR – Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.

  The big clock tower a couple of blocks away chimed. Ten bells. Aislinn closed her eyes and let each one settle inside her, the noise somehow soothing. Only when the last one faded away did she open her eyes and screw the top back on the bottle of Jack.

  Aislinn brushed her teeth and washed her face, avoidin
g the haunted hazel eyes she knew she would see if she looked in the mirror. She carefully combed her hair – long thick waves of caramel and mocha and dark chocolate and gold – now well past her shoulders. Stripping off the army-issue T and gym shorts, she slid into the nicest outfit she had – a pair of black jeans, black shirt, black boots with kick-ass heels. What the hell, she thought, glancing down at the ever-present dog tags. On top of them, Aislinn put on the white gold cross, the fine delicate chain feeling exceptionally light in her fingers. It matched the series of hoops and studs along her ears, her nipples, her navel, and her sex, the results of a whole lot of dares and carpe diems.

  It was Christmas Eve, after all.

  She tucked a few blades into her boots and at the small of her back. Strung some thin wire into her belt loops that could be used as a garrote in a pinch. Tucked a couple of six-point throwing stars and her personal favorite – the 4-pointed Cold 80SSA Heavy Sure Strikes – into the special custom double-lined pockets she’d sewn in herself. Then she donned her most prized possession – a black leather duster that clung to her frame like a lover and extended to mid-calf.

  Her few remaining material possessions – the bottle of Jack, a dog-eared raggedy romance novel (for when she needed an escape), toothbrush and toothpaste, comb, pocket rocket (to be used in conjunction with the paperback), a roll of cash, and a change of clothes – were all stuffed into her small black leather pack and slung over her shoulder.

  No matter what happened tonight, she already knew she wouldn’t be returning to the seedy little rat trap she’d called home for the past couple of months.

  Just because all “official” records listed her as honorably discharged didn’t mean she wasn’t still on active duty. War was still war. It didn’t matter if it was fought in a jungle or a desert or a city of approximately eight million people, most of which didn’t even have a clue they were one wrong step away from finding out. It was her job to keep it that way. Aislinn was a ghost, a shadow, a bump in the night that kept the other bumps at bay.

  She attended midnight Mass first. Why did they call it midnight Mass if it started at eleven, she wondered, digging her hands deeper into her pockets and bracing herself against the bitter cold. It was just one of the thousands of innocuous little mysteries she pondered, but that really didn’t matter at all. It sure as hell was easier to think about that than the deeper, darker stuff, though, so it was all good.

  Instead of joining the others making their way up the aisle and filing into the pews, Aislinn remained in the back, hidden in the shadows behind one of the arched columns. God knew that she was there, and really, that was all that mattered. He was the only one who might have cared, but even that was questionable.

  When the priest paused, beseeching the others to offer their own intentions before God, Aislinn bowed her head and closed her eyes. Happy Birthday, Jesus. She hastily added a few more words, the same Christmas wish she had been making in one form or another since she was old enough to understand the concept of wishes.

  Aislinn slipped quietly out of the church ahead of the others as the last of the communion was being given, earning a disapproving glance or two from the suited guys in charge of the collection baskets. It was a sin to leave before the priest, one of her foster mothers once told her, a lesson that was later driven home by being forced to spend hours kneeling on bags of dried peas so she wouldn’t forget. Yet Aislinn felt fairly confident that God would give her a pass on this one. Slipping out of Mass early paled in comparison to some of the other sins she had committed.

  There was only one commandment, in fact, that Aislinn never even came close to breaking: I, the Lord, am your God. You shall have no other gods besides me. The others? Well... She had killed (in self-defense or in the defense of her unit). She had stolen (when her starving belly demanded it). She had coveted and lied and a host of other soul-damning no-no’s, all loosely based on her shit life and a really strong survival instinct. Unfortunately for her, though, the ten commandments didn’t come with exception clauses.

  Besides, her premature departure from Mass was as much for the benefit of the smiling, happy parishioners as it was for her own. Aislinn didn’t have any misconceptions about herself; she knew she made people uncomfortable. It wasn’t just the clothes, though she was totally rocking the whole Underworld vibe. There was something about her, some aura of danger and death that had people averting their gazes and giving her a wide berth, sometimes going as far as to cross the street in blatant avoidance.

  A lesser woman might have despaired, but not Aislinn. To despair meant that at some point, you had to have had some hope.

  Silently, alone, Aislinn slipped through the streets, watchful and vigilant.

  * * *

  Lachlan Brodie cursed thrice more. “Where are they all bloody coming from?”

  His small party of seven – himself, three of his six brothers, and three trusted clansmen - was returning from making the final arrangements for his upcoming betrothal. At thirty and two, it was high time to settle down and start breeding some heirs. He was the eldest son, after all, and as laird of Dubhain, it was his duty.

  This particular match had been two years in the making; Lachlan was nothing if not thorough. Elyse was a fine woman. Well-bred, she came from a good family that would add both land and coin to the Brodie holdings, not to mention that her father was a man of considerable influence. The fact that she stirred neither his heart nor his loins did not worry him overmuch. He had yet to meet a woman who did.

  The attack had been unexpected, but Lachlan was not unprepared. Such things were not uncommon. Thanks to the work of his father and grandfather and more before him, Dubhain was a fine keep. Rich in resources and strategically placed, it was highly coveted, particularly among those who sought to reap the rewards others had sown with little or no effort beyond the brandishing of a well-placed sword.

  He drew the claymore from where it sat along his back, the heavy weight of the long-sword familiar in his hand. Typically it was a two-handed weapon, but Lachlan had the superior strength and skill that allowed him to wield the blade effectively with one. His other hand clutched his favorite battle axe – a legacy from his father - while he directed his seasoned stallion with the slightest nudges of his knees and heels.

  The others were already forming a defensive circle. As kinsmen, they had spent their entire lives training and fighting together; they instinctively knew the moves and methods of one another. It was unnecessary to give audible direction or shout out a plan. They had already orchestrated the moves in their own minds with astonishing synchronicity.

  Seven men against two dozen plus. Some would think the odds were stacked against the Brodies, but they would be fools. Four-to-one was child’s play for men of their skill and prowess. Not to mention that Lachlan’s bloodline tended to create some of the largest men in the Highlands. At six-six and as broad as a stable door, Lachlan was considered “average” among the males in his clan. And he, like his whooping brethren, were itching for a good fight after behaving so well on this last journey.

  But even big, skilled lairds can make mistakes when they grow overconfident. Hot on the tail of one cur who sought to flee, Lachlan followed him into the woods and unwittingly found himself in a small clearing, suddenly surrounded.

  Chapter 2

  Aislinn slowly returned to consciousness. Her eyes were heavy, her limbs like lead. For all intents and purposes, it felt like she was suffering the aftereffects of one hell of a bender, though she was not one to overindulge. As a rule, Aislinn liked to remain in complete control of her faculties, and would never willingly have made herself that vulnerable, especially not without her team to watch her six.

  The errant thought slipped through the walls she’d erected around her heart and scored a direct hit before she could stop it.

  You don’t have a team anymore.

  Before the survivor’s guilt could gain full hold again, she forced those thoughts away, citing the mantra the Army
shrink had made her repeat until she could almost believe it: There was nothing she could have done. Nothing anyone could have done. Bad shit happens.

  So what the hell had happened this time? She tried to think back. She remembered leaving the church, walking up and down the streets, her feet taking her where she needed to be. Usually it was the bus station, or a train station, or the occasional dock - someplace where the criminal element thrived. Somewhere where it wasn’t difficult to find someone who could benefit from her taxpayer-funded skills training and life experiences.

  But she hadn’t been drawn to any of the usual haunts. After wandering aimlessly for a while, she had cleared her mind and found herself moving toward the park. She must have circled the outer path twice before coming upon the pile of shivering rags huddled between the bench and the trees.

  It wasn’t the first time, and the odds were that it wouldn’t be the last. There were too many like that. Too many homeless, too many addicts, too many who had no place to go and no one they could turn to for help.

  She remembered reaching down to see exactly what she was dealing with when she felt the back of her head explode and everything went black...

  Aislinn lifted her hand and gingerly touched the base of her skull, wincing when it shot a fresh wave of pain right through to her frontal lobe. Her fingers came away sticky and dark, which meant the wound was probably still bleeding a little, but it didn’t seem to be life-threatening at least. She’d had a lot worse.

  Thank God for small favors, she thought wryly.

  She’d definitely had her bell rung, though, as evidenced by her current level of disorientation. Aislinn endeavored to push the pain and haze into the background and focus. Distraction was a good way to get herself killed. Or worse.

  She could feel the grass beneath her and see the fuzzy outline of trees through her blurred vision, but it felt different somehow. It was no longer dark, she realized; maybe that’s what was throwing her off. Exactly how long had she been out?