by D. K. Combs
“I’ve heard rumors that you fight many battles.”
He nodded slowly.
“Aye.”
“Why?”
“What do ye’ mean, ‘why’? Lass, that’s my duty.” He grunted like he couldn’t believe she wouldn’t know better. Saeran frowned at him.
“Your duty is to protect your clan. I do not think that fighting as many battles as you have, have benefited your people.”
He narrowed his eyes on her.
“I’m the laird here. Do ye’ understand that?”
“Of course I do. As laird, you shouldn’t be waging war. Especially if you are going to be taking a wife!” she said, outraged. Did he care so little for his people? Would he care so little for her sister?
“My lady,” he said lowly, coming forward. She clenched her hands together to stop from getting out of the chair. She would not back down from this, especially if it concerned the safety of Blaine and herself.
“No,” she said sharply. He paused.
“No, what?”
“No, to whatever you’re about to say to defend yourself. My father was once a Highlander and he led many a battle—but not as much as you have, my lord. He did it to defend his home and honor. You’re allies with the McGregor—you have no reason to war with anyone! They’re all too terrified of you.”
“Was? Yer father was a Highlander?” He raised a brow.
She stilled. Saeran could have slapped herself for her stupidity.
“Aye, he was. Before I was born. Then he was betrothed to my mother and he moved to the Lowlands with her. She had a fancy for court.”
“I donna know a single Highlander that would lower himself to going to court.”
“Aye, well, he was getting older. He was done with warring and took to my mother’s estate that he got through her dowry. He was never far from the Highlands,” she said, smiling a little at the memory. Blaine never spoke of their parents, and since they’d arrived here, she had been alone with her thoughts. It felt nice to share them with someone, with Kane. “We lived right near the border. They had the Highlander games every summer.”
“Aye, I know of them. My family and I used to go to them every year.” A flash of tenderness crossed his face, but it disappeared as soon as it came.
“Same with ours. Oh, my,” she said, laughing. “One year—oh, one year, my older sister was meant to be watching me. My parents were speaking with an old friend of theirs, and we got tired of waiting for them to finish. We walked off, and she came distracted by the merchants. I was too young to know how to get around, but I still went off to do my own thing—without telling her. She was quite furious,” she recalled.
“Go on,” he urged, sitting on the edge of the desk. His legs crossed at his ankles and he watched her intently as she spoke. She blushed, but continued. Blaine had never encouraged her tales. Lord, she was lucky if she could get her sister to listen to her for a minute!
“I wondered off to the games. The big tents were all intriguing and lovely. There were so many horses and beautiful ladies,” she said wistfully. “Without my sister, I did not know where to go—I became afraid and—well, I became a scared little girl. I could not find my parents nor my sister, and the people were too busy to help an errant girl. I don’t know how it happened exactly, but I ran into this boy.
“He turned into my hero that day. I didn’t know it, but my parents and sister were searching for me. When they found me, I was sitting behind one of the tents with the boy, our hands and face covered in paint and pastries.” She laughed at the memory of her father’s stunned fury.
“How long ago was this?” he asked. He was watching her with lowered brows.
“Quite some time. I was only a girl, six or seven years.”
“The boy. Was there anything about him that you remembered?”
She frowned. “Well…no—oh! Yes! His mother was pregnant. I remember comparing her to a large cow to my sister.” Kane’s eyes darkened. She waved a hand at him. “Just her stomach, my lord. She was quite beautiful.”
“Aye, she was,” he said. “The pastries that day were the best I’d ever had.”
She nodded in agreement, then stilled.
“No,” she said, hand covering her mouth.
“Aye,” he responded, chuckling. “The jester we took the paints from chased us half around the tournament. Do ye’ remember that?”
She nodded, too stunned to comprehend. “But that would mean you were the boy that—“
“Aye. How strange that we were friends when we were young, and now know each other.”
Saeran nodded again. The strangeness of this was too much for her to handle. She stared at him.
“We never learned each other’s names. I cannot fathom…this is so strange for me, my lord.”
“I think we were too busy to learn our names. We had to make the most of our day together. I remember always rushing off to find you the second my family arrived there. Brodrick always called ye’ the mystery girl when I would return home, talking about ye’.”
“You’d talk about me?” she asked. For some reason, her cheeks heated. It was silly of her to blush over it. He talked about her all of the time, apparently. Not only to other people now, but back then as well!
“Couldn’t keep my mouth shut about ye’, lass. Mayhap it was fate that we met again, aye?” he said, smiling at her coyly. She blushed.
“Mayhap,” she said softly. Saeran lifted her eyes to his. “My lord, why did you stop coming to the fair?”
He shrugged. There was something about his reaction that struck her. Tense—he was incredibly tense. His eyes were dark, filled with pain he tried to hide, and she almost didn’t want to know the answer.
“My lord?” she asked quietly, rising to her feet. Something compelled her to touch him, to take his hand in her own. “You can tell me.”
“Tis not something I wish to share,” he said. There was a catch in his voice, one she’d never heard. He was lying. She smiled, almost tenderly, and threaded their fingers. He looked away from her but didn’t move. After a lengthy pause, where she began to think he really wouldn’t tell her, he looked away.
“My father was killed.”
The abruptness, the flat emotion in his voice, seared her. She reared away from him, eyes widening.
“Kane…”
His lips lifted, bitterness etched into every line of his face.
“By the king. He commanded the Lowlander bastards and took my father from us.”
“That…that doesn’t make sense,” she said quietly, staring at him. She wanted to reach out and touch him. The sudden pain that was infecting his aura was like a slap to her face. She knew the agony of losing a parent—she had lost both of hers. “The Lowlanders are no match for Highlanders…”
“They are if they come in the dead of night, with none of us prepared,” he snarled, jerking away from her as if he’d read her mind. She stayed in her place, watching him, heart aching. Bitter. So bitter and angry—and she understood, at least partially. Her parents hadn’t been murdered, but she had lost them all the same.
“Why?” she asked before she could stop herself. Saeran cursed. God, she was insensitive. How could she ask something like that? Saeran wrapped her arms around herself, biting her lip. If he didn’t answer, she wouldn’t blame him. Saeran wouldn’t be surprised if he ignored her completely.
“Why?” he echoed. Kane lifted tormented eyes to hers. She shivered, hating herself for putting him through this. She should have left it alone. She should have let him be, not pushed him into a corner filled with demons of the past. “My father was a foolish bastard.”
His answer shocked her. Heart melting, she stood, reaching for him. He didn’t move.
“Kane,” she said softly, putting her hand on his arm. “If you do not wish to talk of this, then you do not have to. Please, forgive me for being insensitive.”
He stared at her. Slowly, gradually, his chest began to heave, like he was fighting for brea
th. There was so much fury laying in his eyes that she wanted to back away from him, to put a safe distance between them. She didn’t.
When her parents had died, Blaine hadn’t been there for her. She had wanted the contact and comfort of someone else—and something told her that Kane had been in the same position she had been. Alone. Scared. No one to comfort him, who knew what he was going through.
So she stayed. Even though she knew he could kill her in the blink of an eye, she stayed with him through the storm, watching him as his eyes began to blaze, the fury burning so brightly that she could feel the heat of it against her skin as he stared at her.
Through the fiery storm, a bond began to form. She felt it in her gut, in every movement he made. He wanted her to stay—the realization grew in his eyes, replacing some of the fire. She didn’t think her actions bold when she moved closer to him, close enough that their hips were touching, their breath fanning each other. His hands clenched at his sides. She took one of them within her own.
“I lost my family to a fire,” she murmured. He tensed. “They were not murdered. They did not die a worthy death in battle. A simple house fire took their lives from me.” She lifted her eyes to his. “I may not know exactly what you are going through, Kane, but I do know the pain of having your family ripped from you—and, like myself, being alone through the realization that they are really gone.”
Despite the fact that she was saying this to comfort him, to make him realize he had an ally, tears stung her eyes. She had lost more than her parents that day. She had lost her life, her happiness. Blaine had been cold. Emotionless. Unaffected to the death of her parents. With her new clarity of Blaine, she knew that—and was infuriated. But this was for Kane.
She couldn’t dwell on her sister’s cruelness, or her growing hatred for Blaine.
Thick, heavy arms came around her body. She stilled before realizing that he only wanted to hold her. He pulled her against his chest, securing her tightly against him, and then he was leaning against the wall, still clutching her smaller body to his large one.
It wasn’t sexual. It was the complete opposite.
He was silently begging her to comfort him.
Saeran did the only thing she could. She rested her cheek against his warm chest, closed her eyes, and held him back.
“Helen MacLeod was engaged to the Campbell’s son,” he said quietly. He sounded strained, like his throat was too tight to talk. She turned her face into his chest, hearing the pounding of his heart.
“My father wanted her for himself. Had ever since they were children. They were betrothed to be married until the MacLeods accused my grandfather of stealing a chicken.”
“A chicken?”
“Aye. The MacLeods have always been possessive—even of things that are no’ theirs. The chicken was actually ours. When the MacLeod accused my grandfather, he broke the engagement. MacLeod gave Helen to the Campbell in hopes of creating a stronger force, one that he could fight with against the Shaws.”
“The MacLeod sounds like a right arse,” she said quietly, wishing she could find all of the MacLeods and teach them a lesson.
“They are the clan that attacked us earlier,” he growled. Saeran stilled, lifting her eyes to his. The smoothed her hand over his pounding heart, feeling the anger rise inside of him once again. She would rather have him be angry than agonized. The thought of this big, strong man in pain…terrified her. “Duncan Shaw, my father, did no’ take well to being told he could no’ marry Helen. Before her marriage, he took her from her keep, and they were married in less than a sennight.”
She gasped. “But that—“
“Aye. It created a war between the Campbells, MacLeod’s, and the Shaw. If the marriage had not been consummated, and she was not found to be pregnant several moons later, MacLeod would have taken her back. The Campbells were willing to forgive her transgressions, until it was learned she was with child.”
“You.”
“Me. The strain of it all was too much for the MacLeod and he died. Alasdair MacLeod, Helen’s brother, took his place as laird. Unlike his father, Alasdair was actually considerate of his sister’s happiness. When he finally had a chance to see her, he realized how happy she was, and left her alone, so long as she promised to give her first daughter to the Campbells as appeasement.
“The three clans were finally at peace. I was training with Connor Campbell, and Alasdair’s son Robert. My mother had twins—Annalise and Alex. Annalise was of marriageable age.” He made a rough sound, body stiffening under hers. She inhaled slowly, feeling that she knew where this would go. The MacLeods have already proved they are weak—not just in mind, but in body as well.
“We were out riding. Rogue Englishmen found us. We fought, but we were just lads. We had no chance against seasoned rogues. Two of us survived—Robert and myself. Connor was lost. The Campbell found out and sent to the king. He was furious over his son’s death and wanted retribution for it.
“When the king took too long to respond, he came after me. He hunted me and almost killed me. His sword was pressed to my neck when my father arrived. Duncan put him in his place. It only infuriated the Campbell further.”
He stopped, chest heaving. Saeran wanted to weep. For a laird to attack a boy for the death of his son, when Kane hadn’t had the skill to protect him… It was terrible, and showed just how bad of a man the Campbell was.
“My mother was so distraught,” he recalled roughly. “She wanted to go after the Campbell herself for what he tried to do with me. The night before the Shaw men planned on retaliating for what he did to me, the king finally responded to Campbell’s call for retribution—when no one was ready. We were all asleep. The attack came in the dead of night.
“Duncan ran into battle, unprepared. My mother found us and hid us away. By the time my father’s warriors came to his aid, it was too late. My mother was taken, and Duncan was dead.”
THT | 22
“Kane…” He shook his head, silencing her. Saeran stared up at him, horrified of his tale. Feuds in the Highlands were common—but this was tragic. Simply tragic. Duncan Shaw had done nothing wrong except love a forbidden woman and love his children—and Campbell, the selfish, arrogant son of a bitch, had taken it too far.
“I saw it. Through the crack in the wardrobe she pushed us into. She was running to join my father when he stumbled into the room—with a sword embedded into his stomach. He fell into her. She caught him. The English man knocked her unconscious and threw her over his shoulder, laughing. It was like wiped his hands clean of the fight the second his sword was in my father’s heart.”
Kane laughed bitterly. The sound made his chest rumble. Saeran pulled back, staring up at him. The bitterness wasn’t the only thing she saw. It was the horror of a child who’d seen his father killed in front of him. It was the horror of realizing he had lost the one man he never should have lost, that his mother had been taken. In that instant, she could see the image of him as a child, confused and frightened. Saeran fought back her tears.
She wanted to ask after his mother—if he had ever found her again, but the anguish in his eyes was too great.
In a horrible way, she had been lucky. She hadn’t seen her parents burn to death—instead, she had been at court with her sister, hiding in the library. They hadn’t learned of their death until days later—though Saeran had had the feeling that something happened. She could remember, so clearly, the way her chest had tightened. It was sudden and painful, robbing her of breath. Locked away in the library, she had been alone when the premonition had hit.
“My father’s second in command went after my mother. They found her and brought her home, but…Mother went insane,” he said quietly. She didn’t think he was all the way there. His voice was distant, eyes glazed over. “The McGregor was training me for leadership of the Shaw clan, and my mother lost her mind. She became obsessed with having her revenge. When I refused to help her, too busy with learning and McGregor telling me to leave her, she w
ent to Alex.
“I think, even if I had known what she was up to, I couldn’t have stopped her. Annalise was sent to marry Hans Grayham, a measure she took for his loyalty and Anna’s safety, and went after the king. Alex and my mother didn’t come back to the castle.”
“You mean…they…he—he killed them?” Saeran was stunned—and disbelieving. Her cousin would never do such a thing, not ever! He was one of the most fair and justice-bent people she knew. Surely he would not condemn a woman tormented by the loss of her husband to death.
“He didn’t kill her. He banished her—and would have done so to the whole Shaw clan, had McGregor not been there. He saved the clan,” Kane murmured, head falling back against the wall. She stared at his throat, watching it move as he struggled for breath, dumbfounded.
“Kane, the king would not—“
“He did. I was there. I heard the order.”
“Nay—“
Hard, cold eyes snapped to hers. “Donna tell me what I did and did no’ see and hear, lass. Yer a Lowlander. Of course ye’ care about the good king’s name—but I donna, and I never will.”
“How did McGregor save the clan,” she asked thinly. She couldn’t believe him—King James, her dear cousin, would never do something so terrible as to banish a whole clan for the grieving actions of one woman. He was honorable, she thought, mentally shaking her head.
“The McGregor made me fight for the king.”
She stared at him.
“If I did no’, the king would have exiled the whole clan. Me fighting for him, wars with my men that should have been fought with his, insured my loyalty.”
“How could you stay loyal to a man who threatened you like that?” she whispered, unable to believe it had been her own cousin to do that to Kane.
He stared at her, saying nothing.
“I think I am done with this conversation,” he growled, stiffly pulling away from her. There was something he wasn’t telling her, something she knew would terrify her if she knew. Saeran watched him turn away her, heart crashing in her chest.