“She has her braither’s blessing tae ride wi’ me tae Achnacarry. I’ve heard naught o’ this betrothal.” His tone was even, but it pressed like the edge of a blade.
Catherine’s throat tightened. She hated that he looked at her, hated more that part of her wanted him to see the truth in hereyes, to know she had never given Edwin cause. Pride locked her jaw. She would not beg for his belief.
Edwin laughed low. “Nae yet official, nay. But Laird MacDonald will hear me. I’ve courted her these many months, and I’ll nae be denied what’s mine by some Cameron dog sniffing at her heels.”
The insult snapped through the air like flint to tinder. Catherine saw the shift in Aidan’s shoulders, the way his body went still before the strike, controlled and dangerous. The men behind him froze as if bound by the same invisible thread that held her breath still in her chest.
He looked carved from the Highlands themselves, every line of him honed by war and weather, the wind tugging his dark hair across a face set in quiet fury. The air around him thickened, the kind of silence that came before storms, and for one treacherous moment she could not tell if it was fear or something far more dangerous that made her heart race.
Aidan’s gaze flicked toward her, brief and burning, and the look struck harder than any sword. In that instant, she forgot the men around them, forgot Edwin’s boast, forgot everything but the dark steadiness in Aidan Cameron’s eyes and the silent promise that he would not let her be taken.
“Until such vows are spoken, MacLeod,” Aidan said, voice iron, “ye’ve nay right tae bar me path.”
“Then ye’ll test it?” Edwin’s smile sharpened. “I thought as much. Ye’ve always thought yerself above all o’ us.”
The glen went silent save for the restless stamping of horses. Catherine’s pulse hammered so loud she thought the men must hear it. She wanted to scream at them both, to tear down their arrogance, yet her words tangled against the rising wall of dread.
“Stop this,” she cried, the sound raw, dragged from her chest with more desperation than control. “Both o’ ye, stop!”
Her voice rang out, but against the stone of their pride it struck hollow. Edwin’s gaze remained locked on her, burning with the certainty of possession, while Aidan’s profile was carved in iron, unreadable save for the flicker of something fierce in his eyes. Neither yielded. Neither even flinched.
Then came the clean, metallic rasp of steel leaving its scabbard. Aidan had drawn first. The motion was swift, unhesitating, the blade flashing in the thin light as he levelled it toward Edwin with a steadiness that sent a shiver down Catherine’s spine.
The air shivered in answer, MacLeod men bristling, hands flying to hilts, MacDonald and Cameron steel gleaming in kind. Aidan’s defiance had loosed the cord, and there was no binding it again.
A spark of movement—one soldier stepping forward, another answering—and the thread snapped.
The glen erupted.
Swords clashed, ringing sharp enough to split the mist. Horses screamed and reared, hooves lashing the earth, showering mud and sparks as steel met steel. Shouts tore the air, commands lost in the chaos, cries of pain already rising.
“Nay!” Catherine spurred her horse forward, the animal lurching beneath her as panic shot like fire through her veins. Her heart hammered hard enough she thought it might break her ribs, her ears filled with the relentless clash of blades, the scrape of iron on iron, the dull thud of steel meeting flesh.
Every strike, every roar of defiance, every drop of blood spilled on this narrow stretch of glen was because of her. For her name, her body, her freedom, as though she were some prize to be won and dragged away, as though she were not flesh and spirit but coin passed from one man’s hand to another.
The weight of it crushed her chest, left her breath ragged and her fury sharp.
Aidan wheeled his mount, cutting down a MacLeod who lunged too close. “Get them away!” His command cracked through the chaos. His men surged toward her, hands reaching for her reins, for Alyson’s, for Sofia’s.
“Dinnae touch me!” Catherine snapped, jerking her arm free, though terror clawed her throat. She twisted in the saddle, eyes wide to the chaos—Edwin bellowing orders, his men driving hard at Cameron steel, MacDonald colors blurring in the frenzy. The air stank of sweat and iron and the first splatter of blood.
Beside her, Sofia’s horse shied, nearly unseating her. Catherine reached across, steadying her sister even as a soldier pressed forward. “Me lady, we must move!”
Alyson’s voice cut sharp, steadier than Catherine’s heart. “Catherine, ride!”
But Catherine’s gaze had already caught the line of Aidan through the press, the way he moved like a force cut from the storm itself. Every strike of his blade was measured, every command torn from his chest like thunder. And still he spared a glance back to her, eyes blazing.
Heat and fury tangled in her chest. That look—aye, he would keep her safe, whether she liked it or not.
Yet her pride screamed against being bundled away while men bled for her. “This is madness!” she cried, but the words vanished in the clash.
Aidan turned, his voice like iron shattering stone. “Go, Catherine!”
Her body trembled with fury, with fear, with the helplessness she hated above all else. And still, she felt herself pulled, her sisters pressed close, the swirl of soldiers urging them toward the trees, away from the crash of steel where Aidan Cameron’s blade met Edwin MacLeod’s.
The clash of steel rang through the glen, echoing off the wet rock walls and rolling down into the narrow pass below. Catherine rode near the rear of the column with her sisters, half shielded by the Cameron guards who had formed a protective ring around them. The glen widened into a churn of mud and shadow where Aidan and his men met the ambush head-on. Horses screamed, men shouted, the air alive with the hiss of blades and the smell of rain-soaked earth.
She twisted in her saddle, straining for a glimpse past the men blocking her sight, and caught only flashes—the glint of steel, the dark sweep of Aidan’s plaid, the controlled rhythm of his strikes as he fought at the front line. He moved like a man born to command both chaos and steel, his blows clean and deliberate amid the frenzy.
