But whatever had possessed Caelan seemed to make him even more feral.. If anything, he lifted his dagger to the soft, vulnerable line of her throat.
William skidded to a halt.
“Come any closer,” Caelan hissed, his eyes wild, “and I’ll slit her throat.”
The chapel vanished. William could not see anything except the horror before him. It reminded him of something. An old memory that crashed back with terrifying clarity.
His parents. The past. History was repeating itself before his eyes.
“I swear it,” Caelan laughed, the sound even more cruel and broken. “If I cannae have her, nay one will.”
At that moment, William realized what this was all about: a cruel obsession that had been festering foryears.
Indeed, Sorcha had been betrayed by someone she had once called family. And that fanned the flames of his fury.
A roar tore from his chest as he surged forward without thinking, trusting his instinct. His sword flashed, and his strike was perfect. The steel sliced into Caelan’s wrist, causing the dagger in his hand to clatter to the floor.
Before Caelan could even scream, William slit his throat with one swift swing.
Caelan crumpled, dead before his body hit the stone floor. Silence fell over the chapel as blood pooled beneath him.
Sorcha collapsed, as though no longer able to hold herself upright. Slowly, she hugged her knees to her chest, trembling violently, raw sobs tearing from her throat.
William felt his sword slip from his hand. He dropped to his knees before her and gently wrapped her in his arms. He held her like that, as if she might disappear if he loosened his grip.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry I didnae keep ye safe.”
He kissed her hair, her temples, her shaking hands. He wasn’t sure he could ever make it up to her. What if he had arrived too late? He didn’t want to imagine what could have happened to her.
Sorcha clung to him harder, her tears soaking into his cloak.
“It was him,” she gasped. “Caelan… he killed them. All of them.”
Her words broke him further.
“Ye daenae have to apologize,” she whispered weakly. “Ye saved me.”
William pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. It was brief, but it was enough to ground them both.
“Later,” he murmured. “We will speak of everything later.”
For now, he simply wrapped himself around her, sheltering her from the world as much as he could.
35
Dunrath Castle felt strange as Sorcha walked through it.
Whispers of bloodshed circled around. It made her realize what had happened in her absence. Her skin crawled, fingers of ice crawling up her spin as she looked around the walls.
It was absurd how love, loyalty, and trust could be destroyed in mere moments. Worse, how betrayal could come from those closest to her. Betrayal from shared laughter, from years of familiarity.
She swallowed hard, refusing to shed another tear for her cousin. Because the truth was too cruel.
She would never have imagined Caelan could do such things. Kill those men. Stain her life with death and obsession.
Her previous husbands had not fallen to fate or a curse, but to a man who viewed love as ownership.
“Daenae overthink it. Ye cannae change the past.”
