The world died away. He steered her toward the hearth, guided her down onto the furs, but she didn't let go. When she finally did, she collapsed against him, her strength spent. He felt her pride breaking into pieces as she slumped into his chest and he held her with a desperate, crushing grip.
He dropped to one knee before her, bringing himself level with her eyes. Up close, the sight of her devastation stole the very air from his lungs, leaving him reeling as if the world had just tilted on its axis. Her lashes were clumped with tears. A faint, angry, red mark was already blooming at her throat where the steel had touched her.
“Ye’re safe,” he promised, his voice thick with a possessive, dark heat. “Ye’re within me walls. Ye’re wi’ me. Nay one gets past me.”
Her lips parted, trembling, but no sound came out. Instead, she just leaned forward, her forehead almost touching his, her fingers curling into his sleeve until her nails bit into his skin.
“I willnae leave ye,” he whispered.
A dangerous, feral thing stirred in his chest. He wanted to strip the skin from Finley Cameron’s bones. He wanted to bury her so deep inside his own life that the world could never find her again.
“Sit,” he said softly. “I’m staying right here.”
She nodded, a small, jerky movement, and folded her hands in her lap as if trying to hold herself together.
He rose and closed his eyes for a second. That night they had come too close. The terror of it was a cold weight in his stomach, a hollow, echoing fear that made his hands shake.
He had spent his life in the dark, and he had almost lost the only light he’d found in years—the only thing that made the shadows worth enduring.
When he turned back, Enya was watching him, her mismatched eyes wide and searching. Harald felt her stare like a brand against his skin.
“Ye’re thinking,” she said, her voice a fragile thread that threatened to snap in the quiet of the room. It felt like a plea for him to let her in, to stop pacing the cages of his own mind.
“Aye.”
“Careful, Harald,” she whispered, a ghostly flicker of her usual fire licking at the edges of her voice. “If ye keep scowling like that, ye will crack. And I’ve had quite enough o’ things breaking tonight.”
The small, biting remark hit him straight to his chest. He stopped, his lungs heaving. He couldn't tell her that he was calculating exactly how much blood it would take to wash the sound of her screaming out of his head. He couldn't tell her that he was imagining Finley’s throat under his boot.
Instead, he poured a cup of water, his hand steady only through sheer, brutal will. He knelt again, offering it to her as if it was a holy relic and she took it, her fingers brushing his in a slow, lingering touch that wasn't an accident. The contact stopped the air in his lungs. Harald remained perfectly still, his heart hammering against his ribs, terrified that if he moved a muscle, he would break the fragile spell of her trust.
“Ye’re just goin’ tae stand there like a monument?” she said, her voice laced with that familiar, biting spark. “Are ye nae going tae tell me what’s happening inside yer head?”
Harald’s gaze snapped to hers, his jaw tight. He didn't want to admit that seeing her shattered had stripped away every bit of his logic, leaving nothing but a feral need to kill for her.
“Drink,” he commanded softly, the word coming out as a raw, aching prayer.
He watched the line of her throat as she swallowed, watched the color slowly bleed back into her cheeks. The tension in her shoulders eased by a fraction, and only then did he allow himself to speak.
“Yer braither,” he said, the words tasting like gall, “he planned this? He was never going tae let ye go, was he?”
Enya’s mouth tightened, the spark dying instantly. A single tear escaped, tracing a slow, silver path through the dust on her cheek.
“Aye,” she whispered, the word heavy and bleeding. “He always did have a taste fer theatrics. I suppose a quiet life was never in me stars.”
“I’ll give ye a quiet life,” Harald growled, his hand finally closing over hers, his thumb stroking her knuckles with a fierce, possessive heat.
Before he could pull her into his arms and prove it, a soft knock sounded at the door. Harald’s head snapped toward the sound, his eyes flashing with a lethal, predatory light.
“Enter,” he spat, the word sounding like a threat.
A guard entered. “Me jarl... the other jarls are demanding a Council. The keep is in an uproar.”
Harald didn't look away from Enya. He didn't care about the lairds. He cared about the woman shivering in front of the fire. “Take them tae the adjoining chamber. Nae the hall.”
“Aye, me jarl.”
The door shut. Silence returned, broken only by the crackle of the flames. Harald reached out, his hand hovering near hercheek before he finally let it settle, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw with a reverence that was almost a plea.
