Her hair was a wild tangle of curls, and her lips were bitten and swollen from his own after their lovemaking in the study. She looked thoroughly kissed, thoroughlyhis. Yet she still walked with that sharp, defiant tilt of her chin.
He felt a surge of love so profound it made his throat tighten until it hurt. It was a dangerous, wide-open feeling; he was handing her the only soft spot in his armor, knowing she could destroy him with a word, and finding that he didn't care.
"Ye’re staring again, Harald," Enya remarked. Her voice was back to its dry, melodic lilt, but it carried a new, raspy edge—a velvet roughness that made his skin prickle. She kept her eyes on the path, but the deep flush creeping up her neck told him she was just as affected as he was.
Harald let out a low, huffing laugh, the sound bubbling up from a place of genuine contentment he hadn't accessed since childhood. He reached out, his fingers catching her hand and squeezing hard.
His fingers slotted between hers, the contrast of his scarred, calloused skin against her softness a constant marvel. She squeezed his hand, a brief, silent acknowledgement of the depth beneath his teasing.
As they rounded a jagged outcrop of lichen-covered stone, Harald’s internal alarm—a cold, prickling sensation at the base of his neck—snapped into place. He stopped, his hand tightening on Enya’s, pulling her to a halt.
"What is it?" she whispered, her humor vanishing instantly.
Harald didn't answer. He released her hand and stepped forward, his eyes narrowed, scanning a small, flat hollow sheltered by a stand of ancient, twisted rowan trees.
"There," he said, nodding toward a circle of flattened grass and a ring of stones.
They approached cautiously. It was the remnants of a camp, hidden so well that a patrol would have missed it unless they were looking for the specific way the shadows fell. Harald knelt by the fire pit. He pressed his palm to the center of the ash.
"Cold," he murmured. "Two days, perhaps three."
He stood and began to pace the perimeter with the methodical precision of a hunter. The ground had been flattened by many boots, but there was no refuse. No dropped scraps of food, no torn rags, no forgotten whetstones. Even the spare firewood had been stacked neatly and left under a tarp of pine boughs.
"They moved with care," Harald noted, his voice dropping into the analytical, reserved tone. "This wasnae a panicked retreat. They took everything. They even brushed the tracks near the entrance."
Enya stepped into the center of the hollow, her eyes wide as she turned in a slow circle. Her face had gone pale, the afterglow of their intimacy replaced by a haunting, hollow look.
"I recognize this," she said softly.
Harald turned to her, his heart sinking. The old fear of betrayal tried to flare up, but he quelled it. He looked at her and saw only a deep, weary sadness.
She hugged her cloak tightly around her. "I never kent exactly where they stayed. Finley... he never trusted me with the locations. But the layout... he way the lookout is positioned near that split rock..." She pointed to a natural cleft in the stone overlooking the valley. "It’s his way. He’s obsessed wi’ order. He hates a messy camp."
Harald walked over to the split rock. She was right. It offered a perfect, unobstructed view of the path they had just walked, and further up, the southern gate of the keep.
He felt a cold chill settle in his spine. Finley had been watching. He had likely watched the smoke from the granary fire.
"Dae ye think he’s gone, Enya?" Harald asked, his voice low and urgent. He moved back to her, searching her face. "Has he finally seen that the island willnae break and fled back tae Cameron lands?"
Enya looked at him, her eyes dark with a terrifying certainty. "Nay. Me braither daesnae flee, Harald. "
She stepped closer to him, her hand trembling as she reached out to touch his shoulder. "He’s crossed too many lines. The fire, the boy... he kens there is nae mercy fer him now. He willnae abandon his plan because he has nowhere else tae go. He has tae win, or he will die."
Harald felt the weight of her words. He looked around the abandoned camp, and for the first time, the woods didn't feel like a sanctuary. They felt like a trap. But then he looked at Enya, and the love he felt for her acted like a whetstone.
I willnae let him harm ye.
"If he wants a war, I will give it tae him," Harald growled, his jaw set.
Enya leaned her head against his shoulder for a brief second, a small gesture that meant more than any oath. "He’s patient, aye. But he’s also arrogant. He thinks he kens ye, Harald. He thinks he kensme."
"He daesnae ken us taegether," Harald replied, his voice thick with emotion. He kissed the top of her head, the scent of pine and her own sweet musk grounding him. "Come. We’ve stayed in the open too long. We need tae?—"
Thwack.
The sound was unmistakable—the sharp, sickening bite of an arrow into wood.
Harald didn't think. He acted on decades of instinct. He lunged for Enya, his large frame slamming into her and driving her toward the ground just as a second arrow hissed through the space where her head had been a heartbeat before.
