She started to run back towards the gate, but Harrison was ready this time. He caught her quicker than last time and held her firmly around her waist, taking care that her legs were not within kicking distance of his crotch.
“Ye can see yer uncle at our wedding,” he hissed. “As long as ye agree to marry me, he, yer family, and yer clan will be safe. Otherwise…” His voice lowered to a growl. “I will kill everyone here, and force ye to marry me anyway.”
As if on cue, soldiers poured out of the front entrance, but they were not MacFinn soldiers. These were MacGibbon’s men, and they wore their tartans proudly.
Thalia sagged in his arms at the sight of them, and she realized with dread that he must have been planning this for weeks. He must have suspected that her betrothal to Finlay wouldn’t last, and he had been right.
All of the hope that she had for her future faded before her eyes.
“All right,” she sighed, her voice cracking with the fear and misery flooding her chest. “I’ll marry ye.”
Harrison dropped her, and she stumbled as she regained her balance. She didn’t try to run, and he knew she wouldn’t. Even if she did somehow manage to get away from him, he would kill everyone.
She would not let the guilt of that haunt her for the rest of her life. She would marry him to save everyone.
He took her chin, forcing her face up so that he could sneer down at her. “Ye made the right choice, lass. Ye’ll make me a fine wife, and I have nay doubt ye’ll provide me with a dozen sons.”
Thalia suppressed a shiver. She had no desire to provide him with any children, much less a dozen.
She swallowed her disgust and kept her voice even as she said, “Aye, me Laird.”
He kissed her, pressing his mouth against hers roughly, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for it to end. It was nothing like kissing Finlay, and she did not doubt that the wedding night would be nothing like being with him either.
She was relieved when Harrison finally broke the kiss, and he pushed her back so hard that she stumbled into one of his men. They all laughed.
“Take her up to her room. Make sure that someone guards it until the wedding,” Harrison ordered.
“Aye, me Laird,” the man said, dragging her by the arm up into the castle.
As they entered, the two large wooden doors swung open, and Thalia gasped when she saw even more MacGibbon men waiting inside. A few servants she recognized stared at her as she was dragged away. Their expressions varied between fear, sympathy, and outright disdain.
She didn’t blame them. It was her fault that this was happening to them. If she hadn’t embarrassed Harrison so badly the first time…
Nay. This is nae anyone’s fault but his.
She jutted her chin with new determination. Her future husband may be cruel and a tyrant, but she wouldn’t let him break her. She would save her family and her clan. It would mean suffering for her, but if it meant safety for those she loved, she would take on that burden.
The man stopped in front of her old bedroom, and she was finally able to wrench her arm free from his grasp. She turned her best glare on him and then marched into the room.
It seemed smaller than she remembered, despite it only having been two years since she had set foot inside. There was a table, a wardrobe, and the walls were littered with diagrams and drawings she had done of plants when she was a girl. They were old, the ends of the paper curling and yellowing from the sun.
The bed creaked, and Thalia gasped as her mother came toward her.
“Welcome home, Thalia,” Olivia greeted. There was no genuine warmth in her voice, but there was a hint of happiness in her small smile.
“Maither,” Thalia answered, and the older woman wrapped her into a hug. Thalia tightened her grip around her, the stress and fear that she had been trying to hide pulling taut in her chest until it threatened to snap. “Maither…”
“I wish I were seein’ ye under better circumstances,” Olivia sighed.
“Me too,” Thalia admitted.
She took a deep breath. Her mother smelled of rosemary and fennel, and the familiar scent evoked wonderful memories of her childhood. Thalia wanted nothing more than to bury herself in her mother’s skirts, as she used to when she was so small.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia murmured suddenly.
Thalia pulled back to look at her face. “What are ye sorry for?” she asked.
“I cannae help feelin’ like I am partially to blame for all of this,” Olivia sighed. She wrung her hands, pulling at her fingers like she might rip them off. “I didnae say anything to Archibald whenhe first insisted on marrying ye off. I let him… I let him do what he wanted because I couldnae… After yer faither…”
