His voice had changed. Lower. Dangerous in its sincerity.
“Did I… push ye into somethin’ ye didnae want?”
Her breath wrenched tight.
Not regret.
Not shame.
Just a man terrified he’d taken too much.
She turned, letting the early light brush her cheek. “No,” she said, quiet but sure. “You didn’t push me. And I don’t regret a moment of it.”
Silence followed, thick and charged.
Harris exhaled a breath he had clearly been holding for years. His shoulders eased, jaw unclenching for the first time since she’d met him.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I’ve wanted ye for longer than I’d ever admit out loud.”
Her pulse stuttered violently. “Mackenzie—”
He sat up, but she caught the tremor in his hands. He wasn’t unaffected. He wasn’t even remotely composed. He was a man standing at the edge of something dangerous.
“We should get ready,” he said, voice shifting back toward duty—but not all the way. “Flora expects us before first light.”
Us.
Her heart made a reckless, traitorous leap.
“You’re… taking me with you?”
A pause.
Not long.
But long enough to carve something open in her chest.
Then—
“Aye,” he said. “I am.”
“Why?”
His answer was blunt, soft, devastating.
“Because every time I try tae send ye away… ye end up right where I bloody need ye.”
Fiona’s breath shivered.
“So you finally decided I’m not a burden?”
He looked at her then. And what she saw there surprised her. It wasn’t annoyance, but rather gratefulness.
“Fiona Cameron,” he said, voice low enough to tremble, “ye’re one of the only souls in Scotland I trust at my back.”
The words settled deep inside her, heavy as fate.
“Then let’s go meet your Prince,” she whispered.
