The cold hit first. Dubh jerked, then surged forward, swimming powerfully behind the skiff as the fisherman rowed hard.
Fiona leaned over the stern, heart hammering. “He’s… he’s doing it!”
Dubh glared at her mid-stroke, an expression so murderous she briefly wondered if drowning them was his end goal.
“He hates every second,” she whispered.
Harris’s voice gentled. “Aye. Hate means fight. Fight means breath.”
Halfway across, the current shoved them sideways. Fiona grabbed the rope in instinct.
“Don’t haul him,” Harris warned sharply, his hand closing over hers—warm, steady. “Let him find the line.”
Dubh angled his body, kicking harder, grunting with equine fury. Water parted.
“Sweet Christ,” the fisherman muttered. “The beast’ll drag us all tae hell!”
“Only if ye keep whining,” Harris shot back.
Minutes later, Dubh lunged onto Raasay’s pebbled shore. He reared—
—and shook.
A tidal wave of freezing water drenched Fiona head-to-toe.
She sputtered. “YOU MENACE—”
Harris doubled over laughing.
Not the guarded huff she’d heard before.
A real laugh.
Loud. Beautiful. Wrecked.
Fiona blinked water from her lashes. “He did that on purpose.”
“Aye,” Harris wheezed. “He likes ye now.”
“That was affection?!”
“Mhmm. He only drenches the people he claims.”
Dubh nudged her shoulder: firm, almost approving.
“If you ever do that again,” Fiona warned, “I’ll cut your legs off beneath ye.”
Dubh blinked innocently.
Then stole the oatcake from her pocket.
“OH FOR—”
Harris caught her wrist as she lunged. His hand lingered.
Their eyes met.
The laughter softened into something quieter.
