Then:
“It’ll be dangerous,” he said quietly. “Worse than today. Worse than the English in the woods.”
“I’m a Cameron,” she said simply. “Danger’s my kin.”
His jaw tightened.
He looked at her as if he was seeing all of her now: not a nuisance, not a burden, but a force.
Finally, he exhaled, low and rough.
“Alright, then.”
A beat.
“We go to Skye.”
She tilted her head in disbelief. “We?”
“Aye,” he muttered, a reluctant surrender and a vow tangled together. “We.”
Fiona’s lips twitched. “About damn time, Mackenzie.”
He huffed a laugh, shaking his head like she was a storm he’d accidentally invited inside.
“Pushy wife,” he murmured.
“Grumpy husband,” she returned.
“Temporaryhusband,” he warned.
“Och, aye,” she said with a wicked little smile. “Ye can be sure of that.”
Harris folded the letter and tucked it into his coat—not next to his weapons, but close to his ribs.
A choice.
A shift.
A thread pulled tighter between them.
Skye awaited.
Back upstairs, the room felt smaller with decision sitting between them.
Harris spread his cloak on the floor by the door without ceremony, one hand automatically going to the dagger at his belt, as if his body had learned vigilance more deeply than it had ever learned rest.
Fiona stood by the tiny window, watching the dark press close around the inn. Somewhere out there, the Prince was hiding. Somewhere beyond that, ships waited.
“Sleep,” Harris said eventually, voice low. “We ride hard tomorrow.”
She glanced back at him. “You need rest, too.”
“I’ll sleep when I can,” he said with a shrug. “That’ll do.”
She hesitated, something akin to gratitude snagging her tongue. “Harris?”
“Aye?”
