Page 35 of A Kilted Marriage of Convenience

One of Keir’s men grabbed her arm from behind, causing her to shriek, but Ciara immediately swung her other arm. With the momentum of the pull, she connected her elbow solidly under the jaw of the man who had grabbed her. The soldier sagged with a grunt, his grip going slack on her arm.

She turned around in her flight but ran into someone else, right in her path. She instinctively attacked the person in front of her in her panic, but she was surprised to hear a familiar voice.

“Woah, woah! Calm down, Ciara!” Darragh said. “It’s just me.”

She felt a sense of relief as Darragh moved her behind him, putting himself between Ciara and her father. Darragh hollered for Aidan, who was in the thick of the fighting, armed to the teeth and hastily armored, not so far away.

Ciara watched as Aidan stepped back from the fighting to look toward Darragh, and she saw his eyes grow wide in surprise at the sight of her out in the courtyard. He ran to her side, his face painted with worry and confusion.

Looking at her from head to bottom as if to make sure she was alright, Aidan took her hand in his. “What are ye doing here? I thought I told ye to go to yer room!”

Ciara started to explain what had changed, but Aidan gripped her hand stronger and wrapped her in his arms, clearly not needing a reply to his question. Ciara shut her eyes as he put his fingers around her waist, listening to the clashing of swords and the fighting going on all around her in the courtyard.

In that moment, Ciara felt safer and more wanted than she had ever felt in her entire life. She could not help but think that she was the reason for all the chaos going on. These men were fighting, even dying because of her. The only thing that muffled the sounds of all that fighting was the steady hand of Aidan around her, keeping her safe, making her feel… loved.

After a few seconds, seconds that Ciara wanted to continue on for an eternity, he finally released her from the warm embrace, nodding in Darragh’s direction as a ‘thank you’. Aidan then took her away from the battlefield, away from the fighting, and did not stop moving until the sounds from the fight were muffled behind them.

He set Ciara down carefully behind an overturned cart, lowering her carefully on the ground. “Try to stay hidden this time, eh?” he said as he chucked her chin gently. Aidan still looked visibly shaken. It appeared to Ciara that he was deeply worried to have seen her down in the courtyard, in the middle of the battle.

“I have to go make sure everything is alright,” he said. “Think ye can wait for me?”

Slowly, she nodded, not having the willpower for any more action, and was feeling more obedient than normal. Suddenly, Aidan kissed her softly on the lips, taking her out of her trance. He smelled of smoke and dried sweat, but Ciara did not mind. She broke the kiss softly after a moment.

“Go,” she said, and Aidan patted her arm before running off into the night.

With a deep sigh, she settled back, leaning into the bed of the cart. Her legs ached from her hasty flight down the stairs of the tower, and there was a throbbing pain in her elbow. Probably from the moment when she had struck the soldier earlier.

So much had happened in the last few hours, and she was so overwhelmed by the importance of it all. As if watching it from a distance. From witnessing Aidan in a sleepwalking trance to the battle in the castle, to seeing her father. She was so unsettled by everything that she could hardly breathe. Suddenly, she was fatigued by her thoughts, and she allowed herself to drift off to sleep.

When she awoke, she heard the call for retreat from her father, followed by a hearty cheer that rang throughout the keep. It appeared that the MacNeil men had been forced to retreat and the day had been won. But she sat still, waiting for Aidan to come get her.

Ciara could not help thinking how close everything had come to being unraveled. She was not married to Aidan yet, and if the attack had been successful, there would have been nothing they could have done. Worse, he could have found out that she had been lying to him all along. And nothing would hurt more than that.

She was convinced that what he felt for her was real. She had seen it in his eyes when he had pierced her gaze in the heat of the fighting. She had noted it on other occasions too but tonight, it was clearer than it had ever been.

Ciara felt her guilt surfacing again, as it so frequently did these days, and she closed her eyes, trying to keep down her warring emotions. She heard footsteps at last, and she looked up to see Aidan coming for her, with Darragh close behind.