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Sorcha’s heart lurched. From inside came men’s voices, low, firm, purposeful. She could not make out the words, but she heard the cadence of command, the rhythm of decisions being made. She suddenly felt like a ghost about to walk into the room where the living planned how to survive the plague.

Destiny looked at her. “Are you certain?”

Sorcha’s breath trembled.

She forced it to steady. “Nay,” she whispered. Then, with brutal honesty, she continued, “But I must.”

Destiny set her shoulders and opened the door without knocking. Warm air spilled out, scented with peat smoke and ink and the faint sharpness of spirits. The room beyond was large, one of the castle’s working chambers, not meant for show but for strategy. A table lay scattered with papers. A ledger stood open. A map of Ross-shire was weighed down by a cup. Firelight leapt in the grate, turning the stones amber. Two men stood near the table.

Cameron Munro faced the hearth, one hand braced against the mantel beneath a garland of pine and winter berries, as though he carried a weight on his shoulders that could not be set down. Candlelight flickered across the green Yule branches and caught in the gold ribbons woven through it, but the warmth of the room did little to ease the tension held tightly in his broad frame. He turned quickly, as if expecting trouble, at the sound of the door opening. When he saw Destiny, his face softened at once. Then his gaze slid past her and found Sorcha.

All warmth vanished. His eyes went wide, not with hatred, but shock so sharp it made him still. The kind of shock that turned a man to stone before anger even had time to form.

Sorcha felt the full force of his stare like a blow.

Cameron took one step forward, then stopped as though his body remembered too well what her presence meant. “Sutherland,” he said, voice low.

Not her name.

Her crime.

Destiny stepped between them, still holding Sorcha’s hand. “Cameron,” Destiny said, her voice firm but pleading. “She has been attacked. She—”

Cameron’s gaze flicked over Sorcha’s torn cloak and bruised cheek. His jaw clenched. For a few breaths something like disgust crossed his face, not at Sorcha, but at the cruelty that had touched her. Yet he did not move towards her. He did not offer help. He looked at her as a laird looked at a threat.

Sorcha could bear Cameron’s fury more easily than she could bear his caution. Because she understood it. Destiny had become his wife. His heart. His responsibility. And here Sorcha came, dragging danger behind her like a blood-soaked cloak. But it was not Cameron’s reaction that froze Sorcha to the marrow. It was the second man in the room.

Gavan Munro stood half turned towards the table, his body angled slightly—protective, habitual—so that his left side faced the door. His posture was rigid, controlled, as though the room itself might test his strength. One arm hung close to his body, the shoulder not quite level.

Sorcha saw it in an instant. Even clothed, even still, he carried the wound. It lived in him.

He did not turn as quickly as Cameron. He turned slowly, deliberately, as if he wanted Sorcha to feel each heartbeat of the moment before his eyes met hers. When he finally looked at her, Sorcha’s breath stopped.

His gaze was like iron in winter. Not fury that flares and burns out. Not temper. Something colder that was both measured and enduring.

His eyes dropped once, briefly, to her shoulder, the tear in her cloak, the tremble in her hands, then moved back to her face. He did not greet her, nor did he acknowledge Destiny’s words. He simply looked at Sorcha as if she were a mark carved into stone he could not scrub away.

Shame crawled up Sorcha’s throat. Her palms dampened, and her knees threatened to weaken. This was the face she remembered from the night of the chase—grim, set, and made for judgement. She now saw what she had not seen then. The cost of making a man like this bleed.

Gavan’s mouth curved with something that was not a smile. “I wondered when the other half would appear,” he said.

His words struck Sorcha straight through the ribs. She and William. Two halves of one ruin. Her throat tightened until she could barely swallow.

Destiny stepped forward, eyes flashing. “Gavan, enough.”

Gavan’s gaze did not leave Sorcha. “She is in your solar, then?” he asked, voice flat. “Warmed and fed? Wrapped in kindness after stalking into Munro land?”

Sorcha flinched despite herself.

Cameron’s jaw tightened. “Gavan.”

Gavan lifted his gaze slightly, just enough to look at Cameron without fully turning away from Sorcha. “Your wife is softhearted,” he said, the words more observation than insult. “A virtue. But softness gets people killed.”

Destiny’s grip on Sorcha’s hand tightened until Sorcha’s fingers ached.

Sorcha forced herself to speak. “Mr Munro,” she began.

Gavan’s eyes narrowed.