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He had once welcomed the prospect of battle, certain courage and a strong sword were enough to prevail. He knew better now. Every clash demanded a price, and too often, it was paid by those who had never chosen to fight.

They rode on through the fading light until the first glimpse of Lemlair appeared beyond the rise, its dark stone walls standing firm against the snow-covered hills. Torches already burned within the courtyard against the gathering dusk, their warm light flickering gold against the winter blue. Word of the court’s outcome had clearly reached the house ahead of them if the guards outside the estate were any indication. The men straightened as the riders approached, alert but no longer wary.

Gavan dismounted first. When he reached up to steady Sorcha, he did so without thought, his hands finding her waist as he lifted her easily from the saddle. Only after her boots touched the ground did he realise what he had done.

There had been no sharp protest from his shoulder. No instinctive tightening. No flash of pain forcing him to compensate for weakness. The motion had felt natural. Fluid.

He stilled for the briefest moment and flexed his arm once at his side. The strength there no longer felt fragile or uncertain. Not what it had once been, perhaps, but steady. Reliable. The realisation settled deeper than the movement itself.

Sorcha noticed the slight shift in his expression immediately. “What is it?” she asked softly.

For a heartbeat, he simply looked at his own hand as though reacquainting himself with something long lost.

Then he glanced back towards her. “Nothing,” he said, though a faint note of wonder lingered beneath the word. “Only . . . better than before.”

He caught the warmth that passed through her eyes at his words. Together they crossed the courtyard while guards moved to tend the horses. Gavan reached automatically for her cloak as they climbed the steps, meaning to help remove it himself, but before he could, Mrs Jacoby hurried forward from the entry hall, relief plain upon her face.

“Thank the saints,” the older woman breathed. “We heard there was fighting in Dingwall.”

“Only enough to remind everyone the Highlands have not yet learned peace,” Gavan replied dryly.

Mrs Jacoby crossed herself quickly. “Then you were wise to come home.”

Home. The word settled differently than it once had.

They had returned on the night of Yule. Just inside the hall, the great Yule log rested ready upon the hearth, enormous and unlit, waiting for the laird’s hand to begin the celebration.

Gavan paused just beyond the threshold, his gaze lifting slowly through the hall beyond.

Something had changed here. The difference struck him all at once now that he had been away long enough to see it clearly. The old chill austerity that once clung stubbornly to Lemlair no longer ruled the space. Warmth lingered in the air, not merely from the fires burning along the walls, but from something quieter and harder to name.

Fresh pine scented the hall, woven through garlands draped carefully along the beams overhead. Sprigs had been placed with thoughtful restraint rather than excess, catching the firelight near the stairs and across the mantel. The long-neglected stone floors gleamed softly where they had been scrubbed clean, and the surfaces that once gathered dust now reflected deliberate care instead of quiet abandonment.

The house no longer felt endured. It felt lived in.

Gavan had not fully realised how much had changed until this moment, standing at the threshold after everything the past days had demanded of them. Lemlair no longer felt merely like inheritance and obligation bound together by stone walls. It felt inhabited. Claimed.

His gaze shifted towards Sorcha. She stood just inside the doorway now, one gloved hand resting lightly against the carved frame as though she felt the change too. Hesitation lingered in her still, but not the guarded uncertainty she had carried when she first crossed this threshold. This was something else entirely. Recognition.

She had done this. Not simply the garlands, or the cleaning, or the touches of Yule woven quietly through the hall. She had brought life back into a place that had forgotten how to feel like home long before either of them realised it had been lost.

Gavan looked around the hall once more and understood with sudden clarity that Lemlair had never truly been a home before now. It had been duty. Stone. A place defended rather than lived within.

Until her.

Sorcha drew a slow breath and stepped fully across the threshold. This time she did not enter as a woman braced for judgement or exile. She entered as though some part of her already belonged here.

And for the first time in his life, Gavan realised there was nothing he wanted more.

Chapter Nineteen

The quiet did not last even an hour after their return. Gavan felt the shift before the sound came—the subtle tightening in the air, the instinct honed from too many years of waiting for something before other clans attacked. When the shout finally split the evening, it did not startle him. It confirmed what he already knew.

Colin and his guards were moving before the echo faded. “Outside!”

Gavan followed without hesitation. The return to the cold struck him hard as he stepped into the courtyard, dusk settling thick and low over Lemlair. Torches flared along the walls, their light catching the movement of figures already inside the outer yard, pressing past the boundary where warning should have held.

Given the scattered movement beyond the torchlight, Gavan knew immediately it was not a full assault. No siege lines formed beyond the ridge. No mass of riders gathered at the gates. The shadows moved too lightly for that, striking quickly at the edges before melting back into the dark. This was not an army come to claim Lemlair.