He took a step farther into the room. “I thought…ye might tak’ a part in yer own salvation. Send yer sister a letter o’ yer own pleading for your life.” How could Moira refuse such a plea? Even the council could not. “Can ye read and write? If no’, ye might speak the words to me and I will write them down.”
Her chin jerked up still farther. “Ye expect me to plead? To beg? I will no’.”
Rory had a sudden vision of her lying beneath him on the bed. Naked. Those misty eyes wide with desire. Begging him. Begging for him inside her.
He wanted to hear her plead. For him.
“Why should Moira believe any words that come fo’ me in your hand? Why should I believe ye would write what I say, for all that?”
Aye, for she thought him a monster. A brute. A tyrant.
He could not ask her to trust him. Not after he’d told her that her life hung in the balance.
A lie. For he could not—ever—harm one hair of her.
It was an empty threat. But he could not confess that either.
“Mistress Saerla—my attainment of MacBeith lands is inevitable. Control o’ all Glen Bronach will come to me.”
“Says who? You? My ancestors were here already when yours arrived. They lived but lightly on the land. Took care always to honor what they found up on the rise. Sought always to preserve what is there.”
“Wha’ is there?”
“Magic. Aye, ye might well scoff at it. Ye being what ye are.”
“A monster.”
“A MacLeod. The breed that came to this land wi’ swords and devastation on their minds, seeking to conquer and destroy all that lay here. Ye do that yet.”
Despite her hard words, he took another step toward her, unable to prevent it. By God, he could feel the magic inside her. It drew him like nothing he’d ever known.
“Let us deal together, ye and me.”
“Deal together?” She lifted her brows. “How? I am your prisoner.”
“Ye be but an honored guest.”
“One ye mean to slaughter if my sister does no’ meet your demands. Rory MacLeod, d’ye take me for a fool?”
“Nay. Let us sit down together, ye and me. You explain it to me—what is up on that rise. I will mak’ a promise to ye to preserve it. When I seize MacBeith lands, I will leave the stones up there be. Nae harm will come to them.”
“Stones. And graves. There were graves there long before my ancestors arrived. And my own folk are buried there as well.”
“Nay harm shall touch that place. Or ye. I vow it to ye.” What was happening to him? In her presence he could scarcely think aright. He wanted to touch her, defend her. He wanted to kneel at her feet.
By God, if there existed some enchantment up on the rise, if she perhaps kept a part of that within her, it must be a powerful magic indeed.
Her chin jerked farther upward. Her eyes glowed like the mist that rose from the loch of a morning. Cool. Soft. Mystical.
“That,” she said softly, “is a bargain I may be willing to make.”
*
They sat togetheron the bench that faced the fire, half facing one another, their knees a short distance apart. Saerla kept her hands twisted in her skirt, the right one tucked into the pocket that held the knife. She had only to await the moment when he seemed distracted. Incautious. He was much stronger than her, true. But as she’d learned on the battlefield, she was much quicker than her opponents and carried a kind of blessed protection that kept her mostly unscathed.
As it was, fear quelled the breath in her lungs. She fought that fear back. She must remain focused. She could, aye, end it all now.
“Tell me,” he said, “o’ this magic.”
