He moved faster, kissing her frantically, until that same explosion seized her, but he still didn’t stop. A moment later, his own body clenched, and it was even more potent than her own euphoria.
He was still breathing heavily when he rolled to the side, and pulled her into an embrace, with her head resting on his shoulder. Margaret drew closer against him beneath the blankets, still warm from his touch and unwilling to let the moment end.
Outside the castle the Highlands waited, full of danger, but there in his arms she felt fearless.
Domhnall did not sleep, although the castle had grown quiet hours before.
The fires had been contained, the wounded tended, and the last patrols sent out across the darkened grounds to ensure no MacGregor men still lurked beyond the walls. Inveraray stood secure again.
But sleep refused to come. Domhnall sat against the carved headboard, with one arm resting across the blanket while the other remained loosely draped around Margaret’s shoulders.
She slept beside him. Her hair lay scattered across the pillow in a soft chestnut spill, still smelling of smoke and dust of the attack. One hand rested lightly against his chest, and her breathing was slow and even now that exhaustion had finally claimed her.
Domhnall stared into the dim light of the chamber. The memory would not leave him. He couldn’t stop seeing Margaret draggedacross the corridor, with a MacGregor hand gripping her arm. The service door opening…
What if he had been a moment late…
His jaw tightened. The thought sat like iron in his chest.
His fingers moved unconsciously, brushing a stray strand of hair away from Margaret’s cheek. She stirred slightly beneath the touch. Domhnall stilled. He thought she would slip back into sleep. Instead, her eyes opened slowly.
The soft gray light of early dawn had begun to creep through the window as Margaret blinked up at him.
“Ye are still awake.” Her voice was rough with sleep.
“Aye.”
“Have ye slept at all?”
Domhnall shrugged slightly. “Nay.”
Even half-awake, her gaze was far too perceptive. “Ye are thinking about the attack.”
He did not answer. Margaret pushed herself up slightly, the blanket shifting around her shoulders as she leaned against the headboard beside him.
“I ken that those men came fer me,” she whispered, as if by not saying the words too loudly, she might make them less true.
Domhnall’s silence answered her. For a moment, she said nothing. Then she asked another question.
“I’ve heard the councilmen talk of yer feud with MacGregor,” she chose her words cautiously. “When did this feud begin?”
Domhnall’s gaze darkened slightly.
“Years ago.”
He didn’t want to talk about this. But he wanted her to know.
“Over land?” she asked again.
“Nay.”
Margaret tilted her head. “Then what?”
Domhnall did not answer immediately. The chamber had grown very still in the early gray light. Margaret sat beside him beneath the blankets, watching him with quiet patience and waiting in the way she had learned forced him to speak eventually.
He rubbed a hand slowly over his jaw.
“When I was younger,” he said at last, “the fighting between Campbell and MacGregor was already old. It was nae a feud that began with me, or with Kenneth. The borderlands between our clans have been contested for generations, cattle raids, ambushes along the passes, small battles that flare and die and flare again.”
