Page 55 of The Shape of Silence

“Ye dare raise yer hand to her?”

The young man—named Kerr, Avery had enough wherewithal to understand, having heard his name shouted and roared so vehemently—blanched even further. His lips moved but no sound came forth. He blinked rapidly.

“I ought to kill ye for this,” Morggán seethed. “Look at me when I speak to ye!” he shouted then, when Kerr lowered his gaze against the fury of Morggán’s. “Explain to me what possessed ye.” Still holding him by his shirt and collar, he shook him violently. “Say one thing. One thing that keeps me from spilling yer bluid into the dirt.”

“Aye, there will be bluid,” Tormod said, coming to Morggán’s side, somehow managing to squeeze himself between the laird and the soldier. “But nae here, nae now—nae in front of the lass.”

Tormod was forced to give a swift elbow to Morggán’s forearm, to get him to release the guy. He grunted and grimaced as he did so, and then, when Morggán’s grip had been released, he pushed Kerr backwards still, away from Morggán, using his free hand to summon someone, fingers beckoning.

“Bind him to the ash tree,” he said to a serious Alasdair, who arrived to collect the white-faced soldier. “Strip his weapons. He’ll sit under guard till I decide what’s to be done with him. I ken he’ll beg the lass’s pardon afore sunset.”

Morggán now, finally, turned to Avery.

Her chest still heaved from outrage and shock alike, and tears were wet upon her face. But Christ, he still looked furious. The expression upon his face had not softened at all. His mouth remained hard, one corner still faintly curled with restrained wrath, his gray eyes bright with it.

Yet when he reached for her, his touch could not have contrasted more sharply. He closed the distance between them, taking her hand without hesitation, his grip firm but careful, and simply turned with it, drawing her with him as he strode away from the gathering soldiers and toward the front of the house. The movement happened so naturally and with such quiet certainty that Avery followed without question.

Fury still lived within him, Avery realized. It was there in the rigid set of his shoulders and the dangerous tension remaining in the hand that held hers. And yet his fingers were warm and astonishingly gentle around her own, as though despite all that rage he remained acutely aware that it was her hand he held.

Chapter Fourteen

Morggán barely remembered the final stretch of riding back through the forest.

He and Tormod had been discussing the English trail the scouts had discovered northward, whether the force appeared to be merely in a holding pattern or establishing temporary positions along the route, while Donnchadh rode several lengths behind them speaking with the scouts. The conversation had occupied most of Morggán’s attention until shouting had stolen it away.

By the time they broke fully into the clearing, the scene before him was obviously well gone beyond mere argument.

Avery had been flushed crimson with rage while Charlie barked himself hoarse at her side. Kerr had been staggering backward beneath repeated shoves from both her hands, the fool looking half amused and half bewildered by her fury while soldiers throughout the clearing stood openly watching.

Morggán had frowned, only that, wondering what had transpired, until he caught the gist from Avery’s shouting about Kerr trespassing and then... shite, he couldn’t recall the last time something—anything—had so astounded him so much as Kerr lifting his hand to strike her.

Alasdair and Finlay had already begun moving by then. Morggán had caught sight of both men sprinting hard toward the hut from opposite directions, while Eòin came tearing across the clearing from a different direction looking equally prepared to throw himself into the matter. He expected no less from any one of them, and knew a small measure of pride for their defensive reaction.

Even now, guiding Avery silently back toward the house while the camp behind them slowly resumed movement and noise, Morggán felt as if he was yet in the midst of it, the rage inside him still a tangible thing. He had witnessed men threaten women before in his life. Any man who lived long enough had. Villages burned. Raids turned savage. Men drank too much and struck those weaker than themselves. The world possessed no shortage of ugliness.

But seeing Kerr raise a hand toward Avery had stripped all rationality clean out of him.

Morggán could still picture her standing there in the middle of the clearing with tears upon her cheeks and her finger jammed furiously into Kerr’s chest while she screamed at him about trespassing in her home. And how she’d neither flinched nor backed down when the fool lifted his hand.

Morggán stepped through the doorway and dragged Avery inside with him, leaving the door cracked halfway as was his practice. He let his gaze move slowly across the room while the last remnants of his temper simmered heavily beneath his skin. The disturbance itself appeared minor enough by most standards. Several bowls sat displaced from their usual places. Herb bundles hung loose where they had clearly been handled carelessly. Blankets atop the bed had been disturbed—his breacan specifically lay in a messy bundle.

Christ, the fool had entered her house, had walked carelessly through the one place Avery guarded more fiercely than anything else in the world, touching and rearranging things she preserved with near ritual precision.

Jesu, and had she not said to him only last night, “This is all I know. It’s all I have.”

And so he understood immediately that this was no small violation to Avery. Her home was not merely shelter to her. It was routine and order and familiarity. A tiny defended corner of the world where every object possessed its place because she alone decided where it belonged. Morggán had recognized that truth within days of waking beneath her roof. Avery liked tidiness. She folded blankets with sharp corners, arranged shelves carefully, and maintained routines with almost ritual consistency. Even preparing meals carried a precise practiced rhythm to it, each movement deliberate and familiar.

Kerr had blundered through that careful order like a drunk wandering through a chapel.

Morggán’s gaze settled upon the salt crock sitting crookedly near the counter’s edge, its lid left carelessly askew beside it, and his jaw flexed again.

“Bastard,” he muttered beneath his breath.

Only then did he realize he still held her hand. Morggán looked down and released her at once.

The moment his hand fell away, she curled her fingers slowly into her palm.

The movement caught strangely at his attention. She’d stood silent and unmoving at his side since they’d entered, all the while he’d examined Kerr’s damage. He fleetingly wondered whether she had been waiting for his reaction to the disturbance, or perhaps merely waiting for him to speak first before deciding how she herself ought to feel now that the fury of the moment had passed.