Page 61 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

"Are we going to lose you to it?" she asked.

He turned to look at her fully. Her green eyes were steady. She wasn't asking it to wound him.

He opened his mouth.

"Noay," he said.

It came out without hesitation and without weight, and for a moment neither of them moved.

Then he looked back at the water.

"Go up before the path gets dark," he said. "The shale's treacherous after sunset."

A beat of silence.

"Come with me."

"In a while."

She didn't push it. He heard her turn, heard the first careful steps back up the granite, and stood listening to them until the cliff swallowed the sound. He stayed where he was with the tide coming in and the dark settling over the firth.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dougal’s shoulder caught the oak beam as he hauled the wooden barrel toward the hearth, his breath coming in whistling gasps that smelled of stale ale and dried oats. He dumped the barrel onto the stone with a thud that shook the iron fire-irons, then straightened, clapping his calloused hands together. His eyes, milky around the edges with age, drifted toward the ceiling beam where a faint creak echoed from the room above.

"The lad sleeps like his grandfather," Dougal muttered, rubbing his gnarled knuckles. "Thinks the weight of the keep rests solely on his shoulders, just as Old Alpin did before the deep claimed him."

Grisselle paused in her mending, the bone needle poised midway through a strip of coarse wool. She kept her voice even, leaning slightly over the hearth light. "The deep claims many men along the coast, Dougal. It’s the way of the sea."

"Aye, but most men daenae drag the ghost of the leviathan back to shore with them," Dougal said, his voice dropping into a raspy whisper. He gestured toward his own left jaw, trailing a thick finger down to his throat. "Old Alpin took the full brunt of the tail when the beast overturned the longboat, aye, shattered the timber right into the lad's face. The old man held the boy underwater beneath his own chest until the thrashing stopped. Kept the monster from taking the boy whole, but left him with the mark to remember the price."

Grisselle’s thumb pressed hard against the sharp point of her needle until the skin flushed white. "The old Laird died saving his grandson."

"The old Laird died," Dougal corrected softly, turning toward the doorway, "and the boy washed ashore breathing air he never thought was his to keep."

The old man shuffled out into the passageway, the heavy latch clicking shut behind him.

Grisselle did not finish the stitch. She set the wool aside, her fingers cold despite the roaring peat fire, and rose from the bench. The stone corridors were silent, wrapped in the deep, suffocating stillness of midnight. She walked up the spiral stairs, her bare feet making no sound against the cold flags, until she reached the arched doorway leading to the outer battlement.

The iron door stood half-open. Drafts of salt-heavy wind whipped around the stone jambs, carrying the sharp, iron tang of the rising tide far below.

Alpin stood at the stone ledge, his broad shoulders silhouetted against the dark curve of the Atlantic. He wore no plaid over his linen shirt, and the freezing wind plastered the cloth against the sharp angle of his ribs. His fingers were clamped onto the cold granite parapet so tightly that the knuckles showed stark and white against the dark stone.

Grisselle stopped three paces behind him. "You’ll freeze the blood in your veins standing out here in the dark."

Alpin did not turn around. His dark hair blew wildly across his forehead, but his posture remained rigid. "The air is clear out here."

"The air is bitter," she said, taking a step closer. The wind pulled a loose strand of her red hair across her lips. "And the sea is louder tonight than usual."

"It always sounds like this when the tide turns," he said. "It calls in the debt."

Grisselle stepped into his line of sight, forcing him to look at her. The moonlight caught the long, jagged line of the scar stretching from his jawline down beneath his collar. In the low light, the thick pale skin looked like a permanent mark branded deep into his flesh.

"Dougal spoke of the longboat," she said softly.

Alpin’s jaw flexed, the muscles leaping along his cheekbone. He looked away, his eyes fixed on the black, churning water hundreds of feet below where the waves crashed against the jagged teeth of the shore. "Dougal speaks too much."

"He said Old Alpin held you under."