Page 58 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

Elspeth could only nod, her body trembling.

Magnus stood up, his kilt tented. He leaned down to kiss her, and she tasted herself on his tongue.

“Good,” he said, his voice thick with satisfaction. “Because that was just the beginning.”

She still hadn’t caught her breath enough to answer him properly.

He kissed her again, slower now, and she felt him tremble faintly where his weight pressed into his arms, felt the effort it was costing him to go slow when every line of him was strung tight as a bowstring. He hadn’t caught his breath either.

She had pressed her hand flat against his chest, feeling the unsteady thud of his heart under her palm, when the pounding started at the armory door, hard and frantic, no patience in it at all.

“Me Laird!”

Magnus went very still above her.

“Me Laird, ye’re needed!” The voice belonged to one of the stable boys, cracking with either youth or panic, likely both. “Fire in the furnaces, me Laird! It’s spreading fast!”

Magnus was already reaching for his shirt and throwing it over his head, moving with speed.

“How bad?” he called through the door, snatching Jinny from the bench and sliding her home in her scabbard in one motion.

“Bad enough, me Laird! Duncan’s got men on it already.”

“I’m comin’.”

Elspeth slid off the edge of the chest, pulled her dress back up over her shoulders, and reached up to lace it with hands that hadn’t quite steadied yet.

“The storm,” she said. “It must have been the lightning. Surely, it struck near the place.”

“Aye, likely.” He said it too fast, too flat, a man agreeing with her because arguing cost time he didn’t have, not because he believed it.

He crossed back to her before he left, caught her face in both hands, and rested his forehead against hers for one long breath, as though he needed the contact more than he needed the seconds it cost him.

“Magnus.”

“I have to go.”

She caught his wrist.

“If I lose control of this fire, people will die,” he said plainly. “If I lose control of meself while it’s burning, more of them will. That’s why I cannae stay here a moment longer than I already have, and why I willnae be the man who kisses ye and forgets there’s a castle full of souls depending on him doing his job instead.”

“I ken. Go.”

He kissed her once, hard and quick, and then he was gone, boots loud on the stone, shouting orders before he’d even cleared the armory door.

Elspeth stood alone among the racked blades, her whole body humming with the aftermath of her release, and watched the narrow window at the far end of the room go orange at the edges where the sky had no business glowing at this hour.

* * *

The furnace shed was already half engulfed by the time Magnus reached it, flame running up the timber supports faster than any lightning strike could manage, black smoke rolling out low across the yard instead of rising, which told him before anyone said a word that the wind was working against them.

“Buckets!” He didn’t wait to see who heard him. “Two lines, well to the shed, now! MacTavish, get the horses out of the closest stalls. The rest will bolt once they smell the smoke!”

Men were already running. Duncan appeared at his shoulder half-dressed, sword belt hanging loose off one hip, and didn’t ask what had happened, only where he was needed, which was the only reason Magnus had ever trusted him with anything.

“East wall’s going next if we daenae wet it down.” Magnus was already moving toward it. “Get me six men and every barrel of water in the kitchens.”

He put his own shoulder into the first beam that came down, burning at one end, and hauled it clear of the doorway before it could block the men inside, the heat of it close enough to singe the hair on his forearm.