Page 6 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

Laird MacIver's gaze shifted to her. It was enough to make her uneasy. There was something in his eyes; he didn't see a promised bride or the means to carry out a royal accord. No, he saw Donaldina MacNicol herself, enraged, afraid, and still refusing to give up the dignity that others were trying to steal from her.

With a curse, Cormac pushed her away from him, possibly meaning to turn the knife. Donaldina lost her footing. Laird MacIver moved. She saw only a flash of steel. His sword struck Cormac’s blade with a hard ringing sound that cracked through the storm. The knife flew from Cormac’s hand, spinning once before striking rock and skidding toward the path’s edge. He staggered back, snarling, his boots slipping on the uneven ground.

And then she fell, her eyes closing as if ready to succumb to her sorrowful fate. But then, an arm caught her around the waist and pulled her back with a force that stole the breath from her lungs. She clashed against Roy MacIver’s chest, hard enough that pain burst through her ribs. His other arm came around her, drawing her away from the cliff before the wind could claim what Cormac had nearly delivered.

For a moment, she could not think. There was only the hard line of his body against hers, the smell of rain-soaked wool, leather, steel, and something warm beneath it all that belonged only to living skin. His heart beat beneath her cheek, fast but controlled. One hand held his sword outward, the other remaining locked around her waist.

He had her. No man had ever held Donaldina MacNicol so closely without permission and lived unrebuked by her tongue.

Yet the rebuke did not come. She was too aware of Cormac in front of her, too aware of the cliff behind her, and most dangerously, too conscious that MacIver's grasp did not feel like possession, but more like a barrier.

Cormac scrambled across the stones, reaching toward the fallen dagger. Roy shifted at once, placing Donaldina behind him without releasing her fully. His arm slid from her waist to her wrist, keeping her near his back as if the shape of his body alone could deny access to every threat.

She should have pulled away, she meant to. Her pride awakened, bruised and frustrated, ready to remind him that she was no weak lass to be rescued from peril. However, her knees were less compliant than she would have liked, her fingers had become cold, and the spot where Cormac's blade touched her throat continued to burn as though the metal was still there.

Laird MacIver did not look at her. He was watching Cormac.

“Take another inch toward that dagger,” he growled, “and I will remove the hand that seeks it.”

Cormac froze, crouched upon the path, his face twisted with humiliation.

“Ye have nae authority over me.”

MacIver’s sword angled lower. “Test how much I require.”

Now, the guards had started to move closer, their courage returning in the convenient way of soldiers who waited till the threat had chosen a different foe. Donaldina noticed their shame-filled expressions and felt no gratitude.

Cormac saw them, too. His mouth curled.

“Cowards,” he spat. “Ye would let a MacIver lay claim tae Dun Ard? Tae her? Tae Lachlan’s seat?”

“She isnae a seat,” MacIver corrected.

The words struck Donaldina strangely. She looked up at him, seeing the rain pouring down the leather guard at his wrist and the sword remaining steady despite his pale knuckles around the hilt.

Cormac stood slowly, keeping his gaze locked on the dagger among the rocks, but MacIver raised his sword toward his chest.

“Step back,” he ordered.

Cormac’s eyes glittered. “Or?”

MacIver’s voice lowered. “Or I decide whether I kill ye or let ye live.”

The storm seemed to pause around them. Donaldina looked from one man to the other. Cormac, whom she had known for years, stood bare now of all pretenses, with his ambition sharpened by resentment, protection curdled into ownership, and his loyalty nothing but a cloak wrapped over hunger.

Laird Roy MacIver, whom she did not know at all, stood between her and the cliff with a sword in his hand and violence held in check by some discipline she could neither trust nor dismiss. He came under a royal decree that might legally take away her freedom. He crossed her brother’s funeral like an omen. His name was tangled with Lachlan’s death in every whisper Dun Ard possessed.

And yet he reached her. He struck the blade aside. He held her as if keeping her alive mattered more than any claim the King had written.

Donaldina drew a shaking breath, tasting salt, rain, and the ghost of fear. She could not decide which man was the greater danger.

She only knew that one dragged her toward the sea, and the other did not let her fall.

CHAPTER THREE

Cormac stumbled backward. His heel struck a loose stone, sending it skittering over the edge, but he recovered before the cliff could punish him for what Roy’s sword had not yet done. Hatred stripped the last measure of caution from his face. It burned there plainly now, made uglier by humiliation.

Roy kept his blade level with the man’s chest. MacIver had been granted many opportunities in his life to kill men. Some required thought, others required only sufficient speed. Cormac Gunn, standing within reach with rain upon his face and murder in his eyes, offered a temptation of the simpler sort.