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“I daenae want to marry ye.” Isla kept her back straight. “But I have to.”
“Have to? Explain.”
“Me uncle,” she said, trying not to provoke him, “means to marry me off to Laird MacNab.”
Alisdair’s eyes darkened, his mouth tightening with something akin to anger. Perhaps at the alliance being stitched together behind his back.
“I willnae marry that old man.”
“Ye’d rather marry a beast, right?”
Isla glared at him. She was at his mercy, that was correct, but that didn’t mean he could toy with her.
“It seemed like the better option,” she replied coldly. “Beasts can be tamed after all.”
He let out a cruel laugh, devoid of warmth.
“Ye have steel under those skirts, lass. Too bad it isnae enough. Leave.”
Isla cursed her own impertinent mouth and grabbed his arm as he turned to leave. Alisdair stopped, looked at her hand on his arm, then looked up into her eyes. For a second, their gaze held, and Isla felt her whole body catch fire, her breath coming faster.
She dropped her hand at once and forced her attention back to the matter at hand.
“Hear me out, me Laird. Marry me, save me from this fate, and in return I will help ye against me uncle.”
Alisdair turned back, looming over her now. Something flickered behind his stormy eyes, something that wasn’t quite anger. Isla felt that look all the way down to the marrow of her bones, unable to comprehend how a man she had only just met could affect her this way.
“I have information on allies and plans.” She decided to focus on her plan. “On political alignments, secret meetings, even where he hides his gold.”
His hand came up, slow. His knuckles grazed along her jaw, tilting her face toward the firelight, and the breath left her in a shaky exhale she couldn’t quite disguise.
“Ye’re trembling,” he murmured.
His expression didn’t change, but his gaze moved over her carefully. Isla felt heat pool low in her belly under that look.
“I will never be safe unless me uncle is taken down, me Laird. Ye are the only one who can do that. I can help. I want to help.”
“So,” he said as his thumb traced her cheekbone, “it is fear of yer uncle that makes ye shake so.”
The air between them had gone thick, charged. For one foolish moment, she wondered what would happen if the storm behind his grey eyes finally broke and he kissed her. She suspected it wouldn’t be gentle.
Somehow, the thought excited her more than scared her.
“Careful, lass,” he said, so quiet it was almost a growl.
He dropped his hand and stepped back, and the sudden cold where his warmth had been felt like a rebuke.
His expression gave away as little as the stones of his castle. She stood in agonizing suspense, unsure whether she had found an ally or sealed her own doom.
When he took one step closer, she decided it was the latter.
“Ye ran from one cage straight into another.”
CHAPTER FOUR
WEIGHED DECISION
Alisdair looked at Isla, a tempest of emotions brewing inside him that refused to settle into any single shape. His mind wrestled with his own instincts—logic against feeling, strategy against memory.
