Page 26

Three nights.

A dark, bitter shadow settled over his mind. His father had rotted from the inside long before the sickness claimed him. His mother followed within the month. His sister — the only gentle thing in that cold house — went the same winter.

He had married at nineteen and buried his wife before he turned twenty, her blood soaking the linen as she gave Angus life and took her last breath in the same hour. Three graves. Three people he had called his own. His men had started calling it the MacKinley curse somewhere around the second funeral. He had not corrected them. He had stopped seeing the point. And now this wild, stubborn MacFaris lass lay burning in his bed, her breath too shallow, her color too wrong — and the old familiar dread was already tightening its fist around his chest.

I’m such a fool. I let me guard down.

He had allowed her sharp tongue, her soft laughter with Angus, and the sweet, agonizing taste of her lips to crack the iron armor he had worn for years.

With a low, dark curse directed entirely at his own weakness, Brodie pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped into the dim room.

The chamber was bathed in the warm, flickering crimson glow of the hearth fire. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight against the morning sun, keeping the chill of the stone from creeping in. Sheona lay buried beneath a mountain of woolen blankets, her small frame looking impossibly fragile amid the massive carved bedposts.

Her cheeks were flushed a deep, fevered rose. Long, loose strands of her dark, glossy hair clung to her damp forehead, framing the soft, delicate arch of her throat.

Brodie froze in the center of the room, his breath catching in his raw throat. She was utterly, terrifyingly beautiful. Even stripped of her fiery defiance and wrapped in the quiet vulnerability of illness, she held a power over him that made his hands tremble.

Reluctantly, as if drawn by a force he could no longer resist, Brodie approached the side of the bed. His heavy boots made no sound on the thick wool rug. He reached out, his large, calloused hand hovering over her face for a moment before he gently rested the backs of his fingers against her forehead. Her skin was warm, but the scorching, terrifying heat of the previous night had finally broken.

“Ye stubborn lass,” he murmured under his breath, his gravelly rasp barely louder than the crackle of the hearth fire. “Ye’d argue with the rain itself if it suited ye.”

Sheona shifted beneath the heavy wool blankets, a soft, pathetic sigh slipping past her parted, pale lips. Her brow furrowed slightly in her sleep, her head turning slowly on the feather pillow, instinctively leaning into the cool, steady warmth of his hand.

Brodie held his breath, his thumb tracing the soft line of her cheekbone as she nuzzled against his knuckles.

She murmured something—a quiet, breathless sound that died in her throat. Then she shifted again, her lips moving, whispering a single word over and over into the quiet room.

“…Brodie…”

Brodie froze completely. Every warlord’s instinct he possessed roared at him to tear his hand away, to pull back and reforge the iron walls between them. She was dreaming of him. Through the dark haze of her fever, it was his name she called into the quiet night.

His heart thundered against his ribs, heavy and terrifyingly loud. He did not step back. Instead, his long fingers lingered against her skin, gently brushing a damp, dark curl from her eyes and tracing the soft, shell-like curve of her ear.

“Ye’re becomin’ a dangerous habit, Sheona,” he admitted softly into the shadows, the words spoken so low they were swallowed by the firelight, safe in the knowledge that she was too deep in sleep to hear them.

Slowly, agonizingly, he withdrew his hand, taking three rigid steps backward until the shadows near the hearth swallowed his tall frame.

A quiet creak from the door jamb made Brodie snap his head toward the entrance.

Angus stood in the doorway, barefoot, clad in a long white nightshirt that hung down to his ankles. He was rubbing one sleepy, dark eye with his fist, staring up at his father with wide, anxious eyes.

Brodie’s jaw set, though his voice softened as he stepped toward the boy. “What are ye doin’ out of yer bed at this hour, lad?”

Angus shuffled into the room, pointing a tiny, trembling finger toward the high stone mantelpiece above the hearth. “I left me horse, Father,” the boy whispered, taking care not to wake the sleeping woman in the bed. “The wooden horse I carved with Master Corbet. I left it on the mantel, waitin’ for Lady Sheona to wake, so I could show her the new bridle I cut for it. But… I could nae sleep without it under me pillow.”

Brodie looked from the small, crude wooden carving resting on the stone mantel back down to his son’s pale, hopeful face. A deep, aching knot tightened in his chest—a crushing weight compounded by the sight of the motherless boy who had fallen so completely under Sheona’s quiet spell.

Without a word, Brodie reached up and took the wooden horse from the mantel. He knelt down, placing the toy gently into Angus’s small hands, and wrapped his broad palm around the boy’s cold fingers.

“Come on then,” Brodie rumbled gently, pushing himself to his feet and taking his son’s hand.

He leaned over the small bedside table, blowing out the single tallow candle, leaving only the deep crimson firelight to warm the quiet chamber and the sleeping woman within.

Brodie led Angus out into the cold stone corridor, pulling the heavy oak door shut until the latch clicked into place.

Standing in the shadows of the hallway was one of his most trusted clan sentries, his hand resting on the pommel of his broadsword, his wool plaid spattered with fresh, dried mud.

“Me Laird,” the sentry said low, bowing his head sharply. “We found tracks. Fresh ones, down near the lower gorge by the eastern boundary.”