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“She is a MacFaris!” Thomas roared, taking a frantic, staggering step forward, raising the long hunting dirk so high his arm trembled against the dark. “Do ye think a hand-bindin’ washes that away? Do ye think wrappin’ a linen cord around her wrist makes her innocent?”

“Her father is rottin’ in the earth,” Brodie answered, taking one measured, deliberate step forward. The larch floorboards groaned beneath the crushing weight of his boot. “His debts died with him. She owes ye nothin’. Me clan owes ye nothin’.”

“She owes me everythin’!” Thomas screamed, his pale eyes bulging in the dim torchlight as he raised his left hand, pointing a trembling, ink-stained finger at Sheona.

Sheona leaned back against the rough stone masonry, her fingers pressed flat against the cold granite to steady her trembling frame. She swallowed hard, her throat burning, but her eyes never wavered from Thomas’s face.

“Me father was a cruel man, Sir Thomas,” Sheona said, her voice raspy and thin, yet cutting straight through the howl of the storm. “He brought ruin to many houses, and he brought ruin to his own. I daenae deny the blood he spilled. But I willnae answer for his sins, nor will I let ye murder me to appease the ghosts in yer head.”

“Hold yer tongue, wench!” Thomas shrieked, his grip tightening around the hilt of his dirk until his knuckles turned bone-white. “Ye speak as if ye have a choice! Ye are the last of them! When ye die, the MacFaris name is wiped clean from the Highlands forever! It is the only justice left to me!”

“Justice?” Brodie scoffed, taking another slow, menacing step. The distance between them was closing, six paces of cold, wet timber separating the Laird from the madman. “Ye call creepin’ up a watchtower in the dark and puttin’ a blade to a woman’s throat justice? Ye call manipulatin’ a child by any other name? Ye are nay laird, Thomas. Ye never were. Ye are just a bitter ghost clingin’ to old ashes.”

Thomas’s thin lips peeled back over his teeth in a grotesque, snarling grimace. “I have waited twenty years for this night, Brodie! Twenty years of smilin’ at men I despised, of waitin’ for the right moment to strike at her father’s blood! I kent when ye brought her into this keep that me time had come! I kent the feast would dull yer senses, that yer guards would be drinkin’, that the tower would be empty!”

“And yet ye failed,” Brodie said, his deep voice dropping. “Ye stand in me tower, yer hostage is gone, yer steel is useless, and me men are comin’ up those stairs right now.”

From the spiral stairwell below, the faint, rapidly growing sound of heavy armor, clattering scabbards, and furious, shouting voices began to echo up through the stone foundations. Douglas’s roar thundered from the floor below, leading a dozen armed guardsmen up the steps.

Thomas heard the noise, his eyes darting frantically toward the dark threshold of the door, then back to Brodie, and finally to the gaping hole in the wall where the wind whistled hollow and black.

“I willnae rot in yer dungeon, MacKinley!” Thomas cried, his chest heaving as he shifted his weight, lowering the dirk until the point was leveled directly at Brodie’s throat. “I willnae give ye the satisfaction of a trial or a rope! If I cannae take her with me, I will take ye instead!”

“Try it,” Brodie whispered.

Thomas let out a final, desperate shriek of pure madness and lunged forward across the slick, wet floorboards, driving the hunting blade straight for Brodie’s heart.

All the madness that had fueled Thomas vanished in a single, coward’s breath the moment his lunging blade missed its mark. The steel hissed harmlessly through empty air as Brodie stepped inside his guard, broad forearm sweeping out to smash Thomas’s wrist against the stone pillar. The hunting dirk clattered onto the larch floorboards, skittering into the dark.

Deprived of his steel, robbed of his leverage, and stripped of his hostage, Thomas’s face drained to the gray color of wet lime. The unhinged bravado shattered, exposing only the small, terrified creature underneath. His pale eyes darted past Brodie’s towering shoulder to the threshold, where the heavy thud of iron-shod boots and the flare of approaching torches roared up the spiral stairs.

He didn’t fight for glory; he scrambled like a cornered rat to flee.

Thomas spun on his heel, his wet leather soles slipping against the rain-slicked floorboards as he made a frantic dash toward the low archway leading to the parapet walk.

Brodie gave him no chance.

“Nae in this life,” Brodie growled, his deep voice vibrating through the cramped chamber.

He launched himself across the narrow space, his broad hand shooting out to snag the tail of Thomas’s fine woolen mantle. He yanked the man backward with brute, terrifying force. Thomas shrieked as he was whipped around, his spine slamming violently against the central stone pillar with a sickening crack that echoed above the howling gale.

Dust rained down from the vaulted ceiling. Thomas didn’t go down. Driven by primal terror, he clawed blindly at Brodie’s face, his jagged fingernails scraping Brodie’s jaw and drawing three sharp beads of blood. He kicked out wildly, his heavy boot catching Brodie square in the knee.

The joint gave a dull thud, but Brodie barely winced. The pain was a distant, meaningless whisper against the white-hot rage roaring in his veins.

Brodie stepped into the strike, gripping Thomas by the lapels of his tunic and slamming him into the wall again. Thomas gasped, spewing a red spray of spit against Brodie’s collar, but he fought back with frantic, animal energy. He drove his elbow up hard, catching Brodie under the chin, and shoved his thumb desperately into the Laird’s eye socket to force him back.

Brodie grunted, his head snapping back as white light flashed in his vision. He released his grip on Thomas’s tunic, driving a massive, calloused fist straight into the man’s ribs.

The sound of snapping bone was sharp and immediate.

Thomas doubled over, breathless and wheezing in a high pitch, but his momentum carried them both as they staggered across the narrow length of the tower. They tumbled into the dark shadows beside the hearth, smashing through an ancient oak bench. Heavy iron kettles and dry rushes went flying, clattering wildly against the flagstones.

“Get off me!” Thomas choked out, his hands scratching frantically at the floorboards until his fingers found a jagged piece of the shattered wooden bench.

With a guttural scream, Thomas drove the heavy, splintered stake upward toward Brodie’s exposed throat.

Brodie caught the blow inches from his skin, his palm taking the jagged wooden point. The dry oak tore through the leather of his glove, bite-deep into his palm, but Brodie didn’t flinch. His fingers clamped around the wood, twisting it until the timber snapped in two. With his other hand, Brodie seized Thomas by the throat, pinning him to the floorboards, his broad thumb pressing hard against the man’s windpipe.