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Raghnall led her up the narrow stairs running along the curtain wall, up into the crisp air of the Highland night. As they walked towards one of the towers at the far end of the wall, Raghnall wondered how he would ever begin telling her his story.

He wanted to be away from the confinement of enclosed spaces and close to the sky. They passed by a few sleepy sentinels. As he entered the tower and took another flight of stairs to the highest level, he knew based on the thin, pale golden line of light on the horizon to the east, the night shift would soon change with the morning shift.

He told the guard he could go now and that Raghnall would stay and keep watch, and the man happily took the offer. When the guard left, Raghnall took a lungful of air. But it didn’t help to soothe the trembling in his hands.

He was about to open the door to the most horrific day of his life.

He had to face the demons that kept him awake at night, the demons that were at the bottom of every uisge cup he’d emptied since then. The demons that were at the edge of the blade he used fighting the enemy and at the depths of every nightmare he had. All he did was try to forget them, keep them away until the moment when he couldn’t run from them anymore.

That moment was now.

* * *

Bryanna’s heart was racing. She knew he was about to open up, to tell her the worst thing that had ever happened to him. The night was still dark, even though the horizon was starting to lighten. The air was lush and crisp from the scents of the loch mixed with the scents of the forest.

Bryanna’s hand was on the parapet of the defensive tower, the rock rough and cold against her fingers. A slight breeze played with her hair and tickled her cheeks.

Raghnall, Mr. Mystery and Darkness, had a son, who looked nothing like him, by the way. And Raghnall had thrown that information at her, spoiling the best sexual experience of her entire life, leaving her confused and shaking, trembling, mindless from desire.

He’d wanted her to beg him… She had been ready to plead him to stay with her and keep doing whatever he was doing to her.

When she had found him in the great hall, his face ashen, like he’d seen a ghost, she just knew this boy and that sad song Raghnall been singing about a woman were connected. The man with no heart had brought only demise to the woman—she must have died. And since the boy’s mother had died, too, it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.

She could be wrong, of course, but that was her gut feeling, and she knew by now to trust her gut.

So would she now hear about how the woman had died? And why Raghnall couldn’t even talk about her in front of his family?

“After my father chased me away from the clan,” he said, “I didna ken what to do with myself. No money, no sword, nothing to my name but the clothes on my back and a warm cloak to keep the cold away.” He leaned against the parapet and stared into the darkness. The sole torch on the wall illuminated his thoughtful face, making fires play in his eyes. “I went down south, with no purpose, no one to turn to, and nothing to achieve. The only people who wanted me were reivers in the Lowlands. I joined their band. We robbed travelers, raided lonely farms, kidnapped noblemen’s daughters for ransom, and killed for coin.”

There, she realized, that was where the darkness came from. That readiness for anything, that look that told her nothing anyone said or did could be worse than what he had already been through. A shiver went through her and something cold crept across the muscles of her back.

“I wasna proud of that, but I also didna want to do any of that, nae like many men in the group. I was never raised a thief and an outlaw, but there wasna another option for me to survive. The chief of the band was called Daidh—the man made my father look like an innocent bairn. If ye talk about a man with nae soul, ’twas Daidh. Though he never did anything to me personally, I kent he was dangerous to those he wanted gone.”

He kept silent for a moment and looked at her. It was quiet, and only the waters of the loch rustled somewhere down below. The horizon was lighter now, and she could see the hurt in his eyes, the regret. And Bryanna’s heart ached for him, something sharp stabbing her right in the middle.

“After years of surviving there, I had a good sword I got from robbing men, and I’d saved enough coin to get by on my own. So I said goodbye to the band of thieves, to Daidh’s great displeasure.”

He shook his head, a muscle along his cheekbone twitching.

“I traveled by myself and earned coin with my sword in England, France, and Flanders. Years later, I decided to go back to Scotland and was on my way to Carlisle. It was late and I knocked on the door of a small farm to ask for shelter for the night. A woman opened the door, a lad of six years clutching at her skirts, that same, fearless, stern look in his eyes, like he was ready to throw himself on me like a wolf cub.”

He chuckled and wiped his mouth slowly, thoughtfully. Despite herself, Bryanna’s nerves flared with jealousy, like acid eating her tissue away. She knew she shouldn’t. How could she be jealous of a dead woman?

And yet, Bryanna clung to every word, both dreading and longing to hear how he fell in love with that woman who opened the door at night and gave him shelter. Bryanna longed for him to look at her like that, the way he was staring into the Highland night, seeing the woman his heart ached for, the woman whose loss made him sing songs of love and longing years after her death. The woman whose child he was living for.

That must have been quite a woman—she’d managed to capture the heart of this lone wolf.

How could Bryanna compete with someone like that? Bryanna, who was a diabetic and literally incapable of living in the Middle Ages? Bryanna, who was constantly afraid for her health and life? Bryanna, for whom careful was the word to live by.

Raghnall’s eyes watered, glistening in the light of the torches. “’Twas Mòrag. I remember she casually laid her hand on the dagger attached to the belt at her waist, before she proceeded to question me about who I was and where I was going. She demanded I pay her for the lodging, and I agreed. I must say, I didna have much, but the scent that came out of that house made me want to sell my soul to stay there. So I paid. And then I stayed there for sennights.”

Bryanna kept nodding, more to distract herself from the dull ache in her middle at the image of Raghnall in the arms of another woman. A healthy woman, a woman single-handedly running a farm and raising a child.

“I helped her on the farm, first to earn my keep, then because I liked her and she liked me. She asked me to stay and mentioned marriage.” His hand clenched in a fist and he bumped it against the surface of the merlon softly. “Daidh’s band attacked a moon later. I managed to stop them together with Mòrag’s field workers, who were a tough lot. Mòrag had a temper and she insulted Daidh. I saw her death sentence in his eyes, but I didna want to believe it. I should have killed him there, but I made him promise to never come back, and I let him go. Although I had taken lives before, I still didna like to kill a man in cold blood.”

He paused and rubbed his chin covered with short beard.

“But he left and we didna see him again and things settled down at the farm. With time, Seoc warmed up to me, and she…the more I got to ken Mòrag, the more I fell in love with her. I didna acknowledge that to myself and especially nae to her, and I’d been avoiding giving her an answer to her suggestion of marriage. And when she started to insist…I ran.”