Page 2 of The Dragon Laird’s Obsession

Her sister watched her with soft eyes that made the argument quench inside Ailis, and she looked toward the window, ignoring the burn of tears stinging her eyes.

Outside, the afternoon lay bright over the yard. A groom crossed the stones with a restless mare. Beyond the walls, the hills rolled green and endless, and farther still, roads waited. Roads she had imagined since she was a little girl pressing her nose to cold glass while listening to traveling merchants tell tales by the hearth.

Ailis dreamed of visiting cities with castles that touched the clouds and harbors crowded with ships. She could travel to see abbey ruins and sing foreign songs in inns where no one knew her name. And if she ever married, she had imagined it would be to a man who could not bear to be apart from her any more than she could bear to be away from him.

Her heart sank as she thought of Gordon standing in front of her as she said her vows.

What will I even say to him?

The image of his green eyes boring into hers that one night they had been in his study came to mind.

Ailis’s cheeks flushed as she recalled the horror of sneaking into his study to find a book and stumbling on him without his clothes instead.

Two years and she still burned inside from the memory, her chest flaring with a hot sensation she could entirely describe.

She recalled the hard line of his jaw as he glared and barked at her to leave. Ailis recalled stumbling in her strides as she ran away from him.

How can I live with such a man?

“I daenae wish to live in a castle and be made to squeeze our heirs,” Ailis finally said to Sorcha as she drew her hand away.

Her sister flinched at her words, but she continued, “A wife is wed then watched. Everyone waitin’ to see if her body will do what it ought. Everyone waitin’ to see if she will bear a bairn, a son preferably.”

“And if I daenae bear one quickly enough, then I am discarded. I daenae want a man who would nay see me or me love for travel and books and nature… or worse, a man who would simply endure me.”

Sorcha sighed again as Ailis suggested, “Ye could speak with Rowan. Tell him that this is simply an absurd decision. Gordon and I have absolutely nothin’ in common.”

“It wouldnae change anythin’.”

Ailis’ heart sank at that, and just like when they were younger, Sorcha lifted a hand and brushed it tenderly down the side of Ailis’ cheeks.

“It will be all right, Ali,” she said softly. “Gordon is nay cruel man, and ye will still fill yer days with the things that ye love.”

Ailis stared at her for another moment, the weight of her fate heavy on her chest. Then she shook her head. “Nay, it willnae be all right.” Ailis lifted her chin though her throat had gone tight and hot. “I am assured of it. If this marriage happens, I shall spend me days being miserable, and I shall hate every moment of this arrangement.”

Ailis stood before the nursery hearth the next morning with both hands lifted, her fingers crooked like claws, while Elspeth watched from the rug with wide, delighted eyes.

“And then,” Ailis whispered, leaning closer to the children, “the dragon came down from the mountain.”

Lachlan sat beside his sister, clutching his wooden horse by its neck. He did not understand half the tale, but he understood Ailis’ voice when it grew low and thrilling, and his little mouth had fallen open in perfect awe.

Sorcha sat in the chair by the window, one needle paused above the linen in her lap. “Ailis,” she warned softly, chuckling because she knew what Ailis would make of the tale next.

Ailis ignored her. “The dragon was not like other dragons,” she continued. “Nay. Other dragons breathed fire and guarded treasure. This one guarded silence. He hoarded it. He kept it piled high in his cave until nay laughter dared go near him.”

Elspeth gasped, and Sorcha smiled. “Did the princess fight him?”

“The princess,” Ailis said, drawing herself up with great importance, “was far too clever to fight a dragon with a sword. She kent she wouldnae win.”

Elspeth gasped then giggled all at once. “So what did she do?”

“She was brave,” Ailis continued.

She lifted Lachlan into her lap, and he immediately patted her cheek with the soft, careless affection of a child who had never learned to hide what he felt. Ailis caught his little hand and kissed his palm. Her heart squeezed. There were moments when the sight of Sorcha’s children hurt in the gentlest way. They were proof that a path one had not chosen could still bloom.

But she did not want to think of that.

Not today. Not when Gordon’s name sat in her mind like a stone.