Page 2

“Well?” Sheona demanded, her leather shoes slapping against the flagstones. “Where is he?”

Brodie kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, his jaw working. “Yer brother fell from the cliffs above the loch durin’ the thick of the fight.”

Sheona stopped dead in her tracks. “What?”

Brodie halted two steps ahead, turning slowly to face her. The torchlight flickered across his harsh features. “The current beneath those rocks is merciless, Lady Sheona. The water took him. Nay body was recovered, and none will ever be.”

Sheona felt the air leave her lungs in a sharp gasp. Her hand instinctively flew to her throat, her fingers pressing into her skin.

‘I’ll always find me way back to ye.’

Andrew’s final words echoed in her ears, mocking her. No burial. No grave. Just cold, dark water. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper, forcing the prickling heat behind her eyelids to retreat. She would not break in front of this man.

Brodie watched the color drain from her face, his gaze dropping to her trembling hands before shifting back to her eyes. He turned without another word and pushed open a heavy oak door at the end of the hall.

Sheona stepped past him into the bedchamber. A bright fire crackled in the hearth, throwing a warm, golden light across a freshly made feather bed. On a side table sat a tray stacked with roasted capon, fresh bread, and a pewter pitcher, alongside a clean woolen gown folded neatly over a chest.

The kindness felt like a slap to the face.

She walked to the center of the room, her back to the door, trying to steady her breathing. She could not bring herself to hate these people for defending themselves against her father’s rot, yet the shame of standing here—a helpless prisoner dressed in soft wool—burned like acid.

A heavy footstep sounded right behind her.

Sheona spun around, her heart in her throat. Brodie had stepped fully into the room, looming over her so closely that she could feel the heat radiating from his broad chest.

“Ye’ve earned the trust of Laird Gallaway,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, lethal whisper that vibrated in the small room. He leaned down slightly, his dark, unblinking eyes pinning her to the spot. “Ye havenae earned mine.”

Sheona held her breath, her spine rigid.

“So daenae mistake mercy for freedom, lass.”

Brodie turned sharply on his heel and strode back to the threshold, his massive frame filling the heavy timber doorway. He paused, looking back over his shoulder, his dark eyes piercing right through her.

“I’ll return in an hour.”

The heavy oak door slammed shut, the iron latch dropping into place.

Sheona stood frozen in the middle of the quiet room, staring at the dark wood, her chest heaving as she tried to figure out how she was going to survive the man on the other side.

CHAPTER TWO

Sheona remained standing in the middle of the chamber, her body locked tight, her chin tilted toward the cold timber. The echo of Brodie MacKinley’s heavy boots faded down the stone corridor until the room’s silence closed in, thick and suffocating.

Aaron Gallaway's words replayed themselves with ruthless clarity:

Brodie will guide ye.

She was too focused on getting her brother’s body that she hadn’t put much thought to it then.

That giant brute is to protect me? Protect me or protect them from me?

She took a slow, deep breath, forcing her shoulders to drop half an inch. Her hands still trembled, her fingers aching from where she’d gripped her skirt. To distract herself from the image of Andrew’s body in the loch’s dark waters, she turned on her heel and began to pace the length of the room.

It was a healer’s solar, smelling sharply of dried lavender, camphor, and old sheepskin. Bundles of wild thyme, yarrow, and sweet coltsfoot hung upside down from the exposed ceiling beams, swaying gently in the draft from the narrow arrow slit. A mortar and pestle sat on the corner of a heavy oak worktable, a dusting of crushed dried bark resting inside the stone bowl.

She reached out, letting her index finger trace the rim of the stone mortar, anything to keep her mind from spinning back to the great hall, back to the harsh black eyes of Brodie MacKinley.

A sudden, sharp clatter rattled from the far corner of the room.