Page 30 of First Light

“Lachlan, please.” Carys tried to break in. “Can we not argue? Duncan’s right—this is my fault. I forced his hand.”

“He knew better.” Lachlan kept his voice low but urgent. “You being here is so dangerous I don’t even want to?—”

“What did you expect her to do, Brother? She’s nae an idiot. You had to know she was going to have questions.”

“And you couldn’t think of a better way to explain all this?”

“Are you joking?”

Carys stepped to the side and raised a hand. “Still here.”

Duncan shoved Lachlan toward her. “Look! She’s here. Your ladylove, Brother. Go. You might have a few things to explain now, don’t you think? She’s not an idea or a dream, she?—”

“She was never that and you know it. I never intended to?—”

“Oh, but you did, didn’t you? You neverintendedto stay so long. You neverintendedto make her fall in love with you. You neverintended?—”

“I love her!” Lachlan shouted at Duncan, the words ripping across the argument, leaving silence in their wake.

Duncan stepped back, and his face was a stoic mask.

“She…” Lachlan looked at Carys, and she saw tears in the corners of his eyes. “She made me want to live again.” He started to shake his head. “I never meant to fall in love. I know we come from different worlds.”

Duncan swallowed hard. “What you’ve done…” He let out a ragged breath.

Lachlan shook his head. “I’ll not apologize. I refuse to apologize for loving her.”

“I love you too.” Carys swallowed the tears that welled up in her throat and tried to get Lachlan to turn to her. “It’s okay, Lachlan.”

“No.” Duncan’s mouth was a thin, angry line. “It’s really not.”

Lachlan broke into Gaelic again and walked away from Carys, shoving Duncan against the wall. Duncan pushed back, responding in the same language while the argument escalated.

Carys tried to follow what they were speaking about, but none of it made sense and most of it was in a language she didn’t even understand. She was worried the two men might come to blows, but she knew there was no way she could stop them, so she got out of the way.

Even with all the shouting, Carys felt like she could breathe for the first time in a month. Lachlan was here. In front of her. He was alive, and even though the circumstances were… confusing to say the least, she felt the familiar swell of warmth and comfort as soon as she was in Lachlan’s presence.

He was here. He was safe. And he loved her. They could figure out the rest.

She looked around her at a corridor that reminded her of Duncan’s home in Scotland. There were family portraits as old as the ones in Duncan’s house and some that looked considerably older.

The tartan in the pictures was different, and while many of the faces were familiar from Duncan’s family home, most of the faces were new. As Lachlan and Duncan continued to fight, she found herself drawn to the canvases that decorated the walls.

Green eyes, dark hair. Red hair, blue eyes. Lachlan’s parents appeared to be the same as Duncan’s, at least in their appearance. She glanced over her shoulder to see the two men, so alike in appearance but so different in personality.

Lachlan had turned on his charming voice, as if he was trying to reason with Duncan, and Carys scoffed, knowing that was unlikely to do anything but enrage the ornery man.

Duncan’s voice dropped to a low growl as Carys continued walking down the hall, until her eyes fell on what appeared to be a wedding portrait and she froze.

Lachlan’s face.

Her face.

Her face.

The woman in the portrait was her mirror image save for the dark brown braids draped over her shoulders, threaded with ribbon and falling past her waist. Her chin was lifted in pride, and a bright gold dragon crest was pinned to her red velvet dress. She wore a crown fixed with rubies, and the frame at the bottom of the portrait read:

Lachlan, Lord Moray, son of Robb, wedded to Seren, Nêrys Ddraig, princessof Cymru.

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