Page 16 of A Highland Healer Captured
The memory hung heavy. A winter of smoke and salt, a banner trampled into muck, a name ground into blood and mud until it was no longer a threat. He had razed a clan because they’d bled his people dry along the marches and thought no one would pay the cost to stop them. Zander had paid. In coin first. Then in fire.
“So daenae talk to me,” he went on softly, “about bringing danger under me own roof. There is nay safer place for the boythan a keep I can hold with one hand while I strangle a man with the other.”
It was crude. It was true.
Fergus cleared his throat. “Nay one doubts yer grip, me Laird. We fear… thenoiseof it. MacLennan pride. Crawford steel. Muir stubbornness. They may come shouting outrage.”
“Let them come, should they find out,” Zander said. “We hold the straths west of Oban. We own the ford. We own the hills on either side. I’ll receive any envoy civilly who comes under a white banner to ask after the lass. I’ll answer for what I’ve done. But ifanyof them thinks to take her back by force without parley, I’ll show him the cost of misreckoning Strathcairn. And they’ll pay it in blood.”
Mason’s voice, quiet for once, slid under the last words like a balm. “None will be so daft as to try ye at yer own gate, Zan.”
“Men are daft every day they love their own,” Zander said. “I daenae fault them. I plan for them.”
He let out a breath, long and measured, and looked to the side door where he knew, without turning, Mason’s niece Katie would be listening with one ear while seeing to the healer with the rest.
“Now,” he said, “the bairn.”
That word gentled the room like a hand through a horse’s mane. Men who’d fought at his side had seen Grayson’s small chest labor, had watched Zander pace the hall at night like a caged bear because he could not breathe for his son.
The ones who muttered about MacLennans a moment ago looked down, ashamed by their own fear.
“We’ll bring him to the solar,” Zander said, thinking aloud as much as commanding. “Light’s better. Warmth holds. The healer will have what she asks. If she asks for quiet, ye’ll see to it. If she asks for yer silence, ye’ll give that too.” He cut his gaze to Cameron, who had the grace to nod first and fastest.
“And if she asks for ye?” Mason asked, easy, but with something keen in it.
“If she asks for me, ye’ll drag me to her,” Zander said. “Fetch me from hell for all I care. She will have what she needs.”
Mason’s mouth slanted. “Aye, me Laird.”
The sounds of the other councilmen echoed in sync.
The door at the back opened to admit Katie with her trays. She didn’t look toward Zander, but she tipped her chin just enough for him to read what he needed. “The healer had eaten. The healer had nae broken.”
Good.Let her try to escape. Let her scheme. Let her vow to hate me until her teeth cracked.All I require of her was a miracle… then she can go.
And if he had to break the world to purchase it, he would.
“Council’s adjourned,” he said. “We’ve wasted enough breath on fear. Save it for when me son breathes easy.”
The benches scraped back. Men erupted into three dozen smaller murmurs, threads of talk looping. Mason clapped Cameron on the shoulder with enough force to jolt an apology out of him without using words. Fergus squinted over his lists as if he could make parley terms appear like ink from the grain.
Zander turned away from them all. There was a locked door down the passage with a healer behind it whose voice could set a hall on edge and whose hands, God willing, could do the opposite to a child’s lungs.
He meant to put those hands to work before another hour was lost.
6
Skylar paced the length of the small chamber, her boots tapping furiously against the stones. She had worn a line into the floor already, from window slit to hearth and back again. The air was thick, heavy with the smoke of the fire she hadn’t tended. She couldn’t keep still, not when her chest was packed with indignation, fear, and the mounting weight of helplessness.
Every time she thought of Ariella lying pale and fevered, her throat closed tight. And every time she thought of Zander Harrison, the brute, the kidnapper, the devil himself, pacing somewhere within this keep, calmly planning what to do with her, her fists curled hard enough to sting her palms.
So when the latch finally lifted and the door swung wide, her temper snapped loose like a whip.
“Ye left me locked like a hound,” she spat, whirling on him. “I’m nae some beast to be caged. Do ye think yerself clever, LairdStrathcairn, throwing me scraps of food while ye keep me from the very bairn ye claim to care so much about?”
But she fell silent the moment she caught his face.
He wasn’t smirking, or coolly amused the way he had been on the road, when he’d baited her with every reply. His expression was carved from iron, his jaw set, eyes shadowed deep. There was no glimmer of humor in him tonight. Only fury.
