Page 50 of Highlander of Steel
“I’ll protect ye, lass,” he said quietly. “I’ll protect ye as I mean to protect me braither, yer niece, and me clan. Ye daenae need to throw yerself into bitterly cold water; just come to me instead.”
She glanced at him, brow furrowed. “I cannae. Just tonight, I wanted to, but I cannae.”
“Why nae?” he asked, his expression calm. Infuriatingly calm.
“Because bein’ near ye is just as likely to make me feel worse,” she answered. “All ye do is confuse me, and… I daenae ken if I can trust ye, so how can I believe that ye’ll protect me? In the woods, when me braither came, ye asked him if he hadFraser with him. Ye asked him thatafterhe asked for me to be returned. And I cannae help but wonder if ye’d have given me back to him if Fraser hadbeen with him.”
A dark laugh rumbled in Killian’s chest. “When are ye goin’ to realize that ye belong to me now? I wouldnae have given ye back if he’d brought a whole bloody army, and if Fraser had been there, I’d have taken him backandkept ye.”
“More bloodshed?” She shot up to her feet, a shudder running down her spine.
She hadn’t seen much of the fight in the woods, but she had seen plenty of the aftermath. All of that blood soaking into the earth. It was probably still there, camouflaged by the autumn leaves.
Hugging herself as the draft from the cave mouth chilled her skin, she paced back and forth in front of the fire. Her shadow danced across the walls, wavering with the flicker of the flames as if it shared in her agitation.
“There’s nothin’ I wouldnae do to protect what’s mine,” Killian told her flatly.
“Stopsayin’ that!” she snapped, hugging herself tighter now that she had lost his warmth. “Stop muddlin’ me mind, Killian! Stop sayin’ that I’m yers, when we both ken that the weddin’ is just another tactic—another way of ye provokin’ me faither.”
Killian sighed. “It’s a tactic for peace, but that doesnae make ye any less mine.”
“So ye admit it?” she shot back. “It’s just a means to an end, grisly or otherwise? Confusin’ me, kidnappin’ me, kissin’ me, has all been part of a plan to make me malleable, right? Ye wanted to soften me up so I wouldnae refuse to play a part in yer scheme? Och, and I daresay I’ve helped ye along the way, bein’ the damsel that needs rescuin’? Ye must’ve thought ye were lucky when I went missin’ tonight and ye saw another chance to rescue me and make me beholden to ye!”
“I thought I’d lose me damn mind!” Killian suddenly roared, rising from the rock, the fleece sliding off his broad shoulders.
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her closer to him, his eyes blazing as he stared down at her. His chest rose and fell with harsh breaths, his face contorted with more emotion than she had yet seen from him.
“I’ve got the entire castle turnin’ over every damn stone for ye,” he continued. “And I didnae give that order because ye’re a captive. I gave that order because I couldnae bear thinkin’ of somethin’ bad happenin’ to ye. I couldnae tolerate the thought of Murdock snatchin’ ye or ye willingly handin’ yerself back to a life of cruelty. When I saw ye in the water, lass… I’ve never kent terror like it. It was a thorn in me chest, pressin’ deeper as ye struggled.”
She blinked up at him, stunned by his response. It was the very last thing she had expected to hear, and to make it all the more astonishing, he seemed fervently sincere.
“I ken what ye think, and I ken how it might look, but I didnae steal ye from yer home for revenge or to provoke anyone,” he went on. “It shames me to admit it, lass, but I wasnae thinkin’ about me braither the moment I met ye.”
“What?” she rasped.
He turned his gaze down to the fire. “I planned to get information from ye and leave ye in yer room, but then yer braither came along,” he replied. “I saw yer fear.Heardit. And all I could think was,I have to get her out of here.There was nothin’ else. If someone had made me choose between Fraser’s freedom and yer liberation at that moment, I’d still have thrownyeover me shoulder.”
More platitudes. More empty sentiments to make me play me part. It has to be.
She was no one of merit, or so she had been told. Her father and brother thought her a fool, a useless creature who was only worth punishing, a troublesome thing without value. So, how could she have made Killian feel so protective of her after meeting for a matter of moments?
“Regardless of what tomorrow brings to the clan and means for the war, I’ll never let ye go,” he said fiercely.
She swallowed thickly. “Our families might kill each other. Indeed, ye almost killed me braither.”
“Aye, and yer faither killed mine, but it’s nae about bloodshed or revenge,” he told her. “I want this chance at peace, with ye. And nay matter what may come, ye’ll still belong to me. It willnae be our families, but our family. Ye as me wife, and yer niece raised as ours so she never kens an ounce of the cruelty ye suffered.”
At the mention of Skye, all of Ailis’s misgivings faded into the ether. Killian hadn’t forgotten about the little girl, hadn’t forgotten what she meant to her.
Here was a man who would treat Skye with kindness so she would never feel small or ignored. Here was a man who would teach that girl to swim if she asked, rather than consider her a nuisance who needed to be confined to her room.
“Can I touch ye?” Killian whispered, even though his hand was already holding her arm.
Slowly, Ailis nodded.
“Good,” he replied, before his lips stole her breath and worries away.
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