Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
The scream tore him from sleep like a blade.
Duncan was out of bed before thought caught up with instinct. He could feel his heart hammering and his breath sharp in his chest. The sound echoed again, but it was broken now, collapsing into sobs, and recognition struck him hard.
Elaina.
He did not bother with boots. His mind raced through possibilities: an intruder, a blade, a mistake he would never forgive himself for making.
He reached her door just as the guard posted at the end of the corridor arrived. Duncan told him to go forced the door open with his shoulder as he burst into the room.
“Elaina—”
The lamplight revealed no attacker, no blood and no struggle.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, with her knees drawn close and her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if holding her body together by sheer will.
Her hair had come loose, falling in disordered strands around her face.
She was trembling in violent, uncontrollable shakes that racked her small frame.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, soundless now except for the broken hitch of her breathing.
She looked up at him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Duncan realized then that she was staring at him with wide, startled eyes, not in fear of him, but of how he looked. He must have been a sight: half-dressed, with his chest heaving, every line of him drawn tight with panic barely restrained.
“Ye’re safe,” he said, though he was no longer certain whether he was reassuring her or himself. “I thought—”
Another sob broke free from her before he could finish.
He crossed the room in two strides and stopped just short of her, as if some invisible line still held him back. The air was thick with the scent of cold sweat and candle smoke. With the sharp aftermath of terror.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head, unable to answer, fingers twisting into the fabric of her nightgown as though anchoring herself to the present. Her breath came too fast and too shallow. Even her gaze was unfocused, seeing something he could not.
Understanding hit him then, heavy and immediate.
A nightmare.
He swallowed, remembering his own sister’s nightmares, through which he had guided her years ago. This was that same terror.
“Elaina,” he said again, more softly now. “Look at me.”
Slowly, as if dragged back from somewhere far away, her eyes found his.
“I’m here,” he told her. “Naething will touch ye.”
The words were a promise he did not make lightly. He did not reach for her yet. He remembered too well how fragile people became in moments like that, how easily touch could become another threat. Instead, he stayed where he was, grounded and solid, letting her see that the danger was gone.
Still, she did not calm.
Her breath remained jagged, catching painfully in her chest. Her hands were clenched so tightly in the fabric of her nightgown that her knuckles had gone white. Duncan watched, helpless for a heartbeat longer than he liked, until his eyes finally took in what panic had obscured.
She was wearing nothing but a thin nightgown, pale against her skin.
The fabric was slipping slightly at one shoulder.
Her hair lay loose down her back, dark blonde and unbound, framing her face in soft disarray.
In the low lamplight she looked unreal, like something half-dreamed, all sharp vulnerability and fragile grace.
A fairy. Lovely. Ethereal. Breakable.
He forced his attention away from the thought at once.
“Elaina,” he said quietly. “May I sit beside ye?”
She hesitated, eyes flicking to him as though measuring the question, then nodded once. He sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to crowd her, angling his body so she could see him clearly. He could feel the heat of her now, the tremor running through her as if she were cold to the bone.
“Here,” he said softly, lifting her hand with deliberate slowness so she could stop him if she wished. When she did not, he placed it flat against his chest, over his heart. “Dae ye feel that?”
Her fingers curled instinctively into the fabric of his shirt.
“Breathe with me,” he murmured. “Slowly… like this.”
He exaggerated his breathing, deep and steady, letting his chest rise and fall beneath her palm.
Once. Twice. Again.
Their faces were close enough now that he could feel the faint brush of her breath against his cheek, uneven and warm. Her eyes remained fixed on his chest, on the simple proof that he was real and present.
Gradually, so gradually he barely dared hope, her breathing began to falter into something less frantic. It was still broken and uneven but no longer racing toward the edge of collapse.
Every instinct in him screamed to pull her close. He had done it countless times before with Catriona, when dark dreams had wracked her small body, rocking her gently until the worst passed. He knew exactly how to hold someone like this, how to anchor them in the now.
But this was different. This was a woman who bristled at control, who guarded herself fiercely, who might shy away the moment his arms closed around her. And the last thing he would do was turn comfort into another source of fear.
So, he stayed where he was, close enough to be felt and steady enough to lean on. For a few breaths more, they remained like that, with her hand against his chest, and his breathing a steady guide through the wreckage of her fear.
Then, gently but decisively, Elaina pulled away. Her hand slipped from his shirt. She drew back, creating space between them, as though she were reassembling herself piece by piece. The trembling had eased, though the shadows still lingered in her eyes.
“I feel better now.” The words were careful and controlled. “Really.”
Duncan nodded at once and cleared his throat, the sudden awareness of how close they had been settling into him with delayed force. He rose smoothly to his feet, reclaiming distance as readily as he had surrendered it.
“Good,” he said simply. “If ye need me…” He gestured toward the wall. “Me room is next door.”
She inclined her head, not quite meeting his eyes. “Thank ye.”
He hesitated only a fraction of a second longer, then turned and moved for the door. He closed it softly behind him, listening to the sound of the latch settling with a muted click. In the corridor, Duncan paused, drawing a slow breath he had not realized he was holding.
Whatever ghosts haunted her dreams, he knew this much now with absolute certainty: they would not chase her alone while she remained under his roof.
Laird Lachlan MacKenzie rode through the gates of Castle Fraser with the confidence of a man who expected obedience as his due.
His grey hair was pulled back neatly, revealing a strong jawline marked by a scar that cut sharply across his right cheek. It was a souvenir of a war he had not won, and he hated wearing it on his face.
His ice-blue eyes swept the courtyard with cold appraisal as he dismounted, his left leg stiff as he moved. He limped, but he did so proudly, daring anyone foolish enough to mistake injury for weakness.
The great hall doors opened at his approach.
Laird Alasdair Fraser stood waiting. His smile strained at the edges. Servants bowed. Men stepped aside.
“Laird MacKenzie,” Fraser greeted, forcing warmth into his voice. “Ye are welcome.”
MacKenzie did not bother with pleasantries. His gaze slid past Fraser, already searching the hall. “Where is me blushing bride?”
The word blushing curled unpleasantly on his tongue, and something that was supposed to sound lovely and delightful, turned into something deliberate and cruel.
Fraser hesitated. It was the briefest pause, but MacKenzie noticed everything.
“She has… escaped,” Fraser said at last.
MacKenzie stilled.
“Escaped,” he repeated softly, as if tasting the sound of a word he had never heard before.
The sound echoed in the vast hall, thin and sharp. Fraser shifted his weight, unease creeping into his expression.
“Our men nearly had her,” Fraser added quickly. “They cornered her in the alley behind an inn. But before they could secure her, they were attacked.”
“Attacked,” Lachlan echoed again, yet his voice was dangerously calm.
A dark flame flickered behind his eyes, then vanished beneath a mask of icy control. His hands curled slowly into fists at his sides.
Fraser shifted his weight from one foot to the other uneasily. “According tae me men,” he said, choosing his words with care, “the man who intervened, who… took her from them, was Laird Duncan Grant himself.”
For a heartbeat, Lachlan MacKenzie said nothing.
Then he smiled. It was a thin, terrible thing, devoid of warmth or humor, and it transformed his face into something far more dangerous than rage ever could. The scar along his cheek pulled taut as his mouth curved, his ice-blue eyes sharpening with sudden, keen satisfaction.
“Grant,” he murmured, rubbing his chin. “Of course it was.”
Fraser frowned. “This… pleases ye?”
“Immensely,” Lachlan replied.
He turned away, pacing slowly across the hall, which made his limp pronounced but unheeded. Each step seemed to steady him and to channel his fury into purpose.
“The Grants have been a thorn in me side fer far too long,” he divulged something everyone already knew. “They cost me men. They cost me land.” His fingers brushed his scar again, almost fondly. “They cost me this.”
Fraser watched him warily. “Duncan Grant is nae a foolish man.”
“Nay,” MacKenzie agreed. “Which makes this all the sweeter.”
He stopped and faced Fraser once more. “He has given me exactly what I needed: a reason, a weakness he believes himself noble tae protect.”
Fraser’s mouth tightened. “Ye mean the girl.”
“I mean the end,” MacKenzie corrected smoothly. For a moment, even he was surprised that the man spoke so detachedly of his own flesh and blood. But that wasn’t his concern. Something else was. “She is merely the path tae it.”
He leaned closer, his voice lowering. “I will finish what I started years ago… properly, this time.”
The promise in his tone left no room for doubt.
Fraser swallowed and nodded quickly. “Ye can count on our help, of course. Clan Fraser will stand with ye.”
MacKenzie first eyed him as if he were speaking a whole different language and he didn’t understand a single thing the man had said. Then he laughed.
It was not a sound of amusement, but of something that was deep, harsh, and utterly devoid of warmth.
The echo of it rang through the Great Hall, scraping against stone and nerve alike.
Even Fraser flinched, revealing his unease plainly, while his confidence faltered as the laughter went on a moment too long.
When it stopped, MacKenzie turned to him slowly.
“Incompetence,” he said in a voice that was ice cold, “is what cost ye our alliance.”
Fraser stiffened. “I—”
“Ye failed tae keep what was promised,” MacKenzie continued, his ice-blue eyes fixing Fraser in place. “And ye failed tae hold her when it mattered. Ye should consider yerself fortunate.”
“Fortunate?” Fraser echoed weakly.
“That it was Duncan Grant who took her,” Lachlan clarified. “Had she slipped from me reach entirely, Clan Fraser would already be sharing the Grants’ fate.”
The implication settled heavily between them.
MacKenzie did not wait for a reply. He turned on his heel, which always made his limp evident, yet still, his satisfaction was barely contained. His guards fell into step behind him at once, armored and silent.
As he strode from the hall, MacKenzie’s purpose sharpened to a blade. At last, he had a reason. And this time, he would not stop until Laird Duncan Grant lay broken, with his lands torn from him and every debt between them paid in full.