Chapter 9
“Excuse me?” Ailis gasped, her beautiful eyes wide and unblinking.
Killian had known what he was going to do as soon as he received that brutal note from Murdock Lyall.
However, so as not to be deemed a reckless laird, he had spoken with two of his most trusted councilmen and Peter about his intentions first. They had been shocked, as he had anticipated, but it hadn’t taken much to convince them of the benefit.
Me faither told me to secure peace by sword or scheme. Ye are me olive branch, lass.
No one batted an eye at a war between clans, but it was tantamount to a sin to wage war against one’s own family. And if this went the way Killian planned, Laird Ainsley would soon be his father-in-law.
“I plan to make ye mine, lass,” he replied, his fingers curling around her dainty chin.
A faint thrill rippled through him, a spark that would smolder into a white-hot ember if he stayed so close to her.
Ailis reeled back, wrenching away from his touch as she leaped to her feet and jabbed a shaky finger at the door.
“Clearly, ye’ve taken leave of yer senses, me Laird. For ye to even suggest such a thing… Aye, ye’ve gone mad, and I willnae have a madman in me chambers.” She jabbed her finger harder. “Please, leave me room at once, before ye do somethin’ ye’ll regret.”
“Ailis—”
“Daenae call me by me name as if ye ken me, me Laird. If ye did, ye’d ken better than to… to…” She squeezed her eyes shut, as if to compose herself. When she opened them again, there was fire in that autumnal green. “Get out. Please.”
“Lass…” Killian tried again, with as much patience as he could, for he understood that the proposal must have come as a shock.
Ailis put up a hand to stop him. “Very well. If ye willnae leave, then I will. May I leave this room? I assume I can, being yer guest and all.”
Instead of pushing past him, she squeezed through the gap between her chair and the table, hurrying around the other side to the door.
Killian watched her leave, but he had not made his decision lightly.
It wasn’t something that could be permitted to fail when so much hinged on its success: his brother’s return, the fulfillment of his father’s wishes, his revenge against Laird Ainsley, and an end to his clan’s suffering and this purposeless war.
So he followed her out.
“Oh, so I’m nae allowed to leave, is that it?” Ailis tossed back over her shoulder, evidently hearing his footsteps behind her.
“Ye have left,” he pointed out. “I’m nae goin’ to stay in a room that isnae mine.”
She whirled around. “But ye have nay issue sittin’ in me room while I sleep, without me knowledge? Ye have nay problem sendin’ in a horde of maids when I’m restin’? Ye didnae mind sendin’ Paisley into me room, even though she had every reason to want to kill me in me sleep?”
He couldn’t deny that she made an excellent argument, but saw no benefit to explaining himself at that moment. He had a good reason for each of those incidents, and when she was calmer, he would answer her accusations.
“Ye need time to think,” he said bluntly. “It’s to be expected. A bride is always nervous about her weddin’, or so I hear.”
Her hands curled into tight fists, her breathing labored. “I was right nae to believe all yer pleasantries and niceties,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “I kent it was too good to be true. Me faither didnae teach me much, aye, but he taught me one thing: never trust a MacNairn.”
“There’s nay deception, lass,” Killian insisted, a tad too harshly. “I treated ye with respect because ye’ve done nothin’ wrong. I told ye several times that I wasnae goin’ to do ye harm.”
“And this isnae harm?” she retorted, gesturing vaguely.
“Ye’re just as bad as me faither, schemin’ and plottin’, nae carin’ who ye have to trample in order to win.
I thought it was odd that ye kidnapped me of all people, but now I understand—ye stole me away so ye could use me for yer scheme. Ye had this planned from the start!”
Killian considered asking her to calm down, but he had learned over the years that it was never wise to ask a woman to calm down. Still, he needed to cool her ire so she would listen to him instead of throwing baseless accusations.
“What’s more,” she continued in a red-faced fury, “I wouldnae mind ye usin’ me against me faither if I thought it would make a difference in this war.
But it willnae, and ye never bothered askin’ what I might think of such a plan!
I might have helped ye, for pity’s sake, if ye hadnae just made decisions without me!
Now, because of yer rash actions, me niece has been left without the one person who made her life better, and ye’ve risked me life by draggin’ me away.
“I cannae just stay here when I ken what me faither will do if ye marry me! He might nae have cared when I was just yer captive, but he’ll bloody well care when I’m yer wife. He’ll care so much that he’ll insist on killin’ me himself. He’ll come for me and drive a dagger right through me heart.”
Her hand flew to her chest, her palm hitting the spot where her heart was no doubt pounding with the force of her anger.
Frustration turned into something colder in Killian’s veins as he stared at her. He could understand her rationale, had even considered it himself, but that didn’t mean his plan wouldn’t work. It would simply change.
If Laird Ainsley wouldn’t accept peace through marriage and did come to harm Ailis, Killian would be waiting.
But that willnae change her opinion that I’m usin’ her.
This matter required delicacy, which was not one of his strengths.
“Ye’ll come to more harm if ye return unwed than ye will here as me wife,” he said decisively. “Ye have nay reason to go back to them.”
Ailis huffed out a breath. “That’s nae for ye to decide, and it’s nae yer choice to make.
It’s up to me to choose one risk over another.
” She plucked at a loose thread in the skirt of her dress.
“And I choose the safety of me niece over me own safety. That lass doesnae deserve to be left there, to be raised the way I was. I daenae care what I have to suffer if I can prevent that.”
“Yer sister’s bairn?” Killian asked.
“Murdock’s,” she replied tersely.
Killian nodded slowly. “I didnae ken about her.”
“Aye, and I’m glad, or else ye would’ve kidnapped her instead of me,” Ailis shot back.
Killian could appreciate that he had surprised her with the proposal and that she had concerns about his motivations, which allowed for some grace, but he would not permit her to speak to him like that.
Mood darkening, he closed the short distance between them and snatched her wrist. “I would never bring a bairn into this,” he growled. “I’m nae yer faither, who’d stoop as low as possible, and if I must tell ye that again, then I might consider throwin’ ye in the dungeons for the night.”
“Better a true prisoner than a bride with a death sentence,” she replied, trying to wrench her hand back.
Killian held tight. “I’m offerin’ the best solution any of us can hope for.
” He pulled her closer. “Aye, our weddin’ might provoke yer faither to attack or make a move to hurt ye, but ye’ll be mine then.
And I willnae let anyone hurt what’s mine.
I’ll protect ye with me own life if I must. Just trust me. ”
Her breathing had quickened, her eyes shining as she held his gaze, her arm stilling. But her voice wasn’t soft as she said, “Would ye trust someone who traps ye, nay matter his intentions?”
“Would ye trust someone who doesnae have to save ye, but means to anyway?” he countered.
Her throat bobbed. “Nay, I would keep wondering why.”
“Because ye became me responsibility the moment I took ye from yer castle, whether ye like it or nae,” he replied. “I told ye then that ye were mine.”
“So, I must do whatever ye tell me?” she asked, her hand relaxing in his grip.
He suspected she was trying to be sarcastic, but her tone said otherwise. Her voice was breathy, as if part of her genuinely wanted to know the answer. The part of her that hadn’t pulled back when he had almost kissed her.
“As long as ye’re here with me, even if ye daenae trust me, ye must obey me,” he murmured, heat flaring in his abdomen as she bit her lower lip. “It might just save yer life.”
“And if I daenae?” she pressed, tilting her chin up. Whether in defiance or to see if he might lean in, he wasn’t certain.
He couldn’t resist sliding his arm around her waist as a surge of protectiveness shot through him. “Then ye’ll learn to,” he said quietly, “one way or another.”
“With a night in yer dungeons?”
She seemed to want to provoke him, but there was more than one meaning to the word. Right now, Killian was provoked, but perhaps not in the way she had intended.
“Nae every lesson requires punishment or dungeons, though it might require a locked door.”
“What do ye mean?” she gasped, the sound pushing him over the edge, unraveling the rope of his discipline.
Like stepping off a cliff, he couldn’t stop what happened next. He pulled her roughly against him, his hand sliding up her arm in a slow caress, his palm gliding up the column of her throat until his fingers eased into the soft, silky hair at the nape of her neck.
A quieter gasp slipped past her lips, her head tilting into the cradle of his palm, her beautiful eyes glittering with a tentative desire that he couldn’t hope to resist.
He lowered his head, giving her a moment to push him away, to tell him to leave. When she didn’t, he kissed her.
His mouth brushed hers, a slow and hungry graze that stirred an altogether more ravenous appetite inside him. When he caught her mouth again, his kiss was harder, more insistent. Urging her to respond, while his fingertips sank into the soft, supple curve where her waist met the swell of her hip.
Ailis kissed him back clumsily. Her hands fumbled for his shirt and fisted in the fabric as she pulled herself up on her tiptoes to reach him better.
A secret smile curved his lips as he realized that she had likely never been kissed before. Other lasses might have dabbled in such things at her age, but she had been living under the strict rule of her father.
Killian held her closer, kissed her more fiercely, and as their lips ebbed and flowed in a searing tide of want and desire, he felt her confidence rising.
She met his mouth without hesitation, pressed herself against him, kissed him as if she never intended to stop, as if it were a rebellion that she couldn’t relinquish.
Och, lass…
He needed to have more of her. A taste wasn’t enough. He needed to lose himself in her so that he wouldn’t have to think of the outside world for a while.
She represented peace in more ways than one, and a single kiss was already sweeping all of his losses and troubles from his mind. What calm could he achieve if he led her back to her bedchamber and made her his? What glorious peace could be gained?
His hand smoothed over the swell of her backside as he dipped his head to kiss her neck. She melted in his arms, her head tilting back to give him access to that elegant curve of pale skin.
A soft moan escaped her, a sound so exquisite that it threatened to undo him completely.
Spurred on, his desire pounding in his veins, he grasped her generous backside and pressed her against him, so she could feel what she was doing to him. Letting her know how much he wanted her.
A louder gasp poured fuel on the fire of his need, his kisses hungry as they traced a path down her throat and across the soft skin of her bosom.
A moment later, his mouth sought hers again, kissing her with such fervor that he doubted he would be able to stop. She kissed him back just as passionately, their ragged breaths echoing down the corridor, her stifled whimpers doing things to him that put him in more danger than any war.
What are ye doin’?
His discipline finally swooped into his mind, shouting into the briefly empty cavern of his skull.
What will she think, eh? She’ll think this is a trick, kissin’ her to get her to do what ye want. She’ll think ye mean to dishonor her.
The thought tipped an ocean’s worth of cold water onto the furnace of his desire.
Stealing one last kiss, he pulled back, breathing hard. “Apologies, lass,” he said, his voice husky. “I shouldnae have done that, lest ye mistake me intentions.”
Nae yet. Nae before we’re wed.
He released her, noting the painful confusion on her beautiful face, and stepped around her. She didn’t turn around as he left her there, catching her breath in the middle of the hallway.