Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
They shoved Kenina down the back steps of the byre, toward the buyers’ yard. She stumbled once, boot sliding in the mud, palm slapping hard against the stone wall to steady herself. She didn’t cry out. She didn’t look back.
Peadar followed at a measured pace, forcing himself not to hurry.
The night air cut sharp after the heat of the byre, carrying the smell of wet earth, dung, and cold iron.
Torches guttered along the fence line, throwing long shadows that broke her shape apart and stitched it back together again as she moved.
Tristan was at his shoulder, whispering furiously behind him.
“What were ye thinkin’? What happened tae stealth? Evidence? Getting out unseen?”
“I changed me plan.”
“Ye changed yer— Saints, Peadar! Ye bought the Buchanan heir! That’s nae a shift, that’s madness!”
Peadar ignored him.
She stood ankle-deep in cold mud, rope still looped around her wrists, shoulders squared as if the posture alone might keep the night from swallowing her.
A Graham guard’s hand clamped her shoulder, fingers digging in too tight.
She shook him off once, sharp and angry, but he only laughed and tightened his grip.
“Dinnae come closer,” she snapped, voice tight as a bowstring.
Peadar stopped a few paces away—not because she ordered it, but because he needed the space. Being nearer would have been a mistake. He could feel it already.
“I’ve nay intention of hurtin’ ye,” he said evenly
“A pity,” she said coldly. “Ye’ve already managed it.”
The torchlight caught her face again, harsher now than in the byre.
The cold had flushed her cheeks, sharpened her expression.
Anger suited her—gave her an edge that made her look carved rather than soft.
Her mouth trembled once before she set it, stubborn and proud, and Peadar had the absurd, unwanted thought that he wanted to know what it would take to make her mouth soften.
He shut that thought down hard.
“By keepin’ Drummond’s filthy hands off ye?” he said instead.
“By buying me,” she hissed. “Like a hog. Or a hunting dog. Or whatever it is ye trade trade in.”
The words landed harder than he liked. But he swallowed the sting.
“I did what kept ye alive.”
“Alive fer what?” Her laugh was small, bitter. “So ye can drag me to whatever pit ye live in?”
“I live on a mountain, nae in a pit.”
“Oh, fergive me,” she said, dripping with mockery. “A mountain. How elevating.”
Peadar held her gaze.
“Me name is Peadar,” he said quietly. “Peadar MacGregor.”
The name hung between them.
“A MacGregor,” she said at last, tasting it like a challenge.
“Aye.”
Her mouth curved, sharp and humorless. “Then this makes a kind of sense.”
He didn’t ask what she meant. He already knew.
Behind her, the Graham guard shoved her again. “Take what ye bought and go, MacGregor. Before Drummond comes back out.”
Peadar exhaled through his nose. “Cut her free first.”
“Nay,” the guard said. “Payment clears, then she’s yours.”
Peadar’s blood rose. “I said—”
Tristan leaned in. “Peadar. Save the murder fer Drummond. Pay the man.”
Peadar tossed the pouch at the guard’s chest. Coins spilled across the frozen ground.
“Now cut her loose.”
The guard grumbled but slashed the rope.
Kenina yanked her hands free at once, rubbing hard at her wrists as if she could scrape away the memory of the bindings along with the pain.
She did not thank anyone. She did not look at him.
She looked past him—toward the dark beyond the yard, toward gaps and shadows and distance—like she was already measuring how fast she could run and how far she might get before someone stopped her.
A foolish hope. A brave one.
Peadar felt it anyway, that instinctive tightening in his chest. Not pity. Respect. She was already planning her escape. He thought she was either very brave of very foolish.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “Ye are comin’ with me.”
“Nay.”
The word cracked out of her, clean and sharp.
“Aye.”
Her laugh this time cut like broken glass. “Ye think buying me means ye really own me?”
“Nay,” he pinched he bridge of her nose. “I think leavin’ ye here means ye die.”
Christ.
Peadar clenched his jaw. He’d faced men on battlefields who begged. He’d faced others who screamed. This—this cold willingness to burn rather than submit—was something else entirely.
Her nostrils flared. Her eyes—dark, furious, alive—locked on his. “I willnae go with ye.”
“Ye will.”
“I willnae.”
They stood like flint and steel, neither yielding, both sparking.
Peadar felt the strange, unwelcome pull of it—the challenge, the heat, the way her defiance stirred something sharp and restless in him.
She was not soft. She was not pliable. She would fight him every step, and some traitorous part of him already knew he would not want her any other way.
Behind them, drunken bidders stumbled out of the barn doors, still laughing about the price Drummond had “nearly paid fer the Buchanan wench.”
She heard it. She flinched—barely. But Peadar saw it.
Peadar’s hand curled slowly into a fist.
Aye. Let her stay, then. Let them have her.
“That’s what ye want?” he asked quietly. “Walk back in, and let Drummond bid on ye again?”
The thought sickened him.
Her spine straightened, chin lifting as if it weighed fifty pounds. “Ye dinnae ken anything about what would happen tae me.”
“I ken enough,” he said. “I ken Drummond wants ye fer somethin’ foul. And I ken he’ll torture yer clan if ye dinnae comply.”
Her throat tightened. She hid it fast, but not fast enough. Good. She understood the stakes.
He softened his tone only slightly. “Ye want justice fer what he’s done tae yer people? Then come. Me clan and yers hate each other, aye — but we hate Drummond more.”
“So,” she said, voice roughening, “ye want me… what? Me gratitude?”
Really, that’s her conclusion on all this?
Peadar almost groaned.
“I want yer witness,” he said simply. “Ye saw his men. Ye stand before the king and tell what Graham and Drummond did. And we bury him.”
She blinked—slowly, suspiciously. “And if I say nay?”
He stepped into her space. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes. Close enough that her breath hitched in her throat.
“Then I throw ye over me shoulder,” he murmured, “and ye can scream the whole damn way north.”
Her eyes went wide and she whispered, “Ye’re a brute.”
“Aye,” he said without apology. “But a brute who daesnae let monsters win.”
He meant Drummond, but not only.
He meant every man still laughing behind them.
She looked back toward the barn. A knot of drunken men had noticed her lingering. Heads turned. Grins spread. One of them nudged another and said something she didn’t hear—but Peadar saw the way her shoulders tightened, the way her hand curled into a fist at her side.
Fear flickered across her face.
Then she shoved it down and glared again. “Fine. I’ll go. But nae because of ye.”
“Good enough.”
He reached for her elbow, intending only to steer her away from the yard before Drummond came looking—
She struck his hand away, sharp and unhesitating.
“Dinnae touch me.”
The crack of it echoed louder than he expected.
Peadar froze, more surprised than hurt. He wasn’t used to women flinching away from him—but he was even less used to being refused so cleanly. He hadn’t been gentle, but he hadn’t been rough either. Still, the rejection landed like a thrown stone.
Tristan’s glanced over and suppressed a smile.
He exhaled through his nose. “Lass—”
Her eyes were blazing now.
“I said nay.”
He fought the urge to snap. “Then walk.”
She lifted her chin higher. “Gladly.”
She took one step.
Stopped.
Turned back.
And spat, “MacGregor men must be used tae dragging women around.”
He stiffened. “And Buchanan women must be used tae bitin’ every hand that tries tae help.”
“Why would I thank someone who bought me like livestock?”
“Why would I explain meself tae someone who curses me fer stoppin’ her from bein’ violated?”
That landed. She flushed—anger or shame, he couldn’t tell.
She stepped closer, fury renewed. “If ye think ye can order me—”
“Oh, fer the love of—”
Before she finished, he’d had enough. Before his doubts could interfere, before that strange pull toward her made him hesitate, he reached down and caught her firmly around the waist.
“What are ye—let me go!”
He then lifted her cleanly off her feet.
She gasped, shock breaking through her fury as he swung her over his shoulder in one smooth motion.
God help him.
The first thing he noticed was her weight—or lack of it. Light, but not frail. All sharp lines and tension, muscle coiled tight beneath wool and linen. Her hip pressed against his shoulder, her thigh braced hard against his chest as she twisted.
The second thing was the heat of her. It bled through layers, startling in the cold night air. His body reacted before sense could catch up—an unwelcome, unmistakable awareness. What was it about this girl that drew his attention.
Now was not the time.
She kicked, heel striking his thigh. She elbowed him in the back with surprising force. She swore—creatively.
“Put me down, ye barbaric—MacGregor—mountain—oaf!”
And against his will, through irritation and urgency and the danger snapping at their heels, Peadar found himself thinking:
This one will ruin ye.
He adjusted her weight like she weighed no more than a sack of oats, settling her more securely against him, acutely aware of the shape of her—the narrow waist beneath his palm, the quick, furious rise and fall of her breath.
Every movement of hers sent a spark through him, unwanted and unmistakable.
This was dangerous.
Not because of her temper, but because of how much he felt her.
“Ye had yer chance tae walk,” he said, voice rougher now, pitched low near her ear. “Ye chose otherwise.”
“I will murder ye!”
“Aye, well. Ye’ll need yer strength fer that. Settle down.”
She stilled for half a heartbeat.