Chapter 3 #3
“He offers protection,” Peadar continued. “Coin. Marriages. Contracts written crooked enough tae look lawful if ye dinnae ken where tae look. Then comes the pressure. The threats. A fire here. A missing man there.”
Her stomach twisted.
“There was a lass,” he said, voice dropping. “Married him three winters past. Only daughter of a border clan. Quiet sort. Nay appetite fer politics.”
Kenina held her breath.
“She was dead before the year turned,” Peadar said flatly. “Fell from a tower, they said. Tragic. Accidental.”
His hand tightened on the reins.
“And her lands?” she whispered.
“Drummond ruled them before she was cold.”
The forest seemed to press closer.
“That’s what he meant fer yer clan,” Peadar said. “Ye are Buchanan blood. Enough tae make his claim look clean. A wedding, a few months of smiles—then a widow’s grave and a new banner over yer home.”
Her chest hurt. The truth of it rang too cleanly to deny.
“And ye think marrying ye stops that,” she said hoarsely.
“I ken it daes,” he replied. “Because once ye are me wife, any wrong done tae ye is wrong done tae me. And tae me name. And I’ve the standing tae take it tae the king.”
She turned to the front fully now, staring at the path in front.
“Ye cannae just walk into court with rumors,” she said.
“Nay,” he agreed. “But I can walk in with proof. Contracts. Witnesses. And a wife whose blood gives her claim weight.”
Her breath shook.
She looked away, eyes burning, the weight of it all settling heavy and cruel in her chest.
“So I’m tae save me clan by bindin’ meself tae a stranger,” she said bitterly.
“Aye,” he said softly. “And I’m tae make an enemy of half the Highlands by puttin’ a ring on yer finger.”
For the first time since he’d lifted her over his shoulder, she felt she understood him.
The man’s cloak smelled like pine smoke and horse. His voice like gravel under frost.
And God help her—
Her heart was beating far too fast.
And there—just beneath his calm—she sensed a wound. He carried it the way some men carry swords.
He wasn’t rescuing her out of kindness. At least not only for that reason. She understood that now. He was choosing her—for strategy, for war, for something that ran deeper than courtesy.
The knowledge should have made her recoil. It should have frozen her, turned her cold with dread.
Instead, her pulse kicked harder.
Because he wasn’t cruel about it. He didn’t gloat. He didn’t soften the truth, either.
She was acutely aware of him then. Of the breadth of his chest at her back. The heat of him bleeding through wool and leather.
She hated that her body noticed.
Hated the traitorous tightening low in her belly. The way her breath came shallower when the horse shifted and she had to brace herself—had to feel the unyielding strength of him whether she wanted to or not.
“So,” she said slowly, “this marriage—this… arrangement—it would be in name only?”
“Aye.”
“Ye expect me tae believe that?”
“Ye can believe what ye like,” he said. “But I’ve nay need nor interest in takin’ a woman who daesnae want me.”
She blinked hard.
He shifted slightly in the saddle.
“Hold tight,” he said, his breath brushing the shell of her ear. “The ground dips here.”
The words slid along her nerves instead, slow and deliberate, as if he were acutely aware of how near he was. His grip tightened on the reins, knuckles paling as the horse picked its way along the darkened path and the movement brought him closer despite how hard she tried.
She stared ahead again, breath shivering in her chest.
They rode on, the forest swallowing the road and the night pressing down like a held breath.
The trees blurred together as hours dragged past, their branches clawing at the sky.
Kenina’s thoughts would not settle. Each mile carried her farther from what she had been—and deeper into a future she had not chosen.
It was the silence that needled her most.
That man was infuriating in the way he existed—too composed, too deliberate. As though he had already accepted what was happening and was content to let her rage and wrestle with it alone. As though her fear, her anger, her questions were inconveniences rather than things that demanded answering.
He said nothing. Asked nothing. Explained nothing further.
And the longer he held that silence, the more it felt chosen.
As if he were giving her space not out of courtesy, but confidence—confidence that she would not bolt, would not break, would not truly fight him where it mattered.
That assumption burned.
She shifted in the saddle, adjusting her grip, testing the space between them. He did not move closer.
It made her teeth ache.
The silence stretched until it became unbearable.
She drew a breath, sharp with decision.
She could not ride into the dark with a man like that at her back and say nothing.
She turned her head slightly, just enough to feel him behind her again, solid and inescapable.
“Ye didnae answer me before,” she said.
Peadar didn’t look down at her. “I did.”
“Nay,” she replied. “Ye avoided it.”
A breath passed between them. Slow. Measured.
“What dae ye want, MacGregor?” she asked, not sharply now, but with a careful calm. “Truly.”
He shifted slightly behind her, adjusting the reins. The movement was small, controlled—like everything about him.
“I told ye.”
She exhaled through her nose. “Ye told me what ye plan tae dae. Nae what ye want.”
That made him glance at her at last.
The look wasn’t anger. It wasn’t impatience. It was the look of a man deciding how much silence to spend.
“I want Drummond gone,” he said.
“Dead?” she asked quietly.
“Ruined.”
The word carried weight. Deliberate. Chosen.
She absorbed that. “And after he’s ruined?”
“There is nay after.”
She turned her head slightly, just enough to see the line of his jaw in the dark. “Everything has an after.”
“Nae always,” he said.
She thought about him then—not the laird, not the man who had outbid a monster, but the stillness in him. It wasn’t ease. It wasn’t indifference. It was the kind of quiet that came from something being held tightly in check.
Like a hand closed around a blade.
“Ye speak as if ye expect the world tae end when he daes,” she said.
His mouth curved faintly. Not a smile. Something sharper. “It ended once already.”
Her breath caught. “When?”
His jaw tightened. She couldn’t see his face clearly, but she felt the shift behind her, the way his body seemed to lock down another fraction.
“That’s nae yer concern.”
“So I’m useful,” she said, “but nae trusted.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether ye’re askin’ because ye want tae understand,” he said, “or because ye’re lookin’ fer a way out.”
She stiffened. “And if I am?”
“Then I willnae help ye.”
She went quiet. Her first instinct was to bristle. To deny it. To say she owed him nothing. But the truth pressed in before pride could catch up.
Because she had been looking for a way out. From him. From that marriage. From the tight, narrowing road her life had taken since the auction.
And yet—
She thought of the barn. Of Drummond’s smile. Of the way men had laughed like she was already ruined. She thought of Peadar’s hands—how firm they were, yes, but never wandering. How he’d carried her like cargo, not conquest. How he’d told her the truth even when it made him sound cruel.
She thought of the way he spoke of Drummond. Not with bravado. Not with hatred shouted to be heard. But like a man discussing a wound that had never healed properly.
The forest murmured around them—wind through bare branches, the soft snort of the horse, Tristan’s presence behind like a shadow that refused to leave.
Kenina stared ahead, jaw tight, heart thudding far too hard for a decision she already knew she’d made.
“I dinnae intend tae run,” she said at last.
Because she understood, now, that staying was the only way she would keep any claim to herself at all.