Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Ailsa did not bother to respond to the voices calling for her to remain as she stormed off down the corridor and towards the room where her parents would be staying. Her head felt fit to burst, anger and terror and something darker and deeper twisting in her guts in a way she couldn’t describe.
Marriage. She was to marry Tavish? And her parents had agreed to such a thing?
After Tavish had made the announcement, her parents had retreated to their chambers as the celebrations had taken place, and Ailsa had been too shocked to think of following them, instead heading for the nearest balcony for a breather.
But now, she needed answers, and she’d not settle until she had been given them.
She burst through the chamber doors and found her mother brushing her hair while her father sat on the bed. Both looked up in surprise as she entered, though she could not imagine for a moment that they had truly thought she would have let something like this slide.
“You agreed to Tavish’ proposal?” she exclaimed, her voice quivering as she stood there. Her mother rose to her feet, stroking her daughter’s arm gently.
“Sweetheart, ye must understand. It’s the best choice ye can make.”
“For whom?” she retorted furiously. “For ye? Because it’s no’ sensible for me, not by a long shot!”
“Ailsa, calm down,” her father ordered gruffly, and she rounded on him, her eyes narrowing.
“Ye would hand me over to a man like that? Before ye discuss it with me?” she demanded.
“Ye were engaged to his brother,” her mother responded, shaking her head. “The family has already accepted ye, and—”
“And he is nothing like his brother”" she replied, her voice catching at the back of her throat. “Callum… Callum was my friend. A good man! He would have taken good care of me. Tavish can do none of that!”
“What makes ye so sure?” her father asked, furrowing his brow, some concern suddenly springing to his face.
“He’s a brute,” she replied, hardly even sure if she were exaggerating. “When he hasnae been ignoring me, he’s been trying to intimidate me. Or annoy me. Or-or threaten me!”
“Threaten ye? What on earth are you talking about?” her mother replied, waving a hand.
“Ye must stop saying such ridiculous things, Ailsa, there’s nothing to them.
He came to us and offered to take over where his brother had been unable to fulfill his duty.
He’s clearly a good man with a fine sense of family, and ye’d be hard-pressed to find much better out there than that. ”
She could tell from the tone of her mother’s voice that there would be no arguing with her, no getting her to see sense.
A lump leapt into her throat as she remembered the way he had pinned her to the parapet the night before, the way he had warned her about what would happen.
Ailsa knew it as a possibility, but she had hoped she would have time to find another suitor to introduce to her parents.
“Ye’re really going to make me do this,” she muttered, looking between them, imploring either of them to see that she meant it when she pleaded for their help. But her mother simply crossed her arms over her chest, raising her eyebrows at her, and shook her head.
“Ye must be married, Ailsa,” she replied firmly. “And he’s a fine match for you. That’s all there is to it.”
Ailsa turned on her heel and stormed from their room. If they were not going to have a conversation with her on this matter, then she’d no longer bother them with her presence. She could feel tears of frustration stinging her eyes, the weight of it starting to get the better of her.
She couldn’t believe she was to be expected to do something like this, something so…
bizarre and twisted. She would take Tavish as a husband.
There was a reason she had chosen his brother as her betrothed the year before, and not him.
They might have been from the same family, but whatever blood ran through their veins, it was not the same kind.
She made her way towards her chambers, not entirely sure where she was going, but not interested in spending another moment with her parents.
She could hear the sounds of revelry from down the corridor, and she wished more than anything that she could feel so free and at ease in that moment.
But the shackles that already hung from her were heavy, and she dragged them with every step, as strong and pressing as his hand on her—
Footsteps sounded behind her, the same footsteps as the night before, and she flashed around in a fury to catch him. Tavish stood before her, his eyes glinting in the dim light.
“I can handle myself walking alone,” she snapped at him, and he cocked an eyebrow, clearly amused by her tone.
“It’s nae ye I dinnae trust,” he replied simply with that warning tone of his.
“And yet ye are the most dangerous thing in these halls, nae?” she reminded him.
A dark smirk touched his lips as she tossed his own words back in his face.
“And I’d never deny such a thing. But that doesnae mean I’m not to be yer husband.”
That word snagged on her mind once more, the weight of it more than she could take. Her brows knitted together, and she shook her head as she tried to speak some sense into him.
“Why now, Tavish?” she demanded. “It’s been months since… yer brother passed. Ye havenae shown a lick of interest in me, ye hardly even offered yer condolences. So ye cannae pretend that ye’re a man of honor, doing this because it’s what yer brother would have wanted, and ye—"
“A man of honor, eh?” he remarked, moving closer to her, giving her no choice but to step back against the wall behind her. “Is that what ye want, Ailsa?”
“Ye know nothing of what I want.”
She did not dare respond directly. She was sure that one wrong word on her part would give him the excuse he was clearly searching for to lash out at her, and she refused to give him the chance.
She had a whole lifetime to get through with him, and she was not sure she would survive if she began to annoy him now.
“My brother may have been,” he continued, lowering his face close to hers. “But honor’s a waste of time, dinnae ye think?”
He came even closer, taking a deep breath like he was trying to commit her scent to memory—like a wolf sniffing her fear. With the torches behind him, he looked like a specter, silhouetted against the stone.
She tucked her hands behind her, leaning as far away from him as she could manage. She had to keep her head clear and show him she was not afraid of him—or at least try to.
“If ye touch me,” she warned him. “I’ll scream.”
He planted a hand tauntingly on the wall beside her.
“Aye, ye will eventually,” he agreed breathily, his voice dropping.
But the tone to it was not a threat, as it had been before, but something else entirely. Something that spoke more to the touch of his hand around her waist than it did to the way he looked with an axe in his hand.
She did her best to meet his gaze, but she found her eyes flickering helplessly, almost as though they were threatening to burst into flames before him.
“But no’ for the reasons ye think,” he added.
He inched closer to her. For an instant, she was sure he was going to kiss her.
She found herself craning her head towards him slightly, half to get it over with and half because she could not resist it.
Her teeth found her bottom lip, almost in anticipation of his touch, and his gaze flicked down, a smirk curling his lips as he read her reaction with ease.
His warm breath mingled with hers in the air between them, her senses filling with the scent of him until there was no room for anything else.
His thumb stretched for her cheek, and his calloused skin found hers, enough to send a shock of heat pulsing out from the point of contact to set her mind alight with possibility.
“We ride at dawn,” he told her, pulling back, like he knew exactly what was going through her mind and intended to coax even more out of it of her in turn. “Dinnae bother packing. Everything will be replaced.”
And, with that, he turned to make his way back down the corridor and strode away from her.
She had not realized until he walked away from her that she had been holding her breath for every instant that he had been in front of her.
If he could taste her breath, her very life force, then she wasn’t sure what else she had to keep from him, and she did not care to find out.
Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the cool stone behind her, trying her best to pull herself together. She would have to find ways to rebel against him, something that would allow her to stand against the demands that he seemed so intent on laying on her shoulders.
But, even as she stormed on to her chambers, she could not shake the pressure of his touch from her skin. Nor the strange curiosity as to what it would mean to be his wife completely…