Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Harald had read the same line three times, and for the life of him, he couldn't remember a single word of it.
The ledger lay open like a mocking witness to his failure.
The ink was neat, orderly, and utterly meaningless.
His attention was a frayed rope, snapping and whipping back to a single image every time he tried to anchor it to the page.
He slammed the quill down—a sharp, stinging tap—and shoved back from the desk.
The chair shrieked against the stone floor, a sound that grated against his already raw nerves.
He crossed to the window and braced one hand against the frame, drawing in a slow breath of the cold morning air. Below, the keep was already awake, men changing watches along the wall, servants moving in steady lines. Lewis moved on.
But his eyes wouldn't stay on the courtyard. They drifted, traitorous and hungry, toward the jagged line of rock that hid the path to the lake.
The memory hit him like a physical blow.
The slick, weightless slide of the water over his skin.
And her. Hidden in the gorse, her eyes wide and dark, devouring him with a curiosity so raw it had made his own skin feel too tight.
It wasn't just shock he'd seen in her face; it was a reflection of the same thrumming ache currently hollowing out his gut.
This is nae the time.
Harald exhaled sharply through his nose and looked away. Idiot.
He forced himself upright, squaring his shoulders.
He returned to the desk, reclaimed the chair, and gripped the quill as if he intended to snap it in half.
He bent over the ledger, willing the numbers to mean something, forcing his brain to prioritize routes and rations over the curve of a woman’s neck.
He was just beginning to find the cold clarity of logic when the door swung open without a knock.
“Harald.”
Her voice sliced through his defenses and found the raw, pulsing center of him instantly.
His head snapped toward the door before his mind could build a wall, his breath snagging in his throat like a caught sleeve.
For one jagged, defenseless second, the Laird of Lewis ceased to exist. He forgot the Council, the unmarked sails, and the suffocating weight of his crown.
He forgot the icy logic he’d spent the last hour hammering into his skull.
He forgot everything but the fact that she was there.
She is so beautiful.
Enya stood just inside the threshold, the heavy oak door clicking shut behind her with a sound like a heartbeat. The flush still bloomed high on her cheekbones, and her eyes were bright—dangerous and alive with a mixture of mischief and raw, sharp determination.
She had dressed in haste, her hair pulled back so loosely that several dark, silken strands had already escaped to coil against her temples. They softened the fierce line of her jaw, making her look vulnerable and lethal all at once.
The room seemed to shrink, the stone walls pressing inward until the only air left was the space between them.
A violent, unwelcome pull clenched in his chest. As her gaze locked onto his—unflinching, searching, burning—the heat he’d tried to drown in the lake roared back to life.
It was a physical strike, a thrumming vibration that started in his marrow and radiated outward until his skin felt too thin to contain it.
He became painfully, acutely aware of himself. He felt the heavy thud of his own heart against his ribs, the way his lungs had stalled in a silent plea for oxygen, and the agonizingly short distance between his hands and her waist.
She was standing at the very edge of his control, and she knew it.
Collect yerself.
Harald forced himself to straighten, dragging composure over instinct as he reclaimed the distance he should have kept from the start.
He pulled authority back into his voice, because without it, he did not trust where his body wanted to go.
“Ye should knock.”
Her mouth curved at once, quick and knowing, as though she had been waiting for the admonition. “I did,” she said lightly.
His brow lifted despite himself. “Did ye?”
“And ye ignored it,” she added, stepping further into the room, eyes locked on his. “Which felt like permission.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. He tried to kill the smile, but the warmth lingered, a traitorous glint that he knew she’d caught.
“Enya,” he warned, but the edge was gone, replaced by a low, vibrating rasp.
She held his gaze, unrepentant and vivid.
The spark between them was a live wire now, humming in the small space between the desk and the door.
Her chin lifted. “I need tae speak wi’ ye.
” She tilted her head, her eyes flicking to the messy ledger before returning to his face with a look of mock pity.
“Besides, ye looked like ye needed interrupting. Ye were scowling at that paper like it had insulted yer clan.”
The directness of it pulled at his chest—half irritation, half raw, reluctant admiration. He folded his arms slowly, trying to look like a laird and not a man who was imagining the taste of her. “And what is it ye’ve decided this time?”
She moved then, the soft, rhythmic brush of her skirts against the stone the only sound in the room.
She stopped directly opposite him, the heavy desk the only thing keeping them apart.
Her hands came down on the edge of the table, palms flat, fingers spreading over the worn wood as she leaned forward.
The table gave a quiet, protesting creak beneath her weight.
“I ken what I want ye tae teach me.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, but it carried the weight of a decree. One eye was cool and piercing; the other was dark with a heat that made his pulse thrum in his throat.
His gaze dropped to her hands—to the way her fingers pressed into the surface as if she were anchoring herself against a storm. When he looked back up, the fire in her eyes was barely banked.
“And what,” he asked, keeping his voice level by force of will, “dae ye think needs teaching?”
She held him without blinking. “How tae fight.”
The words landed and something in him reacted at once. “Nay.”
The refusal was sharp, a jagged reflex born of a sudden, cold fear that lanced through his gut.
He didn't just hear the request; he saw the consequences—the image of her pale skin bruised by a hilt, or worse, split by an edge.
Her brows snapped together, offense flaring in the dark depths of her eyes.
“Ye didnae even—”
“Nay.”
He moved before the argument could draw breath, his body acting on a protective instinct so primal it felt like a physical ache.
He unfolded his arms and slammed his own hands onto the table, palms flat next to hers, the wood groaning under the sudden violence of the movement.
He leaned in until he was crowding her space, his shadow swallowing her whole, pinning her against the weight of his resolve.
The air between them thickened, turned heavy with the scent of her skin—something clean and warm like sun-drenched heather.
“That’s nae a thing I’ll entertain, Enya. Ask fer a horse. Ask fer a castle in the south. I'll give ye the world on a silver platter, but I’ll nae give ye the means tae find yer own grave.”
Her jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in the curve of her throat. She didn't flinch. Instead, she leaned in even further, refusing to yield an inch of ground until their faces were mere inches apart.
“Why?”
The word was clipped, a jagged challenge that felt like a blade against his throat.
He caught the faint, honeyed warmth of her breath against his lips, and for a second, his focus didn't just slip—it shattered.
The heat coiled low and immediate in his body, a fierce, demanding throb that made it impossible to remember why he was supposed to be the sensible one.
All he could think about was the proximity of her mouth.
All he could feel was the magnetic pull of her defiance.
He wanted to shake her for being so reckless, and he wanted to haul her across the table and kiss her until neither of them remembered what they were fighting about.
The conflict was a physical agony, a war between the laird who had to protect his prize and the man who was drowning in the woman.
He drew a breath through his nose, steadying himself, because the answer pressed too close to places he did not wish to show her.
“Because it’s dangerous,” he said, each word chosen with care. “Because it’s unnecessary. Because—”
He stopped.
The rest waited just beneath his tongue, heavy.
Because I’ve seen what steel daes tae people. Because the thought o’ ye learning it puts a weight in me chest I cannae shift.
“Tell me,” she whispered, her eyes boring into his, relentless. “Is it me safety ye’re guarding, Harald? Or yer own pride?”
His hands curled slightly against the table, the old wood groaning under the pressure. His knuckles went white, the skin stretching taut as he fought the urge to reach out and grab her—to pull her into his arms. Her challenge was a physical weight, a blow to his stomach that left him winded.
Is it pride?
That thought a dark, jagged thing in his mind. Or was it the realization that if she learned to wield a blade, she might finally find a way not to need him at all?
She straightened slowly, withdrawing her hands from the table. The loss of her touch—even through the wood—made the air in the room feel suddenly, violently cold. Her posture stiffened into a line of pure defiance. “Dangerous didnae stop the men who attacked us.”
“That’s precisely me point,” he said, his voice tightening, vibrating with a low, rough edge he couldn't smooth away.
He was hyper-aware of her—the rise and fall of her chest, the pulse fluttering in the hollow of her throat.
He wanted to shout at her for being so reckless, but he mostly wanted to taste that defiance.
“Ye should never have been in that position tae begin with.”