Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Harald shut the study door. He handled the latch with a controlled hand, but the quiet click didn't stop the roar in his head. He crossed to the table and gripped the back of a chair. He stared at the grain of the wood, waiting for his pulse to slow.
He had lifted her.
The memory was too sharp. He could still feel the way her weight had settled into his palms. He could still feel his body leaning into hers without a second thought.
The great hall had been a chaos of servants and noise, yet he had moved through it like a man possessed.
He had hauled tables like a common laborer just to give his hands something to do—anything to stop them from reaching for her again.
He told himself it was about leadership. If his people were to respect her, they had to see him claim her. That was a lie. Or at least, it wasn't the whole truth.
A woman shouldn’t leave him feeling so off-center, so stripped of his armor. Yet Enya did exactly that. It was the way she looked at him—that lingering, searching gaze that retreated the moment he tried to meet it. She was always calculating. Always deciding what to show and what to bury.
He pushed away from the table and headed outside. The sea air hit him, cool and salty. He breathed it in deep, trying to let the cold steady his blood. But even the wind felt like her.
She watches too closely.
There was a sharpness in her eyes. Intelligence. Resolve. And beneath it all, a current of something that tugged at him, pulling him toward a shore he wasn't sure was safe.
Leo fell into step beside him. He matched Harald’s aggressive pace without effort.
“Ye’re walkin’ like a man chased,” Leo said at last, his tone light, but his eyes like needles. “And there’s naething behind ye but yer own shadow.”
“Me shadow’s learned tae stalk me,” Harald growled, eyes fixed forward. “I’d best start worryin’.”
Leo huffed a short, sharp breath. “I’ve kent ye since we were boys. Ye dinnae pace like this unless somethin’s clawin’ at ye.”
They stopped where the ground dipped toward the sea wall. Harald braced his hands against the cold stone, his knuckles white. The salt spray stung his face, but it wasn't enough to kill the phantom heat of her waist against his palms.
“Say what ye mean, Leo. Enough wi’ the riddles.”
Leo leaned against the wall, utterly unimpressed by Harald’s dark mood. “It’s the lass. Enya. She’s gotten under yer skin like a splinter ye cannae reach, aye?”
Harald turned then, fixing Leo with a look that had silenced harder men. “She’s a political bond. Naethin’ more.”
“Aye,” Leo shot back, his teasing tone vanishing. “That’s what she is on paper. But in this yard? The way ye listen when she so much as breathes? The way ye watch her like she’s the only light in a dark room? I’m nae an idiot, me friend. Ye’re starvin', and she’s the only thing ye want tae eat.”
Harald flinched as if Leo had struck him.
Am I that transparent?
The thought was a sickening slide in his gut. He had built his life on being a fortress. If Leo could see the cracks, then the whole world could see he was crumbling.
“She’s clever,” Harald rasped, his voice breaking. “It makes her dangerous. I shouldnae trust her, Leo. Every instinct I have says she’s a trap, and yet…”
Leo’s mouth curved into a knowing, pitying smile. “Aye. And ye’ve always had a taste fer sharp blades, even when they’re pressed tae yer throat.”
“Nae when I dinnae ken where the edge is.” Harald let out a jagged breath. “I have nae idea if she’s here tae save me or ruin me.”
“Ye’ve spent yer life keepin’ folk at arm’s length,” Leo said, stepping closer, his voice dropping. “Maybe ye’re tired o’ the cold, Harald. She is tae be yer wife. Give her a chance tae be somethin' other than an enemy.”
The words cut deep. Harald nodded once—the signal for Leo to shut up.
Leo gave a small, mocking bow and peeled away, leaving Harald to the wind.
Give her a chance.
He watched a longship struggle against the channel below, its sail straining against a gale. He’d trusted men before. He’d watched them swear oaths while their eyes measured the distance to his back. He’d learned to live in the silence of his own head, keeping his heart behind iron bars.
But Enya… she made him want to rip those bars down. She made him want to speak without a shield. It was a terrifying, visceral pull that left him feeling weak.
He straightened his spine, forcing the laird back to the surface. He would watch her. He would weigh her soul until he found the entrance.
But as he turned toward the keep, her face rose in his mind—the tilt of her head, the heat of her skin, the quiet fire in her mismatched eyes. A thought he hadn’t dared to finish finally took shape, cold and absolute.
If she betrays me, I willnae just bleed. I’ll burn tae the ground.
Enya waited until the last footstep faded down the stairs before she moved. She eased from her chamber with Amelia close behind her, the maid a ghost of silence.
Enya kept her shoulders square, her chin level, a mask of cold resolve forged from years of hiding. Outwardly, she was calm; inwardly, her stomach was a knot of jagged glass. Every shadow on the wall looked like a guard; every creak of the floor sounded like a shout.
If we’re caught…
She couldn’t finish the thought. She couldn't afford to imagine the look on Harald’s face if he found her thieving in the dark again. It would be worse than the rejection in the training yard; it would be the total destruction of the fragile, heat-soaked hope that had bloomed in the great hall.
Her conscience screamed at her to turn back, but the logical voice in her head—the one that sounded like the cold click of a lock—silenced it.
Finley is waiting, ye are a Cameron. This feeling between ye is a temporary fever. He will look at yer eyes and remember ye are the enemy. He will choose his duty over ye.
Amelia glanced at her, brows lifting in a question. Enya gave the smallest nod and kept moving, her pace unhurried, as though she had every right to be there.
She didn’t. Every step felt like a betrayal of the man who had just lifted her toward the rafters with hands that felt like they wanted to hold her forever.
She slowed at the study door, her heart hammering so hard against her ribs it felt like it might bruise. She listened, counting her own shallow breaths. No sound. No rustle of parchment, no movement. She reached for the handle, and it gave easily beneath her hand.
For a heartbeat, she froze, fingers still curled around the iron.
Unlocked.
Relief came sharp and immediate, followed by a sickening wave of anxiety. Harald was not a careless man. He was a strategist. Leaving the door open felt like a trap—or worse, a gesture of trust.
He didnae lock it because he daesnae think I’m a threat.
Her guilt turned into a dull ache.
Enya pushed the door inward, just enough to slip through. Amelia followed, closing it behind them with infinite, agonizing care.
The room was as she remembered it, orderly to the point of restraint.
Nothing had been moved, nothing left carelessly out of place.
Shelves, maps, ledgers, all where they should be.
Even the candle burned the way he always kept it, trimmed and steady.
Enya’s attention moved through the space without lingering, her focus fixed on what might be hidden.
She moved to the table and opened the nearest ledger.
Amelia hovered at her shoulder, eyes darting to the door keeping watch, then back to Enya’s hands.
The pages were neat, with columns of figures running straight and clean, dates marked, names listed.
Supply tallies. Grain, salted meat, dried fish.
She scanned everything quickly, her heart beating madly.
No lists of ships beyond what was already here. No hints of expansion. No ambitions scrawled in the margins, no coded notes to suggest conquest.
Her throat tightened.
She flipped faster now, the paper whispering beneath her fingers. There was more of the same care, more order, more protection. Men assigned to guard villages, notes on weather patterns, on sickness among the sheep, on reinforcing watch points before winter.
This is nae a man planning war. This is a man trying tae keep what he has from breaking.
Amelia leaned closer, her voice barely a breath. “Find aught?”
Enya shook her head once, sharp. “Nay.” The word felt wrong in her mouth. She closed the ledger and opened another, her movements brisk, precise. Inside, something twisted, slow and unwelcome. Doubt, spreading its roots.
She had told herself it would be a clean trade. She would find proof of his aggression, carry it back to her brother, and save Finley’s life by exposing a monster. She needed him to be a monster. It was the only way she could live with what she was doing.
Instead, her gaze caught on a folded map tucked beneath a stack of parchment. She drew it free, smoothing it open. Defensive lines traced the coast. Villages marked and circled. There were no arrows pointing outward, no plans beyond the horizon.
He wasn't preparing to attack. He was preparing to protect.
Her chest tightened, the air in the study suddenly turning to thin, frozen glass in her lungs.
She wasn't just standing in an office; she was standing in the sanctum of a man’s soul. Every map, every defensive line, every grain of ink was a testament to his devotion to his people. He wasn't the warmonger her brother had painted; he was a shield.
The weight of her betrayal felt like a physical hand around her throat.
He had held her as if she were something precious to be guarded, while she was standing in the dark, trying to find the knife to twist in his back.
The silence of the room screamed at her.
She was a thief of trust, a ghost in his house.
The realization that he was a better person than she was made her want to sink into the floor and disappear.
She was the monster, not him.
She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat and folded the map back into place.
Her fingers lingered an instant too long on the paper, a silent apology to a man who didn't know he was being betrayed.
She felt small. She felt wretched. She had gone there to find war, but all she had found was the truth—and it was going to break her.
Amelia shifted, restless. “We should go.”
“Aye,” Enya murmured, though her feet were anchored to the floor by the weight of what she’d seen. “There’s naething fer us here anyway.”
She took one last look around the room, imprinting it on her mind. That was not the lair of a tyrant. It was the working space of a man who carried responsibility like a second skin. The knowledge settled heavy and hot beneath her ribs, making her acutely aware of everything she stood to lose.
The latch shifted.
Enya froze. Her blood turned to ice before her mind could even process the sound. The world narrowed to that single, metallic clack.
Amelia’s breath caught in a choked, jagged sob of air that sounded loud enough to bring the walls down.
Enya didn't think; there was no room left for thought, only the frantic, slamming survival instinct of a hunted animal.
Fear burned through her, a white-hot flash that cauterized her hesitation and turned her blood to liquid fire.
She seized Amelia’s wrist—her grip desperate and bruising, bone against bone—and hauled her toward the far wall.
The world narrowed to the sliver of deep, suffocating shadow behind a tall oak cupboard.
Every inch of movement felt like an eternity, her skirts hissing against the stone like a warning.
They vanished into the dark just as the door groaned open.
Harald’s footsteps entered the room.
Enya shoved herself into the narrow gap beside the cupboard, pulling Amelia flush against her. They angled their bodies into the suffocating darkness, pressing so hard against the stone wall that the cold seeped through their bodices.
The door closed behind him, and he crossed the room quietly. Enya could hear the soft rasp of his breath, the faint creak of leather as he shrugged free of his belt. Candlelight shifted, shadows stretching and contracting with his movement.
Her pulse thudded so loudly in her ears she was certain he could hear it.
He stopped at the table as she heard papers rustling, then a chair scraped softly. Enya’s fingers curled against the wood, nails pressing into her palm. She felt Amelia trembling violently beside her, the girl’s heat radiating in the cramped space.
Harald exhaled—a long, weary sound that went through Enya like a blade.
She pictured him without meaning to: the way his brow would furrow in the candlelight, the way his large, scarred hands—the hands that had held her with such reverence—would be smoothing the very maps she had just violated.
She wondered, with a sickening throb in her chest, if he was thinking of her.
If he was looking at the chair across from him wishing she were there.
Time stretched. He turned pages, murmured something under his breath she could not catch.
Her heart kicked harder when he rose again, crossing the room.
He passed so close to their hiding place she could smell him—salt, cold wind, and that clean, masculine scent that was uniquely his.
The urge to reach out, to confess, to touch the hem of his tunic surged unbidden and terrifying.
She closed her eyes tight, grasping Amelia’s hand, her knuckles white.
Please, let him leave. Please, dinnae let him look.
At last, the door opened. His steps receded down the corridor, the latch settling with a final, hollow click. Silence returned, but it was a heavy, haunted thing.
Enya did not move until the quiet felt deep enough to drown in. When she finally eased away from the cupboard, her limbs were so unsteady she nearly collapsed. Amelia let out a shaky, jagged breath, her eyes huge in the gloom.
“Saints preserve us,” Amelia whispered, voice trembling.
Enya pressed a finger to her lips, though relief trembled through her too, leaving her lightheaded. She nodded once, then guided Amelia back to the door, slipping into the corridor and closing it with delicate precision,
They moved quickly, keeping to the shadows like ghosts. Only when they reached the stairs did Enya allow herself a breath deep enough to burn. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to curl them into fists.
Protection, nae conquest.
The words repeated, unrelenting. Harald’s ledgers lay heavy in her mind, each careful note another weight against the task her brother had set her. She had gone there seeking a reason to hate him. Instead, she had found a man who had done nothing to deserve her betrayal.
She lifted her chin and kept walking, her face a mask of composed stone. But inside, her heart was screaming, torn between the ghost of her brother and the living, breathing pull of the man she was supposed to ruin.