Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The keep hummed. Harald had known preparations for war, for winter, but this was different. The air itself seemed thick, drawn taut by silk and voices and motion. Everywhere he turned, something was being carried, lifted, adjusted.
Tomorrow he would marry Enya Cameron.
The thought pulsed inside of him. It was no longer a distant strategic goal or a duty to the king. It was a weight that pressed against the very center of his chest, newer and far more dangerous than any armor he had ever worn.
He crossed the upper hall with the measured, heavy steps of a man who owned the stone beneath him. He nodded to a steward and acknowledged a captain with a brief lift of his chin, his face a mask of iron-cold composure.
Then he saw her. The iron mask vanished.
Enya stood near one of the long tables, her dark hair braided neatly against the pale curve of her neck—a neck he had wanted to press his lips to until she gasped.
Her sleeves were rolled up, exposing the delicate strength of her forearms as she worked with Amelia and the maids.
Ribbons lay scattered across the dark oak in a bright, chaotic disorder of silk and lace.
She was speaking, her voice light and musical, cutting through the din of the hall like a clear bell.
“If ye tie it that way,” Enya said, lifting a length of ribbon between her fingers with a grace that made Harald’s throat go tight, “it’ll loosen by noon. Ye want it firm enough tae survive the whole day.”
Harald stopped. He didn't mean to, but his feet simply refused to move. He watched the way her hands moved—the same hands that had gripped his tunic so desperately in the dark. He watched the tilt of her head, the way the torchlight caught the different depths of color in her eyes.
A terrifying wave of protectiveness crashed over him. He looked at her and felt a raw, primal ache to sweep all the ribbons and the maids aside, to pull her into the shadows and tell her that he would burn the world to ash before he let anyone make her feel wrong or cursed ever again.
He didn't just want her as a wife. He wanted to be the shield she had never had. He wanted to be the one place where she didn't have to be brave.
“Is there somethin’ wrong wi’ the ribbons?” he asked. His voice was mild, but it carried an intimacy that seemed to pull a veil over the rest of the bustling hall.
Enya startled, just barely. He caught the tiny, jagged hitch in her breath before she turned to face him.
Then her gaze met his, and he watched the frantic rhythm of her pulse settle. “Nay,” she said. “They’re fine.” Her tone was too quick, the words clipped.
Harald looked down at the table, at the neat stacks and bright disorder. “But ye arenae,” he stated, his eyes returning to her face.
A brief, suffocating silence opened between them. The sounds of the keep—the clatter of plates, the shouting of guards—seemed to fade into a dull hum, leaving only the two of them in a circle of cold tension.
Enya’s chin lifted, the movement precise, almost rehearsed. “I’m tired,” she said. “It’s a busy keep.”
“That it is,” Harald replied, his tone unchanged, his eyes searching hers for the cracks he knew were there. “But that’s nae what I said.”
Enya breathed out slowly, her shoulders tensing as if she were steadying herself against a gale. “Must everything be questioned?”
“Nay,” Harald said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble in his chest. “Only the things ye’re tryin’ hardest nae tae say.”
Her hands went still on the table. She met his eyes then and held them, a flash of her old defiance flickering like a dying candle before fading into something far more fragile—something that looked like a plea.
Whatever she was carrying sat too close to the surface now; he could see it in the tight, white line of her jaw and the way she swallowed as if she were choking on her own heart.
“I’m fine,” she said again. The words were a whisper now, stripped of their authority “Truly.”
The lie sat between them like a living thing. He studied her face with a precision that bordered on hunger. Every instinct he possessed—the instincts that had kept him alive in shield walls and dark forests—was screaming danger, even as her voice insisted on peace.
He lowered his voice, dropping it to a rough, private register that he didn't trust for any other ears. The sound of it was less an order and more a desperate anchor.
“Come wi’ me.”
Enya frowned slightly, a ripple of confusion breaking through the surface of her careful calm. “Where?”
“Me chamber.”
The words seemed to sap the air from the space between them. Enya drew in a sharp, audible breath, her eyes widening. “Harald—”
His gaze stayed locked on hers. “I want tae talk.”
The words he left unsaid hung in the air like a physical weight.
Before this distance between us becomes a canyon. Before I lose ye tae whatever ghost ye’re chasin’ in the dark.
He felt a raw, gnawing ache in his chest—a fear that if he didn't pull her aside now, the woman he had kissed the night before would vanish, leaving only a stranger in a wedding dress.
Enya’s pulse jumped visibly at her throat. For an agonizing heartbeat, she looked as though she might refuse.
Then she nodded once. “Aye.”
Harald turned first. He didn't reach for her hand; he gave her the space to choose him, to walk into the light rather than be dragged.
He forced himself not to look back, but every nerve in his body was attuned to her.
He felt her brief, heart-stopping hesitation, and then finally, the soft, rhythmic shift of her skirts as she stepped forward to follow him.
The walk felt like a mile. Every step toward the stairs was a step away from the safety of the crowd and closer to a truth that Harald was beginning to fear might break them both.
When he stopped before his door and turned the latch, he was keenly aware of how close she stood behind him, how easily he could have reached for her instead.
They entered and the door closed behind them with a muted thud and the sudden quiet was almost physical.
Enya lingered near the threshold. Her hands were clasped loosely before her, fingers worrying at one another. He faced her fully, giving her his attention without crowding her, even as everything in him strained to close the space.
“Now tell me,” he said, his patience already worn to a thread. “What troubles ye?”
Enya looked away, her chin lifted in that stubborn, defiant line. “I told ye. Naething.”
Harald exhaled sharply, his restraint snapping. He stepped into her space, his shadow looming over her. "I’m nae a fool, Enya. Dinnae lie tae me."
Her fingers twisted together, knuckles turning white, until she finally broke, “They talk too much.” she whispered, the words rushing out.
“Who?”
“The maids,” Enya replied. She looked at him then, her face flushing a deep, sudden crimson. "They talked about what happens... after the vows. At night."
Harald’s throat went dry.
The anxiety that had been clawing at his gut vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a sudden, flashing vision of the night to come—of Enya, unbound and golden in the firelight.
The image hit him like a physical blow.
The protective laird died in an instant, consumed by a surge of heat that made the room tilt and his head swim.
His pulse began to hammer a heavy, rhythmic violence against his ribs, turning his blood to liquid fire.
He was imagining the taste of her skin and the way her defiance would turn into a different kind of gasp beneath him.
He saw her then—not as a puzzle to be solved, but as a woman standing on the precipice of a world she didn't understand.
“What did they say?” he asked, his voice thickening with a hunger he no longer tried to hide. He took another step, closing the distance until their breaths mingled.
"Enough," she whispered, though her eyes were wide, searching his. "About the pain. About what men... demand."
Harald let out a low, rough sound that was half-laugh, half-growl.
"Then they told ye lies," he murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth. "If ye think I would demand anything that makes ye recoil, ye dinnae ken me at all."
Her mouth puckered, a small, soft movement that drew his gaze to the fullness of her lower lip and held it there. She watched him with a wide, guarded attention, but beneath the fear, he saw a flickering, burning curiosity.
“I dinnae ken what I’m meant tae feel,” she whispered, her voice thinning until it was a ragged thread. “Or dae. And the nae kenning... it is worse than any story they could tell me.”
The image of her hair spread across his pillows and her skin flushed under his touch, flashed through his mind with such violence it made his head swim.
He clasped his hands behind his back, his fingers digging into his palms as he fought to ground himself. His blood was pulsing in a heavy, rhythmic thrum through his veins.
“Then I’ll tell ye,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, rough vibration.
Her breath caught, a small, sharp hitch in her chest. She leaned a fraction closer, her innocence a fuel to the fire he was trying to contain.
“And how... how should it be done?” she asked.
The question was so direct, so dangerously willing, that Harald felt a jolt of pure, unadulterated want slam into his gut. He held himself rigid, every muscle coiled like a spring, his knuckles white behind his back.
“Slowly,” he rasped, the word a rough murmur. “Wi’ attention. A man should learn the way her skin shivers when he barely touches it.”
He felt her shaking—small, jagged shudders that made his own pulse roar—and he forced himself to stay still, to be the anchor she needed rather than the storm he was. “He should make certain she is meltin’ fer him,” he whispered against her skin, “before he ever asks her tae give him her body.”
Her lips parted, a soft, helpless exhale that fanned the heat already roaring through him. Harald was suddenly, agonizingly aware of the scant inches between them—the air was no longer just air; it was a conductor for the electricity rolling off her skin.
Her pulse was a frantic, visible hammer at the hollow of her throat. Enya swallowed hard, her eyes searching his. “Last night—”
“I ken,” he rasped, the word vibrating deep in his chest.
Her gaze dropped, trailing down the line of his tunic, lingering where the fabric pulled taut across his thighs, then lower—to the unmistakable, heavy ridge straining against the wool of his breeches. She looked away quickly, a fierce, burning crimson flooding her face, but the damage was done.
The sight of her looking—the raw, wide-eyed curiosity in her mismatched eyes—sent a violent jolt of blood straight to his groin. It wasn't just desire; it was a rhythmic, insistent throb that demanded release, a pulse so powerful he felt it in every nerve of his body.
He closed the distance in two strides. He claimed her hands, his fingers large and calloused, wrapping around her wrists with a grip that was gentle but vibrating with the force of his restraint.
“Harald—”
Enya froze as her hips brushed the hard, pulsing heat of him. Understanding dawned in her eyes—dark, startled, and dangerously aware. Her breath came in shallow, jagged gasps that hitched in her chest, making her breasts brush against his tunic with every inhale.
It nearly broke him. The world dissolved until there was only the scent of her and the brutal, throbbing ache between his legs.
His breath turned into a low, animal growl as he pictured—vividly, mercilessly—sliding her onto the table, rucking up those skirts, and burying the agonizing pulse of his body inside her until they both forgot their names.
The thought struck with such carnal sharpness that he felt his vision blur. If he kept looking at her, he would take her right there, with the maids just a corridor away.
He stepped back abruptly, the movement jerky and violent. He released her hands as if they were white-hot iron and turned aside, his chest heaving, his jaw clamped shut hard. He had to look at the stone wall, the tapestries—anything but the woman who had just turned his blood into a riot.
Enya stiffened, the warmth he’d just offered replaced by a sudden, biting chill.
When she spoke, her voice was a thin, brittle shard of glass. “I see.”
He closed his eyes, cursing his own clumsiness, cursing the roar of his blood that wouldn't quiet.
“Ye see what?” he asked, his voice thick and ruined.
Her chin lifted in a gesture he recognized now, the old armor rising on instinct. “That even ye find me difficult tae look at fer long.”
The words cut through the haze of his lust like a cold blade. The pulsing ache in his body didn't vanish, but it was suddenly joined by a hollow, sickening twist in his gut.
“Enya.” His voice sharpened before he could soften it.
She froze, her entire body jolting at the raw power in his tone.
Harald turned back to her in a single, decisive motion. The air in the room seemed to ignite, sucked into the vacuum of his presence.
“Dinnae ever mistake restraint fer lack o’ desire,” he rasped, the words vibrating with a dark, heavy hunger.
She stood where he had left her, shaken and flushed. “Ye stop yerself,” she whispered, her voice thick with wonder and a new, soaring heat.
“Aye.” He closed his eyes, his head bowing as the throbbing in his body slowly, painfully began to subside into a dull, agonizing ache.
Enya drew a slow, shuddering breath. The armor was gone. In her place was a woman who looked at him with a gaze that was equal parts terror and a dark, budding worship.
Harald turned back to her, his gaze intent and controlled once more. “When I touch ye,” he said quietly, “it will be because ye have chosen me freely. Nae because the world frightened ye intae me arms.”
Enya nodded once, her throat working as she swallowed.
He saw the shift in her—the way her curiosity had turned into a desperate, silent countdown to their wedding night. Desire hadn't faded; it had been forged into something much more dangerous. Something that would burn the keep down when finally unleashed.