Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Harald kept her hand crushed in his, his pulse hammering against her knuckles as they crossed the yard.
Every time she stumbled, a fresh wave of agony sliced through him. She was a woman of iron and biting wit, now reduced to a vibrating ghost of terror. He couldn’t scrub the image of the blade at her throat from his mind, a dark prayer repeating in his mind like a frantic rhythm.
"Can ye walk?" he barked, the words catching in his throat. He looked down at her, his jaw clamped, the muscles in his neck standing out like iron cables. "Enya. Look at me. Are yer legs injured? Did the bastard hurt ye?"
Enya didn't look up. Her head hung low, her dark hair a tangled veil over her face. "I... I'm fine," she whispered, though the word was barely a breath. She tripped over a loose stone, her knees buckling.
Harald caught her before she fell, his massive arm hooking around her waist with a grip that was almost too tight. He let out a low, guttural growl
"Answer me properly!" he murmured, his voice trembling with the effort not to shout. He was terrified for her, and that terror was turning into a blinding, white-hot rage. "Can ye make it tae the solar, or am I lifting ye right here in front o' the whole damn keep?"
"I can walk," she rasped, her fingers twitching against the leather of his sleeve. She sounded hollow, the woman who usually had a sharp retort for everything momentarily gone. "Just... the ground willnae stay still, Harald. Everything is moving."
"I’ve got ye. Focus on me, naught else." He tucked her closer to his side, practically hauling her along, his boots slamming against the stone steps. "We’re almost there. Just a few more steps, Enya. Stay wi' me."
"He had a knife," she muttered, her voice distant, her eyes fixed on nothing. "It was so cold, Harald. The edge... it felt like ice."
Harald flinched as if she’d stabbed him. A pained sound escaped his throat. He shoved the heavy oak doors of the solar open so hard they bounced off the stone wall with a crack.
"Nay more," he grounded out through clenched teeth, steering her inside.
The world died away. He steered her toward the hearth, guided her down onto the furs, but she didn't let go. When she finally did, she collapsed against him, her strength spent. He felt her pride breaking into pieces as she slumped into his chest and he held her with a desperate, crushing grip.
He dropped to one knee before her, bringing himself level with her eyes.
Up close, the sight of her devastation stole the very air from his lungs, leaving him reeling as if the world had just tilted on its axis.
Her lashes were clumped with tears. A faint, angry, red mark was already blooming at her throat where the steel had touched her.
“Ye’re safe,” he promised, his voice thick with a possessive, dark heat. “Ye’re within me walls. Ye’re wi’ me. Nay one gets past me.”
Her lips parted, trembling, but no sound came out. Instead, she just leaned forward, her forehead almost touching his, her fingers curling into his sleeve until her nails bit into his skin.
“I willnae leave ye,” he whispered.
A dangerous, feral thing stirred in his chest. He wanted to strip the skin from Finley Cameron’s bones. He wanted to bury her so deep inside his own life that the world could never find her again.
“Sit,” he said softly. “I’m staying right here.”
She nodded, a small, jerky movement, and folded her hands in her lap as if trying to hold herself together.
He rose and closed his eyes for a second. That night they had come too close. The terror of it was a cold weight in his stomach, a hollow, echoing fear that made his hands shake.
He had spent his life in the dark, and he had almost lost the only light he’d found in years—the only thing that made the shadows worth enduring.
When he turned back, Enya was watching him, her mismatched eyes wide and searching. Harald felt her stare like a brand against his skin.
“Ye’re thinking,” she said, her voice a fragile thread that threatened to snap in the quiet of the room. It felt like a plea for him to let her in, to stop pacing the cages of his own mind.
“Aye.”
“Careful, Harald,” she whispered, a ghostly flicker of her usual fire licking at the edges of her voice. “If ye keep scowling like that, ye will crack. And I’ve had quite enough o’ things breaking tonight.”
The small, biting remark hit him straight to his chest. He stopped, his lungs heaving. He couldn't tell her that he was calculating exactly how much blood it would take to wash the sound of her screaming out of his head. He couldn't tell her that he was imagining Finley’s throat under his boot.
Instead, he poured a cup of water, his hand steady only through sheer, brutal will.
He knelt again, offering it to her as if it was a holy relic and she took it, her fingers brushing his in a slow, lingering touch that wasn't an accident.
The contact stopped the air in his lungs.
Harald remained perfectly still, his heart hammering against his ribs, terrified that if he moved a muscle, he would break the fragile spell of her trust.
“Ye’re just goin’ tae stand there like a monument?” she said, her voice laced with that familiar, biting spark. “Are ye nae going tae tell me what’s happening inside yer head?”
Harald’s gaze snapped to hers, his jaw tight. He didn't want to admit that seeing her shattered had stripped away every bit of his logic, leaving nothing but a feral need to kill for her.
“Drink,” he commanded softly, the word coming out as a raw, aching prayer.
He watched the line of her throat as she swallowed, watched the color slowly bleed back into her cheeks. The tension in her shoulders eased by a fraction, and only then did he allow himself to speak.
“Yer braither,” he said, the words tasting like gall, “he planned this? He was never going tae let ye go, was he?”
Enya’s mouth tightened, the spark dying instantly. A single tear escaped, tracing a slow, silver path through the dust on her cheek.
“Aye,” she whispered, the word heavy and bleeding. “He always did have a taste fer theatrics. I suppose a quiet life was never in me stars.”
“I’ll give ye a quiet life,” Harald growled, his hand finally closing over hers, his thumb stroking her knuckles with a fierce, possessive heat.
Before he could pull her into his arms and prove it, a soft knock sounded at the door. Harald’s head snapped toward the sound, his eyes flashing with a lethal, predatory light.
“Enter,” he spat, the word sounding like a threat.
A guard entered. “Me jarl... the other jarls are demanding a Council. The keep is in an uproar.”
Harald didn't look away from Enya. He didn't care about the lairds. He cared about the woman shivering in front of the fire. “Take them tae the adjoining chamber. Nae the hall.”
“Aye, me jarl.”
The door shut. Silence returned, broken only by the crackle of the flames. Harald reached out, his hand hovering near her cheek before he finally let it settle, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw with a reverence that was almost a plea.
“I’ll nae go far,” he whispered, his heart in his voice. He could feel her heat. It pulsed against his palm like a living thing. “And I’ll nae be long.”
Her brows drew together. She looked small against the furs. “Harald—”
“I’m nae leaving ye,” he cut in. His voice was a low vibration. “Never again.”
She searched his face. Her eyes were wide, tracing his scars, weighing the truth of him.
“I’ll be right there,” he promised. He angled his body toward the adjoining door.
The tension in her shoulders finally broke. She let out a jagged breath.
“All right,” she whispered.
Something shifted. The air between them tasted different.
She trusts me.
Harald felt the weight of it settle in his marrow. He knew then that if he failed her, he would be a dead man walking. He moved toward the door, his heart a heavy drum in his chest.
He stepped into the smaller chamber. The low murmur of the jarls died instantly. They were gathered around the table, Leo standing among them with eyes like flint. Their faces were grim shadows in the flickering candlelight, etched with a shared worry that mirrored his own.
Erik stood first, his scarred face softening just a fraction when he saw him. “Is she—?”
“She’s alive, Erik,” Harald said, his voice dropping the jagged edge. He didn't offer details, but he gave the man a short, firm nod of reassurance. “She’s shaken, but she is well.”
Erik exhaled, a heavy sound of relief, and sat.
They crowded the table, but Harald stayed on his feet. He took his post with his back to the solar door, a shield between the politics of men and the woman he loved.
“The threat is inside the walls,” Harald said. His voice was ice, but it was the ice of a shared war. “There’s an infiltrator. Someone who kens how tae move through the castle in the dark.”
A heavy silence dropped over the table. No one spoke. Across the table, Erik’s hand drifted to the map, his fingers curling into a fist that crinkled the parchment.
“We double the patrols,” Ragnar growled, hitting the table with a fist. “The coast must be a wall o’ steel.”
“Aye,” Harald said, his voice steady and appreciative. “And I want silent signals. Nay horns, nay lights tae guide the enemy. If we move taenight, we move like shadows.”
The meeting was short. He dismissed them, and they vanished into the corridors. Harald turned to head back toward the solar, his boots already pivoting when the heavy oak door crashed open, the iron hinges screaming in the silence.
A guard stumbled into the light, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. He clutched his helmet to his ribs, the metal rattling against his leather harness like a frantic heartbeat.
“Me jarl,” he gasped, the words stumbling out. “The king’s convoy. They’re at the gates. They’ve arrived.”