Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Harald’s head throbbed.
He simply rolled onto his side in the moldy hay, his eyes frantically scouring the shadows. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he knew that Enya was there with him. He could feel her.
"Enya?" he rasped. The name felt like a prayer and a plea combined.
"I’m here," came the choked reply. “Harald, I was so afraid, ye were out for a couple of days.”
He saw her then, a small, curled shape a few feet away. She was struggling against the hemp biting into her wrists, her breath coming in those sharp, shallow hitches he had learned to recognize as her fighting back a breakdown.
Harald shuffled through the filth, dragging his bound arms behind him, his shoulders screaming in protest. He didn't stop until his shoulder hit hers.
"Are ye hurt?" he whispered, leaning his forehead against the side of her head. He could smell the forest in her hair—pine and earth. "Enya, look at me. Did they strike ye?"
She turned her face toward him. In the sliver of moonlight filtering through the rotted slats of the roof, he saw the silver tracks of tears on her cheeks. She was crying, and the sight of it made Harald want to tear the world apart.
"I’m whole," she whispered, her voice trembling but gaining that familiar, stubborn edge. "Mostly just... upset. The brute who came inside tae check up on us had breath like a dead goat.”
Harald closed his eyes, a pained, huffing laugh escaping his throat that was half-sob and half-wonder.
Even now, bound in a cage of rot and facing an almost certain death, she was clawing for her wit, trying to weave a safety net to catch him as he fell.
He pressed his forehead against hers, his skin burning where they touched.
For a moment, the stench of the barracks vanished. In its place was only the terrifyingly beautiful weight of her existence.
He felt her pulse thrumming against his shoulder. It was a love that consumed the last of his cold, lonely defenses, leaving him raw and utterly, helplessly hers.
"Ye fool," he murmured, his voice thick with a devastating tenderness that made his throat ache. "Why did ye stay?"
Enya leaned into him, her weight a heavy, precious burden. "Me blood is tied tae yers, Harald. I’d rather be in this pit wi' ye than safe in a keep wi’out ye."
"Enya..." He rasped.
The moment of quiet was shattered.
The heavy iron bar on the outside of the door clattered upward. The doors swung open with a violent crack, framing a figure against the silver-blue night.
Finley Cameron stepped into the barracks. He moved with a slow, predatory grace, his boots polished and silent against the rotted floorboards. Behind him, two men held torches, the flickering orange light dancing cruelly over the scene of their defeat.
Harald looked up, and a wave of pure, visceral revulsion rose in his throat, more bitter than the blood in his mouth.
To Harald, Finley looked like a sickness given human form. The man was too clean, too smooth, his presence an insult to the honest grime and bone-deep exhaustion of the forest.
Harald felt a surge of disgust that made his skin crawl—the kind of loathing one feels for a parasite that hides in the dark and feeds on its own kin.
Seeing those cold, manic eyes settle on Enya made Harald’s stomach churn with a protective nausea; it was the look of a butcher assessing a prized lamb, devoid of any shred of humanity.
Finley stopped a few feet away, looking down at them with a thin, mocking smile that didn't reach his eyes.
His gaze settled on Enya first, lingering with a proprietary, chilling focus.
"Well, look at the state o’ ye," Finley said and it made the hair on Harald’s neck stand up. He took a slow step forward, the leather of his boots creaking. "Me traitor sister, huddled in the hay like a common farm-wench."
The way he spoke to her—as if she was a piece of discarded parchment rather than his own blood—made Harald’s stomach twist. It was a level of calculated, twisted cruelty.
"I expected more from a woman who managed tae bed the Hawk o' Lewis," Finley continued, his lip curling in a sneer. He gestured vaguely toward Enya's tangled dark hair with a gloved hand. "Who sold her soul tae this... beast."
He spat the last word with a glance toward Harald, but the insult didn't register.
Enya didn't flinch. Despite the dirt on her face and the ropes biting into her skin, she sat up as straight as her bonds would allow. She looked at her brother with a scathing, bone-deep weariness.
"Ye’re a lunatic, Finley," she said, her voice steady and sharp as a glass shard. "Ye’ve burned villages, endangered children, and now ye’re playing at being king in a shed that smells o' rot." She paused, her eyes narrowing as she delivered the final blow. "It’s pathetic."
Finley’s smile didn't falter, but his eyes darkened, the pupils dilating until they were twin pits of ink. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the crackle of the torches. Slowly, he stepped into the circle of her space, his movements fluid and serpentine.
"Pathetic?" Finley whispered, the word a soft, poisonous hiss. He reached out a gloved hand, his fingers hovering inches from her throat in a gesture that was both a caress and a threat.
Harald’s muscles bunched, his heart hammering against his cracked ribs.
"Keep yer filth off her, Cameron," he rumbled, his voice a low warning.
"She’s already seen what ye are. All the posturing in the Highlands willnae change the fact that yer own sister looks at ye and sees naething but a coward. "
Finley didn't turn. He kept his gaze on Enya, his thumb finally grazing the underside of her jaw, forcing her to look up.
"She looks at me and sees her reflection," Finley countered, his voice dripping with a cruel, intimate knowledge. "Dinnae ye, Enya? Ye think this Norseman loves ye? The moment his people start whispering o’ yer curse—as always, sister—he'll remember exactly whose blood runs in yer veins."
Harald lunged as far as his ropes permitted.
A guttural snarl vibrated in his chest, but he could only watch in silent agony as Finley’s fingers brushed Enya’s shoulder. He flicked a single piece of straw from her wool cloak with a terrifying, gentle precision.
"Nay, little sister," Finley whispered, leaning down until he was inches from her face. The intimacy of the gesture was sickening; it was the way a man might comfort a child. "He daesnae love ye."
He straightened up then, his eyes snapping to Harald’s with a look of triumph so pure it was haunting. Harald felt a cold sweat break across his brow, his mind racing. It wasn't just the physical threat; it was the way Finley spoke to Enya—as if he owned her history, her mind, and her very spirit.
"Touch her again and I’ll tear yer throat out wi’ me teeth," Harald growled. His eyes were fixed on Finley, his gaze steady and freezing.
Finley turned his attention to Harald, let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. He crouched down so he was eye-level with the laird, his expression one of amused condescension.
"And what will ye dae, Laird Alvsson? Bleed on me boots? Ye’re a man o’ iron, I’ll give ye that. But even iron snaps."
Finley stood up, pacing a slow circle around them, his hands clasped behind his back. "Ye think this is about a ransom? Or a simple grudge? Nay. This moment is... ideal. Perfect. While the laird and his new bride are absent, me men are already moving tae yer keep."
Harald’s heart went cold, the blood in his veins turning to slush. Finley wasn’t just hoping for this outcome; he was already savoring it like a vintage wine.
"Think o’ it, Alvsson," Finley continued. He stepped closer, his voice dropping into a low, intimate whisper that felt like a spider crawling into Harald’s ear. "The confusion in yer gates."
Finley leaned in, his eyes bright. "The folk will ask: How did their mighty laird, the Hawk who sees all, allow himself tae be snatched from his own woods? They’ll wonder if the lady led him there.
They’ll question if the man they trusted is as weak as the woman he was foolish enough tae marry.
” Finley closed his eyes, breathing in, before continuing.
“Trust is a fragile thing in these islands, Harald.
It's built o' belief. Once it cracks, the people dinnae fight; they hide. And then, they turn on ye."
"Me people are stronger than yer lies, Cameron," Harald spat. He threw the words like stones, his voice a jagged rumble of defiance. But the weight of his position—that old, familiar ache of being the solitary guardian of a thousand souls—gnawed at his insides with fresh, sharp teeth.
He felt a sickening lurch in his stomach and felt the weight of every life in the village pressing down on him in the dark.
"Are they?" Finley tilted his head. "When they see their villages in ashes and their laird missing, they willnae look fer strength. They’ll look fer a scapegoat. And there sits yer lady—the sister o’ the man who burned them.
The damage is already done, Harald. By the time ye see the sun again, yer lands will be mine. "
Finley looked back at Enya, his expression shifting to one of chilling delight, his eyes sparkling with cold brilliance.
"And ye, Enya... ye’ll get tae watch. Ye’ll watch as the world ye tried tae build turns tae ash. Ye deserve even less after turnin’ against me."
Enya lunged forward as much as the ropes would allow, her face pale and sweating, her mismatched eyes wide with a desperate, frantic pleading.
"Finley, stop this! Let him go. Take me—take me back tae the mainland, lock me in a cell, dae whatever ye want—but leave the island be!
Think o' what ye're daeing tae yer own name! "
Finley didn't even blink. He smoothed the front of his doublet, the gesture so calm and domestic that it made Harald’s skin crawl with a fresh wave of revulsion.
Harald watched him, his mind working with the cold, mechanical precision that had kept him alive through a dozen winters of war. He tuned out the taunts, focusing instead on the logistics of the threat.
Finley was arrogant, but Harald wasn't a fool.
Leo willnae sit idle.
By now, the absence of the laird and lady would be a ringing bell in the keep. Leo was a man of iron and order; he would have already doubled the lookouts and lit the secondary beacons.
Yet, as he looked at Enya, the calculation faltered. His military mind told him the island was safe, but his heart told him she was in mortal peril. She was the leverage. Finley didn't want the land as much as he wanted to break the spirit of the man who held it.
Enya is the bridge.
Finley turned on his heel, his shadow lengthening as he moved toward the heavy doors. "Stay here and rot, the pair o' ye."
He stepped out, and Harald heard him barking orders to the men outside. "Keep two guards at the door. If either of them breathes too loud, silence them. I want them alive fer the morning, but I dinnae care if they’re whole."
Two guards stepped into the gloom, the heavy thud of their boots vibrating through the floorboards and into Harald’s aching bones. They were large, brutal-looking men with faces like hammered lead. They simply stood by the entrance, arms crossed.
The doors slammed shut, and the heavy iron bar dropped with a final, hollow clack that sounded like a coffin lid.
The silence that followed was thick, pressing into Harald's lungs. The only sound was the jagged, wet hitch of Enya’s breathing. She was shaking so violently that the hay beneath her rustled like dry bones.
"Enya," Harald whispered. "Look at me. Breathe, lass. Just breathe."
"He's going tae kill them, Harald," she sobbed, her voice muffled against his shoulder. "Because o' me. He’s going tae turn yer own people against ye, and I’ll be the reason."
Harald closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.
"Me people ken who I am," he rasped, his voice thick with a fierce, protective conviction. "And they ken who ye are. They saw the way ye looked at the boy. Lies cannae burn away the truth o’ a person’s soul, nay matter how much soot Finley throws at it. "
His gaze caught on a flicker of moonlight reflecting off the wall. Near the rotted doorframe, a heavy iron hook—once used for hanging tack or lanterns—peeked out from the timber. It was jagged, rusted, and sat at just the right height.
A sharp glimmer of hope sparked in Harald’s chest.