Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The darkness of the barracks was suffocating, thick with the smell of stagnant moisture and the bitter, metallic tang of fear.
Enya sat slumped against the rotting timber, her wrists raw and weeping where the hemp had bitten deep during their forced march. Every breath was a struggle against the crushing weight in her chest.
She looked at Harald. Even in the gloom, he looked like a fallen god carved from granite. His head was bowed, his jaw set in a line so hard it looked as if it might snap, his eyes fixed on the wall.
This is me fault, all o’ it.
The burned granary, the impending siege on the keep, and now the Laird of Lewis bound in a shed like a beast for slaughter. Every kindness he had shown her, every moment of surprising tenderness, had been a step toward this ruin.
She opened her mouth, the words I’m sorry trembling on her tongue. “Harald…”
Harald didn't look at her, but he must have felt the shift in her air. He gave a sharp, minute shake of his head. His dark eyes flickered toward the two shadows by the door—the guards—and then back to her. It was a silent command.
Hush. Nae yet.
Enya swallowed the words and watched him instead. He began to move, a rhythmic, microscopic sawing motion. His face was a mask of cold, controlled agony. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple, carving a path through the soot on his skin.
"I told ye," one of the guards spat, voice cutting through the silence. "We shouldnae both be in here. It’s a waste o' good air and better ale. I’m goin' tae the cook-fire."
"Ye’re goin' nowhere," the second guard retorted, his voice tight with irritation. "Laird said two. Unless ye’ve grown a second brain, ye’ll remember that."
"Finley’s a fop wi’ a fancy tongue. The Hawk’s tied up like a Sunday roast. He’s nae goin' anywhere."
"He’s the Hawk, ye daft prick. I’m nae turnin' me back so ye can go fill yer belly."
The bickering escalated, their voices rising in a petty, jagged rhythm that grated against Enya’s raw nerves. She kept her gaze fixed on the guards, her pulse hammering against her eardrums like a war drum.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it—a sudden, fluid shift in Harald’s posture.
The change was instantaneous. One moment he was a captive; the next, he was a predator.
The transition was so sharp, so absolute, that the air in the room seemed to vanish, sucked out by the sheer gravity of his presence. Enya watched, her breath hitching in a throat that felt suddenly too tight, as Harald erupted.
It was the frighteningly beautiful unfurling of a force of nature.
He rose from the hay with a grace that shouldn't have been possible for a man of his size. The ropes fell away from his wrists, frayed and useless, looking like nothing more than discarded snakeskin.
She felt a jolt of pure, electric awe shoot through her entire body. He was majestic—terrible and magnificent—and he was across the floor before the guards had even finished their latest insult.
It was a blur of lethal, focused intent that made her heart soar even as it trembled.
He reached the first man before he could even reach for his dirk. Harald’s hand slammed into the guard’s throat with a sickening thud. The man didn't even have time to gasp before Harald spun him, using the guard’s own weight to slam the second man against the iron-banded door.
The violence was fast, brutal, and utterly unforgiving.
Enya stared, her mouth slightly agape.
He looked terrifying in the best way possible—a storm of iron and muscle, moving with a singular, lethal intent. A rush of something fierce and hot flooded her veins.
That is me husband. That is the man who would burn the world fer me.
In two strides, he was back at her side. He didn't waste time with words. He knelt, his fingers steady as he worked the knots at her wrists.
"Can ye run?" he whispered, his voice a low vibration that seemed to steady the floor beneath her.
"I can fly if I have tae," she snapped back, though her hands were shaking. She looked up at him, her eyes searching his for a second, seeing the raw, unshielded fire there.
He pulled her to her feet and made sure she had space to move toward the door, his body already half-turned to face the remaining guards who were beginning to stir.
For a heartbeat, the air felt like freedom. The door was unbarred from the inside, the night air tasted of salt and pine—
"Going somewhere, little sister?"
The voice was a drench of ice water, turning the frantic heat in Enya’s veins to jagged slush.
Before Harald could even finish the arc of his turn, the door exploded inward. Finley entered in a blur of manic, desperate speed that bypassed Harald’s outstretched fingers.
Enya didn’t have time to scream before a cold hand tangled deep in her hair.
The world tilted violently. Her scalp flared with a blinding, white-hot agony as her head was yanked back, snapping her neck toward the rotted rafters until the tendons screamed. Her breath hitched, trapped in a throat that had suddenly become a target.
Then came the steel. The edge was a thin, freezing line of reality against the pulse-point of her neck.
She felt the vibration of Finley’s frantic, shallow breathing against the back of her skull. It made her skin prickle even as she stared, paralyzed, at Harald.
"Back!" Finley shrieked, the sound vibrating through the blade and into her bones.
Enya’s eyes locked onto Harald’s. She saw the moment his world collapsed.
"Back, or I’ll open her up right here!" Finley’s voice cracked with a high-pitched, jagged edge.
The standoff froze the room into a tableau of horror. Harald stopped mid-motion, his hand still outstretched toward her. The transition was agonizing to witness.
"Finley," Harald said, his voice dropping into a register so flat and calm it was chilling. "Let her go. This is between us. She is nae part o' yer war."
"She’s the only part that matters!" Finley said with fury. “She chose ye over me, her own blood!”
He pressed the blade harder. Enya felt a thin sting of pain, followed by the slow, sickening crawl of warm and wet blood, sliding down toward her collarbone.
Harald didn't hesitate. He took a slow, deliberate step forward, his hands held open and empty.
"Take me," Harald said. The words were absolute. It was a total, unconditional surrender. "Kill me here. If ye want a sacrifice tae start yer war, let it be the laird. Let her walk tae the woods, and I will stay. I will give ye me life willingly, Finley. Just... move the blade."