Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
"Harald, nay!" Enya screamed, the sound tearing from her lungs, vibrating against the steel at her throat. "Dinnae say it! Ye have tae lead the keep! Dinnae ye dare give yerself tae him!"
She struggled, ignoring the bite of the knife, her eyes locked on Harald. He looked at her then. The expression on his face was one of such profound peace that it terrified her more than Finley’s madness.
"Me life is naught if I have tae live it without ye, Enya," he murmured, his eyes never leaving hers. He stepped another inch forward. "I am yers. Dae ye understand? Finley... take the trade."
Enya’s heart felt as if it were being shredded. The irony was a bitter weight: she had spent her life afraid of being a burden, afraid that her curse would destroy those she loved. And here he was, the most powerful man she had ever known, ready to discard his life just so she could keep hers.
"Ye’re a fool, Alvsson," Finley hissed, his eyes darting between them, sensing the power of a bond he could never comprehend. "A weak, sentimental fool."
Enya stared at Harald, her vision blurring at the edges. Her scalp was screaming from the tension of Finley’s grip, and the hot, iron-scented blood was still tracing a slow path down her skin, but all she could feel was the weight of Harald’s sacrifice.
Nay, please God, nay.
She wanted to scream at him to stop being so damn noble, to remember the keep, the people, the land that needed its laird. She wanted to tell him that she wasn't worth the trade. She was just a shadow he plucked from the mists.
But she couldn’t speak; she could only gasp against the cold bite of the blade.
"How touching," Finley mocked, his voice a jagged, manic vibration against the back of her head. "A tragic end fer a tragic pair. I think I’ll take that trade, Alvsson. I’ll take yer life, and then I’ll take hers anyway, just fer the spite o’—"
The door burst open.
"Drop the blade!"
The roar belonged to Leo, a sound so thunderous it seemed to vibrate through the very floorboards.
He flooded the room like a tide of iron, three of Harald’s house-guards at his heels.
Their swords were drawn and gleaming with a cold light in the sudden flare of torches.
The small, rotted barracks was suddenly far too crowded; the air, once thin and stagnant, became a pressurized weight of steel and impending death.
Enya felt the sudden, jagged shift in the atmosphere—a lurch of hope so violent it made her knees almost buckle. The balance had shattered in a heartbeat. Finley’s men outside had been silenced, and now his escape was a wall of Norse men.
She felt the hand in her hair tremble. The force of it yanked her scalp away from her skull, a sharp, white-hot fire that radiated from the crown of her head down to the base of her spine.
"Back!" Finley shrieked, his voice ascending to a high, hysterical pitch that scraped against Enya’s ears. "I’ll kill her! I swear tae the Saints, I’ll open her throat!"
Enya’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against the steel. She braced herself for the final slide of the blade, her breath catching in a sob she couldn't release. She looked at Harald, expecting him to freeze, expecting the world to stop.
But Harald moved with a silent fluidity that made Enya’s head swim.
The look on his face, a mask of such absolute rage, made her blood run cold even as a spark of primal relief flared in her gut. The gods themselves wouldn't be able to stand in his way.
Finley made a desperate, clumsy move—but Harald was a whirlwind. He caught Finley’s wrist in a grip that sounded like dry wood snapping. A strangled scream tore from Finley’s throat as the knife clattered to the floor.
Before Enya could even process that she was free, Harald had shoved her toward Leo and lunged for her brother.
Harald used his hands.
He drove Finley into the rotted wall with a force that made the timber groan. He caught Finley by the throat, his massive hand nearly meeting around the man’s neck, and slammed him down into the dirt and hay.
The rage coming off Harald was a physical heat that made the air vibrate. He loomed over Finley, his knees pinning the man’s chest, his fist raised like a hammer ready to fall.
Enya leaned against Leo, her entire body seized by a violent, uncontrollable shaking. Her knees knocked together and her breath came in ragged, sobbing gasps.
Her terror wasn't for herself anymore. It was for Harald.
She watched his back, the bunched muscles of a man who had stepped off the ledge of reason, and a cold, paralyzing dread settled in her marrow.
Dinnae dae it, if he dies by yer hand, they will call ye a murderer. Ye'll lose everything.
She could see the political noose tightening around Harald's neck with every second he held that blade.
"Harald, stop!" Enya screamed at the same time Leo did.
If he dies by yer hand, the Crown will claim ye a murderer. Ye'll lose everything.
Leo stepped forward, but he halted when Harald turned a fraction of an inch. The look in the Harald’s eyes was that of an executioner.
"He’s mine," Harald growled, the sound a low vibration coming from deep in his chest. His fist tightened, his knuckles white and bloodied from the initial struggle. "He will never touch her again. He will never breathe the same air as her again."
Finley lay in the hay, gasping, his face turning a sickly, mottled purple. His arrogance was finally stripped away to reveal the hollow coward beneath. He looked pathetic.
Enya could see the tightness in Harald’s shoulders, the way he tilted Finley’s head back to expose the pale stretch of the neck with the cold precision of a butcher.
He was about to commit a crime that might haunt them both to the grave.
"Harald! Nay!" Enya shrieked, her voice cracking with the sheer force of her panic as she surged forward, her legs trembling so hard she nearly fell.
Enya stumbled forward, pushing past Leo’s protective arm. She couldn’t feel her legs, and the stinging at her throat was a sharp reminder of how close she’d come to the dark, but she reached for Harald’s arm.
She pressed her palm to the back of his hand.
"Dinnae," she whispered, her voice raw.
Harald didn't move. He stayed frozen, his fist hovering a hair’s breadth from Finley’s skin. "He tried tae kill ye, Enya. He would have watched ye bleed out in the dirt and laughed."
"I ken that," she said, her voice gaining a dry, stubborn strength.
She looked down at her brother—this man who shared her blood and had spent his life trying to poison it—and felt nothing but a weary, cold desire to crush him with her boot.
"And if ye kill him here, in this shed, ye give him exactly what he wants. Please."
Harald’s eyes flickered to her, the fire in them warring with the logic she was trying to provide.
"We sent the letter, Harald," she reminded him, her thumb stroking the back of his bloodied knuckles. "The king’s word hasnae reached us yet. If ye execute a Highland laird wi’ nay trial, ye give the Cameron clan—and every other enemy ye have—the excuse they need tae rise. Ye’ll spend the rest o' yer life fighting a war o' vengeance, and the keep will never ken peace. "
"He daesnae deserve peace," Harald hissed.
"He daesnae," she agreed, her eyes locking onto his, searching for the man who had kissed her knuckles in the forest. "But ye dae. We dae. Dinnae let his blood be the foundation o' our life together. Let the king judge him."
She leaned in closer, her voice dropping so only he could hear, thick with a fierce, quiet devotion. "Dinnae dae it fer me sake. Ye are the man who showed me mercy when I deserved it least. Be that man now. Fer me."
The silence in the barracks was agonizing. Leo and the guards stood like statues, watching their laird balance on the edge of a precipice. Finley whimpered, a thin, pathetic sound that seemed to disgust Harald more than the threat of a blade.
Slowly—so slowly it felt as if the world had stopped turning—Harald’s fingers loosened. He closed his eyes for a long moment, his forehead dropping toward Finley’s chest as he fought back the tide of his own fury.
When he looked up, there was a new, profound respect in his gaze as he looked at Enya that made her breath hitch.
"Bind him," Harald commanded, his voice flat and iron-hard. He stood up, stepping off Finley. "Chain his hands and his feet. If he so much as looks at the lady, break his legs."
Leo exhaled a breath he seemed to have been holding for a lifetime. "Aye, me jarl."
Harald turned to Enya. He reached out, his hands trembling with a fine, rhythmic shudder as they cupped her face.
He leaned down, his forehead pressing against hers with a desperate, grounding weight. She simply breathed him in—the scent of rain, pine, and the metallic tang of the danger they had just escaped.
His thumbs, calloused and warm, brushed the drying blood on her neck with a touch so light it was like the ghost of a caress.
His expression was one of such devastating, soul-deep tenderness that Enya felt the last of her strength evaporate.
Her heart, which had been a frantic, trapped thing, finally slowed, finding its rhythm against the thundering cadence of his.
Her knees finally gave way, the adrenaline leaving her limbs in a sickening rush.
He caught her instantly, his arms wrapping around her with a fierce, possessive strength that felt like a sanctuary. He pulled her flush against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin. Enya felt the heat of him, his heart beating against her cheek.
She finally let go.
"Ye’re a stubborn, difficult woman," he murmured into her hair. His voice was thick, choked.
"And ye’re a dramatic, overbearing Norseman," she whispered back, a small, dry smile finally touching her lips as she buried her face in the salt and wool of his tunic. "I suppose we’re even."
As the guards dragged a screaming, cursing Finley into the night, Enya looked at the rusted hook on the wall. The line had been severed. The shadow was gone. And for the first time in her life, she felt freed from her curse.
"Ye’re safe," he whispered, his eyes scanning hers as if he still couldn't believe it.
Enya leaned into his palm, her own eyes stinging with a sudden, happy heat. "I'm nae going anywhere, Norseman. Ye’re stuck wi' me."
Harald let out a pained, huffing sound. His hand dropped over hers, his thumb tracing the line of her knuckles with a desperate, grounding focus.
"I almost lost ye, Enya," he whispered. The admission was a fracture.
"I have spent me life guarding this island, built walls o' stone and secrets tae keep the world at bay.
And in one night, I realized the walls meant naething.
I would have handed Finley the keys tae every gate I own if it meant ye took another breath. "
Enya felt a hot, stinging pressure behind her eyes. She hated it. She hated how easily he could reach inside her and pull at the threads of her composure.
"Then we are both fools," she said, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to keep it sharp. "Because I would have let him kill me before I let him take yer life. But I promise ye one thing. Nay more secrets. Nay more guarding our hearts like they’re border territories."
Harald looked up, his dark eyes searching hers. "Honesty," he said, the word sounding like a vow.
"Honesty," she repeated. She took a breath, her fiery spirit flickering in her gaze.
Harald moved closer, his hand sliding from her fingers back to her jaw, his palm cupping her face. His thumb brushed the skin just beneath her eyes.
"Then here is a truth," he murmured, his voice dropping into a register that made her breath hitch. "Finley told me I would grow tae fear the curse in yer blood. That I would see yer eyes and remember whose sister ye were."
Enya stilled. That old, familiar rejection—the one she had carried since childhood—began to rise in her throat like woodsmoke. She waited for the blow. She waited for him to admit that the superstitions were too strong to break.
"He was wrong," Harald said, his gaze intensifying until it felt as if he were looking directly into her soul.
"From the moment I saw ye in that forest, it wasnae fear I felt.
It was a recognition. I have lived me life in gray, Enya.
In shadows and duty. And then ye arrived, with eyes that refused tae blink in the face o' me rage. "
He leaned in, his forehead pressing against hers, his breath warm against her lips.
"I love yer eyes, Enya. Nae despite their difference, but because o' it.
" He tilted her face up, his gaze lingering on each eye with a proprietary, worshipping focus.
"This one," he whispered, gesturing to the amber, "reflects the warmth and the gentleness I never thought I deserved. It’s the hearth I want tae come home tae. "
Enya felt a sob catch in the back of her throat—a small, broken sound of sheer disbelief. A tear escaped, sliding down her cheek to dampen his thumb. She had spent a lifetime trying to hide them, lowering her gaze to avoid the flinch of others, yet he was looking at her as if she were a miracle.
"And this one," he continued, his voice thick with a fierce, quiet pride as he looked at the sea-green, "reflects the strength and the ferocity that keeps me standing. It’s the storm that matches me own. Taegether... they are everything I admire. They are the map o' the woman who saved me."
The admission hit her harder than any blade. It was total, unconditional acceptance—the one thing she had never dared to hope for. She wasn't a curse to him. She was his.
"Ye really are a poet when ye’re exhausted, aye?" she whispered, a watery smile breaking across her face. "It’s quite a scary development."
Harald let out a low, rumbling laugh—the first true sound of joy she had heard from him. He pulled her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin, his heart beating a steady, thundering rhythm against her ear.
"I am a man who has found his home," he corrected, kissing her forehead, then the tip of her nose, then finally her lips. "Ye are me home, Enya."
Enya leaned into the kiss, her soul finally at rest. The mists had cleared. The shadow was gone. And for the first time in her life, she wasn't just surviving.
She was loved. And that was the greatest victory of all.