Chapter 15
Daisy’s breath had evened out long ago. A soft snore now curled from her slightly open mouth with her rabbit was tucked beneath her arm and the wool blanket pulled up to her chin.
Rhys stayed still.
He didn’t dare move.
Not until Amara shifted beside them, her hand brushing lightly across the coverlet as she set up.
“I should go,” she whispered, voice barely above a breath.
Rhys blinked, pulling his eyes from his daughter’s sleeping face. “It’s late.”
“Aye. All the more reason.”
She started to rise, careful not to disturb the child, but his hand shot out gently and instinctively and closed around her wrist.
“Come with me.”
Amara paused, brows lifting.
“To me study,” he clarified. “Just for a moment.”
A beat passed.
Then she nodded.
They left the room quietly. Amara passed the tinctures to the nurse who took over rubbing the creams along Daisy’s leg and head as they walked out.
Rhys signaled to the guard posted outside and murmured for a kettle and something warm for the lady. By the time they reached his study, the fire had been stoked and a new tray laid out with a pot of tea, two cups, and a crystal decanter of whisky.
He poured a dram into his own glass and took a slow sip.
Amara stood by the fire, arms crossed gaze flicking from the bookshelves to the flicker of orange and gold on the stone floor.
He set her cup down, but before he could finish pouring the tea, she snatched the bottle from his hand and tipped a finger’s worth into her cup.
Rhys blinked. Then laughed.
She met his eyes. “What? Did ye think I’d be too dainty for a drop?”
He tilted his head. “I wasnae sure what I thought.”
Amara sat down across from him, folding her legs beneath her. She clutched the cup close as if it might run away.
He studied her in silence. The curve of her cheek, the faint red in her eyes that told him she might have cried herself to sleep the night before.
“Thank ye,” he said quietly.
She looked up.
“For takin’ care of Daisy.”
She didn’t’ answer right away. Just gave a small nod.
“She means… everythin',” he said. “I ken most lairds say that about their heirs, but it’s different with her. It’s nae just about lineage or duty.”
Amara didn’t interrupt. She only listened.
“When the girl’s maither died… Daisy was but a babe. And I was just learnin’ how to be a faither.”
“Did ye love her?”
Rhys looked into the fire.
“I respected her. She was clever and tenacious and kind. We married for an alliance, but she never treated it like a burden. She loved Daisy fiercely. It was her dyin’ breath.”
He cleared his tight throat and swirled the whisky in his glass before continuing.
“She was slaughtered at that feast meant for peace. The Murdochs pretended to break bread when all the while they were plottin' a massacre.”
Amara was quiet. Too quiet.
When he finally looked back at her, her eyes shimmered.
“I’ve been tryin’ to protect her ever since. From grief, from pain… from any sharp thing in this world, while also letting her fall and fail so she can learn to get back up again.”
She held his gaze. “Even from me?”
His heart stuttered. “Aye, even from ye.”
The words hung between them, heavy as a stone.
“But I was wrong,” he added, voice lower now. “She… she sees somethin’ in ye, and mayhap I do too.”
Amara blinked.
The flames crackled softly. Her cup remained untouched on the table.
Rhys leaned forward, his voice hoarse with something he couldn’t quite name.
Firelight danced across the side of her face, and Rhys couldn’t look away.
She was quiet, cradling her spiked tea but not drinking. Her hair had fallen forward again, soft waves catching the glow like threads of gold. Her lashes cast shadows on her cheekbones. Her expression was unreadable. She looked closed-off, and yet was still there.
Still here.
“I never meant for ye to feel like a prisoner,” he said at last.
Amara looked up, startled.
“I ken it’s me own fault,” he went on. “that ye’ve nowhere else to go. That I kidnapped ye and then dragged ye here without any allies.”
A bitter laugh slipped from her lips. “At least the child and the maid like me.”
Rhys flinched. “I dinnae plan this, Amara. I daenae ken what to do.”
“But ye did plan to keep me.”
“I planned to keep ye safe.”
“Same thing.”
The tension simmered, and Rhys found himself on the edge of frustration once again. He wasn’t good at talking like this. Not like this. Not with his heart cracked open like this.
“I just…” he started, then paused. “I dinnae like to see ye hurtin’, and I hated kenning that I caused it… even if I did it on purpose.”
She blinked at that, stunned by his honesty.
“I saw ye in the courtyard today, runnin’ after Daisy,” he reminded her.
Amara’s lips parted.
“Ye looked carefree. Laughin’ and alive. Beautiful.”
Silence.
Then.
“Ye cannae do this,” she whispered.
“Do what?”
“This,” she repeated, voice trembling. “Ye cannae keep pickin’ me up when it suits ye, and then droppin’ me the moment it doesnae. I’m nae one of Daisy’s toys for ye to entertain yerself with between meals.”
Rhys’s mouth opened, but she cut him off.
“I have a heart, Rhys. A bleeding one. And a head that’s tryin’ to forget what yer kiss felt like or what it might have meant, God forbid.”
His chest tightened. “It meant —”
“I felt it,” her eyes were went now. “And I hate that I did. Because ye daenae get to kiss me like that and then just pretend that I’m a guest.”
Rhys stood, fists clenched at his sides.
“I never wanted to hurt ye,” he said through gritted teeth. “I wasnae ready for the kiss when it happened. I dinnae ken what to do, lass.”
“Then just leave me be!”
Her voice cracked on the words.
Rhys crossed the space between them in a breath.
His hand reached out, hesitated, then found her jaw.
She didn’t flinch away from him.
He tilted her face up, searching her eyes. “Ye think I daenae feel what ye feel?”
“Then why?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. He still couldn’t.
Instead, he kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle.
It was hours of silence, of thinking about her, and missed chances. It was anger and hunger and need.
Her hands found his chest, fisting the linen there, but she didn’t push him away.
She kissed him back. Hungrily.
His arms wrapped around her waist, dragging her closer, and she gasped into his mouth. He kissed her again, and again, and again.
His lips found her neck. Her shoulder. The curve just below her ear that made her gasp.
“Rhys,” she breathed, voice trembling.
His fingers slid to her back, tracing the laces of her gown. It was indeed the same one she had been wearing the day before and the pain that caused him for knowing that he was the reason made him pull away slightly. “Tell me to stop.”
“I cannae.”
“Tell me it’s wrong.”
“But it is wrong.”
He groaned against her skin, but neither of them moved.
Amara’s fingers tugged at his belt. His hand fisted in her skirts.
Then —
A sharp knock rapped against the door to the study followed by a voice. “Me laird?”
Billy.
Rhys froze.
Amara’s breath caught, and she pulled away as if burned.
“Daenae,” Rhys said quickly, reaching for her. “It’s nothin’. He’ll leave.”
But she was already backing toward the hearth, gown askew, eyes wide and cheeks flushed.
William’s voice rang out again, this time more urgent. “Rhys! Rhys! It’s Finn. He’s back. But he’s hurt. He’s hurt badly.”
Everything shattered.
Rhys turned toward the door, his heart slamming in his ears.
“Come in, Billy,” he barked.
The door opened. William stepped in, soaked in sweat and grime, his face pale.
“He made it to the outer watchtower,” he said quickly. “Collapsed right there. He’s breathin’, but barely. We’ve got the healer with him now.”
Rhys was already moving, grabbing his sword and strapping it to his hip.
Behind him, Amara stood still, arms crossed tightly over her chest.
He paused at the door. Looked at her.
Something cracked in his chest.
“I’ll… I’ll return, please stay.”
She didn’t reply.
Only nodded once, lips pressed into a thin line.
He left.
And the door shut with a hollow echo.
Rhys turned to leave, his pulse still hammering from the fire Amara had lit in his blood. But halfway through the door, he stopped.
Something clawed at his spine. Regret. Or guilt. Or maybe both.
He turned back around.
Amara stood by the hearth, arms tightly wrapped around herself, cheeks flushed and eyes guarded. The firelight made her look like something pulled from a vision—wild, angry, breathtaking.
His mouth opened, but the words came gravel-deep.
“We’ll speak more on this… later.”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t have to.
He gave her one final look, then shut the door softly behind him.
The corridor outside was dim and cool, but his blood still ran hot. He shoved his fingers through his hair and stalked down the hall, heart caught in a vice.
“Finn?”
“Aye, and by some miracle, he is still clinging to life.”
“Where?”
“Lower dining hall.”
Rhys tore through the keep toward his cousin. William kept pace beside him, and was somehow smart enough to know now wasn’t the time to say anything about Amara or what he might have seen or heard going on in the study.
They cut through the keep’s back halls, then into the lower wing dining hall where a surgery had been hastily set up by Cook and his staff. Guards stood at every entry point. The air smelled of blood, herbs, and sweat.
Inside, the healer was bent over the bed, sleeves rolled and hands red to the wrists. Another, a young woman dressed in travel-stained robes, stood at his side, murmuring instructions. The town physician, likely called up the hill the moment Finn was dragged in.
Finn lay pale on the surgery bed, half-covered in a woolen blanket. His chest rose and fell in slow, shallow breaths.
Rhys’s gut twisted.
He’d seen this man fight through the worst winters, bleed through battles that would have ended lesser men. Seeing him like this all mangled and lifeless knocked something loose in his chest.
“How bad?” he asked, his voice lower now, strained.
The younger healer looked up. “Deep cuts along the ribs, a blade through the arm, bruised spine, shoulder out of place. But nothin’ vital pierced.”
Both healers nodded, and the keep healer spoke next. “He’ll live. Was just luck the blade missed anything important. We’ve stitched him up. Now it’s rest that’ll do the rest.”
Rhys exhaled through his nose, tension barely unwinding.
“He was alone when he arrived, Billy?” Rhys asked.
“Aye,” William said. “Collapsed right at the outer watchtower. One of the newer lads thought he was a Murdoch spy crawlin’ up the hill, and the sword asked the question before the lad did.”
Rhys moved closer to the bedside.
Finn’s color was still too pale for comfort, but there was life under his skin now. And when Rhys leaned down, he saw the barest twitch in the corner of his cousin’s mouth.
“Ye’re one lucky bastard,” Rhys muttered.
Finn’s lips curved further. His eyes fluttered open, bloodshot and rimmed with exhaustion.
“Aye,” he rasped. “Lucky is one word for it.”
Rhys felt his chest loosen as the tension gave way to something else entirely. Deep, bone-cracking relief.
Finn coughed lightly and winced. “Ye look like shite.”
“I was about to say the same to ye,” Rhys said dryly.
Finn smiled, grimacing as he did. “They had me chained in some black pit… bastards barely fed me. But then one night, the guard had too much ale and fell asleep with the key ring half-out his belt. Fools.”
Rhys held up a hand. “Save the tale. Later.”
Finn gave a mock salute, eyelids already drooping again. “Fair… enough…”
His breathing slowed again, evened out.
Rhys stepped back and motioned to the healer. “Keep him warm. Two guards at the door. If he wakes and asks for anythin’, he gets it.”
“Aye, me laird.”
“And call for the council,” he said quickly and one of the guards left hurriedly.
William shifted beside him. “We’ll want to ken how he got out, and what he learned. Do ye still wish to attack?”
Rhys’s lips flattened, but thoughts were elsewhere now. Not on Finn. Nor on the Murdochs. Not even on the war undoubtedly brewing in his council chamber after they receive this news.
Amara’s face still burned in his mind. Her voice. Her hands on him. Her lips parted beneath his.
Christ, her lips…
And then the way she looked at him when he’d walked away. As if he was setting her down again, but that wasn’t the case at all. Still, the sting in her eyes had pierced him harder than any blade ever could.
I hope she stayed.
They would talk later, he’d said.
But later never came easy in a place like this.