Chapter 26
The road curved downward before them, leading to the borders of Murdoch Castle. The grim towers soared well above the tree line in the distance, and looked carved out of bone, standing sharp against the grey sky.
Rhys couldn’t help but notice how much colder the world seemed here, even though morning birds still called in the canopy above.
This is it… But how to say goodbye?
He glanced sideways.
Amara rode quietly beside him, jaw set, reins gripped tight. She hadn’t spoken since the castle came into view.
The easy rhythm of their earlier conversation had long since faded into a heavy quiet. The kind that didn’t ask to be filled.
Rhys finally cleared his throat. “Let’s stop here, lass.”
She silently slowed her mare down to a halt. Her eyes still fixed on the path ahead.
“Ye’ve nae said a word since the castle came into view,” he said, giving her a long look before dismounting slowly, his boots sunk into the soft earth. Without another word, he stepped toward her and reached up with a hand.
Amara hesitated only a breath before placing her gloved fingers in his. He helped her down gently, her skirts whispering against the saddle, until her boots hit the ground.
Rhys reached into his saddlebag and passed her a sweet bannock that Cookie had packed for them.
Amara took it, a hint of numbness tinging her reply, “What’s there to say?”
“Plenty. Ye’re about to walk into the lion’s den.”
She turned toward him, her face unreadable. “It’s me lion. Me den.”
Rhys shifted in the saddle. “Aye, but ye daenae have to face him alone. What if somethin’ happens?”
“Aye, I do.”
He looked at her, truly looked, and saw the flicker of fear behind her calm. “We can still turn back, ye ken.”
She shook her head. “Nay.”
The finality in her voice stopped him cold.
She turned to face him fully. “I need to do this meself.”
“Do what?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “Beg for some apology he’ll never give? Let him hurt ye again with whatever bile he’s waitin’ to spit at ye… or worse?”
Amara blinked at him. Her face was calm. Still. But it wasn’t cold.
“Nay,” she said softly. “I’m nae here for him.”
Rhys’s brow furrowed.
“I’m here for me,” she continued. “To end this chapter. To look the man in the face who gave me away and tell him I lived through it. That I made it to the other side. That I’m more than what he had hoped for me.”
He sat still, watching her, thunderstruck.
She smiled, but it was faint. “I used to dream he’d regret it. That he’d call me back. That he’d realize what he’d done. But now, I just… I want peace. Even if it comes without apology.”
Rhys was quiet for a moment. Then he huffed out a breath, shaking his head.
“Ye’re braver than I am,” he said.
“Nae by a mile,” she said. “Just tired.”
The wind stirred again. Her curls fluttered at her temple.
“And what’ll ye do after?” he asked, softly. “After ye’ve stared the bastard down?”
She hesitated.
Then, she said, matter-of-factly, “Come back to ye.”
His breath caught.
What?
She said it so simply as if it had always been the plan. But for Rhys, it was a sword through the ribs. He’d prepared himself to say goodbye — to guard the gates of her father’s fortress like a loyal hound and then let her go, since that is was what she chose.
But this…
He couldn’t find his breath at first. It knocked the wind out of him, her certainty. Her calm.
She’s coming back.
It was a thought he hadn’t dared to shape until now. And yet, here she was, giving it to him freely like it wasn’t a gift at all. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I…” he began, but stopped. What in hell was there to say?
His pulse was thundering too hard to let words through. The world, once sharp-edged and grey with foreboding, now seemed to flicker with the smallest ember.
He looked at her and saw a woman who had walked through the fire of betrayal and pain and had somehow come out stronger. And she was choosing to walk back through it… not for her father, but for herself.
And maybe, god help him, for him too.
He didn’t deserve it, but he was going to protect it with everything he had.
“Ye — ye’re comin’ back? When?” he asked, not trusting his own voice.
Amara nodded once. “I’m nae endin’ this chapter just to leave behind the reasons I chose to do so.”
Rhys shifted, uncomfortable in the best kind of way. “Ye have a strange way of showin’ affection.”
“I learned it from a man who kidnapped me, insulted me, and then rebuilt me,” she shot back, eyes twinkling.
That earned a smirk. “Sounds like a right arsehole.”
“The worst.”
He chuckled, and the tension between them eased just enough to breathe again.
He pulled her into him, then.
The hug was tight — a full-body sort of embrace that made her breath catch. His arms were solid around her back, his chin resting briefly against the crown of her head.
After a long moment, he pulled back just far enough to look her in the eye, then pressed a warm kiss to her hairline. Her hands lingered at his sides.
“Ye’ve changed everything, Amara Hall,” he murmured. “Whether ye meant to or not.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, a silent weight passing between them, before she chuckled, “Sounds like I’m the right arsehole, now.”
“Och! The worst,” he teased, mocking her, and the tension between them eased just enough to breathe again.
Rhys turned and offered his hand once more. She took it, and he helped her back into the saddle with quiet efficiency. Then he mounted his own horse beside her, casting one last glance down the wooded path they had taken to arrive here.
He urged his horse forward and she joined him. They rode in silence.
The road climbed in front of them, the shadows thinned, and the castle finally came fully into view. Its walls were slick with old moss, and no banner flew from the turret. A foreboding kind of silence hovered around it.
Rhys’s smirk died. “I daenae like this.”
“I ken,” she said quietly, a slight grin playing at her lips as if to challenge him.
He raised a brow. “Have ye forgotten that ye’re mine? And, as ye have intention to return to me after this, ye goin’ in there alone is out of the question.”
She met his gaze directly.
He squinted up at the sun, gauging its angle over the trees. Midday was coming.
“I’ll wait for as long as I can,” he said finally. “Then I’m comin’ in after ye, and I daenae care who stands in the way.”
Amara gave a breathy laugh. “Aye, I believe ye.”
“I mean it,” he said, the steel returning to his tone.
She forward in her saddle, reaching across the space between them. Her fingers grazed his arm gently.
“I ken ye do.”
Then she clicked her tongue and nudged her horse forward.
Rhys dismounted as she disappeared into the trees ahead, that scarf Daisy had embroidered fluttering behind her. He walked toward a familiar clearing. It was the one where he’d once tied her up for safekeeping, never imagining this would be how it all turned out.
He stared up at the keep, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of his sword.
With every step Amara took away from him, a hollow ache opened wider in his chest.
He set his jaw, anchoring himself to the trees and the memory of her kiss.
Half an hour, he told himself again. Half an hour and I’m going in.
The forest whispered around him. Birds chirped. Wind rustled in the upper branches.
But something was wrong.
He could feel it.
His instincts, carved by years of war and survival, tightened like a wire. The leaves rustled again. But this time, it wasn’t the wind.
A snap echoed sharply through the underbrush.
Rhys spun, sliding the hilt of his sword from the sheath, the stillness gone in a blink.
Then came the rustle of boots — too fast, too loud, then nothing.
The silence was sharp and unnatural, and every muscle went still.
Then, from the brush one man stepped out.
Then another.
And a third.
Clad in leathers, armed with blades. They weren’t guards of Murdoch Castle, that was certain. Nor were they mercenaries. These men were predators, not protectors.
Rhys’s blade sang free as he shifted his stance, eyes narrowing.
“Ye picked the wrong bloody tree line,” he growled.
They didn’t respond. Just circled him.
The first lunged, and Rhys moved like a man possessed.
Steel clashed. Rhys parried low and twisted, driving his elbow into the attacker’s jaw with a crack that sent him sprawling.
He ducked under a second blow from the next man and sliced upward, catching his thigh.
Blood sprayed and the man howled.
The third came at him from behind.
Rhys spun, barely catching the edge of the blade along his ribs. Pain flared, but he welcomed it. It sharpened him.
He kicked out, caught the man in the stomach, and dropped him.
Too many for open ground, he realized. He backed toward the tree trunk nearest him, blade held ready.
One of the wounded men rose, staggering.
Rhys didn’t give him a second chance. His sword arced down, clean and final. The man dropped.
The second came again.
Rhys turned his body and slashed out. With a cruel twist of wrist his sword cut across the man’s chest.
The man fell, gargling on his own breath.
Only one left now.
The third man was breathing heavily, blood from Rhys’s earlier cut soaking his tunic. But he still had a blade, and Rhys wasn’t foolish enough to underestimate a cornered wolf.
They circled each other slowly.
Rhys’s side throbbed from the cut he’d taken, warm blood seeping down beneath his tunic. But adrenaline overrode the pain.
“Ye ken who I am?” Rhys asked, his voice low and calm.
The man didn’t respond.
“I asked ye a question.” He advanced a step. “Who sent ye?”
Still silence.
Rhys faked left, then struck hard from the right. The man blocked just in time, but stumbled from the force.
Rhys pressed.
“You’re nae Murdoch’s men. Too clean,” he grunted, dodging another swing. “Too cowardly, too quiet. Ye werenae followin’ us. So how’d ye ken where we’d be?”
The man said nothing, but the flicker in his gaze told Rhys he was right.
“Ye were waitin’.”
Still nothing.
Rhys slashed, slicing the man’s sword hand just deep enough to make him cry out. The blade fell from his grasp, and Rhys kicked it away.
He had him now.
“Speak. Or I start takin’ bits,” Rhys warned, pressing the tip of his sword to the man’s chest.
The stranger’s breath wheezed. Then finally, “Oi, we kent yes was comin’.”
Rhys narrowed his eyes. “We?”
The man smirked, bloody teeth flashing. “Ye’ll find out soon enough.”
That was all he got.
Rhys drove the blade forward. Quick and clean. The man stiffened, gasped, then went still.
Silence fell again.
But this time, it was different.
Colder.
Rhys stood over the bodies, chest heaving, blood warm on his side and hand.
We kent yes was comin’? Who?
This obviously wasn’t a random ambush. This had been planned.
And Amara — his eyes connected with the main entryway of the Castle — she was still inside.
He sheathed his blade and sprinted.
Through the trees, across the clearing, mud flinging beneath his boots. His muscles burned but he didn’t stop. The pain in his side flared, but he ignored it.
The castle loomed ahead, and Rhys stormed toward it with fire in his veins and death in his hands.