Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
The second letter arrived with the dawn, and Euan knew it would be trouble before he’d even broken the seal.
He stood at his desk, grey morning light spilling through the window, and stared at the MacKenzie crest pressed into red wax. Behind him, Niall shifted his weight—his friend had also already guessed this wouldn’t be good news.
“Well?” Niall’s voice cut through the silence. “What fresh hell has Keith MacKenzie delivered this time?”
Euan broke the seal and read, his jaw tightening with each carefully crafted word. When he finished, he handed the parchment to Niall without comment.
His friend’s face darkened as he scanned the contents. “The bastard’s threatening to involve the king.”
“Aye.” Euan moved to the window, needing air that didn’t feel thick with political machinations.
“He’s reiterating his claim tae our lands through Ishbel.
And he’s making it abundantly clear that if word reaches the king about how we’re ‘holding his daughter as a bargaining chip’—his words, nae mine—there will be consequences. ”
“Consequences.” Niall’s laugh held no humor. “The same man who abandoned her in an English dungeon is now claiming we’re the ones mistreating her?”
“He daesnae care about truth. He cares about leverage.” Euan’s hands clenched on the window frame. “And he’s making sure every other clan kens that we have a MacKenzie woman under our roof against her faither’s wishes.”
“Even though her faither more or less told us tae dae whatever we wanted with her.”
“Aye. But that letter was private. This one?” Euan gestured to the parchment. “This one’s designed tae be shared. Tae paint us as the aggressors while he plays the concerned faither.”
Niall was quiet for a moment, then: “So what dae we dae?”
“I need tae think.” Euan turned from the window, feeling caged by stone walls and impossible choices. “And I need tae move. Clear me head.”
“The training grounds?”
“Aye.” He grabbed his sword belt from where it hung by the door. “We’ve got new recruits who need proper instruction anyway. Might as well make use of this fury before it eats me alive.”
The training yard was already populated when Euan arrived, but one glance told him the morning session hadn’t truly begun yet. A dozen young men—boys, really, none of them past twenty—clustered near the weapons rack with the uncertain posture of cattle awaiting slaughter.
New recruits. Fergus must have pulled them from outlying villages, trying to bolster their forces in case Keith’s threats became action.
Euan moved closer, assessing them with a warrior’s eye.
Lean frames that spoke of hard farm work but no combat training.
Hands that knew plow handles better than sword grips.
Eyes that darted nervously between the older soldiers warming up nearby and the rack of weapons they’d been told to arm themselves with.
“Right then.” Euan’s voice carried across the yard, making several recruits jump. “Who can tell me the first rule of combat?”
Silence. The boys exchanged glances, clearly uncertain whether answering would make things better or worse.
“Nay one?” Euan selected a practice sword from the rack, testing its weight. “The first rule is simple: stay alive. Everything else—honor, glory, defeating yer enemy—all of it means nothing if ye’re dead.”
He moved to the center of the training ground, his presence commanding attention from every man present. Around him, the regular soldiers had stopped their warm-ups to watch. They knew their laird well enough to recognize when he needed to work something out through steel and sweat.
“Ye.” Euan pointed to the nearest recruit, a lanky youth with terrified eyes. “What’s yer name?”
“T-Tavish, me laird.”
“Well, Tavish, come at me with that practice sword ye’re holding.”
The boy’s face went white. “But me laird, I dinnae—”
“Now.”
Tavish approached with all the enthusiasm of a man walking to the gallows.
His grip on the practice sword was so tight his knuckles showed white, and his stance was all wrong—weight too far forward, shoulders hunched, blade held at an angle that would get him killed in seconds against a real opponent.
“Stop.” Euan moved behind him, adjusting Tavish’s posture with firm hands. “Feet wider. Weight balanced. The sword’s an extension of yer arm, nae a club ye’re trying tae bludgeon someone with.” He demonstrated the proper grip. “Like this. Feel the difference?”
“Aye, me laird.” Some of the terror had left Tavish’s expression, replaced by concentration.
“Good. Now, the key tae staying alive isnae being the strongest or the fastest.” Euan circled him slowly, letting all the recruits hear his words. “It’s about reading yer opponent. Anticipating their next move before they make it.”
He faced Tavish again, sword raised. “Come at me. Dinnae think about it—just react.”
From her window high in the east tower, Moyra watched the training unfold with a fascination she absolutely shouldn’t have been feeling.
She’d woken with the intention of ignoring Euan MacLeod’s existence as thoroughly as possible.
The marriage proposal still burned like acid in her chest, mixing with her father’s betrayal until she couldn’t separate one pain from the other.
But the sound of steel on steel had drawn her to the window, and now she couldn’t look away.
Euan moved through the recruits like a force of nature—correcting stances, demonstrating techniques, his massive frame somehow graceful despite its size.
Unlike his men, who’d stripped to the waist in the cool morning air, he kept his shirt on.
The dark fabric clung to his broad shoulders as he moved.
Around him, his soldiers worked bare-chested, muscles gleaming with sweat as they drilled.
But her gaze kept returning to Euan—to the way he commanded attention fully clothed, to the controlled power in every movement, to the patience he showed these frightened boys who’d probably never held a sword before that day.
That was true leadership, she realized. Not demands or threats, but teaching. Showing them how to survive rather than simply ordering them to fight.
“Me lady?” Catriona’s voice made her jump. The maid stood in the doorway, a breakfast tray in hand and knowing amusement in her grey eyes. “Breakfast is ready. Though I can return later if ye’re... occupied.”
Heat flooded Moyra’s cheeks. “I was just—the noise drew me attention—”
“Of course it did.” Catriona set the tray down with a smile that said she believed none of it. “The laird does make quite a sight when he’s training. Half the serving girls find reasons to visit the kitchens during morning drills, just tae catch a glimpse through the windows.”
“I’m nae one of the serving girls.”
“Nae, me lady.” Catriona moved to the window, looking down at the training yard with open appreciation. “Though I cannae blame any of them. The man commands attention even when he’s the only one still dressed.”
Below, Euan had moved on to demonstrating more advanced techniques with Niall.
The two men circled each other with the easy confidence of warriors who’d trained together for years.
Niall had shed his shirt like the others, but Euan remained fully clothed as they engaged, and when their practice swords met, it was poetry written in steel.
Niall struck first—a testing blow that Euan deflected almost casually.
They moved faster, the practice swords blurring as they traded strikes and parries with a skill that made Moyra’s breath catch.
This wasn’t training anymore. These were two masters testing each other’s limits, and the raw display of power and precision made something low in her belly tighten.
Euan’s body moved with lethal grace despite his size—the dark shirt emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders, the way fabric pulled tight across his back with each swing, every motion controlled yet somehow wild.
She watched the way he pivoted, how his scarred shoulder didn’t slow him, the absolute focus in his expression as he matched Niall blow for blow.
“Magnificent indeed,” Catriona murmured.
Moyra tore her gaze away, heat still burning in her cheeks. “Ye can take the breakfast back. I’m nae hungry.”
“Are ye certain? Ye barely touched dinner last night—”
“I’m certain.” She moved from the window before temptation could draw her back. “I think I’ll visit the library instead. Try tae find something tae occupy me mind.”
Something other than grey eyes and the memory of strong hands holding her when she’d tried to flee.
Something other than the traitorous part of her that had wondered, for just a moment, what those hands would feel like without that anger between them.
“Ye’re distracted.”
Niall’s observation came between strikes, his practice sword meeting Euan’s with a clash that sent vibrations up both their arms. Sweat gleamed on Niall’s bare chest, but Euan’s shirt remained stubbornly in place despite the heat building from their exertion.
“I’m fine.” Euan pivoted, aiming for his friend’s ribs.
Niall blocked, but barely. “Ye’re thinking about her.”
“I’m thinking about training these lads so they dinnae get themselves killed.” He pressed the attack, forcing Niall back three steps.
“Ye’re thinking about Moyra MacKenzie and how she reacted yesterday when ye mentioned marriage.” Niall’s blade found an opening, the flat slapping against Euan’s shoulder hard enough to sting. “And ye’re wondering how tae fix it.”
Euan stepped back, lowering his sword. Around them, the recruits had stopped their own drills to watch, and he realized they’d drawn quite an audience. “Break!” he called to the watching men. “Water and rest. We’ll resume in fifteen minutes.”
The training yard cleared quickly, leaving just him and Niall standing in the center of churned earth and morning shadows.
“Say what ye came tae say,” Euan growled.
“The Council’s right about marriage being the solution.” Niall moved to the water barrel, filling two cups. His bare torso showed the marks of their practice—red welts that would fade by evening. “But they’re wrong about forcing it.”
“I ken that.” Euan accepted the offered cup, draining half of it in one pull. His shirt clung uncomfortably to his back, but he made no move to remove it. “Which is why I asked her to consider it rather than simply announcing it as fact.”
“And she refused.”
“Aye. Rather spectacularly.” He could still see the fury in her eyes, hear the crack in her voice when she’d said she’d rather die alone. “So now I’m trapped between me Council’s expectations and a woman who’d sooner spit on me than marry me.”
Niall was quiet for a moment, studying him with uncomfortable perception. “What dae ye want, Euan? Forget the Council, forget politics—what dae ye actually want?”
The question hit harder than any practice sword. What did he want?
He wanted Moyra safe. Protected from her bastard father and the political machinations that had used her as a pawn since birth.
He wanted to erase the haunted look that sometimes crossed her face when she thought no one was watching, the one that spoke of months in a dungeon cell and a father’s cruel abandonment.
He wanted to make her smile the way she had under the stars, to hear that surprised laugh that said she’d forgotten how to be happy.
When had that happened? When had Keith Mackenzie’s daughter stopped being a problem to be managed and become someone whose happiness mattered more than strategy?
Was it the moment he’d found her in that cell, all defiance and bruised courage?
Or later, when she’d stood on his battlements and looked at the stars like they were gifts instead of distant points of light?
Perhaps it had been gradual—each conversation chipping away at the walls he’d built around his heart since Loch Eilein. Each time she’d made him laugh despite the weight of his responsibilities. Each moment she’d shown him trust when she had every reason not to.
The realization should terrify him. A laird couldn’t afford to care this deeply about someone who complicated everything. But standing here, remembering the terror that had lanced through him when he’d seen those bastards’ hands on her, Euan knew it was already too late for caution.
He wanted...
“I want her tae trust me,” he said finally. “Tae see me as something other than another man trying tae control her life.”
“Then earn that trust.” Niall’s voice was gentle. “Forget marriage fer now. Just... be someone she can trust. The rest will follow or it willnae, but at least ye’ll have given her a choice.”
“The Council willnae like it.”
“The Council can wait.” Niall gripped his shoulder, the gesture speaking of years of friendship and battles survived together. “Ye’ve spent yer whole life daeing what’s right fer the clan. Maybe it’s time tae dae what’s right fer ye.”
The words settled over Euan like a benediction and a burden all at once.
What was right for him had never mattered before—couldn’t matter when hundreds of lives depended on his choices.
But standing here in the training yard, his shirt clinging to sweat-dampened skin while his men caught their breath around him, he wondered if Niall might be right.
If earning Moyra’s trust—truly earning it, without manipulation or force—might be the one thing that could solve this impossible tangle Keith MacKenzie had created.
“Then I’ll find a way,” Euan said quietly, his gaze drifting to the east tower window where he’d seen her watching earlier.
The window was empty now, but something in his chest tightened at the memory of her green eyes tracking his movements across the yard.
“I’ll find a way tae make her see I’m nae her enemy. ”
Niall followed his gaze and smiled—that knowing expression that said his friend saw far more than Euan wanted to admit. “Aye. I believe ye will.”