The Dragon Laird’s Obsession (The Highland Beasts #2)
Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
“Ye are to marry Gordon MacLaren…”
Ailis had just lifted the cup to her lips when Sorcha’s words struck and couldn’t hear anything she said afterwards.
The tea went down the wrong way. She spluttered, lurched forward, and slapped one hand to her breast as if she had been pierced clean through by an English arrow. A hot tear sprang to one eye. The cup rattled dangerously in her grip, but she held onto it with determination.
Her eyes finally landed on her sister’s. Sorcha kept rocking her son Lachlan on her lap while she slept, and she wore a smile. A smile that made Ailis’ insides coil and recoil even tighter till she felt a little ache.
A laugh breezed past her lips, and she cleared her throat, straightened, then placed her cup gently on the table next to her.
Ailis rose to her feet. “Forgive me,” she began as she walked toward Sorcha with another little laugh. “For a second there, I believed ye said I would marry.”
Sorcha remained calm, her lips still holding her smile, her eyes on Ailis. “I did, sister,” she answered.
Ailis paused in her next stride, the words hitting her nerves again. She spun quickly to look at Sorcha as the first pinch of panic rose through her. “I shall marry Gordon ?” she blurted, her cheeks burning with the fierce heat that sliced through her just from the absurd thought of marriage.
“Ye did say he was pleasant to ye when ye met two years ago,” Sorcha answered now.
“Aye,” Ailis breathed with an exhale. “But that was merely in passin’. He was pleasant when he found me after I ran away and brought me home, but that was it. I havenae said two words to the man since then even though he is yer husband’s brother, and I…”
Her head spun as her words rambled past her lips in a rush.
Breathe, Ailis… Take a deep breath.
Her attempts to reach for calm failed miserably as her sister rose with Lachlan in her arms and said to her again, “It is time, Ailis. Two years ago, ye fled at the mention of marriage, but this time ye cannae do so. I promised Rowan I would say nothin’ of this to ye yet, but I daenae want ye to be blindsided,” Sorcha continued.
“I believed tellin’ ye about it before the day of the betrothal would be better. ”
Ailis stared at nothing in particular for the moments that followed. She always knew the day would come when she would have to do the one thing she fled from two years ago.
Take a husband.
But she did not think it would be so soon. “But I daenae wish to marry Laird MacLaren,” she protested when she could speak again, her panic rising through her as she gestured with a hand. “I daenae wish to marry anyone.”
Her throat tightened with a lump that she forcefully swallowed.
Sorcha walked to her adopted daughter Elspeth, who had been poised on the floor with one of her dolls, and gently tapped her shoulder. “Elspeth, me sweet lass, take yer brother to the nurse for me, aye? Tell Mairi he is ready for his rest,” she said in a soft tone as she stroked Elspeth’s hair.
The lass had been living with Sorcha and Rowan for a few years now, and Ailis admired her sister who loved her stepdaughter like her own.
Ailis watched, her own heart tingling as she saw Elspeth’s green eyes brighten with pride. “Can I carry his horse too?” the girl asked.
“Aye, of course, me love,” Sorcha said, smiling. “And mind yer steps on the stairs, so ye daenae fall.”
“I will,” Elspeth promised, already reaching for Lachlan.
Sorcha kissed her daughter’s forehead and smoothed a hand over her hair before waiting for her to walk out of the solar.
Once alone with Sorcha now, Ailis continued, “Gordon ‘the dragon’ is a man that is rumored to be unfeelin’, and…” She trailed off with a sigh then spun around to reach for her sister’s hand. “Surely ye and Callan cannae make me wed him.”
Sorcha sighed, and her eyes stayed soft as she said. “Our brother has decided.”
“Our brother.” Ailis turned away then turned back again because standing still felt impossible.
Her skirts snapped around her ankles as she crossed the solar.
“How grand of him to make this decision for me. How simple men make the world when they are nae the ones being handed over like a bolt of cloth.”
“Ye arenae being handed over, Ailis. Marriage is important.”
“To make heirs,” Ailis argued, her tone sharper now as she spun around in a rush. “And to do his biddin’. That is what marriage is good for, aye?”
Sorcha’s expression tightened, but she did not scold her. “It is nay all. It is also for love, for companionship… Surely Ailis, ye daenae think that all I am to Rowan is somethin’ to make heirs?”
Her sister watched her with soft eyes that made the argument quench inside Ailis, and she looked toward the window, ignoring the burn of tears stinging her eyes.
Outside, the afternoon lay bright over the yard.
A groom crossed the stones with a restless mare.
Beyond the walls, the hills rolled green and endless, and farther still, roads waited.
Roads she had imagined since she was a little girl pressing her nose to cold glass while listening to traveling merchants tell tales by the hearth.
Ailis dreamed of visiting cities with castles that touched the clouds and harbors crowded with ships.
She could travel to see abbey ruins and sing foreign songs in inns where no one knew her name.
And if she ever married, she had imagined it would be to a man who could not bear to be apart from her any more than she could bear to be away from him.
Her heart sank as she thought of Gordon standing in front of her as she said her vows.
What will I even say to him?
The image of his green eyes boring into hers that one night they had been in his study came to mind.
Ailis’s cheeks flushed as she recalled the horror of sneaking into his study to find a book and stumbling on him without his clothes instead.
Two years and she still burned inside from the memory, her chest flaring with a hot sensation she could entirely describe.
She recalled the hard line of his jaw as he glared and barked at her to leave. Ailis recalled stumbling in her strides as she ran away from him.
How can I live with such a man?
“I daenae wish to live in a castle and be made to squeeze our heirs,” Ailis finally said to Sorcha as she drew her hand away.
Her sister flinched at her words, but she continued, “A wife is wed then watched. Everyone waitin’ to see if her body will do what it ought. Everyone waitin’ to see if she will bear a bairn, a son preferably.”
“And if I daenae bear one quickly enough, then I am discarded. I daenae want a man who would nay see me or me love for travel and books and nature… or worse, a man who would simply endure me.”
Sorcha sighed again as Ailis suggested, “Ye could speak with Rowan. Tell him that this is simply an absurd decision. Gordon and I have absolutely nothin’ in common.”
“It wouldnae change anythin’.”
Ailis’ heart sank at that, and just like when they were younger, Sorcha lifted a hand and brushed it tenderly down the side of Ailis’ cheeks.
“It will be all right, Ali,” she said softly. “Gordon is nay cruel man, and ye will still fill yer days with the things that ye love.”
Ailis stared at her for another moment, the weight of her fate heavy on her chest. Then she shook her head.
“Nay, it willnae be all right.” Ailis lifted her chin though her throat had gone tight and hot.
“I am assured of it. If this marriage happens, I shall spend me days being miserable, and I shall hate every moment of this arrangement.”
Ailis stood before the nursery hearth the next morning with both hands lifted, her fingers crooked like claws, while Elspeth watched from the rug with wide, delighted eyes.
“And then,” Ailis whispered, leaning closer to the children, “the dragon came down from the mountain.”
Lachlan sat beside his sister, clutching his wooden horse by its neck. He did not understand half the tale, but he understood Ailis’ voice when it grew low and thrilling, and his little mouth had fallen open in perfect awe.
Sorcha sat in the chair by the window, one needle paused above the linen in her lap. “Ailis,” she warned softly, chuckling because she knew what Ailis would make of the tale next.
Ailis ignored her. “The dragon was not like other dragons,” she continued. “Nay. Other dragons breathed fire and guarded treasure. This one guarded silence. He hoarded it. He kept it piled high in his cave until nay laughter dared go near him.”
Elspeth gasped, and Sorcha smiled. “Did the princess fight him?”
“The princess,” Ailis said, drawing herself up with great importance, “was far too clever to fight a dragon with a sword. She kent she wouldnae win.”
Elspeth gasped then giggled all at once. “So what did she do?”
“She was brave,” Ailis continued.
She lifted Lachlan into her lap, and he immediately patted her cheek with the soft, careless affection of a child who had never learned to hide what he felt.
Ailis caught his little hand and kissed his palm.
Her heart squeezed. There were moments when the sight of Sorcha’s children hurt in the gentlest way.
They were proof that a path one had not chosen could still bloom.
But she did not want to think of that.
Not today. Not when Gordon’s name sat in her mind like a stone.
She opened her mouth to continue the tale when movement passed beyond the open nursery door. Ailis glanced over and saw Callan stride past the corridor, broad-backed and grim, his dark hair tied at his nape, his plaid swinging with the force of his pace.
She had not seen him since Sorcha told her about the betrothal, and before she could think, she rose too quickly, setting Lachlan down so suddenly that he blinked up at her in surprise.
“Ailis,” Sorcha and Elspeth called out, but she was already striding out of the nursery to meet their brother.
She gathered her skirts and hurried into the corridor. “Callan!”
Her brother stopped near the turn of the passage. His shoulders tightened before he turned which told her at once that he knew exactly why she had called him.
She marched toward him, chin high, even though the corridor seemed colder outside the nursery’s warmth. “I heard.”
Callan’s expression did not change. “About what?”
“Daenae pretend ye daenae ken what I speak off, Callan. Ye intend to marry me off to Gordon.”
Callan nodded once, his jaw softening for the slightest second before his stern look came up again. “It has been decided.”
Ailis scoffed. “Of course. It doesnae matter that it is nay what I want.”
“I believe I granted ye grace to indulge in what ye wanted for years now, Ailis. Ye are me sister, and it is still me duty to look out for ye and make certain ye are safe and well provided for.”
“And a marriage,” she countered slowly, pacing her words, “to the dragon will do that?”
The dryness in her tone did not go unnoticed. Callan’s brow puckered as he crossed his hands behind him.
His eyes narrowed. “Ailis.”
“I willnae marry the man!” Ailis planted herself before him, refusing to be cowed by his sternness.
She loved Callan. Of course, she did. He had carried her on his back when she was small, taught her how to climb the low orchard wall, and once broken a boy’s nose for saying she had too many freckles. But she still had no intention of letting him trade her off like he tried to do two years ago.
“This matter has been decided. The Laird’s brother has agreed to convince his brother of the union. Both our clans shall be joined once again in union of marriage. And daenae think of runnin’ like ye did in the past. I have guards watchin’ ye. They are stationed near ye at all times.”
“Am I now yer prisoner?” she cried out.
“If need be, I shall keep ye locked until the day comes,” Callan answered before exhaling softly. “I only do this because I care for ye.” Callan walked away from her before she could say anything else, and the burn of her annoyance made her remain rooted to that spot for a long moment.
Her chest ached like a heavy log pressed right at its center, and the bleakness of the life ahead was a crushing realization.
There is nay escape. Ailis thought as she stood there, clutching her skirts.
But she would not make this easy either. If Gordon wanted a wife, he would have to face all of her. He would learn she was not a woman made for silence, and she would never do his bidding.
And when he had endured enough, when his patience cracked and his cold pride decided she was more trouble than any alliance was worth, he would be the one to reject her.