Chapter Eight #2
The flicker in his eyes told her she had struck true, not only with challenge, but with something that unsettled him far more.
Hope.
*
Dawn crept slowly into the chamber, pale light seeping through the window.
Destiny lay awake, her body still, though her mind refused rest. The echoes of the night before would not leave her.
She mourned the loss of lives the battle had caused on both sides.
While she did not know any of those who had died, she was certain others would miss them.
And even though she should be focused only on grief, her mind wandered to her husband.
She could still feel Cameron’s mouth on hers, fierce and consuming, as though he had branded her with fire.
She touched her lips, startled at the tremor in her fingers.
What had she done, answering him so willingly?
She should have turned away. Should have reminded herself that this marriage was nothing more than duty and bargain. That he was not hers to want.
And yet she had wanted him to kiss her. God help her, she wanted him to kiss her again.
She turned onto her side, clutching the coverlet around her.
The keep was quiet, but not the courtyard below.
The men no doubt gathered the remaining dead to bury, and the distant pounding of hammers against steel told her they also patched the gates and portcullis.
It should have been comforting, that rhythm of life continuing after battle.
But the sound only reminded her of him. Cameron, striding among them with his calm authority, his presence filling every space.
The Butcher. The word haunted her. She had asked it aloud, dared to put the weight of rumour between them.
He had not denied it, but neither had he embraced it.
His truth had been more complicated, more human.
She had seen with her own eyes that he did not fight with a lust for blood, only as a man must. And that unsettled her more than any monstrous tale.
Because if he was not the monster they painted him to be, then what excuse remained for her to resist the pull between them?
She closed her eyes, but all she could see was the look in his as he said, Stay. Watch. Learn about me for yourself. There had been fire in that command, but something else, too, something perilously close to vulnerability.
Her heart twisted. She longed to trust him; to believe she had glimpsed the man beneath the name. But still she hesitated to fully trust what her own eyes had revealed.
The sound of footsteps in the corridor jolted her, heavy and deliberate. Cameron’s. She knew it without question. Her pulse leapt, betraying her resolve. She sat upright, gathering the coverlet close, as if it could shield her from what she wanted as much as from what she feared.
The door did not open. His steps moved past, steady, unhurried, carrying him towards the day’s duties. A rush of relief mingled with disappointment surged through her.
He had not come for her.
And perhaps that was for the best. She needed time, time to understand her own heart, and to decide whether she would let this marriage be nothing more than a bargain, or something more dangerous. Something that might consume her entirely.
Destiny pressed a hand over her heart, feeling its frantic rhythm. Last night she had kissed her husband. Today she must live with the consequences.
*
Cameron rose before the first light of dawn, though he had barely slept. The battle had left his body weary, his muscles taut with the strain of command, but it was not the clash of steel that had kept him awake. It was his wife.
Her lips against his, fire and defiance all at once. He had kissed her like a man starved, and worse, she had kissed him back. No hesitation, no meek surrender. She had met his hunger with her own. The memory burned hotter than any wound.
He dragged a hand over his face, willing the thought away, but it lingered, dangerous and insistent.
What had possessed him? He should have held his distance, kept her at arm’s length until trust was earned or never earned at all.
Instead, he had let her in. Allowed her to see a truth he rarely gave even to his own brothers.
Now the lines between duty and desire blurred. He hated the weakness it revealed in him, but it gave him hope at the same time. With a sigh, Cameron belted his sword at his hip, the weight grounding him.
From the yard below came the steady sounds of labour—men repairing the breach in the walls, resetting timbers, clearing away the last traces of blood and splintered wood as though the battle itself might be erased by effort alone.
The Mackenzie prisoner remained secured in the dungeon, alive, breathing, and very much the fulcrum upon which the next choice would turn.
Before the day was done, two Munro warriors would be laid in the earth, and the bodies of four Mackenzies carried closer to the encampment where their clan had withdrawn, so their own might reclaim them. Death, at least, would be returned with honour.
The Mackenzies had not come to bargain for their son.
Cameron had known it, even as he sent the messenger, even as he allowed himself the briefest hope that restraint might prevail.
The ram at the gates had answered that hope plainly.
Steel was still the language they trusted.
To release the prisoner now, after blood had already been spilled, would not end violence but invite more of it, teaching every clan watching that force bent Munro will.
Cameron would not leave that lesson behind him.
Holding the prisoner was not cruelty. It was containment.
As long as the Mackenzie son remained within Munro walls, his kin would hesitate, however briefly, before striking again.
Safe passage across Mackenzie land still mattered, more now than before.
Without it, Munro and Gunn territory would be divided by hostility, every journey shadowed by threat.
To abandon that aim would condemn his people to an endless war fought in ambush and reprisal.
Cameron had offered another road. The Mackenzies had chosen the old one, and that choice would be seen for what it was.
His people would look to him now for certainty, for strength unmarred by doubt.
That was what he owed them, not the turmoil Destiny had stirred within him.
Yet when he passed through the corridor outside her chamber, his steps slowed of their own accord.
He felt her presence behind the closed door as surely as if she stood before him, her steady gaze fixed on his back.
His chest tightened with the memory of her breath, her quiet, unsettling challenge.
Then let us see if you are worthy of it.
Worthy.
For a heartbeat, he almost pressed the latch, almost faced her again in the fragile light of morning.
But nay. He was the laird, and lairds did not indulge in longing.
Not when their enemies gathered nearby. The Mackenzies had retreated, but they were still close, his scouts had reported.
So he’d kept on walking, his shoulders squared as if the weight of his clan rested on them alone. Perhaps it did.
He told himself it was better this way. That distance would keep both himself and Destiny sharper, safer. That the kiss they had shared had been a mistake.
But as he stepped into the courtyard and barked orders to his men, Cameron knew the lie for what it was.
The memory of her lingered with every breath, every command.
The Butcher could keep his clan safe. The laird could hold the walls.
But he, the husband, was already perilously close to being undone by his wife.