Chapter Twenty-Five
Darkness did not bring rest, it brought waiting.
The keep quieted in the way a storm quiets before it turns—voices low, movements measured, every breath held just a moment too long. Torches burned along the walls, their light unsteady in the rising wind. Smoke still lingered in the air, clinging to her skin, her hair, her thoughts.
Claire stood near the inner hall, arms wrapped tightly around herself, though the cold was not what unsettled her.
He will come again. Not if. When.
She knew it in the way the men moved, in the way no one removed their armor. In the way even the children gathered close, tucked into shadowed corners where the walls were thickest.
The war had not ended.
It had only drawn breath.
“Ye’ll wear a hole through the floor if ye keep pacing.”
Claire turned. Maddy stood near the hearth, arms crossed, watching her with a sharp, unyielding gaze.
“I am not pacing,” Claire said, though she very much had been.
Maddy snorted. “Aye. And I’ve never baked bread.”
Claire let out a breath, something close to a laugh, though it faded quickly. “He will come for me,” she said quietly.
The truth no longer frightened her, it angered her. Firey hot fury scorched her gut. She must control what happened next. She could not, would not sacrifice the clan. Too many had been injured and the keep’s gate lay in a crumbled heap.
Maddy’s expression did not soften. “Aye,” she said. “He will.”
A pragmatic woman, she offered no comfort, only honesty.
Claire nodded slowly. “Then we should not be waiting for him to try.”
Her words caught Maddy’s attention.
The older woman straightened slightly. “And what would ye suggest, lass?”
Claire hesitated. Not because she did not have an answer, but because she knew Lachlan would not like it. “I know where they are encamped,” she said. “Roughly. I saw the ridge. The glen beyond dips low, there is cover there.”
Maddy’s eyes narrowed. “Ye’re thinking of going to their camp?”
“I am thinking,” Claire said carefully, “if I am what they want, then I should not be sitting inside these walls while they tear them down to reach me.”
The words felt steady and right as she spoke them. Even as something inside her whispered they would not be easily forgiven.
Maddy studied her for a long moment. “Ye sound like him,” she said.
Claire blinked. “The laird?”
“Aye. Foolish when it matters most.” A pause. “And brave enough to make it dangerous.”
Claire’s lips pressed together, ire spiking. “I am not foolish.”
Maddy’s brow lifted. “Then ye’ll wait for him to tell ye no?”
Claire did not answer.
Maddy exhaled slowly, then reached for a cloak draped near the hearth and held it out. “If ye’re going to do something reckless,” she said, “ye’d best not freeze while doing it.”
Claire stared at her. “You are not stopping me?”
“I’ve lived long enough to know when stopping someone only makes them quieter about it,” Maddy replied. “Better I ken where ye’ve gone.”
Claire took the cloak. “Thank you.”
Maddy’s gaze softened—only slightly. “Bring yourself back,” she said. “Or he’ll tear this place apart looking for ye and bury me in the process.”
Claire turned and snuck out of the room before she could dwell on them. The wind had sharpened by the time she reached the outer wall.
Night stretched wide across the Highlands, the land reduced to shadow and movement, the ridge barely visible beneath the shifting clouds. The torches along the keep flickered behind her, their light fading as she moved farther into darkness.
Her heart beat harder with each step with a mix of fear and bravado.
She was stepping across a line she could not uncross.
She slipped through a narrow postern gate left partially unbarred for scouts and moved quickly down the slope, keeping low, using the land the way she had seen the clan do earlier in the day.
The ground dipped, then rose, shifting beneath her boots. The Highlands did not guide, they tested. Claire pressed forward anyway. If she could see them, if she could understand their position, if she could help—
A sound broke through the wind.
Hooves pounding toward her.
Claire froze.
A hand caught her arm, wrenching her backward as another clamped over her mouth.
“Quiet now,” a voice murmured against her ear.
Dread skittered down her spine.
Not Lachlan.
Claire twisted hard, biting down against the gloved hand, driving her elbow back with as much force as she could gather.
The man cursed and loosened his grip as she struggled.
She tore free and ran. But the ground betrayed her.
A second rider cut her off, horse rearing slightly as it blocked her path. Another man dismounted with practiced ease, moving faster than she could turn.
Hands caught her again. Stronger this time—unyielding.
“You have spirit,” the first man said, breathless with something like amusement. “He will like that.”
Claire struggled, kicking, twisting, refusing to still. “I am not his,” she snapped.
“Nay,” the man said, hauling her toward the waiting horse. “But ye will be.”
She fought until her strength faltered. Until the world tilted with motion and grip and breath. She was forced onto the saddle before him, held tight as the horse turned.
And the keep faded behind her.
# # #
He knew before he was told. Something in the air had changed, something tangible, mayhap foreboding.
Lachlan stood in the great hall, bent over a rough map scratched into yellowed parchment, Shamus at his side, when the unease struck him—sharp and sudden, like a blade drawn too close to the skin.
He straightened.
“What?” Shamus asked.
Lachlan did not answer. He turned and listened.
The keep moved as it had all night with low voices, steady steps, but something was missing. A presence. A pull he had not realized he had been tracking all along.
Claire.
He stepped away from the table without a word.
“Lachlan—”
“She’s no’ here.” The words came flat and certain.
Shamus swore under his breath and followed as Lachlan crossed the hall in long strides, pushing through the door into the cold night air.
“Claire!” he called.
The wind was his only answer.
His jaw tightened and turned sharply toward the wall. “Search the keep,” he barked. “Every room, every nook—now.”
Men moved instantly.
But Lachlan was already moving toward the outer gate, toward the place he knew . . . knew she would go.
The postern door stood ajar. Rage hit hard and immediate.
“Damn it, Claire,” he muttered.
Shamus reached him just as he stepped through.
“Tracks,” Shamus said, crouching low. “Fresh.”
Not one, Lachlan saw. The marks in the earth, the scuffle. God help her she’d tried to fight them off. When he saw drag marks, his blood ran cold.
“Nay,” he said, refusing to believe the enemy had captured her. Not only the enemy—his brother.
He followed the trail a few steps down the slope before it vanished into the dark, swallowed by hooves and churned ground.
Taken.
The word settled in his chest like iron and for a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
The world narrowed to a single, brutal truth.
She was gone.
Nay. He moved fast, decisive and with deadly intent.
“They took her,” Shamus said quietly behind him.
Lachlan turned, his eyes sharp with something far more lethal than anger. “Then we take her back.”
There would be no hesitation, no doubt. This time he would not arrive too late. Not again.