Chapter 3 #2
He had lost his cloak in the hall. His fine linen shirt was torn across his chest, soaked through with dark rain and fresh blood that was not his own.
In his right hand, he held a broad, double-edged claymore, the steel dripping black in the torchlight.
He wasn't breathing heavily. His golden hair hung in wet, heavy ropes around his face, but his amber eyes were dead-calm, fixed entirely on the man holding Nandag.
"Laird Chisholm," Torcall sneered, raising his dagger toward Nandag’s throat. "Take one step and I cut her."
Fearchar moved.
He did not negotiate. He crossed the ten feet of wet cobblestones with terrifying speed, his heavy boots cutting through the rain before Torcall could even tighten his grip.
Fearchar didn't use his blade. He stepped inside the reach of Torcall’s dagger, brought his left elbow up in a violent, upward arc that shattered Torcall’s nose, and caught Nandag around the waist with his right arm as Torcall dropped her.
In one fluid, powerful motion, Fearchar yanked Nandag behind his back, placing his massive frame entirely between her and the attacker.
Torcall hit the cobblestones with a heavy thud, groaning in the mud. The two mounted warriors near the gate took one look at the giant golden-haired laird standing over their comrade with a bloodied claymore, jerked their horses' reins, and dug their spurs in.
Across the outer yard, the main wooden gates swung open with a screech of iron hinges.
Robert Cameron galloped into the rain on a black stallion, his arm wrapped tightly around Mòrag, who was slumped across his saddle bow.
Six mounted Farquharson men-at-arms rode hard behind him, their horses' hooves kicking up clods of wet mud as they thundered down the glen path toward the eastern ridge.
Fearchar took two long strides toward the gate, his sword raised, but the distance was already too great. The heavy wooden gates slammed shut behind the retreating riders, locked from the outside by Robert’s fleeing men.
Silence settled over the courtyard, broken only by the steady, heavy patter of rain against stone and the ragged breath of the man standing in front of Nandag.
Fearchar slowly lowered his broadsword. The muscles across his shoulders were tense, tight as iron cables beneath his wet shirt.
He stared at the closed gate for a long, agonizing beat, his jaw working as he realized the bride promised to him by royal decree had just been stolen from his hand before he had even spoken a word to her.
He let out a slow breath through his nose, a cloud of white mist rising into the freezing night air. Then he turned around.
Nandag was leaning against the wooden water trough, her hands pressed flat against the damp timber to steady her trembling legs.
Rain had soaked through her dress, darkening the saffron fabric to deep gold, making her look smaller, fragile—except for her eyes.
Her hazel eyes were wide, clear, and burning as she looked up at him.
Fearchar took one step closer, wiping his bloody blade against the leather of his thigh before sliding it back into its scabbard with a sharp, iron clack.
He stopped two feet from her. Up close, the pale scar across his temple was stark against his wet skin. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't ask if she was frightened. He simply stood there, his massive chest rising and falling, shielding her from the wind with his broad frame.
"He took yer sister," Fearchar said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.
"He took his wife." Nandag forced her chin up, refusing to break his gaze, though her fingers dug harder into the trough's edge to keep from doing something stupid with her hands. "He believes she is his key tae Strathglass."
"And what daes that make ye?"
"His problem, apparently. Ye heard the man. He'd rather nae leave another daughter lying around fer a Chisholm tae marry."
Something crossed Fearchar's face at that, gone before it could settle into anything she could name.
Fearchar's eyes narrowed slightly as he took her in, the bruised skin on her wrist where Torcall had gripped her, the torn hem of her dress, the quiet, stubborn tilt of her jaw that showed no sign of tears.
He didn't speak. He stepped closer, reaching out a large, calloused hand toward her face.
Nandag flinched back half an inch, her fingers tightening on the edge of the trough, though she didn't look away, and didn't tell him to stop either.
Fearchar paused, his hand hovering in the rain between them. He didn't pull back, nor did he force the touch. Slowly, deliberately, his long fingers reached past her cheek and plucked a loose, wet strand of brown hair that had caught on the torn lace of her collar, setting it gently behind her ear.
His thumb brushed the side of her neck. A touch that lasted less than a heartbeat, warm against her freezing skin.
"Ye kent it was me," he said. Not a question. "The whole time I was standing at that altar."
"I kent yer hair before I kent yer face." Nandag lifted her chin another fraction, daring him to make something of it. "It's a memorable color."
The faint, crooked ghost of a smile touched the corner of his scarred mouth. "So is yers, if it helps."
"It daesnae help anything."
She meant it to come out sharp. It came out closer to something else, and she looked away first this time, down at the rain pooling black between the cobblestones. "Ye were meant fer me sister. Instead I spent seven years thinking about a man who was already spoken fer before I ever kent his name."
"And now?"
Nandag looked back up at him, and didn't have an answer ready, which annoyed her almost as much as the question did.
"Now," Fearchar said, when she didn't fill the silence, "yer sister's gone, and by Farquharson law and royal decree both, I'm nae leaving this castle without a bride."
"That's a terrible way tae ask a woman tae marry one."
"I'm nae asking yet," Fearchar asked, his golden brow furrowing as he looked down into her hazel eyes, searching for something in her face. "So what are ye? His next key?"
"I am naebody's key," Nandag said, her voice steadying as she looked straight into the eyes of the man who had kissed her seven years ago in a palace garden, and who had just returned as a ghost to tear her world apart. "I am a daughter of Farquharson."
Fearchar studied her for a long, silent moment. The faint, crooked ghost of a smile touched the corner of his scarred mouth, gone as quickly as it came, before his face hardened back into the flint-like mask of a clan laird.
"We shall see," he said, quiet and flat, turning back toward the castle doors as his warriors burst into the courtyard with drawn steel.