Page 47 of A Healer for the Wicked Highlander
The teasing edge in her voice softened and she pushed herself up from her seat, stepping closer to him. “Michael… if I thought ye were a monster, do ye truly believe I would still be here?”
He didn’t say anything still.
She lifted her chin at him. “Would I have brought me sisters here? Would I have stayed another night under yer roof, let alone in yer arms?”
The tension in his shoulders seemed to loosen slightly, as if her words were finally reaching him.
“I see ye, Michael,” she whispered. “Nae just the warrior. Nae just the laird. I see the man who cares for his people. The man who fights for those he loves. The man who… who would sooner break himself than let anyone else bear the weight of his own past.”
She touched his hand gently. His own hand twitched beneath her touch.
“Aye,” she smiled. “Ye’ve done terrible things. So have we all.”
“Freya…”
She placed a finger against his lips, silencing him. “If ye ever doubt me again, Michael Hughes, I swear I’ll make ye read one of Marissa’s favorite romance novels cover to cover.”
A breath of something that might have been a laugh escaped him, and she smirked, satisfied.
But before she could step away, before she could let him off that easily, Michael caught her hand. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
She squeezed his hand once before slipping free, turning toward the door. “Now, if ye excuse me, me laird, it is late and I believe I’ve won this argument.”
He let out a slow sigh, shaking his head. “Ye’re impossible.”
She paused in the doorway, glancing back over her shoulder. “Aye. But ye wouldnae want me any other way.”
And with that, she slipped out, leaving him standing alone in the library, watching after her like a man who had just lost a battle he had never intended to win.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“They’re nae at their posts, me laird.”
Michael’s head snapped up from the map spread across his desk. Brodie stood before him, arms crossed over his broad chest, wearing that usual grim expression. The firelight flickered against the deep lines on the man’s face, but his eyes—sharp and ever-watchful—betrayed nothing but cold suspicion.
Michael leaned back in his chair, fingers pressing together. “Who, Brodie?”
“Gregor, Hamish, and young Callan,” Brodie said. “None of them reported for duty this morn.”
Michael’s jaw tightened. “And where are they?”
Brodie shook his head. “I daenae ken. They were seen last night, but nay one’s laid eyes on them since.”
Silence hung heavily between them, broken only by the faint crackle of the fire. Michael studied Brodie carefully. His most trusted guard was no fool, and neither was he. Men did not simply disappear, not when the castle had been under close watch since the attack on Cody.
Michael pushed back from his desk, rising to his full height. “Do ye think this is some rebellion?”
Brodie’s mouth twitched in a humorless smirk. “I think it’s somethin’, me laird” he muttered. “Folk daenae vanish without reason. Nae when we’ve already had one treachery in our midst.”
Michael clenched his fists, his mind drifting to the night his son had nearly died. The sickness had come fast, too fast, and though Freya had saved the lad, she had also confirmed his worst fears—it had been no mere illness. Someone had poisoned Cody. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, another attack happened. Rage boiled inside of him, along with helplessness.
“Three guards missin’,” Michael murmured, pacing toward the window. Outside, the morning mist curled low over the courtyard, shrouding the stone walls in an eerie haze. “Could be fear. Cowards slippin’ away, thinkin’ they’ll be next.”
Brodie grunted. “Or it could be somethin’ worse.”
Michael turned back to face him, with his eyes narrowing. “Ye think they’re part of it?”
“I think I daenae trust men who disappear without a word.” Brodie’s voice was flat. “And I trust even less those who are still here, actin’ as if naught is amiss.”
