Page 26 of The Highlander’s Defiant Bride

It unsettled him more than outright defiance would have, and that made him speak the words he had tried so hard not to say. “You asked the prisoner about me. You went to my enemy,” he said.

She drew breath to speak, and before he could stop himself, he reached for her. His fingers brushed her sleeve and settled at her forearm, light but unmistakable. A steadying touch. A warning. Perhaps both.

He felt her reaction at once. A slight intake of breath. A subtle stilling beneath his hand, as though the contact had rooted her in place. Her pulse jumped against his thumb, quick and telling.

“I needed—” she began.

“You went to my enemy for the truth?” he asked, not hiding the hurt in his words.

“I wanted clarity, because the man they call the Butcher is not the man I have seen. And I need to know which one is truly my husband.”

He tried to keep the pain contained, but it slipped through, sharp and unbidden, leaving him momentarily unshielded. “You think me a monster, then.” His voice came low, stripped bare.

She did not look away from him.

If anything, her gaze softened, as though she saw the hurt beneath his words. “I think you are a man of secrets,” she countered. “And secrets can be as deadly as any blade.”

Her words struck true. “Listen well, Destiny,” he said, low and edged. “They call me the Butcher because I did what was necessary to protect my people. Not because I took joy in slaughter. Not because I relish cruelty. I wear the name because others put it upon me, and I would rather be feared than see my clan destroyed.”

He eased his grip to a gentle touch, though his eyes stayed locked on hers, fierce and unguarded. “You may doubt me. You may even fear me. But do not mistake me for the man those whispers make me.”

She did not flinch. She met his gaze boldly. “And how am I to know the difference?” she asked.

The question cut deep. His voice dropped, rough with the truth he rarely bared. “Stay. Watch. Learn about me for yourself. Do not let others define me. If you still call me Butcher then, I will not deny it.”

He felt her waver beneath his gaze, torn between the warnings she had heard and what she saw before her. He let his hand slip from her arm, though it lingered a moment too long before falling away.

“But if you ask my enemies who I am,” he added quietly, “do not be surprised when they give you the worst of me.”

Her lips parted, her breath catching, and he saw it—the slightest lean towards him, as though pulled by an invisible cord neither of them could sever.

Cameron felt the same pull, sharp and dangerous. For one wild instant, he almost gave in. Almost.

Instead, he shook his head, forcing himself to get up and head for the door, hesitating before stepping through. “Trust is not built in a single night, or even two,” he said, his voice hard again. “Remember that.” He meant to leave, but added, “No matter what happens tonight, stay in the safety of the castle. Do you understand me?”

She stared at him for a heartbeat, then offered a nod. He left her there, her hand still pressed to the place he had touched, her eyes full of the same mingled fear and longing he carried with him. As he strode away, he told himself his thoughts belonged with the Mackenzies, with their intent, the threat they might pose, and the cost of this night should they choose blood over words. Not with the way Destiny’s breath had caught beneath his hand. And not with the bitter awareness that, for a moment, he had been a fool to lower his guard.

Chapter Eight

Cameron strode down the corridor, each step hammering against the stone like a curse. Defiant woman. Bold woman. A woman who had dared to press her hand against the one wound in him that never healed, the name they spat at him, the one he bore like armour, and like chains. Butcher.

And yet, her eyes had not accused him. They had searched. Demanded. As though she wanted to know the man behind the name, and not just the monster painted by rumour. That should have eased him. Instead, her desire to know him fully gnawed deeper. No one had ever questioned him the way Destiny did.

By the time Cameron reached the great hall, he had once again fastened his mask of command back in place. His men waited, watchful, already restless with word of the Mackenzies. He gave orders without hesitation to double the patrols, rotate the scouts on the ridge, and to keep the watch-fires burning through the night. They obeyed quickly, but he saw the questions in their eyes. Was their laird rattled?

Nay. He would not let them see it. He could not afford doubt. Not tonight, with so much on the line.

When the council gathered that evening, Cameron kept his tone clipped and hard. They argued about strategy, about whether the Mackenzies truly meant to strike.

He listened, weighed their counsel, then cut through the noise with a decision. “We prepare as if they march tonight. If they come to negotiate, all the better. If not, we will meet them with our swords.”

The men nodded, some grim, some eager. But Cameron’s gaze drifted, drawn against his will, to where Destiny had sat only that morning. He had never cared what people thought of him in the past. Why did he care so much that his wife not think he was a monster?

His thoughts shattered a moment later when a runner burst in, breathless. “M’laird. ’Tis the Mackenzies! They’ve lit signal fires in the north, and a contingent of a hundred men, some on horseback, others on foot, move towards us. They have a ram.”

It did not sound as if they were coming to negotiate anything. “They mean to break through the gates,” Cameron said as he rose.

He could feel a ripple of tension pass through his men. His own heart should have been stone, steady, prepared, unyielding. Instead, a dull ache pressed behind his ribs, the remnants of hurt and sorrow he had not yet shaken free. Against his will, his thoughts strayed once more to Destiny, to the warmth of her beneath his hand, and to the dangerous softness he could not afford on a night like this.