Page 31 of The Highlander’s Defiant Bride

Cameron stepped closer, searching her face. “If Sorcha were to leave now, I can see to her safety,” he said quietly. “The Mackenzies will not strike at once. That gives us time to get her beyond our borders, and for the men who escort her to possibly return.”

Relief flashed through Destiny’s eyes, bright and immediate, and then faded, replaced by a deeper hurt she could not quite hide.

Cameron caught it all. “Do you know what it costs to say those words?” he asked gently. “To lose the one person who stands beside you when you need her most?”

Her eyes glistened. “Aye. And I will pay it.”

For a moment, Cameron could not speak. In that instant, he saw her not as a pawn bartered in marriage, nor as the enemy’s daughter thrust into his hall, but as something far more dangerous. A woman who would choose the clan above herself. A woman who might yet be his match.

*

The late afternoon sunshine did nothing to cut the springtime chill in the air. Destiny stood in the courtyard with Sorcha beside her, the bustle of men preparing horses all around them.

Sorcha’s cloak was fastened at the throat, a bundle tied to her saddle. Her eyes were red, though she tried to keep her chin high. “I do not want to leave you,” she whispered fiercely, clutching Destiny’s hands. “Not when you have only just found your place here. Not when you will be alone.”

Destiny’s throat burned. She wanted to say, Stay. She wanted to rail against Gavan’s wound, the men’s murmurs, the bitter truth of a clan that would never forgive.

But she understood that the clan came first. “You must go, Sorcha,” she managed, her voice trembling, though she fought for strength. “The men will not accept you here. Not while Gavan’s wound is exposed for all to see. If you stay, it will tear the hall in two. I cannot—” Her voice broke, and she drew in a ragged breath. “I cannot be mistress of this keep if I place my heart above the clan.”

Sorcha’s tears spilled then, though she tried to blink them away. “You have changed in just these few days.”

Destiny nodded. “I am stronger now. And it is the strength you taught me, Sorcha. It must be so, at least for a while.”

When they parted, Sorcha climbed into the saddle with the help of a waiting groom. Her hands lingered on the reins as if to anchor herself a moment longer. Destiny stood still, every breath a wound, as the gates creaked open and Sorcha’s horse carried her into the mist, with six guardsmen at her side. They would head west, moving around the valley before heading northeast to Wick once more.

Only when Sorcha and the guardsmen vanished from view did Destiny’s composure crack. Her hands curled tight at her sides, nails biting into her palms as the ache in her chest grew nearly unbearable.

From the steps of the keep, Cameron watched her. He had said nothing during the parting, had given no order or command. Yet his gaze was steady, weighty, as though he measured the cost she paid.

She forced back tears. She would not let him, or the men remaining in the yard, see her undone.

But when she turned to walk past him, Cameron’s hand brushed hers, just the faintest touch, quick and fleeting, hidden from all others. A gesture that said he had seen. That he understood.

It was not comfort, not fully. But it was something.

And for Destiny, in that moment, it was enough to keep her spine straight as she walked into the keep alone.

*

Cameron stood in the courtyard with his men later that afternoon, yet his thoughts were not on the mock battle playing out before him. Sorcha was long gone, riding out with her escort. They would be safely past the Mackenzies by now.

Cameron had watched the farewell in silence, his hands clasped behind his back as Destiny’s voice wavered but never broke. She had sent her friend away with steady words, even as her heart cracked beneath them. He had seen it in her eyes—the raw pain, the struggle to keep her spine straight while the weight of the clan pressed down.

And she had chosen the clan.

He had expected her to fight, to resist with that fire she carried so easily. To force him to choose between his brother and his wife. Instead, she had cut herself open to keep the peace, wielding sacrifice as deftly as any blade.

“I am stronger now,” she had said to Sorcha.

He had heard the words as clearly as if they were spoken to him.

Cameron dragged a hand through his hair, a long breath rough in his chest. She was not the girl he thought had been bartered to him like coin. She was something far more—a woman who might command loyalty not by bloodline or fear, but by the sheer force of her heart.

The clan would see it soon enough. Perhaps they already had.

And he . . . God help him, he had felt it too.

He remembered the defiance in her gaze as she stood before Gavan. The tremor in her hands as Sorcha rode through the gates. The way she had held her head high afterward, even when her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of loss.