Page 12 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

T he days began to blur together. Each morning Katie brought hot water and a tray of breakfast, and then brought her to Grayson’s bedside where she sat with her satchel open, herbs and tinctures scattered like a healer’s battlefield.

Cora brought in more supplies. Helpful as ever.

And each night before letting sleep take her, she wrote in her journal.

Day Three. Tried willow bark infusion. It eased the ache in his head but not the tightness in his chest. His cough remains shallow but persistent.

Day Four. Warm compresses laced with thyme. Helped him breathe easier for a short while, but the effect faded before supper. Grayson is frustrated and says he feels like a bird trapped in a cage. I cannot disagree.

Day Five. Mixed mullein and honey. He drank it obediently, sweet boy, but his lungs rattle still. His spirit outpaces his body. It is cruel to watch.

Skylar closed the book with a sigh, and tossed it onto her bed. The candle guttered beside it, wax dripping steadily down its holder, as though mocking her own dwindling patience.

She scrubbed at her eyes with her palms. What sort of healer was she if her satchel of remedies yielded nothing lasting? The boy’s breaths came quick and shallow still, though he smiled through it, though he tried to sit taller and pretend he wasn’t tired after merely listening to a story.

It gnawed at her—the slow betrayal of a child’s body.

But what gnawed worse was the way she was had instantly started to care, truly care, for him.

She had sworn to herself the first day that she’d help the lad because it was her calling as a healer, not because he was Zander Harrison’s son.

But Grayson was undoing that vow thread by thread with every word, every smile, every scrap of stubborn determination.

He liked to talk about birds. Saints, he could speak of them for hours, his small hands flapping as he mimicked wings, his voice growing bright despite the rasp in his lungs.

“That one there, Skylar, that’s a swift. See how it darts? And the rooks, they’ve more sense than some men,” Grayson started to say one day in the solar, his small finger pointing and following the creature across the sky.

She had teased, “Do ye mean yer da?”

Grayson had laughed, a weak but genuine sound. “Nay. Uncle Mason. He pretends he doesnae like birds, but I’ve seen him feed the ravens crusts when nay one’s watching.”

Skylar had caught Katie grinning at that.

It wasn’t only birds. He told her how Zander lifted him onto his shoulders when he was smaller, how he’d once promised to build a perch so Grayson could see as high as the hawks.

“See, just there… foot holds,” the small lad said and gestured out of the window toward the tall tree. Skylar stood from his bed and walked toward the glass, and just there—along the shadowed edge of the tree—she saw small notches carved into the bark. Purposeful. Working their way up the tree.

He also told her once how Mason taught him to play dice—a brilliant set of emerald colored dice rested on his bedside table, but they hadn’t played yet, and right as Skylar thought about asking him, he shrugged and told her “though Da scolded him when I won too much… so I daenae play too much anymore. Because I daenae want to upset him.”

“Well, we need to fix that. Right?” Skylar said playfully, which elicited a wide, bright smile from the lad.

Grayson loved sweetmeats but hated onions. He wanted to be strong enough to spar, but knew the weight of a wooden sword would knock him flat.

A small world, bound by walls and courtyards, but bursting with dreams. And now he was caged by his own breath.

The words he had whispered last night clung to her even now. “I feel like a bird, Skylar. But me wings are broken.”

She pressed her hand to her heart, blinking against the sting in her eyes.

Something had to change. If not his body, then his spirit.

Skylar leaned her head back against the cool stone of the solar wall, letting the boy’s laughter echo in her mind.

These weren’t just scraps of conversation, they were pieces of him she was gathering, carefully, almost unwillingly, as if each memory stitched itself into her whether she liked it or not.

Grayson was slipping into the quiet places of her heart where she had no defenses. And she feared what it would cost her when the time came to let him go.

The next morning, after another failed attempt to ease his chest with warm compresses, Skylar looked at him curled against the pillows, his lips pale but his eyes still bright. “Would ye like to go outside, Grayson?”

Katie straightened sharply. “The laird said?—”

“I ken what the laird said,” Skylar cut in, her voice firm. “But I say the bairn needs air and sun. A day of freedom willnae harm him as much as this endless caging.”

Grayson’s eyes widened, then filled with such joy that it knocked the breath from her chest. “Truly? We’ll see the sky?”

“Aye, lad,” Skylar said, tucking the blanket around his narrow shoulders. “And ye’ll teach me every bird that flies overhead.”

Katie pursed her lips, clearly torn, but in the end she fetched another blanket and wrapped it snugly around the boy. Together, they half-carried, half-walked him out into the courtyard.

The morning air was crisp, tinged with damp earth and the faint smoke of cooking fires. The walls loomed high, but the sky above stretched wide and endless. Grayson tipped his head back, eyes shining.

“There! See them? The starlings.” He lifted a trembling hand, pointing. “They fly together like one great beast.”

Skylar followed his gaze. A flock wheeled in unison, black specks against the pale blue, their calls sharp and sweet.

“Listen,” he whispered, voice reverent. “Hear how they chatter to each other?”

Skylar closed her eyes, focusing. The sound came like music, high and trilling. She smiled. “Aye. I hear them.”

For the first time since she had arrived, the weight of helplessness lifted from her shoulders. She wasn’t healing his lungs, not yet. But she was healing something else—his heart, his joy, his sense of flight.

Grayson leaned against her, his cheeks flushed pink with cold, but his smile wide and real. “Ye’re nae so bad for an inland Lady,” he teased weakly.

Skylar laughed, hugging him closer. “And ye’re a fine teacher, little bird.”

Katie hovered nearby with an anxious eye, but even she smiled at the sight of Grayson’s delight.

For the first time in days, Skylar felt like she had done something right.

The sunlight still warmed Skylar’s cheeks when the sound of boots struck stone. Unmistakable.

She turned just in time to see Zander storm across the courtyard, cloak snapping in the wind like a banner of war. His face was as sharp as any blade, his eyes darker than any pit, and when they landed on Grayson bundled in her arms, the air itself seemed to tighten.

“Inside,” he barked, making her shoulders jump even though she was expecting it.

Grayson startled, then clutched at Skylar’s cloak. “Da, we were —”

“Take him inside, now. Or I will,” His tone cracked like a whip. Eyes boring into hers.

Skylar was planted, firm in place. Paralyzed. He reached them in three strides, “Fine, I’ll do it meself.” Scooping the boy into his arms with a gentleness that clashed with the rage radiating from him.

Grayson let out a weak protest, his head turning toward Skylar, but Zander ignored it. Katie wrung her hands nervously, but said nothing as she watched the laird carry his son back through the keep doors.

The bleeding nerve of this man!

Skylar’s temper smoldered with every step after him. By the time Grayson had been tucked back into his bed, cheeks still pink from the cold, she was a kettle at boil.

Zander closed the chamber door with a finality that was so quiet it might as well break the hinges off the wall. He turned on her, voice low and deadly. “What in God’s name possessed ye?”

Her arms crossed, chin high. “ Possessed me? I gave the laddie some fresh air. I gave him a moment of joy.”

“Ye risked his life !”

“I gave him life!” The words burst out sharp, cutting through the heavy air. “Aye, maybe nae in his lungs, but in his heart. He’s a child, nae some relic to be guarded in a dark room!”

His jaw clenched, muscles taut. “Ye had nay right.”

“And ye do?” she snapped. “Ye storm in when it pleases ye, bark orders like the world bends to yer will, and then vanish again while yer son aches for ye. He told me himself that he feels like a bird trapped in a cage. And what do ye do? Ye keep the door locked from yer own son!”

“Because the world beyond that door will kill him!”

“Nay!” Her voice softened, but the steel in it remained. “What will kill him is never letting him feel alive while he’s still breathing.”

For once, Zander faltered.

Skylar stepped closer, anger carrying her forward until she stood nearly toe to toe with him.

She jabbed a finger against his chest. “Ye think because ye can raise a sword and shout down men twice yer size, that makes ye strong. But Grayson doesnae need a warrior. He needs his faither. He needs laughter and love. He needs to see the sky. Ye’d ken that if ye were here more than a shadow in his life. ”

His lips parted, but no sound came.

Skylar pressed on, unstoppable. “He loves ye, Zander. Loves ye so fiercely it shines out of him even when his chest rattles with every breath. But ye —” her voice broke, anger and pity twisting together.

“Ye’re too blind, too proud, to see that he doesnae need ye to guard him. He needs ye to be with him.”

Silence fell.

His nostrils flared, his breath heavy, but he didn’t speak. His eyes burned into hers, the storm in them wild, unyielding. Skylar felt her pulse hammer, her fists clenching, her body shaking with the force of words she had held too long.

The tension so thick it threatened to choke the corridor.

Skylar’s heart thundered in her ears, her blood hot as fire. She had said it, every sharp truth she’d been saving up since they first met. And she would say more, damn the consequences.

“Ye are a laird, aye,” she said, her voice quieter now, but fiercer for it. “But when it comes to yer son, ye are failing him. And nay title, nay keep, nay wall of men will change that.”

The words hung between them, raw and dangerous.

Zander stared at her, his mouth a hard line, his hands flexing at his sides as if fighting some battle she couldn’t see. For a moment, she almost thought he might lash out, might shout her down the way he had silenced his council.

But he didn’t. He stood there, silent, his chest rising and falling like a man standing on the edge of a cliff.

Skylar’s breath came ragged, her own body taut with defiance. She knew she had gone too far. She knew it, and yet she would not take a word back.

Not one.

She braced for his fury. Another barked command, another threat to silence her. Instead, Zander only stared, his chest heaving, his fists flexing at his sides.

Her heart thudded painfully.

Why didnae he say something?

Why didnae he fight back?

“Say somethin’ ye brute! Sweet hells! Say anythin’ —”

He moved in a flash.

One moment he stood across from her, iron still in every line of his body, and the next his hand was cupping her jaw, tilting her face upward. His mouth crushed hers before she could take another breath.

The world went white-hot.

He kissed her like he meant to claim the air from her lungs. His beard scratched her skin raw, his hand at her back dragging her tight against him until she could barely think past the heat.

She gasped, the sound swallowed into his mouth, and her fingers betrayed her, clutching at the broad planes of his chest.

She knew she should push him away. She should slap him, curse him, remind him that he was her enemy. But her body betrayed her. Her lips parted, and when his tongue brushed hers, she whimpered so soft, so needy.

He deepened the kiss, his grip tightening as if he meant to fuse her body to his. The heat of him consumed her, the storm of him left no space for thought. Every movement of his mouth was fire, every press of his body was iron, and Skylar melted against him, lost.

Her hands slid upward, tangling in his hair, and he groaned into her mouth, the sound vibrating through her bones as he kissed her harder.

There was nothing gentle in it. No caution.

Just raw hunger and the collision of two wills that should have destroyed each other but instead sparked like flint and steel.

She kissed him back with the same wild fury she had argued with moments before. The taste of him filled her, smoke and salt and the ache of a man who had carried too much.

Time stood still. There was only heat, only lips, and only the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

When he tore himself away at last, Skylar nearly stumbled, dizzy from the force of it. Her lips were swollen, her breath ragged, her body trembling with desire she could not deny.

Zander stood over her, his own breath uneven, his eyes dark and wild. For a heartbeat, she thought he might kiss her again.

But then he stepped back, his face shuttering. “Enough,” he growled, more to himself than to her.

Skylar’s hand flew to her lips, her heart hammering so violently she thought it might burst free.

What just happened?

What have I done?

She wanted to hate him. She wanted to curse him for stealing that kiss, for making her hunger for more. Instead, the memory of it already burned in her blood, hot and sweet.

Without another word, he strode to the door and yanked it open. His shoulders were tense, his fists clenched, as though he were holding himself together by sheer force of will.

The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Skylar alone in the corridor with only her ragged breathing and the pounding of her own heart.

She melted into the wall, her hot body trembling against the cold rock, her thoughts a whirl.

She had kissed him back, and the fact that she wanted to kiss him again terrified her more than anything.

If she stayed, if she let herself feel this, she would be lost. Consumed by him, undone by a man who was her captor and a brute, and who made her feel alive in a way she had never known.

She shook her head and pressed her palms to her burning cheeks. “Nay, I cannae.”

There was only one choice left.

She had to run.

Soon.