Page 33 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

Z ander had climbed the stair with fire in his blood, ready to argue her into staying.

Saints knew he had near torn the hinges off his study door when he’d found her gone.

Every guard in the keep had looked at him with whites of eyes as he stormed past, already knowing where her feet would have taken her.

“What is it?” Mason said firmly, keeping in step with him. “The lass?”

“Aye.”

“She’s gone?”

“Aye.”

Skylar Dunlop, stubborn as the tide, would have gone to the boy before she left. He knew he should have questioned her about it two days ago when she walked the grounds with him.

“The solar?” Mason questioned, though Zander didn’t have to answer, the man was already bounding ahead of him.

He had meant to stop her. To curse her. To take her satchel from her shoulder. Force her to stay, if it came to it. But what he hadn’t meant to find was this.

The solar door gaped half-wide, lamplight spilling crooked across the flagstones.

His boots pounded inside behind Mason, and his heart froze in his chest. Katie was sprawled by the hearth, hair soaked dark with blood, eyes half-rolled.

Grayson’s head tucked to his knees at the far end of his bed, rocking himself violently against the headboard.

And there, in the circle of firelight, Skylar straddled a cloaked figure, her knee grinding into the spine, the dirk he had given her pressed like judgment into the small of their back.

Her bags discarded, strewn about carelessly, leaking even, in between them.

For a moment he didn’t move. Couldn’t. He had seen war fields, seen clans broken, seen betrayal writ large across stone and soil. But never had he seen something like this: his healer, his lover, fierce as any warrior, holding an enemy down with the blade he’d trusted to her hand.

Pride swelled in him so hard it near cracked his ribs. She was fire and iron, this woman. His woman, his mind dared whisper, though he snarled the thought away as quick as it came.

Skylar didn’t move. She kept her knee planted in the stranger’s back, her grip iron, her eyes burning down into the shadowed hood.

“Lights,” she ordered, voice firm. “And cloth. Katie’s head, first. Gently. Move fast but daenae jostle her.”

Mason ran to Katie, following the directions quickly.

Zander’s gaze locked on Skylar’s, reading the scene in one sweep. His jaw went iron, and his eyes went black. “Lass?” he asked, low, dangerous.

She swallowed, lifted her chin, kept her hand firm on the knot. “A stranger,” she said. “Found by the bed.”

“Da!” Grayson said loudly, unfolding himself from the tight ball he had escaped into.

“Son, are ye well?”

“Aye,” the boy said quickly, color filling his cheeks quickly as he fought with all of his might to not look in Skylar’s direction.

“Mason—”

“Come laddie, let’s get ye out of the solar and up into yer faither’s chambers for a while.”

Zander watched as his son looked between him and Skylar and Mason before Skylar gave him a nod of encouragement, dirk pressing further into the cloak of the stranger, “Go on, little hawk. Let us come get ye after this is settled.”

Mason walked over and lifted the boy from the bed, grabbing blankets and pillows and the draught on the bedside before striding out of the room. Zander’s eyes followed until his son’s big brown eyes disappeared into the darkness of the corridor before he turned back to face Skylar.

She was breathing easily as the hooded head turned slightly, the firelight catching nothing but shadow.

Zander took a step, his whole body wound like a bow. “Who is it?” he asked.

Skylar’s grip tightened, fury sparking hotter than fear. “Let’s see —”

The figure bucked and hissed.

Skylar gripped the fabric and yanked the hood all the way back.

Her stomach turned to water.

The world went very quiet, the way it does when a cart goes off a bridge and you’re standing on the bank, watching it sink, hearing your own heartbeat more than the splash.

The stranger’s back heaved under Skylar’s knee, familiar eyes glittered, not wild, but cold.

“Get off me!”

Zander’s world tilted again.

Cora .

His ward. His responsibility. The girl he’d fed and clothed after her kin were buried by his sword. The girl who had set wildflowers at Grayson’s bedside when he first took sick.

“Unhand me!” she spat, voice raw, straining against Skylar’s grip. “Ye’ve nay idea what ye’re doin’!”

Zander’s hand went to his own sword hilt on reflex, though he did not draw. His fury needed no steel to sharpen it. He stepped forward, boots grinding against the stone. “Skylar,” he said low, careful, the calm before a storm, “take yer knee off her back.”

Skylar’s eyes, wild and blazing, snapped up at him. “She was over the lad, Zander. Katie’s near cracked open. I’ll nae move ‘til ye swear he’s guarded.”

By God, she was magnificent, her cheek bruised, her hands shaking but steady all the same. He wanted to haul her up and crush her to him, but the sight of Cora’s thin shoulders heaving beneath her knee rooted him to the floor.

“Ye heard me, lass,” he said, harder now. “Get up.”

For a long moment she held his gaze, defiance in every line of her body. Then, slow as thawing ice, she shifted, lifting her weight back but keeping the dirk leveled. Zander moved the last step, one hand clamping Cora’s arm, dragging her up like a sack of grain.

She spun on him, face pale but eyes blazing, mouth twisted. “Ye daenae ken what’s been done,” she hissed, twisting against his grip. “We have to go!”

“Oh, I’ll ken just fine,” Zander growled, shaking her once, hard enough to make her teeth click. “I’ll wring it from ye if I must. But ye’ll nae speak to me like a guttersnipe in me own keep.”

Cora’s chest heaved, her breath ragged. “Unhand me!” she bit out again, voice cracking. “Ye’ve nay right!”

“Nay right?” His laugh was cold, dangerous, nothing of mirth in it. “I took ye in, lass. Gave ye food, a bed, a place when none in Christ’s country would claim ye. And now I find ye crouched over me son like a wolf at a cradle.”

Her mouth opened, closed. For the first time since he’d seen her, fear cracked through her anger. She tried to twist her gaze away, but he caught her chin and forced her eyes back to his.

“Nay more lies,” he said, low enough that only she and Skylar could hear it. “Ye’ll speak plain. Now.”

Cora trembled in his grip, her voice faltering. “Ye daenae understand. I had to?—”

Skylar rose stiffly from the floor, her dirk still gleaming, her face white with fury and confusion both.

Zander tightened his hold on Cora, fury and disbelief clawing his chest.

He had walked into this room ready to stop Skylar from running, ready to remind her of her vow, to battle her fire with his own.

Instead he found a different betrayal. One of his own house, at his son’s bed, and the woman he was markedly ready to call out for her betrayal, was saving the boy’s life yet again.

His jaw clenched until it hurt. He wanted answers. He wanted blood. He wanted to tear apart every stone that hid secrets in his keep.

But first, he wanted the truth out of Cora’s mouth. Zander whipped her around. She was smaller than he remembered, slight as a reed, but she fought like a trapped hare.

She cried out defiantly as her back hit the wall. Zander trapped her there, one hand locking her shoulder in place.

“Still yer wrigglin’,” he snapped, his voice a growl in his own ears. “Ye’ll talk, or by God I’ll have ye chained and whipped until yer tongue loosens.”

Her eyes darted past him, wild, to where Skylar stood. Her eyes darting from Grayson to Katie. “I didnae mean?—”

“ Mean ?” His laugh cut sharp. “Ye poisoned me son. I’ve watched him cough his lungs raw while ye brought flowers to his bed. Ye’ll tell me why , lass. Now.”

Her lips trembled, fury and fear warring in her face. “It wasnae me, Zander?—”

“Ye’ll nae lie to me, Cora. Skylar’s found the rot in his cup. She’s named it poison. And I’ve the healer’s word above a bairn’s ward any day.”

The girl flinched. Her hands twisted in his grip, then stilled. When she spoke again, her voice was low, ragged. “It was Marcus.”

The name landed like a blade to the gut. Zander’s stomach heaved, his grip tightening until Cora winced. “Another lie,” he said, flat, his pulse hammering. “Marcus is dead.”

Her chin jerked up, desperate, pleading. “He’s nae. He came to me months past. Alive. Breathing. He swore he’d been spared.”

“She’s nae lyin’ about Marcus,” he heard Skylar’s now soft voice from over her shoulder, followed by a warm hand pressed against his back. “If it’s the same man from the carts?—”

Cora’s head bobbed furiously. “He’s here . It was him. She met him, Zander.”

Zander’s vision blurred red. Marcus. The man he’d cut down in his rage, the man who had vowed to kill Grayson with his last breath. He knew he had slain him. He remembered the weight of the blow, the silence that followed.

He snarled, shaking Cora once. “Ye lie.”

“I swear it!” she cried, tears bright in her eyes. “I thought it a blessing, to ken me braither still lived. I was glad—aye, glad—” Her voice broke. “Until I saw the truth.”

Zander’s jaw clenched. “Speak plainly.”

Her words spilled, frantic now, as if the telling might save her.

“He bade me slip herbs in Grayson’s draught.

Told me it would only weaken, nae kill. That it would make ye desperate, make ye heed him when he came with his demands.

I listened because… because I’d loved him.

Because I didnae understand why he had to die. ”

She swallowed hard, tears streaking her face. “But then?—”

“Then what?” Zander barked.