Page 25 of Married to the Scarred Highlander (Unwanted Highland Wives #4)

25

F lames roared around him, tall as giants, eating away at the keep that had been his childhood home. The air was thick with smoke and screams, the stench of burning flesh choking his lungs as if he were there again. That night.

“Ciaran!” a voice called out, and he spun around, though his movements were sluggish as if he were underwater.

Heart hammering in his chest, he tried to locate the scream, but the fire was too thick. Shadows danced in the inferno, flickering figures of the people had had once called his family.

He ran toward her voice, his legs slow and heavy, as if the fire had stolen the strength from his limbs.

Then, he saw her. His mother. Trapped beneath the wooden beam, her arms reaching toward him, her eyes—his eyes—wide with terror and resolve.

“Ciaran, go!”

“I cannae leave ye!” he bellowed, fighting against the heat, his skin blistering and peeling, but it was too late.

The beam collapsed.

She was gone. Swallowed whole into the darkness.

A scream tore through his chest, but it wasn’t his own. It was another man’s scream—piercing. He turned toward the sound, and he was standing in the middle of the marketplace.

Empty faces in the crowd stood and judged his every movement.

These men must be punished. Every single one of them, including this man.

His father.

The great Laird MacAitken was cowering at his feet, his eyes wide with fear and hatred. He had left them. He had left them all inside the keep to die. He had fled.

Thick rage boiled in Ciaran’s chest, hotter than the fire around him.

“Please, Son, dinnae do this,” his father pleaded, his voice unnaturally high-pitched.

It was so unlike the man Ciaran had once feared.

He stepped forward, his sword heavy in his hand, the flames of his nightmares reflecting wildly in the steel, engulfing his youth and his patience.

“Who better to show ye the only mercy ye deserve than yer son?” His voice sounded foreign to his own ears, warped by hatred and menacing.

His father lifted his chin, his fear turning into fury. “Ye ungrateful whelp! I gave ye everything! I made ye into who ye are!”

Ciaran stared at him, the crowd around them fading into nothingness until it was just him and the man he once knew to be his father. A sniveling excuse for a man.

He let his wife die to save his own skin, and he left his heir behind as well. The man cannae live another day.

It had to be done.

To right the wrong.

Rebalance fate.

“This is yer legacy,” his father spat. “Ye can kill me, but ye cannae kill the monster in yer blood. Ye’ll be just like me one day.”

Ciaran struck then, a single tear searing his scars as it rolled down his cheek. The blade sliced through flesh, silencing his father forever. The crowd came back into view as he breathed laboriously. The silence was numbing.

His world plunged into darkness.

And then?—

He heard the birdsong outside the window, but his eyes were glued shut. The chaos of his nightmares lurked past lucidity. He couldn’t escape it as he once was able to. Usually, his father’s death loosened its grip on him and he woke, but not now.

Now, he was being watched.

He spun around and around, searching the corners of his mind for what was watching him, and his gut twisted with a fear that he was unfamiliar with.

His breath hitched, his chest tightening. The thick smoke gave way. It curled around her, threatening to swallow her too.

He reached for her. Her piercing blue eyes clouded over, the distress in them clear.

“Laura,” he called out, reaching for her, but she didn’t come to him. “Nay, wait—Laura! Nay!”

He called out again, sprinting toward her, and yet she retreated further and further away.

“Lass, please,” he begged, his heart lurching.

Ciaran woke up with a start. His breath came fast and ragged, the weight of the nightmare pressing against his ribs like an iron brand. His body was coated in sweat despite the cold morning air drifting through the slightly open window.

The demons of his nightmares had spawned, and his nerves felt as if they had been dragged across hot coals. He pressed his hands to his face, dragging them down over his heart, trying to shake the nightmare off his bones.

The fire had long been buried in his past, yet it never stayed there. It crawled through his dreams like a living thing, slithering back into his mind when he least expected it, though the visits became more predictable with time.

It was the scent of burned flesh.

The pleas of a coward.

His mother’s cries for help.

His father’s last words.

They always found him.

But this time, Laura was in it.

She had just watched him. Blue eyes cutting through the smoke, clear and steady. Filled with disappointment and something like pity. Standing at the edges of the wreckage, untouched. Judging.

His only regrets in his life were tied to those nightmares. He had been unable to save his mother. He should have killed his father sooner.

This was new, though.

The doubt in her silent gaze was terrifying.

Ciaran exhaled slowly and threw his legs over the side of the bed, bracing his forearms on his knees. The ache in his muscles from the attack the night before was nothing compared to the storm raging inside him.

His fingers curled against his thighs, the scars along his arms and neck burning like fresh new wounds.

She would be haunting him now.

When he closed his eyes, she would be there. When he woke up, her memory would be lingering on the edges of his mind.

Ciaran groaned low and pushed himself to his feet.

Maither.

Faither.

Wife.

He didn’t let his demons cloud his duty for much longer. The birdsong changed, and with it, so did Ciaran. His hard exterior fell back into place as he mentally categorized the shards of his soul that he’d lost. He was Laird MacAitken, and there was work to be done.

His footsteps echoed in the corridor as he strode through the keep purposefully. The surviving attackers had been herded into the courtyard, their hands bound, their faces drawn and grim as they awaited his judgment.

The morning air was dense and tinged with the stench of blood and sweat, the echoes of battle still lingering in the stone walls of the keep. As he passed the windows down the grand staircase, he noticed a few of the men clutching their injuries.

Laura truly healed them all, despite their betrayal?

Ciaran made a beeline for the courtyard, eager to get this part of the treachery behind him, only to be met by Ersie. She was standing at the entrance, her arms crossed, blocking his path. Her sharp eyes scanned his face, her expression obvious.

“What will ye do to them?” she asked, tilting her head slightly as her eyes landed on the hilt of his sword. “Cut them all down? Be the monster they think ye are?”