Page 26 of The Highlander’s Enchanted Healer (Spellbound Hearts #2)

Munro stepped forward, as did the two other warriors who wore Gordon plaids.

I couldn’t recall their names, but their faces were familiar, and by the pleading looks they gave me, I knew they recognized me.

As I pushed a blanket through the opening, Munro surprised me by catching my wrist in a viselike grip.

His thoughts sliced through my mind like white-hot lightning. I heard him speaking aloud, but I couldn’t make out what he said over his inner thoughts.

Ramsey will surely kill me for allowing myself to be seen by his sister.

I’d like to come between her thighs and—

“If ye do nae release yer hold on Lady Aria at once, I’m going to cut off yer hand.”

Ross’s hard unforgiving growl cut through my haze of mind reading. All at once, the noise around me came crashing in.

“He grabbed her, Laird! He would nae let go! Are ye hurt, Aria?” Isla asked, her arm coming to my shoulder as Munro release me.

I looked at the wrist he’d held in his tight grip and saw red, angry impressions left by his fingers. Tremors raked my body at once, and I nearly crumpled to the ground but for Isla and Ross, who snaked his arm out and tugged me to his side with his free hand. In his other, he held his sword.

“Are ye hurt, lass?” he asked, his tone gentle and his breath a warm waft over my cheek.

I was not injured. Not really. I was in shock at the confirmation that Ramsey had indeed let Munro go, but injury was an excellent excuse for my shaking and near falling.

“Aye,” I said, my voice shaking from the discovery of Ramsey’s duplicity.

Why would he allow Munro to live? Why would he lie about it?

How did Munro get here? I could not, in good conscience, aid Ramsey with anything I may discover until I had answers.

But then I realized I had already given him all the details he needed to thwart Ross’s next attack.

What was I going to do? I could not warn Ross without revealing who I was and putting my own clan in danger.

But I could not allow Ross to lead his men into a battle he would undoubtedly lose.

His men could die. He could die. The thought made my knees weak again, and I had to clutch at him to keep from falling once more.

“I think she’s had a severe fright, Laird,” Isla said beside me as Ross scooped me off my feet and pressed me to his chest.

“Aye,” he replied. “I’m going to take her to her chamber. Ye—” The word was sharp as honed steel, and I followed his gaze to Munro. “—I’ll deal with ye later.”

“I’ll be here waiting,” Munro said, showing a broken-toothed smile that set a chill down my spine. “Sorry I gave ye a fright, Lady Aria. Come to visit me again anytime.”

I turned my face away from him, not wanting him to see my utter disgust. The only way I had to hide the emotions I was certain my expression was showing was to turn my face into Ross’s chest.

“Shut yer mouth before I relieve ye of yer tongue,” Ross snarled, then turned away from Munro to carry me up the stairs. Isla fell into step behind us.

Once we were out of the dungeon and in the courtyard, I said, “Ye can put me down. I feel better.” Truth be told, held so tightly in his arms, with the steady solid rhythm of his heart beating in my ear and his warmth seeping into me, my emotions were roiling like the ocean during a great storm, and I was imagining things I should not.

Like Ross and I together once more, naked and entwined in each other’s arms, and Ross and I wed, and Ross and I with bairns.

I’d never imagined a future with an enemy before, and here I was, fantasizing about a man who, if he was not truly my enemy, I had betrayed.

There wasn’t a good outcome for us. Of that, I was certain.

Ross didn’t seem to have heard my saying he could put me down, so I said it again, louder. “I’m well now. Ye can put me down.”

“Isla, ye can make yer way back to the kitchens now,” Ross said to Isla instead of acknowledging me. I frowned at that.

“Aye, Laird,” Isla said and parted ways with us in the courtyard.

When she was far enough away that I knew she wouldn’t hear me, I said, “Is there a reason ye’re nae putting me down?” I glanced up at Ross. His jaw was clenched so much that I could see a tick in it.

His fingers curled tightly around my legs. “Aye, lass. I can nae,” he answered, kicking open the castle door and making for the stairs that led to the bedchambers.

I felt my eyebrows dip into a deep frown. “Ye can nae?”

“I can nae,” he reiterated as we gained the top of the stairs, and he strode down the corridor and into my bedchamber.

He paused just inside the door and, with the tip of his shoe, closed it.

It swished shut, and I was acutely aware of the tension strumming through him.

I could feel it in the tenseness of his body and the quickening of his breath.

“What’s the matter?” I whispered into the silence that was stretching between us.

He glanced down at me then, and the tenderness in the depth of his gaze made something blossom in my chest. It was not love; it was a feeling akin to turning my face to the sun, or floating in the water, or galloping on my destrier through the countryside.

It was exhilaration. It was happiness. It was the beginning of love. I was falling for Ross.

If a war of emotions could play out on a face, then a battle was certainly occurring within Ross.

Indecision skittered across his features, followed by a grim expression, and then something that looked akin to one my da would sometimes get when my mama gained the upper hand in an argument, one of defeat.

“When I saw that man with his hand gripped on yer wrist and the fear on yer face, I nae only was enraged for ye and worried he had hurt ye, but I immediately considered how Alba must have felt being held down and violated by the Gordons.”

My throat tightened with the secret I needed to somehow bring to light about Munro.

Ross strode to the bed and ever so gently set me down, and then, to my surprise, he kneeled before me.

He was close enough that I could feel his heat, smell his scent of woods and rain, and see the glittering pain the memories caused him, but he wasn’t so close that we were touching.

He shoved a hand through his thick dark locks and spoke again. “Roger will be here tomorrow. I received word back from my missive.”

It was not what I had expected him to say. Actually, I did not honestly know what I expected, but I did not think it was that. Still, it was good news. “Excellent! I’ll see if I can get Alba to bathe tomorrow.”

He nodded, looking contemplative. He rocked back on his haunches and set his forearms on his legs to entwine his hands between his muscular thighs. “If yer idea works, if Alba begins speaking again, if—Well if I win the upcoming battle against the Gordons, I—”

My heart was thundering with each word he uttered, and a strange, complicated hope blossomed within me.

“Would ye consider—” He frowned. “Nay. Forget I said—”

“I could nae forget,” I said, part of me wanting to reach to him and grab his hand, but in this moment, I didn’t want to hear his inner thoughts unless he wanted me to. It wasn’t natural, and it wasn’t fair.

“Ye are under my skin, Aria.”

I was a liar. A liar was under his skin, but all the same, joy burst within me.

“Ye are all I can think about. I watch yer progress with Alba. I watch ye, because I am drawn to ye like a moth to flame.”

I understood completely. My throat was dry, my heart was pounding, and the ache between my thighs that I had only ever experienced with him sprang to life.

“I do nae have a right to ask ye to wait, because I dunnae ken if any of the things I just mentioned may happen, so I do nae even ken how long I’d be asking ye to wait. And that is nae fair, so I will nae ask. But I wanted ye to ken before I left for battle tomorrow that I want to ask.”

May the gods help me, I wanted that, too.

But how could I when I did not even know the truth yet, and he did nae ken who I was.

What I had done. How I had lied. I had to somehow stop him from going tomorrow.

I had to discover the truth of who had killed my family.

I did not think it was Ross’s da, because I could nae imagine Ross agreeing to go along with that.

He was too honorable, too good. But I needed the proof.

I’d believed the lie for so long that I’d spent my last six years cultivating the desire for vengeance based on that lie.

I needed the truth. And when I got it, I would have to give him my truth, which would undoubtedly make me lose him, but I would give it.

Tears pressed behind my eyelids. I had to dissuade him from going, but how?

“Aria, ye are in my head.”

If he only kenned how ironic his statement was.

His gaze held mine as he leaned so close to me, I could feel the warmth of his exhalation upon my lips.

Desire gripped me in its iron fists. “I want,” he said.

The two words were ragged. He ran his eyes over me, and it felt as if he were trailing his fingers over my skin.

Gooseflesh peppered my arm, and I inhaled a sharp breath. “Do ye feel it, Aria?”

I nodded. “I want, too,” I said, my three words ravaged by my need for him.

He nodded, rose, and walked to the door. “Send prayers to the gods for my win in battle.”

“When do ye leave?” I asked, so that I would know how much time I had to find a way to persuade him not to go.

“Twilight tomorrow,” he replied. With that, he left me sitting there. I watched him walk out the door and, when it shut, I felt a piece of my heart go with him.