Page 24 of The Icy Highlander's Virgin

"The night he tried to break me for the last time." The words came out flat, emotionless. "I painted his face, and then I... destroyed it."

"And turned it into somethin' beautiful," she observed.

Beautiful.

There was that word again. How could she see beauty in something born from such ugliness?

"Ye think it's beautiful?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"I think it's powerful. And aye, beautiful too. But also..." She paused, searching for words. "Painful. There's so much pain in it."

"Does that frighten ye?" The question came out more harshly than he'd intended. "Knowin' what I'm capable of? Knowin' the violence that lives in me?"

She turned to look at him then, those dark eyes serious and unwavering. "What violence?"

"I killed him," Lachlan said bluntly. "Me own father. Cut him down in front of the entire clan."

"Tell me what happened that night."

Why? So ye can confirm yer worst fears about the monster ye've married?

"Ye daenae want to hear this."

"I do. Tell me."

Something in her voice—calm, steady, unafraid—made him want to tell her. Made him want to share the burden he'd carried alone for so long.

"He was drunk," Lachlan began, the words coming slowly. "More than usual. I'd made some small mistake—looked at him wrong or spoken when I should have been silent. The details daenae matter."

"What matters is what he did to ye."

"He had his belt. Always the belt when he wanted to really hurt me." Lachlan's jaw tightened. "But this time, it wasnae enough for him. He wanted his hands on me, wanted to feel the bones break."

Erica's breath caught, but she didn't interrupt.

"He knocked me down, started kickin'. Ribs, mostly. I could hear them crackin'." The memories were as vivid as ifthey'd happened yesterday. "The clan was watchin'—it was me eighteenth birthday, and they'd come to celebrate. Instead, they got to watch their future laird get beaten like a dog."

"What did ye do?"

"At first? Nothin'. I was used to it, ye ken. Used to takin' whatever he dished out and waitin' for it to end." Lachlan's voice grew darker. "But then he said somethin' about me maither. About how she'd run off because she couldnae stand the sight of the weakling she'd birthed."

"And that's when ye fought back."

"That's when I lost control." The distinction was important to him. "I grabbed his own sword and put it through his heart before I even realized what I was doin'."

"That makes ye someone who survived," she said firmly. "Someone who refused to die when a cruel man tried to kill ye."

"Erica..."

"What would ye have had me do?" she continued, her voice growing passionate. "If someone had been beatin' me to death in front of everyone I'd ever kent, should I have just laid there and let him finish the job?"

"It's different when it's yer own blood," he muttered.

"Is it? Blood doesnae give someone the right to hurt ye. If anythin', it makes the betrayal worse."

She spoke with a conviction that suggested personal experience, and Lachlan found himself wondering what she'd endured in the past.

"Ye speak as if ye ken," he said carefully.