Page 98 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

It was not enough. Cormac moved where the map remained empty. He struck through grief, pride, festival music and every weakness Roy recognized only after it had been used against them.

Roy had entered Dun Ard beneath the King’s decree. Since then, Donaldina had been dragged toward a cliff, shut outside her own castle, seized from a crowded festival and carried into the forest.

Cormac wanted control before Roy arrived. Yet Roy’s presence had given the man a target. Every choice Roy made seemed to bring violence closer to her.

His hand closed around one of the wooden markers. It broke between his fingers.

Donaldina looked up.

Roy set the pieces upon the map. “I require air.”

He left before she could answer. The corridors of Dun Ard felt narrower than usual. Servants moved aside at his approach. Two guards near the western stair straightened, and Roy nearly ordered them to inspect the apiary wall again merely because he could not bear the sight of men standing idle.

He climbed instead. Cold struck him as he emerged upon the battlements. The sea stretched black beneath the late afternoon sky. Wind drove against the cliffs, filling the air with salt and the distant violence of waves upon rock. Roy crossed to the outer wall and gripped the wet stone.

The cold should have cleared his thoughts. It did not.

He saw Donaldina in Cormac’s grasp, her on the horse, her shaking beside her bed while insisting she was fine. Roy bowed his head. The battlement door opened behind him. He did not turn.

“Ye left quickly,” Donaldina said.

“The council was finished.”

“The council was finished ten minutes before ye broke a marker and fled from it.”

“I didnae flee.”

“Nae. Ye advanced rapidly in another direction.”

Her footsteps approached. Roy looked toward the sea. Donaldina stopped beside him, near enough that the sleeve of her cloak brushed his arm. The wind pulled loose strands from her braid and pressed the wool against her body.

Neither spoke for a moment.

“The patrols are sound,” she said at last.

“They have gaps.”

“All patrols have gaps.”

“Cormac requires only one.”

“And we require only one man tae see him.”

Roy’s hand tightened upon the stone.

“Ye believe this is a calculation.”

“I believe everything becomes one when ye are frightened.”

He turned toward her. Donaldina did not retreat.

“I am nae frightened.”

“Then ye are doing an excellent imitation.”

The wind struck between them. Roy wanted to deny it. He wanted to return to the hall, review every route again and bury fear beneath orders until exhaustion made thought impossible.

Donaldina had already seen too much of him for the lie to survive.