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“Yer faither died some years ago, and yer braither assumed the lairdship after he was laid to rest.”

Evander’s face fell ever so slightly, but Jack did not seem to notice. Maybe Callum did, for his eyebrows knitted together in concern.

This entire time, Evander had thought his father was alive, stewing over the fact that he had disobeyed him all those years ago. But he had died, and Evander hadn’t had the faintest inkling.

Granted, it would’ve been difficult to get the news to him, but it would’ve been nice to know of the death of his only parent.

“Yer men,” Evander said evenly, each word placed like a stone, “threatened me wife.”

He wasn’t going to touch on the subject of his father, not now. They had more pressing matters to discuss, like the fact that his men dared to threaten Freya to his face.

Jack paused, seeming to reconsider everything he’d planned to say. “Oh, well. In that case, we’re asking ye to assume yer position as Laird.”

“What in the name of God are ye talking about? Ye have just said that me braither assumed lairdship after our faither’s death. Why do ye need me to assume the position?”

“We daenae like this any more than ye do.” Jack’s shoulders dropped, the bluster leaving him all at once, and for the first time he looked less like an envoy sent to negotiate and more like a tired man delivering news he’d hoped never to carry. “Yer braither and his wife died in an attack a fortnight past. We’re… Frankly, we’re at a loss, me Laird. No one left kens how to hold the clan together. If we had any other option⁠—”

He didn’t finish that sentence because Callum stepped forward, anger rolling off him in waves.

Evander had never seen Callum so angry on his behalf before.

He didn’t have to be. Evander was perfectly capable of handling himself right now. Though the shock was still settling in over the fact that he had just learned his father was dead, his brother was dead, and there were two orphaned children now in his care. It was a far cry from how he had expected the day to go when he went to fetch his wife.

He had indeed mentioned needing an heir, but not so soon.

Callum’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, his knuckles going white. “How dare ye ask for the help of the man ye failed years ago?”

Evander shot him a look, and Callum subsided, though his jaw stayed hard as stone and his eyes never left Jack.

“I’m already Laird to a clan,” Evander said. “The very clan ye see here is the clan I am Laird to.”

“Aye, and yer people are welcome to join us. A village stands empty from the wars, houses already built, hearths already laid. They’d have roofs by winter instead of raising new ones from nothing with their own hands,” Jack explained.

It seemed like he was having a hard time getting the words out, let alone saying them to Evander.

Jack had never particularly liked him. He had always thought him too wild. But Evander would give him one thing: he had always been loyal to his brother and a good friend.

When Evander couldn’t be there for his elder brother, Jack picked up the pieces. That had to mean something.

“I’ll think on it.”

“There’s one more thing.”

Evander sighed wearily. “What is it?”

“I didnae come alone.”

“I didnae kill anyone else on the ride here, if that’s yer meaning,” he muttered. “But if they had also threatened me wife, they would have deserved it as the others had.”

“Nay, I ken that.” Jack hesitated, and something about his hesitation made the hairs on the back of Evander’s neck rise, some old instinct warning him that whatever followed would not be simple. “Yer braither had twins, born nae ten months ago, with no living kin on either side now save yerself.”

Evander swallowed. His mind struggled to make sense of what Jack was telling him, let alone comprehend the idea that the twins they had found were the same twins Jack was talking about right now.

It couldn’t be, and yet it was.

He thought of the baby boy’s easy smile and the baby girl’s stubborn scowl, the way the laddie had curled into his arms as though he were something safe rather than something built for war.

He’d assumed they were strangers left by careless hands, orphans of some misfortune he’d never trace back to its source. But not blood. Not his brother’s blood. Not the very children his kin had died leaving behind, delivered to him not by chance but by some cruel design he didn’t yet understand.