Page 195 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
That hit too near the truth to ignore.
Ciaran turned away, dragged a hand over his face, and tried to force the yard back into focus. It should have been simple, but nothing in it was.
Hector stepped closer. “What is going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Aye, and I am a priest.”
Ciaran said nothing.
Hector waited patiently. He had become very good at that. Too good.
The yard around them held nothing but the usual noise.
Eventually, Ciaran exhaled and looked across the set of mountains on the horizon. “I want out of this marriage.”
Hector blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Ciaran exhaled. “Ye heard me.”
Hector folded his arms across his chest. “Did ye hearye?”
Ciaran sighed. “This isnae a joke, Brother. I need to find a way to annul this marriage without starting a war with our oldest ally.”
Hector gaped at him. “What?”
Ciaran kept his eyes on the far mountains because looking at his brother while saying it made the whole thing sound even madder. “Again, Hector, ye heard me.”
“Why?”
Ciaran opened his mouth to say something about politics, timing, incompatibility, household order, any lie that sounded practical enough to stand upright. What came out instead was the truth.
“Because I wasnae supposed to like her, for God’s sake.”
The yard seemed to grow still around the words, though the men at the edges kept moving. Hector did not answer.
Ciaran could hear himself breathing. He felt the fury of the confession in his own chest.
Like her.That was his dilemma.
He didn’t just desire her. He actuallylikedher. He liked riding beside her. He liked hearing her laugh. He liked the way she spoke back, stayed, asked for more, and looked at him as if there were still a man under the name everyone else used. She didn’t see him as theSilent Death,and that right there was the problem.
She saw him as a man. He couldn’t deal with that. He couldn’t face the vulnerability that would come with dealing with a woman who treated him as a human being and expected the same from him.
“Now isnae the time for ye to grow mute, Hector,” he scoffed.
Hector’s face gave away very little, which made the waiting worse.
Ciaran was about to say something harsh, perhaps to shut the matter down before his brother could answer at all, when movement at the far end of the yard caught his eye.
Hector saw it as well and narrowed his eyes.“Wait, is that?—”
“Aye,” Ciaran responded before he could finish.
Ava was running toward him, and she looked… upset. He could also tell that whatever she was upset about wasn’t ordinary. She was moving too fast, with no care for her dress or the men in her path. Her face was pale, and her breath was breaking before she even reached him.
Something inside him locked tight. He was already moving when she stumbled on the uneven ground near the practice ring and caught her before she fell.
