Page 199 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
“And doing a poor job of being welcome company while ye do it.”
Silence followed that.
Ava rose and came nearer, not enough to cast a shadow beneath the door, only enough to listen.
“Ye cannae hurt her again,” Isobel chided, her voice clear despite the piece of wood between them. “She is too nice for that.”
A small sound came from Ciaran, not quite a laugh, but near enough that Ava almost saw him in front of her. “Too nice?”
“Aye.”
“She has been a full hellion with me since the day I met her.”
“Are ye proving me point for me, Brother?”
The answer came too quickly for Ava to stop the small breath that escaped her. It was the first amused sound that had escaped her in days.
Outside, Isobel knocked once. “Ava?”
Ava paused.
“He is gone already. ’Tis just me at the door. Open it, please.”
Ava hesitated only a second before lifting the bar.
Isobel slipped inside at once and shut the door behind her. She took one look at Ava as Ava moved to the bedpost and her expression changed. The sharpness she had used on Ciaran vanished as she crossed the room without ceremony and caught Ava’s hands in hers.
“Oh, ye look dreadful.”
“I feel worse.”
“I can believe it.”
That directness helped. So did Isobel’s hands, warm and real and steady after days of being alone with fear.
“What is the news?” Ava asked. The question tore out of her before anything else could. “Tell me at once.”
Isobel squeezed her fingers. “Yer father is alive.”
The relief hit so hard that Ava had to sit down at once. The air left her lungs in a whoosh, and her knees trembled. She bowed her head and covered her mouth with her hand while the room blurred for a moment.
“Safe?” she whispered.
“Aye. Shaken, and I expect in a temper, but alive. A messenger came. The castle is lost. There was too much fire and too little time. But yer father is already on his way here.”
Ava squeezed her eyes shut.
MacKenna Castle was gone. The rooms where she had grown up, the corridors, the tower, the old, worn places of her childhood—all of it was either blackened or fallen.
The loss hurt sharply. Yet beneath it, stronger for this one moment, came pure relief.
Her father lived.
He was riding toward her.
She would see him again.
When she opened her eyes, Isobel was still there, watching her with quiet concern.
