Page 231 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
She narrowed her eyes at him and racked her brain for a clue. Then, suddenly, it hit her. She had heard Isobel recount the story over and over back at MacKenna Castle.
“Once in a while, I try to wonder what Isla’s father must have gone through when he heard the news.”
Ciaran had told her about the event that made people call him theSilent Death. The same event that made him lose most of his voice.
Her blood instantly ran cold, and her back went rigid.
The old man saw that she knew before she said it.
“Aye,” he sneered. “There it is.”
The wind ruffled her hair again. Still, she did not move.
“Ye daenae deserve to live and bear heirs for that vile family,” he said. “Nae while me own child was lost to them.”
The words hit with a different kind of violence than ropes or blows. Her fear sharpened into anger as he took one step nearer.
“They buried me daughter and kept breathing. They kept their lands. Their names. Their line. And ye were meant to strengthen it.”
Ava stared at him through the dark and felt the whole shape of it settle. The fire. The road. The choice to takeher. None of this was chance. None of it had been.
“’Tis ye,” she forced out, her voice thick. “Ye’re Isla’s father. Laird O’Malley.”
For the first time, something changed in his expression. Grief entered it, plain and terrible and old. Ava saw then that the hatred had grown around a real wound. She saw it and hated him still.
“She was me world.”
“Shehad a name,” she fired back.
His eyes fixed on hers. And on the cliff above the dark, with armed men at her back and vengeance in front of her, Ava knew with full certainty that this was never about ransom, never about opportunity, and never about her alone.
She had been taken to stand in for the life Laird O’Malley believed Ciaran’s family had no right to take.
“She had a life too,” he continued, his voice just as low. “One they took from her.”
“Ye speak as if she were livestock stolen from a field.” Ava kept her voice steady, though her wrists throbbed, and the drop at her back kept pulling at the edge of her thoughts. “She wasyerdaughter. She was a woman. She made choices.”
His eyes sharpened. “Mind yer tongue.”
“Nay.” The word came out before fear could thin it. “Ye daenae get to put all of it at Ciaran’s feet and call it justice. Isla couldnaebear what happened. That bloodbath began because of men and rage and pride long before she died.”
A hand clamped harder on her upper arm. One of the men behind her forced her half a step nearer the cliff, and a low groan of pain escaped her lips. Loose stones shifted under her shoes and fell away into the dark.
Laird O’Malley watched her flinch and seemed to take some satisfaction in it. “Ye speak too boldly for a woman standing where ye are right now.”
“And ye, old man, speak too casually of yer daughter for someone who helped make her life unbearable.”
His mouth twisted, and he took two slow steps closer to her until she could smell damp wool and stale age on him. “Ye ken nothing.”
“I ken enough.” Ava lifted her chin. “I ken she didnae ride into that wedding believing everyone would die. I ken she cried out when she saw it, and I ken yer hatred has had a decade to fester and still hasnae taught ye the truth.”
He reached out and seized the front of her dress. His grip was shockingly strong for his age. He dragged her closer still, enough that the wind from the drop struck harder at her side.
“I wasnae there that day.” Each word came with careful force. “I didnae stand in that hall and watch the slaughter. But I watchedwhat happened after. I watched me daughter waste away, and I watched her choose the cliff over her own life after that family was done with her.”
Ava’s breath caught.
The men behind her shifted. One of them looked away. Laird O’Malley did not.
