Page 6 of The Laird's Dark Obsession

Hunter’s jaw tightened until his teeth hurt from how hard he was clenching them. Pouring himself a whisky, he gulped it down in one go before putting ink to parchment. It was a letter for that bastard, Laird Fairbairn, letting him know that his compliance was mandatory if he wanted his precious daughter returned to him.

He would promise her alive, but perhaps not unharmed. A satisfied smirk spread across his face as his quill quickened.

“Make sure our fastest horse carries this message directly to him,” Hunter stated as he stamped his official wax seal onto the folded paper.

At last. Revenge was in motion.

3

It wasn’t long after daybreak that Kira found herself at the window, staring out at the gardens that once held smiling faces and happy memories. There was even a time when Hunter had brought her flowers from that very garden, having presented them to her because he had seen her crying. It was back when he spoke to her like she mattered, as though he hung on every word.

For just that moment, in the privacy of dawn, Kira looked down at the neat rows of flowers and remembered Hunter before it all went wrong. He was a couple of years older than her, but even in her youth, she knew that Hunter was much too serious for his age. While he would play with her and the other children of the Keep, he communicated in nods and rarely smiled. When he played, he was intense and focused. But he hadn’t been sad nor angry, it had simply been his nature. Firm and confident, wise beyond his years, and forever patient. He made all those around him feel safe and heard.

Hundreds of memories flooded her then. Hunter treating a boy’s scraped knee, her crying on Hunter’s shoulder and him simply listening and patting her back, and times when there would be arguing amongst their parents and he would usher her away while shielding her ears.

All precious memories…

All turned to ash and bitterness.

It wasn’t often that Kira let herself mourn for what was and what could have been, but as she stared down at the same rose bushes that had produced the flowers young Hunter had given her, she felt it. The wide, aching void that was always in her chest and that she was always trying to distract herself from. The place Hunter used to live, as well as a young girl’s dreams for their future together.

The door was flung open, the wood bouncing off the wall behind it with a booming thud. A young lady in a navy dress stormed in, looking ready to strike Kira. She began to wonder exactly who it was when she noticed her hazel eyes. The same brown-green hues that Hunter had, but hers were a bit darker and the brown a touch more dominant.

“Edine?” she breathed.

Kira could hardly wrap her mind around the fact that Hunter’s younger sister, who once clung to her skirts and asked for rides on her back was a young lady. She had to have been on the cusp of adulthood by then. Edine had her mother’s chestnut curls and their father’s Roman nose—a fury that rivaled Hunter’s burning in her eyes.

“What are ye doing here?” Edine snapped. “Have ye nay decency at all? Then again, I suppose ye never had any to begin with.”

Kira swallowed the urge to flinch at just how much the words stung. She bit the inside of her cheek as she watched Edine stop short of her, folding her arms over her chest. She was the same height as Kira then and radiated confidence as much as she did rage.

Just like her brother.

And that same brother was the problem right then. Edineadoredher brother back then, and Kira doubted that in the wake of their parents deaths it would have shifted in the other direction. There wasn’t any way for her to be blunt and honest with her.

“Hunter brought me here with talk of reparations for the past. Which I am going to oblige in any reasonable way I can,” Kira said gently. It was hard not to talk to her in the same tone she did all those years ago, but Edine wasn’t a small child anymore.

Edine scoffed and narrowed her eyes. “Ye expect me to believe my brother brought ye here by choice?” She took a step closer, a sneer on her face. “Ye dinnae fool me, Kira. Ye’re a wretched snake and I demand to ken what in God’s blazes ye’re doing in my family’s Keep!”

Her voice bounced off the floral wallpaper walls and attached itself to Kira’s flesh. Edine, the one who had been a little sister to her, viewed her as a snake. She swallowed it, just as she did all else.

“I can assure ye, I dinnae come here of my own volition. Nae… Nae that I am hiding, but that I would nae dare visit here without permission.”

Can I consider it permission when I was forced?Kira’s thoughts scoffed.

“Enough,” a gruff voice called from the doorway.

Kira looked over to see Hunter moving in, shooting annoyed glances at the guards before nodding at them to move with him.

“Edine, we shall talk later. Dinnae interfere with my affairs.”

“Ye cannae seriously be entertaining this woman!” she hissed.

“Edine.”

It was a warning, and a final one by the look on his face. Long gone was the sweet boy who loved his sister above all else. Now the hard, strong Laird who could do anything with a snap of his fingers or a bark of his throat was in his place.

“We shall talk later. Return to yer chambers at once.”