Page 5 of The Highlander’s Defiant Bride

Sorcha’s expression hardened. “Safe? With them? Has he lost his wits? The Munros would burn a kirk if it stood between them and what they wanted.”

Destiny’s hands trembled in Sorcha’s grasp. “He says their strength will protect me. That the cattle they offer and the coin it will produce will save the clan. But all I hear is the sound of chains.”

Sorcha pulled her close, wrapping her arms around her. Destiny resisted at first, stiff and trembling, but then she collapsed against her friend, clutching her tightly.

“I cannot do this,” Destiny whispered. “I cannot be sold like a beast.”

“Is there some relative you can flee to?” Sorcha’s voice softened, fierce with love.

Destiny shook her head.

Sorcha lifted her chin. “Then make the best of the situation. The Munro might take your hand, but not your soul. You will find a way to make this arrangement work, Destiny Gunn. You always do.”

Destiny closed her eyes, the comfort of those words sinking deep. For a long while they stayed that way, two women holding each other in the quiet flicker of the fire. When Destiny finally lifted her head, her tears had dried, leaving only a fragile calm. “Father thinks he has won,” she murmured. “But he does not know me as well as he believes. If I must marry a Munro, then I will do it on my own terms.”

Sorcha searched her face, apparently seeing the steel beneath the sorrow, and gave a single, resolute nod. “Aye then. We will face it together. I will send word to my brother that my stay is extended. I will travel with you to Foulis Castle so that you will not have to bear this situation alone.”

“Thank you, my friend. That means everything to me.” Destiny’s gaze drifted to the window, where the afternoon sun had begun to fade. “A fortnight,” she whispered. “Two weeks to say farewell to everything I have known and to prepare for whatever comes next.”

Chapter Two

Tuesday, November 15th, 1715

The moors of Brahan Castle

Mist lay thick over the moor, shrouding the world in ghostly silence. It clung to armour and horsehair, softening sound and shape until everything seemed suspended between dream and reality. For a fleeting moment, Cameron Munro found comfort in that. The mist hid the faces of his enemy, hid fear.

Then came the rumble of carts, the jangle of bridles, and the slow, grinding rhythm of hundreds of boots, and the spell was broken. The army advanced towards Brahan Castle and the Mackenzies’ clan, towards the reckoning that had been promised since the Munros’ defeat a month ago.

Cameron rode beside his father, Robert Munro of Foulis, the clan’s laird and its iron heart. The Earl of Sutherland flanked them on the opposite side. They rode under the banner of the king as they had many times before in battle, but Cameron knew better. It was not loyalty that drove these two men forward; it was vengeance. His father would never forgive the Mackenzies for the humiliation they had dealt the Munros at the Skirmish of Alness, and the laird would spill blood freely to wash the disgrace away.

Around them, men rode in tight formation. Cameron’s brothers, Gavan and Kenzie, were close by, followed by fifty mounted warriors in red and black, and muted blue and green tartan, then the archers, the swordsmen, and behind them all, the lumbering cannons that groaned with every rut in the earth. The army was a beast of muscle and fury, caged only by the mist. And even as they marched towards war, Cameron wished it were otherwise.

Clan Munro had sworn loyalty to George I not as a hollow formality, but as a mantle of responsibility. The king sought peace among the clans as earnestly as Cameron did, believing, as Cameron believed, that allegiance to the Hanoverian crown offered a path away from endless feuds and retaliations. It was a vow meant to still old hatreds, not stir them anew.

Cameron only wished his father honoured that promise as faithfully as he demanded it of others. War with the Mackenzies, no matter how justified it was claimed to be, fractured the very peace they had sworn to uphold. The memories Cameron carried weighed heavier than any argument shouted across a council table. He remembered neighbours lost to old vendettas, blackened barns standing like gravestones against the hills, and widows who’d learned too young how grief hollowed the chest.

Peace would benefit all the clans, not just Munro. Stability, predictable justice, and restraint were the only shields strong enough to protect the next generation. If the king’s rule could offer the children of Foulis Castle a future unmarred by the constant spectre of bloodshed, then Cameron would stand with that king, even when his heart longed for fields ready for harvest rather than men striding towards war. But today such wishes would never be his. Today, his father wanted war in the king’s name, and Cameron and his brothers would give the laird of the Munros exactly that.

When the first towers of Brahan Castle loomed from the mist, the enemy revealed themselves as blue and green-tartaned shadows rising from the haze. Cameron’s pulse thudded. He could not see the Mackenzie clan’s full numbers, but instinct told him the two armies were evenly matched. This would be no easy victory.

His father drew his sword high, his war cry slicing through the muffled dawn. The line broke forward. The cavalry thundered across the moor, a tide of steel and plaid. The earth itself seemed to quake beneath the charge.

Cameron spurred his horse after them, his heartbeat syncing with the pounding of hooves. Arrows rained down from the grey sky. A scream, a crash, the sharp ring of blades, then chaos. The world dissolved into movement and noise, the acrid scent of powder and the copper tang of blood.

A rider in Mackenzie blue and green bore down on him. Cameron met him head-on, their blades striking in a flurry of sparks. The man’s face twisted in rage; his shout lost in the storm of sound. Cameron ducked low, slashed upward, and the man toppled, his blood dark against the mist. Another attacker came, and another. Cameron’s world narrowed to a rhythm of parry, strike, breathe, until there was nothing but the blur of bodies and the clang of swords.

Then, through the chaos, he saw his father. Laird Robert Munro was fighting three men at once, his sword flashing like lightning. Cameron’s stomach clenched. One of the Mackenzies struck his father’s horse, sending it rearing. Robert hit the ground hard. Another man wheeled his horse and drove its hooves towards him.

“Da!” The cry tore from Cameron’s throat.

He beckoned his horse forward, scattering soldiers in his path. Gavan and Kenzie followed, sensing the same dread. But they were too late. Robert dodged the horse’s crushing hooves only to meet a waiting blade. The sword plunged deep into his side, then another into his chest.

Cameron leapt from his horse, catching his father as he fell. Blood soaked through his plaid, hot and slick. “Nay, Da!” Cameron choked, pressing a strip of torn tartan against the wound. “Stay with me.”

Robert coughed, crimson flecking his beard. His eyes, once fierce, flickered with something close to regret. “My son, my heir,” he rasped. “Carry on. Avenge me. Make me proud.”

Cameron’s vision blurred, but he pressed harder against the wound, desperate to save his father. “Do not speak. You will live.”