Page 95 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

His expression changed. It was terrible to watch, the way the cunning drained out of it and left only something hungry. He reached for her, fingers stretching across the gap.

Marcas saw it.

He seized Cailleach by the front of his coat and hauled him upright until their faces were a hand apart. "Ye'll never touch her again."

Cailleach smiled through the blood. "Ye cannae keep her forever, MacKinnon."

Marcas's eyes were cold.

"Maybe not." He reached down for the sword lying beside them, the weight of it settling into his palm like something that had always been meant to be there. "But ye willnae take another moment of her life."

The blade sliced at Cailleach’s neck and his body went slack in Marcas’s grip. Marcas lowered him gently, almost without thought, to the floor. For a long moment he stayed on his knees over him, breathing hard, the sword hanging from his hand and its point trembling against the stone. The red was bright on his sleeve, bright on his knuckles. The room had gone entirely silent.

Then Neilina said his name.

"Marcas."

He turned.

She was standing only a few feet away, still holding the broken length of wood. Her knuckles were white around it. He stared at her as though he’d given up hope of seeing her survive. He crossed the room, and the sword fell from his hand and struck the floor behind him, forgotten.

His hands closed on her shoulders, careful despite the shaking in them. "Are ye hurt?"

She shook her head.

"Neilina."

"Nae. I'm nae hurt."

He searched her face anyway. His eyes went over her throat, where the thin red line had dried to a thread. Her arms. Her waist. The ruined sleeve.

"Is this yers?" His voice came out rough. "The blood?"

She looked down at it as if she'd forgotten it was there. "Nae. It's nae mine."

He exhaled. It came out almost like a broken sound, and then he pulled her against him.

The piece of wood slipped from her fingers and rolled away. Neilina folded into his chest, and his arms closed around her so tightly that for a moment she could scarcely breathe, and she did not care. She could feel his heart slamming against her cheek. She could feel the tremor in the hand that cradled the back of her head, the great, shuddering effort of a man holding himself together by his fingertips.

"I thought I'd lost ye," he said into her hair.

"Ye didnae."

"I heard ye scream, Neilina. I heard ye scream and I couldnae reach ye, and I've never—" His voice failed him. He tried again, quieter. "I have never been so afraid."

"I kent ye'd come." She said it into the wool of his coat, fierce and certain. "The whole time. I kent."

His eyes closed.

Behind them, the castle was still fighting. Fearchar's voice thundered through the corridor beyond the shattered door, hoarse and carrying.

"MACRATH MEN! DROP YER WEAPONS! YER LAIRD HAS FALLEN"

For a moment, the fighting continued. Then a blade clattered onto stone, then two, then three, then a great ragged scattering of them. Another voice answered from the courtyard below.

"Secure the east passage!"

"Search every room!"