Page 32 of Highlander’s Captive

Smiled.

For the first time since she’d met him, he smiled. Soft. Welcoming. Gentle.

She couldn’t stop herself—she smiled back, and something connected them, like invisible threads.

“Shall we begin?” Owen said.

“Aye,” Craig said and took her hand in his.

* * *

Amy looked like one of the faerie folk, her curly, long red hair ablaze in the candlelight, her blue eyes bright and burning under her long eyelashes. The red dress she wore heightened the impression that she was born of flame.

As she came to him and stood by him, her cheeks burned, and he secretly hoped it was because she might be excited or at least pleased in some way to be marrying him.

Craig’s chest tightened with the anticipation of wonder he’d never felt before. Why would he feel that towards an enemy he was just using for revenge?

He remembered a similar feeling before he lay with a woman for the first time as a boy of sixteen. He had been infatuated with pretty servant girls and farmers’ daughters before, but he’d never loved anyone. The difference between lust and love had always been clear to him.

As had the knowledge that he would marry one day to form an alliance between his clan and another. To continue the line. Because that was what men did.

But he’d also known that he might not love his wife. He might not even trust her the way he trusted his father, his brothers, and his cousins.

But excitement lit up his whole body. He took Amy’s hand. Hers was icy cold, and it burned his skin. Something went through his hand to hers and back. An invisible tie wrapped around their wrists. What was that? Craig felt stronger and more powerful and alive than he’d ever remembered feeling.

“Here today,” Owen began, “we are going to join these two, Craig Cambel and Amy MacDougall in marriage.”

Owen looked a little nervous. Usually, the chief or the highest authority in the clan led the handfasting ceremony. In this castle, that was Craig. But Craig was busy getting married, so he’d asked Owen, as his closest relative present. But Owen was as far away from marriage as a man could be, chasing skirts and seeking adventures. So Craig understood why his brother would feel a tad uncomfortable.

“Who wishes to support these two to be joining their hands and lives now, say aye,” Owen said.

“Aye,” the men in the circle echoed.

And a small shudder ran through Craig. He understood why this was an important part of the ceremony—the support of his clansmen and his ancestors brought confidence in the rightness of the decision.

“Do ye have vows?” Owen said.

Craig hadn’t thought of the vows, but he needed to say something. He turned Amy towards him and took her other hand in his, too. Her eyes big, wide, and vulnerable. He wanted to reassure her all would be well. That she was safe.

“I vow to be loyal to ye while ye’re my wife. I vow to protect ye as though ye’re of my blood and bone. I vow to care for ye as a man should for his wife. And I vow to always come for ye if ye need me.”

Her eyes glistened—with tears?

“Amy?” Owen said.

“I—” she said. “I vow to be your wife to the best of my ability. To help you with whatever I can. And to…to…to be loyal to you.”

The word “loyal” came out with a little jump in the middle, and Craig frowned. That was to be expected, he reminded himself. She was, after all, the daughter of the enemy.

“Please hold out yer hands,” Owen said.

Craig and Amy turned and raised their joined hands to him, and Owen put a simple band over their hands.

“Here are the hands,” Owen said, “that will join and work together, the hands of friends and not of enemies, the hands of a man and his wife. These are the hands that will hold each other if ye’re lost and support each other if ye need a rest. These are the hands that will care for each other and wave goodbye before the last journey to the land of death.”

As he was saying the words, he was wrapping the band around their wrists and their fists, and finally tying a knot on top of them. Craig liked the feeling of Amy’s soft skin, now warm from his touch. The skin on the back of her palm was weathered, and her fingers weren’t the fingers of a gentle lady but had small calluses on them. It was the hand of a strong woman, a woman who did things on her own and didn’t expect others to do them for her.

He liked that.