Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

E nya congratulated herself silently for a job well done, and not for the first time. Angering Cillian was a much easier task than she would have thought when she first arrived in Jura, and though he still refused to send her back home, sooner or later, he was bound to reach his limit.

The dinner had been a resounding success and once it was over, Enya left the great hall with a certain smugness in her gait, every part of her filled with satisfaction. After this confrontation, she was bound to get a good night’s sleep, she thought, and she eagerly made her way to her chambers, where she could lie in bed and think about the next part of her plan.

Her joy was short-lived, though, and in retrospect, she thought she should have expected it when a hand grabbed her just as she was passing Cillian’s chambers, swiftly pulling her inside. This time, though she was once again startled, she managed to stifle her yelp of surprise, as she knew precisely to whom the hand belonged.

The moment the door was closed behind her, Enya turned to face Cillian with a sour look, hands on her hips as she took in his reddened face and furious frown. She had to admit the sight of him like this gave her a strange satisfaction, but the fact that he had once again dragged her into his rooms without warning overshadowed everything else.

“Can ye nae ask me tae talk instead o’ pullin’ me intae yer chambers?” she asked, already feeling the first prickling of blind rage in her fingers, a tingling sensation that slowly, yet steadily, spread up her arms. “I would think that even someone like ye would have the decency tae use words.”

“Would ye come if I asked ye?” Cillian asked, and Enya supposed it was a fair question. “Or would ye dae somethin’ tae anger me, like refuse tae speak tae me?”

She had no response for that, as telling the truth would mean admitting she wouldn’t, in fact, talk to him. Instead of answering, she remained silent for a few long moments, simply observing him under the soft light of the room.

In the end, she settled for, “What dae ye want?”

“I think it’s quite clear,” Cillian said. “What ye did at dinner was unacceptable.”

I truly should have kent this would happen.

Out of everything Enya had done so far to offend Cillian, this was perhaps the worst and she was well aware of that. She had questioned not only his trust in his people, but also his ability to defend the castle, and it was no surprise that it was this, more than anything else she had said about him, which had finally tipped him over the edge. In the time she had spent in MacDonald Castle, Enya had never seen him so angry before, so impossibly filled with fury that he was practically vibrating with it.

Have I pushed him too far?

But was there such a thing as too far when it came to her sister’s safety and happiness? Even now, Enya knew little about Cillian. She knew of his pedigree and she knew of the ways she could ignite his anger, but most of him was still a mystery to her—a mystery a part of her ached to solve, even as she was in a rush to get out of Jura.

Everything she was doing was for Thora’s sake. Her sister came before Cillian and so Enya was determined to push him as far as she needed to in order to save her sister from this marriage.

“I dinnae understand what ye mean,” Enya said, keeping on the most innocent and naive air she could muster. She had come to figure out that the best way to keep Cillian in a constant state of anger towards her was by feigning ignorance even now that he had confronted her about her plan. “I merely wanted tae understand why ye refused tae bring out the decorations I requested.”

“Because all the gold in the clan isnae decoration! How dae ye nae?—”

Cillian cut himself short, lowering his hands from where he had raised them up in the air in exasperation. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath to calm himself, but it didn’t seem to work. Even in the dim light, Enya could see the small vein in his forehead, the blood rushing to his head.

Thankfully, he was young enough that she could find it amusing. Were he a few decades older, she would fear for his health.

“I ken what ye are tryin’ tae dae,” he said. This time, the tone was level, though there was still nothing calm about him. “I’ve told ye this afore an’ I dinnae understand why ye insist on pretendin’ tae be ignorant when we both ken ye are tryin’ tae anger me on purpose.”

“I would never dae such a thing,” said Enya, almost automatically. Cillian froze, as if his rage was too much for him to bear and had rooted him to the spot. His grey eyes seemed colder than ever, as though all the color, all the warmth had been drained from them, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.

“Ye will stop pretendin’,” Cillian said through gritted teeth as he took a few steps closer to Enya. She held her ground, letting him approach and looking up at him defiantly when he came close to her, making no move to fall back.

“I’m nae pretendin’.”

“Aye, ye are.”

“This is who I am,” Enya insisted. “An’ if ye dinnae like it, ye are free tae send me away.”

“Ye are free tae leave.”

“I will dae nae such thing.”

Once again, they were at an impasse, neither of them willing to back down. And once again, Cillian had leaned so close to Enya that she could feel the heat of his body and smell the oil he used in his baths. The proximity dizzied her, turning her breaths labored and shallow, her chest heaving with each one. Cillian tracked the movement of her chest with his gaze for a moment, before his eyes snapped back up to Enya’s, and in the candlelight, she could have sworn that his cheeks had turned a faint red.

Of course, that could simply be the fact that he was furious, she thought.

As if mirroring Cillian, Enya knew her own face had turned a faint pink, a wave of embarrassment flooding through her at the proximity and the way Cillian was looking at her. There was something strange about his gaze. There was anger, of course, so much of it that it almost overshadowed everything else, but there was something more there, an intensity that had little to do with the way she provoked him.

Not for the first time, Enya couldn’t help but marvel at just how handsome Cillian was.

What am I thinkin’! What daes it matter if he’s handsome?

Such thoughts were nothing but a distraction to Enya and she quickly chased them away, trying to focus instead on what little silvers of anger still existed within her. She couldn’t find it in herself to be as furious with Cillian anymore; not only did he have every right to think poorly of her, considering everything she had done to him so far, but her anger from that first night when she had stepped foot in MacDonald Castle had begun to fade. Enya had never been one to hold a grudge, after all, and Cillian had more than paid for his initial rude behavior by being subjected to Enya’s constant provocation.

I’m sure he will dae somethin’ tae remind me why I thought o’ him as a brute in the first place.

“Dae ye ken what I cannae understand?” Cillian asked and before Enya could respond, he added, “Ye said ye wish tae help people. Ye’ve shown me a side o’ ye that I would have admired under different circumstances. An’ yet ye insist on bein’ entirely insufferable. All ye dae is go against me. Ye are rude, ungrateful, vexin’, an’ disrespectful. An’ immature! So absolutely immature that ye would rather antagonize me every minute o’ every day than accept this marriage.”

Enya took most of his insults with pride, as they were proof of her ability to irritate Cillian. When he called her immature for not accepting he marriage, though, that anger that had begun to fade swiftly returned, along with a sense of righteousness. Why should she—or Thora—accept this marriage? Why should her sister be forced to wed a man she didn’t know just because another man she would never even meet had ordered it?

Her sister wasn’t a pawn in the political games of men. She was a person—a sweet, caring, wonderful person who deserved to be happy, and if there was one thing Enya knew, it was that she couldn’t possibly ever be happy with a man like Cillian.

Had he been kinder, had he welcomed her to his home and treated her with respect, then she would have considered him as a suitor for Thora. Both of them had grown up with the knowledge that they would eventually wed a laird or someone else of high rank, after all, so there was no point in resisting their fate forever. But the moment Cillian had opened his mouth, he had disqualified himself, and Enya didn’t think he had any right to claim she was immature for rejecting him.

“I dinnae think it is immature o’ me tae nae wish tae wed a man I hardly ken an’ who is as beastly as ye are!” Enya said as she jabbed an accusatory finger in Cillian’s chest. Distantly, she noted that it felt as though jabbing her finger into a wall, the solid muscles under his shirt hardly having any give, and that infuriated her even further. “Why would any lass wish tae wed ye? Ye have been naething but horrible tae me from the moment I came here!”

“An’ ye have made nae effort tae be kind or even reasonable,” Cillian countered. “I apologized fer me behavior. Shouldnae that be enough fer ye?”

“What good is an apology if the behavior continues?” Enya asked. “Ye are the same rude, disagreeable, foul man as the one I met that first night. I dinnae care fer yer apologies. If ye were genuinely apologetic, ye would be able tae understand in what terrible position ye an’ the king an’ every man in me life have forced me!”

At her outrage, Cillian froze, blinking a few times in surprise. Enya had to admit that she, too, was a little surprised by her own words and the speed with which they tumbled out of her, unbridled like the waters that flowed in the river snaking around the castle.

Cillian didn’t speak and neither did Enya. They only stared at each other in silence, both at a loss for words. Once again, it became very clear to her that they were standing right against each other, so close that if anyone saw them, they would certainly seem indecent. If Enya leaned just a little closer, if Cillian closed the gap between them, then their lips would soon meet in a kiss. Enya could imagine it, the brush of his mouth against her, the heat of his body as it would press against her own?—

Abruptly, she pulled back, putting several steps’ worth of distance between them. The tension that had settled over them was still there, heavy and thick, weighing down on them both, and Cillian seemed just as surprised as Enya at how far they had allowed themselves to go. He stared at her in shock for a few moments, red to the tips of his ears, before he quickly averted his gaze to stare out of the window instead, into the dark of the night.

“I—” he started, but then fell silent once more, as though words failed him.

Is he as embarrassed as I am? But he doesnae seem like a man who would be embarrassed by this.

If anything, Enya expected someone like Cillian to be more than well-acquainted with women. Though he was the first man to ever get so close to Enya, the same couldn’t possibly be true for him. Wealth, power, looks—Cillian had it all. Surely he could have any woman he wanted, as long as said woman wasn’t one of the MacLeod sisters.

Enya soon found that she, too, had been rendered speechless. Her heart had leapt to her throat, a lump forming there that made speech impossible, and the only thing she could think about was fleeing—so she did precisely that, turning around and all but running out of the room and down the hallway blindly, with no destination in mind. The only thing that mattered was getting far away enough from Cillian so that those strange, unwanted thoughts would stop invading her mind.

Perhaps she had suffered some sort of curse, Enya thought as she made her way through half-lit corridors and down the stairs, until she spilled out into the courtyard, where the cold air hit her face and gave her some much needed clarity. What other explanation was there for the way her body seemed to come alive every time she was near Cillian? What other explanation was there for that heat which suffused her entire body whenever he was around, for those feelings which she had only glimpsed a few times before as a young woman?

This was more than a glimpse. It was more than the first fluttering of an infatuation and that knowledge frightened her. Not only was Cillian far from a suitable match for her, but he also wasn’t meant to be a match for her at all. Enya was there in her sister’s place. It was her sister who was meant to be betrothed to him, and she was nothing more than a vessel through which this marriage could be avoided.

An’ avoid it I must. I’m here fer Thora. I’m here tae save her from somethin’ she daesnae want.

Enya stared out into the darkness. Orange flames flickered on the castle walls, the torches burning bright, but they were not enough to battle the inky dark. The storms had brought with them thick, grey clouds and not a single star was visible in the sky. The only thing she could see was glimpses of the moon, shining golden through the shadows.

She wondered what Thora was doing in that very moment, so far away from her. She wondered if she was safe, if she had managed to give her warning to Ava, if she had gotten to her on time.

She wondered whether Thora would have fallen for Cillian, had she been the one to come to him.