she had sidled close to him. 'But he had no such authority.'
'Susannah was not aware of that. She believed he spoke for your laird.'
'When did she tell you this?' Drustan demanded.
'She did not. Magnus reported the details of what led to her hunting on our lands when he informed me he had taken a mate in the fur. Susannah was in heat. Ulf had to know she would end up mated to a Sinclair. He withheld the truth that he was the one who had sent her to our lands, did he not?'
'Yes.'
'I think he wanted your laird to believe we had insulted the Balmorals so he would try to exact a personal revenge. I have experience with the cunning betrayal of power-hungry humans. I suspect he planned to betray the Balmoral to me so that he would be killed.'
'As he believes he betrayed our laird now?' Drustan asked.
'Yes. He told me to wait here and that he would see to it that the Balmoral came after me alone.'
'Emily,' Lachlan barked.
She jerked and blushed as everyone's attention first went to him and then to her. She met Lachlan's gaze. 'Yes?'
He was not smiling. 'Come here.'
His tone did not suggest she argue and, for once, she didn't. When she was less than a foot from him, he tilted her chin up with his hand. 'You belong to me.'
'Is this a discussion we need to have now?' she asked.
Rather than answer, he asked, 'Do you want me to challenge Talorc?'
They had just gotten past that, hadn't they? '
'Then look only at me.'
He knew she'd been peeking.
Her blush heated and went to the roots of her hair. 'I was merely curious.'
'I will satisfy your curiosity another time.' He pushed her behind him and then looked at Talorc. 'I have only your word that my brother is a betrayer.'
'And the evidence of your own logic. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it when I saw you in the water with the Englishwoman. You had no other guards with you. I did. She would have been easy enough to dispose of.'
The coldness of those words made Emily shiver. She moved closer to Lachlan until she was almost touching him, and the heat of his body reached out to wrap around her comfortingly.
'You would have had to kill me first.'
For no reason she could discern, her throat tightened with tears. She knew he meant it. No matter what he had accused her of earlier, Lachlan would not have let Talorc harm her that day at the lake. He would have protected her with his life. What did that mean? Perhaps it was part of his warrior's honor.
'The point is,' Talorc drawled out, 'I did not try.'
Lachlan shrugged.
'As I said, I came to your island to discover my sister's circumstances.'
'The Sinclair guard we left behind when we took the women would have told you she was to wed Drustan,' Lachlan said.
'He told me, and I know enough of you to know that if you said that was your plan, it would come to pass, but I had to make sure Cait was not mistreated, that she was not a prisoner.'
'And she told you she was content with her marriage,' Drustan said, revealing that he must have allowed Cait to tell him at least that much of her exchange with his brother during their initial confrontation.
'Yes,' Talorc said. 'Just as your sister is.'
Drustan nodded and Cait smiled up at him.
'But Ulf told me she was not. He said that Cait had been forced to mate with Drustan against her will.' Talorc's voice vibrated with the rage such a thought evoked in him, even knowing it was not true. 'He said that she wanted to return to our clan, but that she was being kept here as a prisoner.'
'But I'm not!' Cait exclaimed.
'Aren't you?' Talorc asked. 'Did you come to this island of your own free will as Susannah came to our hunting lands?'
Drustan stepped in front of Cait. 'I acknowledge that she was brought against her will, but she has not been mistreated and she is now my wife and content to be so.'
'I don't want to leave,' she added from behind him. 'I am a Balmoral now.'
'So you said.' Talorc's voice gave no hint as to how he felt about that. 'I will not apologize for not observing ancient pack law. Susannah acted on your brother's word, Balmoral, and you retaliated without all the facts. You should have realized he was a threat to the pack. You are at fault.'
Cait gasped, her face going pale. Drustan looked ready to go for Talorc's throat.
But Lachlan merely sighed. It was a sad, rather weary sound, and Emily laid her hand on his back in comfort.
He looked over his shoulder at her, his dark eyes searching for something, but she had no idea what. Then he turned back to face Talorc and the others. 'I should have seen his discontent, his greed for power. He hid it well, but there were clues if I had been willing to see them.'
Emily was proud of Lachlan's ability to admit he was in the wrong. It showed a strength of character few men in his position possessed. Nevertheless, the reason he had been wrong was of grave concern to her. For if he did not acknowledge it and change his thinking, Ulf's threat could be renewed from a different source. Perhaps the next time it would go unnoticed until it was too late to change the outcome… like it had been with MacAlpin.
'You dismissed the threat Ulf represented because he is fully human. You did not think he was as powerful as a Chrechte, or capable of deceiving you, but you were wrong.'
'Thank you for pointing that out, Emily,' Lachlan said dryly.
'In believing so fully in your superiority, you put yourself and your clan at risk,' she pressed.
Talorc laughed. 'She's sharp-tongued, isn't she?'
'Plain-spoken, but she is right.' Lachlan sighed. 'She often is.'
Emily was gratified that he had corrected Talorc's description of her. She was also warm with pleasure at the fact that Lachlan thought she was often right, but that did not make up for the fact that he had accused her of being unchaste because of the passion he had quite deliberately provoked in her. The two lairds might accept a cessation of hostilities without an apology, but she wasn't going to. Lachlan was going to tell her he was sorry, and that was that.
'She said she'd rather be married to a goat than me. Are you the goat?' Talorc asked, his voice still laced heavily with amusement.
'I will be.'
'No!'
'I am glad to hear you say so,' Talorc said, ignoring Emily's denial. 'Since she was sent to Scotland to wed me, she is my responsibility. I had no desire to marry her, but I could not allow her to be compromised without demanding suitable reparation either.'
Unbelievably, Lachlan nodded his understanding, just as if Talorc wasn't talking drivel.
'I'm wanting to witness the marriage before returning to my holding.' This time there was no humor in the daft man's voice and she wished there had been.
Emily rushed around Lachlan so she could look Talorc in the face when she shouted at him. 'I will not marry him and that's that!'
'You want to marry me then?'
'You know I don't, and neither will you marry me.'
'You would rather I declared war on the Balmorals?'
'Don't be ridiculous. You aren't going to war over me. I'm English, remember?'
'You are under my protection while you are in the Highlands. My honor is worth going to war over.'
'No, Talorc,' Cait said, sounding desperate. 'They haven't mated.'
'I saw him naked with her in the water.'
'But that doesn't mean anything,' Emily assured him. 'You're naked now, but I'm not mating you.'
