The hair on his arms rose on end. “What monastery?” The question came out too hard, too desperate. “I only ask as there are many near here.” He hoped his amended response came out more smoothly. Less suspicious.
Her gaze sharpened and he realized he hadn’t been clever enough. “It actually was near here,” she said slowly. “A place so small, the monks dinna bother to give it a name.”
“How were ye found?” This time he didn’t bother to hide the tension from his voice.
“I was left for dead on their doorstep with no’ more than a ratty dress and a fine ring.”
A fine ring.
Duncan’s world spun. “May I see it?”
Evina tensed.
“I—yer story is familiar to me.” He breathed in slowly in an attempt to control the tremble in his limbs. “I believe I know the owner of the ring. I need to be certain.”
She dug something out from her pack and thrust it toward him without ceremony.
There, sparkling in a stream of enchanted sunlight and resting in the palm of Evina’s hand, was the ruby ring Duncan had slipped from his hand and placed on the girl that fateful day.
She had been the reason for the curse.
Evina was the source of the entirety of his pain.
CHAPTER 5
“IT WAS YE.” Duncan world blazed with a bestial rage. “It was ye.”
Evina leapt to her feet, her body tense, eyes alight. “What are ye talking about?” A dagger showed in her hand, drawn with such haste, Duncan had not had time to see.
“I saved ye,” Duncan bit out.
She drew back her weapon and regarded him the way a hawk eyes its prey.
All the years of anger and hurt and loss welled up inside him, wild and uncontrollable.
“I saved ye,” Duncan bellowed, loosing every emotion he’d held within him for half a lifetime. Duncan lifted the chair Evina had abandoned and threw it across the room. The heavy piece hit a painting and punched into the soft canvas before they both crashed to the floor.
Evina did not flinch away from him. “Ye’re mad.”
“Aye,” he snarled. “Ye’re damn right I am, woman. I wouldna have ever left my mother alone in the woods had I no’ heard ye scream. I’d have been at her side when she was attacked. I’d have protected her. But ye had to scream. Ye needed to be rescued and I left them to help ye.”
Evina’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“I lost everything because of ye.” He caught the corner of a large cabinet and flung it from the wall. It careened to the floor and sent the contents scattering. He reached for a painting, intent to tear it from the wall and hurtle it into the air.
A pair of small hands gripped the frame, stopping him.
He snapped his glare down at Evina who stared up at him without fear, despite his size and the force of his ferocity.
“I dinna believe ye,” she said.
He tensed and she squared her jaw.
“If ye intend to hit me, prepare to be struck in return.” The skin around her eyes tightened. “And dinna say ye’ve no’ been warned.”
His ire spiked at the implication he would strike a lass. “I wouldna ever hit a woman,” he snarled.
“Aye, and most of us wouldna have behaved in such a tantrum, tossing fine furniture about as though they were cabers.”
Duncan grunted, but released his hold on the painting. It was an ugly thing anyway, a gilded frame of a sour-faced woman in ancient clothing. Its destruction would have been no loss.
Evina put a hand on her hip. The action only accentuated the slenderness of her waist, the curve of her hip. Duncan’s awareness focused in on her, noting the flush to her face, the spark of her eyes. Battle enhanced what was already lush. The extreme pull of his attraction served to further heat his churlish temperament.
Evina didn’t appear to notice his distraction, or if she did, she didn’t care. “What was I wearing when I was found?”
He heaved a sigh. “A dress. It was blue. Dirty. Only reached yer knees with ye being such a waif of a thing. I put the ring on yer finger when…”
“When what?” The hard expression on her face softened.
If she’d been lovely fighting, she was exquisite in her vulnerability. The shield lowered, and her heart was exposed in her wide-eyed stare, revealing the soul-deep hurt he’d never taken the time to contemplate. He had considered only himself and his torment. It had never occurred to him that she too had suffered loss.
“When I worried they might send ye away for being a lass.” Duncan scrubbed his hand over his jaw. “I dinna want ye to be without coin and starve. I regretted it as soon as I gave it to ye,” he confessed. “It was my da’s.”
She bent and lifted something from the smashed fragments of wood and glass on the ground. It caught the sun and glinted with brilliant red. “Ye should have it. Since it belongs to ye.”
Evina drew in a shaky breath and shoved her hand toward him. She had nothing of value save the armor and weapons on her body. And his da’s ring. She held it out to him without asking for coin or favor in return. How he hated himself for reaching for the piece of fine jewelry, accepting her offer.
The stone was warm against his palm, as if it had locked in her heat.
She curled her empty hand into a fist and lowered it to her side. “Tell me about when ye found me.”
“Ye were lying by a dead man. I assumed he’d endeavored to protect ye. I dinna see who he’d been fighting.”
“Who was the man?”
Duncan shook his head. “I dinna look at him. I thought ye were both dead, but ye groaned and I knew I had to get ye somewhere safe.”
Her face hardened. “And then I ruined yer life, aye?”
A ghost of his former fury flickered
