“I was forced to remain at Dunrobin, too,” she said, her words soft against the wind, and he nudged Hannah’s mare closer to her. “The one time I tried to leave, my father discovered my plan and had his men hold me down while he branded me.” She looked at him. “As you guessed, he did it so that if I ever left, anyone seeing it would return me or suffer his wrath.”

That foking lunatic. Jaw clenching as tightly as his fists, Cain stared at her in the thick shadows, wishing he could better see the expression on her face.

“And do you know what he said as he did it?” she asked, leaning toward him over the space separating their horses. “You. Are. Mine.”

Bloody hell. How many times had Cain yelled those very words at her as he claimed her as a prize? Each time reinforcing that he was a cruel bastard like her father. “Ella…I would brand every inch of his disgusting body if he were not already dead.”

His hands fisted at his sides as he stared hard into her eyes. “Ye have been hurt.” His voice was a ragged whisper. “How far have ye been hurt?”

She’d been held down by her father’s men. Had any of them, spurred on by her struggles, found her later in a dark corner, trapping her? There were men who felt that women were their playthings with no choice. Is that why Ella had learned to wield a dagger and race like the wind? Why she’d learned how to escape? Fok! He would slice the Sutherland bastard’s skin from his body and chop off his jack.

“What has been done to ye?”

“The branding,” she said, looking out at the night. “Some lashings and bruises. I think his words injured more.” She looked at him. “Alec Sutherland loved to rant about my weakness as a girl. Said he did not believe that he’d sired me and not a son. If it were not for my mother and Kenneth, I would have let his words sink in, making me weak.” Her voice grew soft. “Sometimes I think his words did.”

Her shoulders rounded as she leaned over her horse’s neck. Cain released the breath he’d been holding, taking in her truths. They sat in silence, and Cain looked upward, unsure if there were any reassuring words he could say that could wipe away the terror of her upbringing.

He cleared his throat. “I find strength sometimes when I look up at the stars.” The words sounded foolish as they broke from his mouth.

She rolled her head to the side as it rested on Gilla’s mane. “Cain Sinclair, conqueror of clans, stealer of castles and lands, strategic god of battles…you, Cain Sinclair, gaze at stars?”

He frowned. “Not god, horseman from God. And aye. I know all the constellations.”