“Ella?” Cain said, trying to turn toward her, but the woman wouldn’t let go of him.

“Go away, Sutherland,” the woman said with a glance, her pretty face plastered with a fake smile. “I am helping out my old friend now that he is going to be burdened with a wife who despises him.”

Did she despise Cain? Of course. He was her captor, her enemy. He listened to me. He gave me leadership over the fires. He would have saved me from my father.

“I said, step away.” Ella slowly withdrew the sgian dubh she had slid up her sleeve.

“’Tis a saying, a legend, and pretty much a fact,” the woman said, looking back up into Cain’s pinched face, “that a woman who warms a man’s heart and bed at Midsummer will do so all winter long. ’Tis good for the clan for the chief to be satisfied.” Her face turned back to Ella. “And ye seem incapable of doing it.”

The woman’s particular wording made Ella pause, and she glanced toward the fire, but Joshua was gone. A sound made her turn back to see Viola on her toes, planting her lips onto Cain’s mouth. Anger, regret, and jealousy welled up inside Ella, and she didn’t try to restrain any of it. She drew back her arm.

“Ella,” Cain said, pushing Viola back from him with two hands, even though she still grasped his. “I was not—”

She cut him off with a step and flick, practiced a million times. She whipped the dagger through the air. Luckily for Viola, Ella’s eyesight and aim were perfect. The dagger tip turned forward, breezing by the woman to thwack into the wooden beam above her head.

“Shite!” she yelled, ducking and finally releasing Cain’s arms. “What the bloody hell are ye doing?”

“Get your talons off him, you witch.”

“Ye are a bloody enemy. His bed will be cold as ice with ye in it.”

Before Viola could wrap one hand back around Cain’s arm, Ella strode up to him, caught his shoulder, and pulled him toward her. He turned without much hesitation, and she grabbed behind his neck to yank his head down to meet her lips in a kiss.

His mouth warmed quickly over hers, and she slanted her face. The mash of emotions that had been churning through Ella all night ignited like pitch within her. His arms slid around to her back until she felt surrounded by his heat, a fire that scorched without pain. The ache of pleasure roared up through her, and she pressed against him. Against Cain Sinclair.

Her enemy. Her betrothed. Her target.