Cain’s shot flew, hitting the center of the battered door, the pitch flaming up the oak. His second arrow hit the crumpled mass of Hew Mackay.

“It is done,” Cain said. “We are at war with the Mackays.”

“What makes a better warning,” Joshua said, his face still full of wrath, “is tearing through that door and portcullis to rip out their hearts by yanking them up from their screaming throats.”

Cain frowned at his brother. “That is not even physically possible.”

“Give me a Mackay, and I will see it done,” Joshua said, never taking his gaze from the burning castle door.

Cain raised his fist high in the air and moved it in a circle. Within two heartbeats, the entire remainder of the four armies turned. Ella watched them gallop back across the moor toward Girnigoe, one row at a time moving out in precision. With cavalry trained so well, there would be no way her Sutherland warriors could beat them. She was going to lose her clan for certain. But what if she could convince him to follow the plan that she and Kenneth had created twelve years ago? That would require her telling him about Jamie, something she swore she would not do.

Cain looked to Joshua. His hard face was red and condemning. “I will meet ye back at Girnigoe by morning,” Cain said. “I will give my strategy for subduing the Mackays then.”

Joshua cursed low. “Ye are going to the loch.”

“Aye,” Cain said without further explanation.

He caught Ella’s hand. “Come.” Anger weighted the word, and he pulled her behind him to his horse. Without warning, he lifted her into the saddle. Ella’s gaze landed on the still-flaming body of Hew Mackay. She grimaced and scanned Varrich’s wall. Who would take over the chieftainship of the Mackays? She almost snorted at the absurd question. Randolph Mackay had likely planned this from the start.

Cain’s large form mounted behind her, and her backside slipped easily to sit between his rock-hard thighs, his kilt bunched up between them. Those muscular arms, which she’d grown to crave last night, came up on either side of her own. They wheeled around, cantering easily toward the trees. She could smell smoke on the breeze coming from the village as the muted sun shone down, and they cut through the waving wildflowers and blooming thistle. It would take them over an hour to ride back to the northern castle on the sea.

“We do not ride directly to Girnigoe?” she asked as they veered off from the armies.

“Nay,” he said, and she could hear the tension in his voice.