“Mary knew she would not be there to protect ye. I could have secreted ye away, but where could I take ye where Alec Sutherland could not reach? And then I would not be at Dunrobin to protect Jamie until he could become the Sutherland chief.” He rubbed his hands down his face. “I agreed to every promise Mary asked. Especially the one to keep ye as safe as I could, which meant keeping Jamie a secret.”

“Is Jamie your son?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nay. He is the true son of Alec Sutherland, the only child of his to survive.”

Ella’s gaze had dropped to her hands clasped in her skirts, but she raised it back to Kenneth. “You…are my father.”

“I would have told ye when Alec died, but for the clan to accept ye as the new chief, they also needed to think ye had his blood running through your veins. I didn’t want to risk it.” His words came rapid and soft, as if he’d run out of breath from all his revelations. He took a full inhale. “Aye, Ella, ye are a child from the love your mother and I shared.”

The bubble of tightness in her chest seemed to burst. With a little hitch of breath, Ella threw herself into Kenneth’s arms.

…

Cain walked from the barn where he had left Seraph to be washed and fed, alerting the men to tell the others that those not still at Varrich would ride with him at noon to the moor between Dunrobin and Girnigoe.

Contested for decades, it was the battlefield where many on both sides had died. The memory of blood soaking the dirt and the lifeless bodies crushing the tall grasses would hopefully help the Sutherlands remember what was at stake. If they come.

As he rounded the inner wall, walking under the spikes of the raised portcullis, he stopped. The blue of Ella’s dress caught his eye, and he watched her hugging Kenneth in the corner of the bailey. Was she afraid, her courage finally leaving her with the thought of her clan being conquered?

His chest tightened, but then she backed up, and he saw a smile on her face. She wiped a finger under an eye to catch a tear, but the smile contradicted it. Had she feared that Cain would have executed Kenneth Macleod?

Gideon stopped beside him, following his gaze. “Da would have executed him or at least left him to rot in the dungeon.”

“I am not Da,” Cain said, turning to walk the opposite way along the wall. He had no words to give Ella yet. For that matter, he had no words for his brother, either.