Love? He knew nothing about it. The only time he had witnessed the emotion was when it had crippled his father as he clung to Cain’s mother while she released her last exhale. Gideon and Joshua felt Ella weakened him, but when she smiled at him or looked out at the world by his side, he felt strength like he never had before. Was that love too?

Cain sat down in a pew and bowed his head. How long had it been since he really prayed? Since before his mother died. “What do I do?” he whispered in the hollow silence of the chapel.

When he had seen the stain on Ella’s gown and the knife at her throat, all Cain could think about was her, that he might lose her like his father lost his mother.

Ella made him vulnerable, and yet, as they came together, he felt strong and more importantly, at peace. The frenzy of always having to be right, always having to plan the perfect strategy to win at all costs—it calmed under her touch, under her smile. Contentment was such a foreign feeling for someone raised to never be content with what he had but to always be searching for more to take.

With an exhale, he let his hands slide down his face. Love gives.

“What do I do?” he murmured again, his eyes closed.

Let her go. He looked up at the picture of Christ on the cross as if He or an angel or perhaps his mother had spoken inside his head. Let her go.

His chest clenched at the horrendous thought as if his heart might be physically torn away. “Never,” he said, and stood up from the pew to stalk out of the chapel.

…

Ella sat straight on Gilla as the horse walked through the wildflowers bending in the breeze across the moor. The last time she had been there, she had stood on the rise at the far end, ordering Ethan to have his archers fire at George Sinclair, the madman leading the fearsome Sinclairs. And Cain had charged up the hill toward her like a madman himself.

Then she’d kissed him, and she had known she was in jeopardy—not just because his horse would not move under her when she’d jumped on Seraph’s back, but because in that kiss, she had lost herself for a moment. The restrained power in his gentleness had pulled her toward him.

Everything with Cain had been like that. She felt constantly drawn to him but also needing to escape. She had known him only as a coldblooded killer, but after that kiss, after helping him birth a twisted foal, after watching the care he used around Hannah and the respect he had for his aunt, the mercy he’d shown with Kenneth, she realized Cain Sinclair was so much more.