“Eun returned your flag,” the brother with his arm tied held up a ripped piece of red and black fabric. He was as tall as Cain but not as broad. His gaze slid along her form. Ella crossed her arms before her to ward off the feeling that he was judging her. He finally looked to Cain. “Why did ye not lead us on to smash the Sutherlands completely?” he asked, making a fist. He was either Gideon, the third brother, or Joshua, the second brother.

Cain’s voice came out hard as he looked down at the unmoving body of his father. “A strategy to save Dunrobin, its people, and its horses from being smashed and slaughtered.”

“We would never slaughter horses,” the brother in the skull mask said, his words clear because the jaw of the skull hung lower than his mouth, as if the previous owner had continued to scream when the horseman won his head.

“Who knows what the Sutherlands would do to their herds if they thought we would take them,” the other brother said, shooting her a dark frown.

Cain crossed his bare arms over his linen-covered chest, the lines of the horse tattoo prominent along the contours of his muscles. He was a mountain of strength and masculine confidence, his wheat-colored hair tangled from the wind and battle, the blue woad painted down his strong features still marking him as wild. “I would not have my new prizes marred when I have a way of taking them peacefully with a wedding.”

Ella’s stomach dropped farther down within her. Despite the heat that had flared between them during her distraction kiss in the tree, the thought of being wed to her mortal enemy turned her to ice. She opened her mouth to restate that she would never take the sacred vows with Cain Sinclair, handing her clan over to her enemy.

“Where is he?” boomed a voice from the entryway, stopping her. In strode a warrior with his armor still covering his chest, blood streaked across his bare arms. His hair was darker, and he held a large sword, his arms powerfully built. He stopped before the corpse and yanked back the cloth from George Sinclair’s face. “Foking hell,” he said. “Da is dead.” He looked up, his gaze going to the other three of his brothers. “He is really dead.”

He reached out, shaking the corpse’s shoulder, and for a brief second, Ella wondered if he might have some mystical power to rouse the madman. He leaned forward. “Wake,” he roared in the dead man’s face, and everyone watched, but the corpse remained unmoving and pale. He released his father’s shoulder. “I did not believe one of us was dead when I saw your bird’s flag.” He ran a hand through his hair, nodding. “’Tis best that it was Da.”