Page 109 of Laird of Steel
“Don’t ask.”
“Very well. I’ll go alone then,” Hew offered. He shouldered the targe and started collecting a few smaller weapons from the wall. “If I’m not back in an hour,thenyou can tell her father.”
“Nay. Her father’s temper can’t be half as bad as yours,” Gellir said, earning a scowl from Hew. “We have to find her ere she gets herself into trouble. We need all the eyes we can get. I’ll send the whole clan.”
“Fine, but wait an hour,” Hew said, shoving more weapons into his belt. “Just give me that much time first.”
He seemed rather passionate about his intentions.
“I’m not letting you go alone,” Gellir said. “’Tis my fault she’s run away.”
Hew clasped Gellir’s free forearm. “Cousin, you’re in no shape to ride off across the countryside—in your wedding finery and shackled to a maidservant.”
“’Tis no matter,” Gellir insisted. “I’ll manage. I have to find her. I have to find my bride.”
“Can I not talk you out of it?” Hew asked.
Gellir shook his head once, nay.
Hew sighed. “Fine.”
In the blink of an eye and without warning, Hew clapped a shackle around Gellir’s wrist.
Gellir tried to grab the second cuff before Hew could attach it. But joined at the wrist to Merraid, he could only wrench her forward with his attempt. She staggered, and in the scuffle, Hew managed to fasten the other shackle around a bracket attached to the wall.
Merraid gasped. What had Hew done? And why?
She braced herself for Gellir’s anger.
The heat coming off of him was a deadly cauldron of seething, simmering molten steel. His steady, burning gaze only flickered once, when Hew tucked the key to the shackles into his belt for safekeeping.
Like a caged bear, Gellir jerked hard at the shackles, startling Hew into stepping away to a safe distance.
Gellir’s snarl was soft but lethal. “You’re making a mistake, cousin.”
“Nay,” Hew declared. “For once I know I’mnotmaking a mistake.”
“Free me.”
“Nay.”
Gellir’s mouth worked with rage. “Idemandyou free me.”
Hew shook his head.
Gellir bit out, “Have you lost your mind?”
Hew lifted his chin, proud and fearless. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I cannot let you wed Lady Carenza.”
“’Tis not up to you.”
“Aye, ’tis,” he said, “as long as I have breath in my body.”
“That won’t be for long,” Gellir threatened, rattling the shackles again.
