The walk out onto the list field seemed longer than the one Niall had taken when he left the sanctuary of the dark at Dupplin Castle.

Bella’s brother Liam grinned at him, but it was a tense smile that didn’t quite reach the lad’s eyes. They’d gone up against each other before, though it had been prior to Niall’s injury. The lad had far more talent than Eòran. Even still, Niall feared hurting him.

Sir Liam was well built, resembling his father’s dark looks and size. Though Niall was a few inches taller, they were roughly the same strength—well, they were when he’d had both of his arms. Now, Liam would be a tough adversary to beat, though Niall was fairly certain he could win if forced.

“Want me to go easy on ye?” Liam smirked.

Niall knew this game. Cocksure talk to hide nerves. “And get your arse annihilated?”

“For Bella, I would take a sword or axe to the chest.” Liam was serious. Niall knew this, because he, too, would do whatever it took to keep those who depended on him safe.

Bella was one of those people—had been since the day he’d taken up her cause at the children’s tournament. “As would I.”

“Ye barely know her.” Liam spoke the truth.

“’Haps, but I know her strength. She’s been with me since the day she named me her lady.”

Liam looked at him oddly, perhaps he’d been too young to remember. A horn was blown, and they both raised their claymores. Niall with one hand, and Liam with two.

“We fought against each other in a children’s tournament some years ago. I’ve thought of her ever since.” His words faded, and he wasn’t certain how to admit that she’d touched him in some way.

Liam nodded. “Ye need say no more. She has that affect on people.”

Niall raised a brow, circling the lad. “She’ll kill me if I hurt ye.”

“Likewise.”

The crowd was shouting for one of them to make a move. Bloodthirsty bastards. Niall tuned them out. The only sound was that of his deep breathing. He focused on Liam, watching the subtle change in the muscles of his face, and the twitch of his fingers on the hilt of his claymore. The muscles of Niall’s right arm had almost doubled since he’d started to train to handle the massive sword without the use of his left arm.

When he’d been a whole man, he’d fought with both arms, just like Liam. Usually with a claymore and targe, or two broadswords. Maybe a battle-axe and a war hammer. Whatever would bring maximum damage to his enemies. Claymores were massive and meant to be used with two hands. But one of the challenges Niall had put to himself was the ability to use the massive weapon with only one arm. A challenge he’d met head on. Fighting the whoreson who’d woken him up with a kick to the back that morning had been easy. That bastard was too full of fury and self-importance to strategize. He’d underestimated Niall, and as a result had been easy to beat.

But Liam was smart. Niall could see it in the lad’s eyes. Besides that, he’d been trained by one of the best warriors in Scotland. Magnus Sutherland had fought beside William Wallace. Robert the Bruce had many a battle to thank the Sutherlands for. And Liam was nearly as accomplished, if not more so, than his father.

Suddenly, Liam dropped to his knees, held his sword over his heart and loudly proclaimed, “I concede to Sir Niall Oliphant, my beautiful sister Lady Bella’s betrothed. After watching the way he kicked that bloke’s arse, pardon my language ladies, I’d rather keep my pride intact.”

Niall grunted, letting the tip of his sword fall to the snow. This was probably for the best. He didn’t have to lay hands on his newly betrothed’s brother, nor did he have to lose face if Liam beat him. Likewise, Liam wouldn’t suffer his sister’s wrath, or a few new scars from fighting a one-armed warrior.

Niall returned his sword to the baldric on his back and held out his hand to Liam. “I accept.”

He hauled Liam to his feet, grinning when the lad was surprised at his strength. The crowd let out a raucous cheer, and the two men embraced, pounding each other on the back.

When he turned around, Bella was beaming at them both.

“Thank ye,” he murmured to Liam. If he was really going to marry the lass, then it was best they not start out with any animosity between them.

“Dinna thank me. Make her happy, else I will call ye out, and next time, I willna concede.”

“Ye have my word.” And Niall hoped he could keep it.

When Niall reached Bella, he knelt before her, took the hand she offered and pressed his lips lightly to her knuckles. They were cold, and so he breathed on them to make them warm and was rewarded with the slight tremble of her fingers. “My lady.”

“Well met,” she whispered.

When Niall glanced up into her eyes, something inside him shifted. She smiled down at him, blue eyes twinkling, and he realized in that moment, that to him, she was a guardian angel. His savior. Before meeting her, he’d been perfectly happy to return to Dupplin Castle and spend the rest of his days in a darkened room drinking away his unhappiness. But she’d given him something to live for. His heart warmed, and a sensation flowed through him that he’d never felt before. It was quite unsettling.

Niall stood, not able to take his gaze off her as he did so.

“Walk with me?” she asked.

Niall nodded. “’Twould be an honor.” He still held her hand, and she slid her palm up his arm to clasp his elbow.

The heat of Bella’s touch, the possessive grip of her hand on his elbow, nearly had him undone.

Once upon a time, he’d taken his position as a bachelor to the extreme. Training hard and cavorting even harder with his comrades and any willing female. Nearly a year ago to the day, he’d been left broken and wishing he’d died in the battle that took his arm. There hadn’t been a day that went by when he didn’t feel the pain of losing his limb, or the unsettling feeling that he couldn’t go on. Until he’d found her again, he realized with a start. Not once today had he had those dark, disturbing thoughts, that doubt that he could succeed or should even at least try at life, any life.

As they walked away from the list field, snowflakes fell from the sky and melted on his cheeks, forming pretty white diamonds on Bella’s lashes.

“Ye look beautiful,” he found himself saying. There was something profound about complimenting a woman and truly meaning it.

“Thank ye.” Her creamy cheeks blushed rose-red, and lips twitched into a soft smile. “Ye were most impressive on the field. I thought ye strong before, but seeing the way ye took down Eòran, I must say, it rivals the strength of my brother and father.”

Niall grinned, pleased she’d noticed. His chest puffed a little with pride. “Ye flatter me, lass.”

“I suspect that is why my brother did not wish to fight ye.”

“I have ye to thank.”

“Me?” She stopped walking and glanced up at him with surprise. “I did not train ye.”

“But ye encouraged me to go out on the field. Before ye, it is not something I would have done.”

“Dinna discount yourself so much. Ye kept training for a reason.”

A reason he wasn’t sure of. Fighting in secret with those closest to him had been a way to release his anger, to beat the melancholy that surrounded him. He was a warrior, a leader of men, and to have lost half of what he used to protect himself and his people, he might as well be a warrior going into battle without a weapon. And he’d only picked up his sword after—

“I…” He trailed off and then cleared his throat. “There was a time, a verra dark time, that I’d not have come out here today. There might still be dark times to come.”

“What do ye mean?”

Niall stopped walking, his legs heavy, and the confession on the tip of his tongue making everything, even the falling snowflakes, appear to slow. “I wanted to die.”

“In battle?” Bella searched his face without judgment.

“Aye, and after.”

She nodded, understanding rather than pity in her blue gaze. Her grip on his elbow tightened. “Ye thought ye had nothing to live for—after the loss of…”

“Aye.”

“And now?” There was hope brimming in her eyes, which sparked the odd sensations running through his chest.

“The future looks brighter.”

She chewed her lip. “When ye said there still might be dark times to come, that is what ye meant, living or dying.”

Niall drew in a deep breath, contemplating just how to explain it to her. “Aye, sweetling. Today I feel…hopeful. But what’s to say tomorrow I will not wish for the…darkness. I understand if ye dinna want to keep yourself tied to me. I will go. All ye need do is ask.”

Bella’s expression had turned serious. “Nay. I still want to marry ye, and not because I’m afraid my rejection will push ye into despair.” There she went worrying that lower lip again. “I, too, feel a bleak melancholy sometimes. But with ye, I feel something, Niall.” She tapped his chest. “And it touches me here.” She tapped her own chest. “’Tis odd. I’ve never felt it before.” She shook her head and let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “But ye bring me hope. Hope that I’ll not have to traverse this life alone. The two of us, we can battle the abyss together.”

The place he kept locked up and buried deep suddenly burst open, demanding he accept his fate. The sensation took his breath away, and when he spoke, his voice was tight, “I’d like that.”

“Promise me ye’ll talk to me if ye feel the darkness coming.”

“Ye have my word. And ye, too.”

“I vow it.” They resumed walking in silence, Bella still clutching his arm, perhaps a little tighter than she had before. Leaning on him for strength.

For the first time since the slash that had changed his life, Niall felt a connection, that someone truly understood him.

He might have lost his arm, but Bella… She had thought to be alone the rest of her life, had been told she’d be alone before she could truly understand what that meant. He was happy he was able to provide her with that little bit of hope, and he wanted to be there for her. Just like she’d been there to push him onto the field of battle again.

When her hand slid down his arm to clutch his fingers, he entwined them in his and brought them to his lips. So slender compared to his and oversize hand. He ran a thumb over the calloused part of her fingers from using a bow, smiling at her bravado.

“I’m a lucky man, Bella Sutherland.”

She giggled and rested her head on his shoulder. “Nay, Sir Niall, ’tis I who am the lucky one.”

Bella shivered at the touch of his lips on her fingers. The warmth of his skin, his breath, spread through her. She sighed, her heart doing a little flip as sensations she’d never known coursed their way through her—starting at the place where his lips had touched.

A tenderness.

And the other…feelings, the ones rushing around making her belly tighten, and her blood spark, they seemed like what she sang and wrote about—desire, yearning, tenderness.

Most puzzling was how she could desire him? It wasn’t supposed to work that way if one was barren. Was it? And did he desire her? Was that even possible in his condition?

Bella chewed her lip, more confused than ever. Why hadn’t she paid attention or asked the questions that needed asking? Every time her mother had tried to talk to her about what happened between a man and a woman, Bella had shooed her away, not wanting to know about something she would never need to experience. Being barren had been her whole existence. And barren women didn’t lie with men. And men who couldn’t…didn’t.

And until now, she’d never actually believed she’d end up wed.

But here she was, walking beside a towering giant who made her heart skip a beat and had not only agreed to marry her, but had stepped away from his own darkness and faced his fears in order to prove he was worthy of her. A man she’d pined after since she was a lass.

“Niall.” She stopped abruptly and turned to face him once more. “Thank ye.”

“I appreciate your gratitude, lass, but for what?”

“For agreeing to marry me, when the last thing ye want or need is a wife.”

Niall cupped the side of her cheek, brushing his thumb gently back and forth. Unbidden, she found herself leaning into him.

“Och, lass, but do ye not see? A wife may have been the last thing I wanted, but ye, ye’re everything I could have ever dreamed of. I think I do need ye. I think I’ve known that since the moment we met on the battlefield. Ye’re beautiful, strong-willed, and one hell of a storyteller. Ye had the uncanny ability to pull me from my melancholy when no one else could. Do ye know when the princess was denying me, I was not offended, but relieved, because I knew if I was married to her, I’d never be able to live up to her standards. I was—” He clamped his mouth closed, silencing whatever confession had been about to cross his tongue. When he spoke again, his voice was taut, gravelly with emotion. “’Tis I who should be thanking ye, sweetheart. Ye saved me.”

Instinctively, she drew nearer to him and then glanced around. They’d walked well away from the tournament and were encased now in a copse of trees. She tipped her head back and rose up on her tiptoes to brush her lips over his.

The day before, she’d wanted to marry him out of convenience, and today—

Today, she simply wanted to marry him, to spend the rest of her life looking up into the eyes of a man who saw her for more than a vessel for bearing children. For the first time, the idea of remaining here at Dunrobin without him seemed bleak. Perhaps she should give living with him a try. She just might find joy having him with her that she’d not known before.

“I want to make ye happy, Niall. I dinna want to disappoint ye.”

“Do ye not see? Ye already have made me happy.” And then he deepened the kiss, threading his fingers in her hair.

Bella clung to him, curling her fingers in the leather of his armor. All hardness pressed to her soft curves. She gasped when he slid his tongue over her lower lip. He nibbled there, pressing that velvet heat forward into her open mouth.

“Oh,” she gasped at the frissons of heat that swelled and surged at his kiss.

How could a kiss make a woman feel this way? Was it wicked? It had to be…didn’t it?

“Ye make me feel alive,” Niall murmured, sliding his hand down her spine to press against her lower back. “Ye make me want to live.”

Nay, it wasn’t wicked. Couldn’t be. If her kiss gave him the will to live and made her feel like she was flying, then it had to be heaven sent.

All of the sudden, a surge of affection, of tenderness, swept through her. She couldn’t have fallen so fast for this man, and yet she was almost certain that she had.

“Oh, Niall,” she murmured against his mouth. “I am yours.”