I never craved a wife. Not one handed over like spoils of war, wrists bound in the frayed plaid of her dying clan, dragged into my mist-shrouded keep to seal a brittle peace. She stood there in that stone bridal chamber, chin high, eyes spitting venom at the brute they'd chained her to. Me. I thought her broken. Fragile. Ready to shatter under Highland steel. But this lass - sharp-tongued wildfire wrapped in trembling silk - she fought. Clawed words like dirks, body twisting away even as I pinned her down that first savage night. Duty made me take her. Rough. Merciless. Filling her cries with my own roar until the chamber walls drank our sweat. Yet when her hips bucked against mine, nails gouging furrows down my back, I felt it. That shameful pull. Her loathing feeding my need, turning conquest into craving. Now she haunts every shadow. In the grain store's dim crush, her pressed against coarse sacks, skirts shoved high as I devour her gasps. Defiance melting into moans she bites back too late. She's no willing prize. Every thrust a war, her resistance the spark that sets my blood ablaze. But beneath the ravaging, something cracks. Loyalty I never offered, vulnerability she alone glimpses in my guarded gaze. She brands me worse than any blade - chain and freedom in one furious breath. Yield to her fire, and my clan unravels with my control. Deny it, and this addictive war consumes us both. How long before her surrender unmakes the beast... or her heart?