Chapter Twelve
I FROZE AS Caleb approached me, standing only feet from where I stood.
It had been almost two months since I’d seen him, but the change in him was dramatic.
He’d lost weight, and his worn clothing hung from his thin frame.
His brown eyes were shadowed by the hardship of past weeks, and his fair hair was long and unclean.
The trials of his banishment were written across his disheveled appearance.
His had been an arduous journey, I could see.
And the worry in his eyes brought tears to mine.
He knew of my marriage, of course. My unwillingness, my fear.
My attempts to flee. I was sure Jamie had been given the full, descriptive version of the story by Bonnie, and that Caleb himself had likely been spared no detail of it.
And I could see in his expression that he was, even now, imagining every brutal aspect of my forced marriage bed.
I watched the thoughts ripple across his face with transparent emotion, and I could see that the light in his eyes had changed, almost imperceptibly, yet the change was unmistakable.
As I had changed, so had he. He had endured much: this was clear and made me wonder what kind of punishment my father had, in fact, subjected him to, beyond merely banishing him to a warm, dry stable somewhere in the heart of Edinburgh, as I had visualized his exile.
He reached for my hand and held my fingers lightly in his own.
The contact felt foreign and strange. There was a distance there. I now belonged to another man. The sweetness of our youth and innocence had taken a turn, and there was a guarded air between us.
“Stella,” he said, stepping closer and reaching to touch his cool fingers to the flushed skin of my cheek. “You look lovelier than ever. Are you well?”
The question was cautious, hinting at deeper curiosities. How badly did he hurt you? Was it a ravishing that has hardened your heart? Do you still love me as you once did? These and other questions seemed to drift like weaving threads of mist through the air around us.
Once, when Caleb had touched me, the light brush of his fingers had delivered a soft, simple promise that had calmed me.
Now the gentle caress felt hollow somehow.
I had become accustomed to more immediate, vigorous reactions at a man’s touch: a roaring, febrile flame as opposed to this, a wispy, endangered ember.
Before I could speak to him, the very subject of his unspoken thoughts strode into the room. Stunned and speechless as I was, my attention might have been too absorbed to take much notice. But the presence was too large, too glinted with light.
My husband.
Keenly observant at all times, Kade’s stormy eyes took in every detail of Caleb’s proximity to me with hawklike acuity, and watched with dark alertness as Caleb abruptly removed his touch from my face and my fingers.
Kade walked to where we stood, and began to circle us, his gaze taking in Caleb’s unthreatening, ragged appearance.
It was impossible not to compare the two of them, given the situation.
Caleb was in every way a less imposing figure.
He was as boyishly handsome as I remembered him, although his sandy-brown hair had lost its sunny vibrancy, dirty and unkempt as it was.
His face looked thinner, his already lean body even more angular beneath his rough-hewn tunic that was threadbare and patched.
Caleb’s fingers, as I had always known them, were still stained with the charcoal of his work.
And if Caleb was earthy and subdued in appearance, Kade, in contrast, was blindingly...
shiny, as always. His hair had a sheen to it that was noticeable, and might have been a result of his almost-ritualistic daily swims in the loch.
Kade’s shoulders were brown and gleaming with strength.
The rich leather of his sparring vest and trews clung to him like a second skin.
His weaponry glittered with his movement, and the effect was somehow festive even in its warning.
And his pale predator’s eyes were narrowed with his discovery yet illuminated with the layered emotions of his character that I was beginning to learn.
Resilience. Charisma. Power. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, searing jealousy.
What surprised me about my own reaction to the very different spectacles of Caleb and Kade was that the solace I used to find in Caleb’s company was much less pronounced than it once was.
My body had grown warm and aware, aye. My skin was heated and tingly.
The secret place between my thighs felt sultry and warm.
I was responding, not to Caleb, who I had once found so soothing.
Nay, I was responding, I realized, to the close proximity of my protective warrior husband, whose fierceness—so frightening to me once—was arousing me beyond belief.
I tried to quell the thoughts, but my mind seemed intent on remembering, in some detail, the intensity of pleasure forced upon me by the clever suction of his mouth, pulling, feasting with relentless intention.
The methodical thrust of his tongue. The clenching, succulent rapture.
I felt almost faint with longing as I watched the razor-sharp blades of my husband’s knives catch shards of sunlight, throwing the silver-cast reflections around the room in an iridescent display.
The boundaries between safety and danger were distorted.
I wondered at my own reaction even as my nipples beaded and the low ache of my most delicate places began to throb with a fervent, ripening desire.
“It does not surprise me,” said Kade evenly, without slowing his measured, stalking movements, “that my wife attracts the attention of other men.” His tone was calm and direct, laced with a distilled fury that raised the tiny hairs on the back of my neck—and inspired a light quiver in my moistening core.
And there was more to Kade’s manner than anger; he looked to be genuinely interested in the details of this encounter.
I had little doubt that Kade knew of my former youthful attraction to the man he was now on the verge of attacking.
Caleb’s banishment and the reason behind it had become somewhat of a discussion point among our clan’s people.
News of that kind had a way of traveling, and would likely have reached Kade at some point between Caleb’s exile and this moment.
Kade had probably heard of it before our marriage had even taken place.
And now Kade, seeing the object of his wife’s onetime affection, appeared vaguely bemused by the sight of him.
“What does surprise me, however,” Kade continued, “is that this, by all accounts, is my most fearsome competitor for her affections.” He was studying Caleb, and it was a scrutiny that was clearly making Caleb wildly uncomfortable.
Caleb stared at my husband—and his myriad of gleaming armaments—with a mixture of awe, terror and evident resolve: whatever my husband decided to do about Caleb’s mild advances would go uncontested.
It was glaringly obvious to all that Kade outmatched Caleb in combative skill by a measure of at least ten to one.
My sisters whispered in a huddled group from the periphery, unnerved by the prospect of watching Caleb gutted. As was I.
“I’d challenge you to a duel,” my husband said, “but you don’t appear to be carrying a weapon.” Kade’s expression was sardonic, disbelieving. He half smiled, as though he found Caleb’s omission not only foolish but entertaining.
When Caleb did not reply to Kade’s observation, my husband continued.
“I’d offer to lend you one of my weapons, but I fear that if you chose to accept a call to arms, your death would come so swiftly and so easily that it would greatly upset my wife.
And I can’t have my wife upset with me, now, can I?
It never pays to upset one’s wife, so I’ve heard.
” He repeated my title with emphasis, as though to reiterate the justification behind his barely corralled wrath.
Still, Caleb remained silent, watching Kade’s feet as he circled us.
“What say you, man?” Kade asked pointedly.
“What are you doing touching my wife in any way whatsoever?” Kade’s words were dripping with murderous ire.
“You are asking to be challenged, are you not? You’ve started something, aye, and so you must be prepared to finish it.
” And then, with a quiet menace that renewed all my original fears of him, even if those fears were inlaid with confounding desire, Kade leaned close to Caleb and said, “Are you imagining that my wife might have lingering feelings for you, even though she is now married?”
“That would be a question for your wife, I imagine,” Caleb said, finally meeting Kade’s hostile gaze. I could see Caleb was working to keep the panic from showing in his voice and in his manner.
Kade paused for a brief moment, spearing Caleb with a glare so intent that any inkling of courage Caleb might have summoned withered instantly.
Kade surprised me then as he appeared to take Caleb’s reply to heart.
“A very good point,” Kade said, turning to me.
“Wife,” he began, his feral eyes wandering my face, lingering on my parted lips.
Then, in a quick, soldier’s movement, he stepped forward, clasping my wrist with brutal, unthinking force before immediately gentling his grasp and weaving his fingers through mine.
He was watching my face as he pulled me along with him.
I had no choice but to follow, even if I wanted to refuse.
My head issued warnings, conjuring protests.
But my body wanted nothing more than to obey his every command.
“If you’ll excuse us,” he said shortly, as though he cared not whether our audience was inclined to allow us our leave.
“I have some urgent matters I need to discuss with my wife. Do not expect us until the morrow.” Then, as a vicious afterthought, Kade turned to Caleb and uttered a frigid warning.
“If you ever so much as brush up against my wife again, I will have no choice but to challenge you on the spot. And I’m not inclined to show even the remotest hint of either mercy or remorse when it comes to matters concerning my wife.
Either stay away from her, or be prepared to defend your actions. Consider yourself duly warned.”
With that, Kade turned to go, leading me, not unwillingly, along with him.
A sharp stab of anxiety entwined with pure, primal excitement speared me.
The seething emotion behind my husband’s outrageous, barely contained strength made me wonder what he intended to do with me.
Would he punish me? Would his rage be enough to see him breaking his vow?
The thought brought a flare of heat to my nether regions that caused me to gasp lightly.
My sisters and Caleb seemed to interpret the sound I made as one of distress.
Their faces showed concern, and pity. There was nothing they could do to stop Kade, or to protect me.
I was his. As it was, my husband barely gave them a backward glance as he hauled me through the door, down the corridor, and up the staircase to our private chambers.