Chapter 10
Moira smiled to herself as she led Niall outside. She ignored his questions about what type of game they were going to play, telling him that he had to wait and find out. He was impatient, and she could tell that he was frustrated, but he did as she asked.
She scoured the ground for what she needed and gathered a few twigs and moss in her hand, adding flowers to give the trinket some life and beauty. In the end, she created a heart shape with flowers wrapped around the outside. She presented it to Niall, who nodded, impressed.
“It’s a lovely thing ye hae made, Moira, but I fail tae see how this is a game.
Dae ye expect me tae make something similar?
Because I can tell ye now that it’s nae gaeing tae be pretty.
” The trinket rested in his palm, nestled against his flesh.
Moira chuckled and plucked it out of his hand, holding it between her finger and thumb.
“That’s nae the game at all, silly, though I would like tae see what ye could come up with. But the game is that I’m gaeing tae hide it and ye hae tae find it…and then ye hae tae come find me. Now, turn around and close yer eyes.”
Moira turned Niall around so that he was facing the castle wall. She lifted his hands so that they covered his eyes, and she made him promise that he wasn’t going to peek.
“I dinnae need tae peek tae find ye,” he said.
“We’ll see about that,” Moira said, glad that he was throwing himself into the challenge. She told him to count to a hundred and then come and find her. As soon as he began counting she turned and looked for a good place to hide, not only to hide herself, but also the trinket.
At first, she thought about rushing to the stables, before quickly dismissing the notion.
The horses might give her away. The wide fields offered few places to hide and he would find her easily, and she didn’t want to go back into the castle as Niall knew the building far more than she did.
In the end, she raced to the forest, moving as quietly as she could through bushes.
She passed through a lot of trees and found one that was particularly old and gnarled.
Pressing her hand against the rough bark, she felt connected with nature for a moment before she told herself that she had no time to lose herself in reverie.
She found a small nook into which the trinket fit perfectly.
Pleased with herself, she moved to a thick area of bracken and hid behind it, waiting to see how long Niall took to find her.
Moira waited with bated breath. In the distance, she could hear Niall call out that he was coming to find her.
Moira’s heart beat quickly and she found it silly that a child’s game could still be so thrilling after all these years.
She had played it often with her niece and nephew, but she always had to make it a little easy for them.
With Niall, there were no such qualms. However, Niall was a skilled hunter, and it didn’t take him long to come across her trail.
She had hoped he might think she had gone to the stables, but he made a line straight towards the forest and she cursed herself for not thinking about covering her tracks.
However, once Niall entered the forest, he found it far more difficult. He called out to her, pretending to be in trouble, but little did he know that she could see him from her vantage point and knew he was not in any danger. He tried to coax her out, but she remained silent, stifling a laugh.
Niall looked closely at the plants and flowers around him, and picked something off one of them.
It looked like a thread. Moira glanced at her arm and saw that indeed a part of her shawl had caught on a thorn without her realizing it.
She must have been in such a rush that it pulled away without any effort at all.
He then noticed some broken sticks and a place where she had pushed aside a thick part of a bush.
Moira frowned. It wasn’t taking him as long as she had hoped to find her trail, and she was dismayed when he passed along the trees and found the trinket without much trouble at all.
He plucked it out of the hidey-hole and held it aloft, calling out to Moira that he had found what she had hidden.
But that was only part of the game. The other part was to find her.
She watched Niall crouch and inspect the ground, looking at the tracks she had left. Then, he seemed to stare right at her. Moira froze. No, she told herself, it was impossible that he could actually see her, and she wasn’t ready for this game to be over.
She pushed herself up and carefully ran away, skipping lightly to try and make as little sound as possible. She had gotten quite good at moving stealthily with Gregor and Lileas, and she moved around the forest, hiding behind a tree.
She watched as Niall broke through the bracken with a triumphant cry, expecting to find her there.
She sniggered as he frowned and looked around, wondering where she had gone.
Moira wasn’t going to rest, as she knew it would take him only moments to figure out the path she had taken, so she moved again, using the trees as shields.
Niall noticed the sounds of movement.
“I know ye are out here, Moira. Ye cannae hide from me forever!”
He followed the trail to the trees, but Moira was always one step ahead. She ran lightly and pressed herself flat against a wide trunk. The light was dim as the thick leaves and branches offered a canopy that blocked out the fading light. The air smelled earthy and lush.
Occasionally the leaves shook as birds hopped and flew about, while she also sensed the sound of small animals scurrying about, getting ready to go about their business under the cover of night, with the hope that they would escape the attention of predators.
Moira peered around the tree trunk, expecting to see Niall peering at the ground or looking around in a perplexed state.
But instead, there was nothing. She strained her ears to try and listen for him, but it was as though he had disappeared entirely.
Fear pricked at her mind, and she suddenly realized that she was in the forest alone with all the darkness encroaching around her.
Moira’s throat ran dry, and she crept out from behind the tree, glancing around the glade, worried that Niall might have left her.
Would he actually have done that? No, it didn’t seem possible, and yet there was no trace of him.
She peered at the ground, wishing that she was a hunter so she could figure out his tracks, but the ground all looked the same to her.
She shook her head and frowned, and just as she was about to call out to him, she felt a presence rush by, and then two hands grabbed her and pinned her against the trunk of a tree.
“Found ye,” Niall said, smirking, his face inches from hers. Moira could have slapped him, but she was relieved that it was he who found her.
“I thought ye were some spirit!” she cried, her heart still racing.
“There’s no spirits out here. There’s nobody but us,” Niall said, his voice lowering to a soft burr. Moira’s chest heaved with exhilaration at the thought of being so close to him.
Her mind grew hazy as he leaned in and whispered something sweet and secret in her ear before his lips pressed against her neck in a soft kiss that elicited a crackling feeling.
Something twitched deep inside her, and Niall lowered his hands, lifting up her skirt.
The sweet heat turned into a blazing inferno, and a smile adorned her face as pleasure beckoned.