Prologue #2
But she took his face in her hands and flattened her belly against the hard, urgent core of him, and her hands moved over him with genuine need, her body pleading against his.
Rain pummeled the cave entrance as he drew her deeper into the narrow shelter, leaning his back against slick rock, drawing her plaid shawl in a damp curtain around them.
She leaned against him, her kisses feverish and consuming.
Lightning crashed, rain sheeted, stones skittered.
The very rock shuddered underfoot. This delicate, alluring creature, this lithesome fairy siren, offered refuge from fear and death.
The tender sanctuary of her embrace reminded him that he was alive, hearty, giving him strength.
She seemed to draw strength from it too, moving and arching against him, urging him onward when snatches of logic made him want to pull back.
“Please,” she whispered, “oh please, I came here for you—” she murmured.
Came here for him? What irresistible magic was this?
He swept his hands down her back, snugged her hips against his, letting her know—how could she not?
—that he burned for now. Desire and the storm had taken what was left of his reason.
He cupped her breast, and the fey creature moaned, arched, allowed his fingers to slip beneath her damp garment to find the heat at her center as she surged, crying out, graceful as the sea.
Lightning flared, and she whimpered in his arms as he lifted her.
She arched and opened for him, wild, luscious, the sweetest rescue he could imagine.
As he sank into her almost without realizing it was done, she shuddered with him.
His heart slammed, his breath was ragged, she held him, kissed him.
He tasted the salt of the sea or the salt of tears.
An exquisite power filled him, two souls raw with fear, desperate for comfort and solace. Cradling her head, he kissed her brow, her lips. She felt fragile; he felt a wash of regret.
“I am sorry,” he whispered in English. He could not find the Gaelic. “I—should not—”
“Hush.” She set a finger to his lips. “I came here for this. For you. It is done. We are free.” She spoke in English.
I am dreaming, he thought, still caught in this strange realm.
They sank to the floor of the cave, huddling together to wait out the storm.
*
You know what you must do.
As Margaret MacNeill recalled her great-grandmother’s words, she leaned against the cave wall and watched as veils of fog obscured the sea and the long reef.
A faint light hinted at approaching dawn, and greenish waves frothed over the rocks.
She could barely see the Isle of Caransay, her home, about a mile east of this wicked cluster of rocks called Sgeir Caran.
She glanced at the man asleep beside her in the shallow cave, while her fingers worked the red thread she had plucked from the plaid that still covered him.
You know what you must do. With a little help from the hot potion of whisky and herbs that her great-grandmother had prepared, Meg had come here to do what was asked of her. So be it.
She wove the red thread together with long golden hairs from her head, deep brown from his.
She had dreaded staying one night alone on Sgeir Caran as island tradition demanded.
Wary of a fearsome night, a frightful experience—fear thankfully dulled by a potent whisky concoction—she had never imagined the legend might spring to life like this.
No wonder lasses agreed if and when the need arose for a visit to the great rock.
The legend snored, swathed in her plaid, his dark head and one broad shoulder just visible. Shivering with the sweet memory of secret touches and soul-stirring kisses, Meg smiled a little.
Deftly, she plaited the threads and the hairs into a love knot, then created two tiny braids that she knotted into two circlets. Sliding one on her finger, she leaned over the sleeping man, found his hand, and slid the second circlet on his ring finger.
There. She had done what Mother Elga had instructed. The magical marriage was fixed. Smoothing a hand over his soft, damp hair, she sat back.
If the kelpie appears to you while you wait on the great rock, her great-grandmother had said, you must offer to ease his loneliness and love him.
Such is the ancient agreement. Every hundred years, the lord of the deep must claim a maiden from Caransay for his bride.
In return, he will protect the island. If the maiden bears his child, he will bestow favor and fortune on the islanders.
We need his help now more than ever, sweet Meg. You know what you must do.
Educated in the island village and later in a fine school on the mainland—courtesy of her maternal grandfather, the wealthy Lord Strathlin—Meg felt part of the remote little island and the modern world that existed beyond it.
She tended to dismiss the old beliefs, but Elga, her great-grandmother, and Thora, her grandmother on the island, accepted the old legends as absolute truth.
The Kelpie of Sgeir Caran was treasured and revered on Caransay.
She had agreed to sit one night on the rock, fearful, warmed by sweet, bitter tea that took away doubts and fears.
Certain that nothing much would happen beyond a drenching in the rain, she had agreed.
She knew that the islanders faced broad eviction by a new landowner who preferred sheep and money to tenants.
The threat to her kin and neighbors left her little choice.
One night on Sgeir Caran would do no harm.
She never counted on a gale—or the kelpie.
Bursting from the sea like a muscled arrow, the man-creature had appeared on the rock as if the raging storm had birthed him.
He was beautiful and strong and seemed so real.
Surprised rather than frightened, she felt compassion for him.
He needed her help. And then she had melted in his arms, his kisses whirled her into whatever spell he concocted. That spell lingered still.
The luscious fog of the potion Elga had given her had fired her blood. She had behaved shockingly, with abandon and passion, swept up in a powerful need to be with this man.
Willingly, madly, she had craved him, followed her body, followed his urging to fulfill an ancient bargain she did not believe in daylight. His arms, his kisses, his body, his tenderness and strength were pure magic.
She ducked her head in hot shame, her head much clearer now. What had happened? Was he a kelpie, as her grandmothers expected, or was he just a man after all?
She glanced toward him, yearning, but knowing she must leave soon. If he woke, touched her again, she might lose herself to him forever. Legend or none, she knew part of her wanted to follow him down to the deepest part of the sea if he beckoned.
He sighed, stretched, and the plaid fell away.
He was a long, lean, tight-muscled, beautiful man.
His face had the uncommon symmetry of classical beauty, his hair was deep glossy brown, his whiskers a dark smudge on his jaw, his taut chest and belly dusted with dark hair.
She blushed to remember what she had allowed and what she had craved last night.
His eyes fluttered open. Sea green. The eyes of a legendary creature.
He sighed and slept again. Meg gazed at him—her husband now by an ancient agreement. He had roused her with magic, and she would never forget him. But she had to leave. A girl could not stay with a kelpie, but the eerie pink dawn, and the lingering effect of whisky and herbs, made her wonder.
What if he were just a man, and no legend? And if so, what had she done?
He stretched, yawned. Meg stood, unsure what to do. Hearing distant yet familiar voices, she went to the mouth of the cave, realizing she was expected to leave now.
Slipping out of the cave, she ran barefoot over the rocky plateau. At the farthest end of the rock, a boat pulled closer, oared by Norrie, her seanair, her grandfather on the island. Grandmother Thora sat with him. They beckoned.
“Lass, are you well, then? In quickly,” Norrie said, waving her toward the boat.
“I am fine, Seanair,” she told her grandfather.
He beckoned again for her to step down into the rocking boat, but she hesitated.
A pull, tangible and strong, kept her there.
She could not simply strand him on this wicked rock.
She had to know if he was real or magical, needed to understand if she should go or stay; had to know the truth and the risk.
She looked back. The man stood in the cave entrance now, tall and golden in the dawn light, her plaid draped around him. He gazed toward the open sea, yet away from the corner of the rock where the water lapped at her grandfather’s boat.
“Oh! Look there,” Thora gasped. “What a beautiful creature!”
“Huh,” Norrie grunted, picking up the oars. “Margaret, hurry.”
“He found you, then?” Thora asked.
Meg stood as if caught between two worlds. She felt again that deep tug in her heart, her gut. What if he was not a kelpie, but a human. If she left him on this cold, cruel rock, his fate would be her fault.
“Margaret,” her grandfather urged.
“Wait,” she said, and whirled to run back.
Taking a few steps on the sloped and slippery black rock, she paused for balance and watched the man, prayed he would turn and see her, open his arms to welcome her, tell her he was legend or lover, that he wanted her, waited for her.
Then she noticed the dark blur of another boat gliding through the fog from the west. Fishermen. Would they see a man or a magical being?
She wiped a hand over her eyes. The dregs of the whisky potion were still with her. She was neither seeing nor thinking clearly, and the dawning sun had not yet topped the horizon to dissolve the sense of the Otherworld.
Then her lover walked down the slope, but not toward her. He waved, called. As the other boat approached, a man tossed a rope, which her lover caught. He climbed in.
Not a sea creature, to slip into the waves and disappear. A man, needing a ride in a boat.
Dear God, what had she done?
Meg turned away. Her grandparents had not noticed the other boat, and waved to her again. She went to the edge, let Norrie assist her into the boat, and sat.
As her grandfather pulled away from the rock to go east, her grandmother tossed a thick, dry plaid around Meg’s shoulders, and their boat plowed through restless waves toward Caransay.
She said nothing. Inside, she felt ill and ashamed. She had loved a man, not the great kelpie. Just a man. She felt a fool after all.
Had some rugged fellow heard that a maiden would go to Caransay that night to fulfill the old legend? Had he gone to the rock on a drunken bet? Would he gleefully tell all to his friends?
Gasping, she bowed her head.
Thora hugged her. “I am sure the great kelpie was tender with his magic,” she whispered. “The herbal potion made you willing. If a child comes of last night, the kelpie’s bairn will have a good home with us. And his father will protect Caransay and bless it with good fortune.”
Oh God, Meg thought. A child.