Chapter Thirteen #2
argue the fact.”
Valdar poked him in the ribs. “But?”
Ronan winced, just managing to swallow a yelp.
But his entire body tightened and he clenched his hands, his gaze still on the dark, wet night beyond the window. Somewhere
out there, like as not quite close, lurked a Holder by the name of Dungal Tarnach.
Man of thunder.
A man of such power he clearly possessed the ability to make himself appear as a MacKenzie.
Or bespell Valdar into seeing him thus.
“A Highlander won’t be coddled either,” Valdar gusted on, stepping around to plant himself in front of Ronan. “And we dinna
like things kept from us!”
Lunging, he flashed out a hand and plucked the rolled parchment from Ronan’s belt. “Hah!” he cried, leaping back to wave the
thing over his head like a trophy.
“Now we shall see what you were trying to keep from me!” He grinned, already unrolling the scroll. “I’ve a mind Kintail wishes
to throw a feast in my honor.”
He winked at Ronan, his eyes twinkling. “Now that’d be one secret-keeping I’d forgive you, laddie.”
But when he stepped up to the table and held the scroll close to the light of a candelabrum, the delight left Valdar’s eyes.
“So I erred.” His great shoulders dipped as he stared at the heavy black lines scrawled across the parchment.
“You didn’t err. You were fooled . . . and by a master at deception. The Holder clearly guised himself as one of Kintail’s
men.” Ronan put his hand on the older man’s shoulder, pleased when they lifted again, squaring.
Even more pleased when Valdar’s chest swelled and his face reddened with fury.
Rage was good.
He’d feared a different reaction.
“The lying jackal!” Valdar roared suddenly, crumpling the scroll in his fist. “So they’ve returned at last, the double-dyed
ring-tailed dastards! And this time armed with belly wind and lies!”
“We do not know that.” Ronan hated the admission, but it had to be made. “Too much is at stake not to take the warning seriously.”
Valdar’s brows shot upward. “Dinna tell me you mean to meet the bastard?”
“I see no choice.” Ronan ran a hand through his hair, released a breath. “Not if my lady’s life is in danger.”
Something inside him twisted at the possibility she’d be harmed by someone at Dare.
The very notion jellied his knees.
“Then I’ll go with you.” Valdar swung away from him and snatched up his Viking axe. “ ’Tis overlong since Blood Drinker quenched
his thirst!”
“Nae.” Ronan took the axe from him and hung it back on the wall. “You and Blood Drinker will stay here — someone needs to
look after Gelis.”
And keep a sharp eye on everyone else.
He frowned. Those words, too, lodged in his throat, the meaning behind them too horrible to voice.
But Valdar had puffed up his chest and jammed his hands on his hips, once again looking much younger — and stronger — than
his years.
“I will do as Dungal Tarnach proposes.” Ronan spoke before he could change his mind. “I’ll meet him at the Tobar Ghorm and
I’ll go there alone.”
Valdar snorted.
“If you make it!” Striding back to the table, he poured himself another cup of uisge beatha, draining it in one quick gulp. “The loch surrounding the Blue Well’s islet is vile. ’Tis known to be infested with nameless
creatures, it is. Dark, terrible things much worse than water horses and water bulls. Things —”
Ronan cut him off with a hand wave. “Be that as it may, I can’t risk not going.”
Valdar harrumphed. “I still dinna like it.”
“Neither do I,” Ronan agreed.
But he’d like it even less if he ignored such an opportunity and ill befell his lady.
His lady and Valdar and even himself.
Since time immemorial — or, to be specific, since Valdar stole the Holders’ Raven Stone — the turned druids had reviled Clan
MacRuari, vowing their ruination unless the powerful stone was returned to them.
If they’d now won a MacRuari as an accomplice, no chances could be taken. Frowning, Ronan picked up the parchment and reread
the boldly inked lines.
Even on a second reading, they galled.
“I’ll ne’er believe it.” Valdar snatched the scroll and tossed it into the fire. “There isn’t a man at Dare who’d turn coat
on us.”
“Mercy on the man’s soul if there is.” Ronan watched the parchment blacken and burn. “He’ll no’ live long enough to e’er change
sides again.”
But a short while later, as he paced Dare’s rainswept battlements, needing the night’s cold brittle air and icy wind to clear
his mind, it wasn’t the possibility of a betrayer that twisted him in knots.
It was wondering why a Holder would warn him.
Gelis dreamed of a man of spirit and hot blood.
Tall, well-favored, and with silky black hair just dusting his wide shoulders, he moved through the darkness of the small
hours, naked save the gleam of his skin in the moonlight and the glint of gold banding his neck and circling one powerfully
muscled arm.
Quiet as fate, he came to her, slipping into the bed and drawing her near. He tightened his arms around her, warming her with
his heat and his strength. His arousal, hot, thick, and heavy, pressed against her hip, scorching her skin and making the
lowest part of her belly clench with need.
That part of her melted, on fire and tingling.
She sighed, her own arms sliding around him, seeking his nearness. She ached for his touch, there where she needed him most
and her womanhood pulsed and burned with desire.
As if he knew, his hand found her. His fingers skimmed over her maiden hair, drifting ever lower to gently caress the very
center of her, cupping her fiercely.
“Och, lass, forgive me. I did no’ want this.” His voice, dark, rich, and seductive, made her shiver. “But I canna resist you
. . . am lost, as I’ve told you.”
She cried out, reaching to clutch his shoulders and rocking her hips to increase the sweet pressure against his seeking, stroking
fingers. But the drowsiness of sleep kept her gasps and sighs trapped inside her.
And hard as she tried, as was the way with dreams, her grasping hands and her aching hips refused to move.
He kissed her anyway, thrusting his hand into the loose spill of her hair and pulling her lips to his. Murmuring ancient Gaelic
love words, he claimed her mouth in a hard, bruising kiss, deep and ravenous.
“Precious lass, let me touch you,” he begged, the words hot silk against her lips. “There’s no’ a breath I take nor a beat
of my heart that’s no’ steeped with wanting you.”
“Ahhhh . . .” At last the dream let her move again and she arched into him. In reward, hot, tingling need rippled through
her, drenching her.
She went liquid, her mouth opening wide beneath his. Her tongue swirled and thrust, seeking and tangling with his. Their hot
breath mingled, each intimately shared gasp intoxicating her all the more.
Incredible pleasure whirled inside her, bright, sinuous flames that ignited her senses and curled her toes, making her wind
and stretch on the cool richness of the bedsheets.
“Ahhhh,” she cried again, this time letting her knees fall apart, opening herself to him.
“Mo ghaoil — my dear — you shouldn’t have done that,” he growled, lifting up on his elbows to stare down at her, every muscle-ripped
inch of him poised above her, the bold look in his eyes making her even more hot, wet, and slippery.
He tightened his grip on her heat then, but released her as quickly. Still murmuring Gaelic love words, he smoothed his hands
swiftly upward, seizing and kneading her breasts. Hot and strong, his fingers squeezed and plumped her flesh, the pleasure
of it finally shattering the spell of her dream and letting her cry out her need.
“Yesss . . . Ronan!” She writhed against him, her fingers tangling in the coverlets and her thighs clamping around the plump
feather pillow caught between them.
“Ronan . . .” She kicked the pillow aside and flung off the covers.
Flipping onto her stomach, she swept an arm across the cold and empty sheets.
Bedding icier than any she’d ever shared with her sister.
Impossible that a man had lain there with her.
With surety, not the Raven.
She’d only dreamed that he’d come to her.
Her own female need and desire had spun the wild, abandoned kind of passion she ached for so badly.
The heady, set-the-heather-ablaze kind of lovemaking she knew no man save Ronan could give her.
“ No-o-o!” She dug her hands into the coverlets, her fingers gripping the richly embroidered sheets and the somewhat scratchy
fur throws.
“Please.” She choked on the word, a hot, scalding wetness tracking down her cheeks. “Come back — I need you . . .”
But only silence answered her.
That, and the hollow whistling of the cold night wind; the touches and voices that weren’t there, reaching and whispering
from the shadows.
“Ronan . . .” The name hung in the darkness, filling her soul even if her cry echoed back to her, hollow and unanswered.
Her heart pounding, she damned her dreams — for they only made her want him more — and rolled onto her side. A chill spread
through her then, a coldness coming from deep in her soul. She reached for the cast-off covers, just closing her fingers on
them when she saw him.
He stood across the darkened bedchamber, his tall form cloaked in shadow. Behind him, a few peat embers still glimmered on
the hearthstone. The faint, orangey glow of the peat edged the wide set of his shoulders and the satiny spill of his sleek,
raven hair.
No longer naked, he appeared swathed from head to toe in his great voluminous travel cloak, though she was sure the mantle
would have needed laundering after shielding Buckie and his onion creel from the rain on the long journey back from Creag
na Gaoith.
Shifting on the bed, she knuckled her eyes and then scrunched them to see him better. He stood unnaturally still, and although
his face was cast in shadow, his eyes glinted darkly, and something about the way he was staring at her lifted the fine hairs
on the back of her neck.
His neck, she saw with a start, was unadorned.
The fine golden torque he favored, nowhere to be seen.