Chapter 3
Eian pulled himself up out of the narrow cave entrance on his elbows, holding a freshly extinguished torch in one hand, the smell of damp earth and crushed heather filling his nose.
Nothing. There had been absolutely nothing in this cave, and it was the third he had searched in these hills in as many days.
He might have gotten through twice that many if the damn things weren’t so hard to find when all he had was some two hundred year old map from the library at Creagmor, and if most of the entrances weren’t completely hidden with clumps of heather and brambles.
Brambles he had to hack through with a dagger before he could even get to the cave itself.
He would stay another week at most, search a few more of the dozens of caves in the area, and then he was going home to let his brother Bren have a piece of his mind. Charms in caves my arse, big brother!
Dusting off his clothing as best he could, he swung up onto the horse he had left peacefully munching tufts of grass, and headed sullenly back to the village and the inn where he was staying.
After an hour or so of crawling around in that dark and narrow chamber, trying to hold a torch while searching dank corners and crevices where god knew what was living, he was damned hungry.
A short time later, he pulled his stallion to a stop near the dilapidated building and looked at it with a frown.
As the only public accommodations in town, the inn left a lot to be desired.
Still, the bed was clean, the food was edible, and staying here was much safer than camping nearby, where any number of unsavory characters might try to rob him while he slept.
He could defend himself of course, but having to kill and then bury would-be bandits would be a bloody nuisance.
He had considered, at some length, staying at Lochain castle, but by doing so he would draw undue attention to himself which would make it harder to explore the surrounding hills unnoticed.
Which in turn might delay his return home, with or without the bloody charm.
He slid easily from the back of his prized stallion, Dair, and took him by the halter to lead him to the inn’s stables for the night, wishing he was almost anywhere but here.
The town was rather small, sparsely populated, and had very little to offer in the way of entertainment, or acceptable bed partners, for that matter (even he had some standards, and he certainly never tupped whores, no matter how desperate he might be at the time).
In short, Eian didn’t like to be alone, or bored, or without a woman beneath him, and right now, he was all three.
Maybe he would get lucky and find the right cave tomorrow so he could go home early.
Aye, he though ruefully, and it would also start raining gold coins and frogs before the night was out.
With a sigh, he rubbed Dair’s long, soft muzzle and urged him forward with a click of his tongue, but oddly, the great beast wouldn’t budge. “Come, Dair”, he said, pulling at his halter. “I have some oats for ye, boy, would ye no’ like that?”
Still the stallion refused to move. Puzzled, Eian looked around for any sign of danger, or something that might be frightening him.
But Dair was a war horse who had been through several battles and more than his share of minor skirmishes; he wasn’t generally frightened of anything.
Eian frowned and tried again. “Come, Dair, come on boy, what’s wrong?
” Dair only snorted and tossed his head.
Eian was about to throw up his hands in surrender and let the stubborn beast stand there in the door yard all night if it suited him, when he heard the clamor of horses approaching from the east. He looked up to see who it was.
There were five horses and riders in the distance, coming in fast and heading towards the castle, the flying hooves kicking up road dust which billowed behind them.
As they drew nearer, he could see there were four men and one woman; her gown and her long blonde hair were flying back in the wind as she rode.
When they came to the narrower, heavily rutted and pot-holed road into the town, the riders were forced to slow to a brisk walk, passing not fifteen feet from where Eian stood in the yard of the inn with his recalcitrant mount.
He watched then with interest. Three of the men were ordinary enough, but the fourth was obviously of noble birth.
Eian was fairly certain it was the laird of the castle, by his clothing and noble bearing, though he’d only seen the man once before and that was many years ago.
Then, fatefully, his gaze moved on to the woman.
Eian Mac Coinnach was thunderstruck. Later, that would be the only way he could describe the jolt of awareness that hit him smack in the gut as he looked at her for the first time.
The moment he saw her face, something inside him simply… shattered.
She was beautiful. Aye, breathtaking… truly a creature of another world.
She had glorious golden hair that tumbled down her back like a wavy river of silk, and her face…
god, her face! He didn’t think he had ever seen such perfect features, from the creamy ivory skin touched by the sun, to the high cheekbones and lush pink lips…
everything about her was just exquisite, more so than he could have ever imagined.
He was staring at her, rather rudely, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to look away.
And then, as if sensing his stare, she turned her head and her gaze met his.
Time seemed to stand still for a long moment as they looked at each other and he noticed that her eyes appeared to be blue-green (though he would need to be closer to really see them), and that his heart was suddenly racing as if he’d just run for hours.
She regarded him coolly, her eyes dropping down the length of his body and back up again, and god, he swore he could feel every inch of that fleeting glance.
Then her lips quirked as if she knew she had just set him bloody on fire with only a look, and she shook her head slightly as she faced forward again and rode past. Eian watched, still frozen where he stood, as she slowly disappeared from view, riding towards Lochain Castle.
He wasn’t aware of anything but her until Dair snorted again and began pulling him toward the stables. Eian shook himself from the strange spell he had fallen under and looked at his horse as if he was surprised to see him there. “Oh, now ye want yer dinner, eh?”
It wasn’t until he began to lead the horse away that Eian realized that at some point in the last several minutes his cock had become hard as a bloody rock, making even walking the short distance damned uncomfortable.