Chapter 17
Just like that, the moment was over, leaving her weak and shaking.
Skye sat on the table, her elbow, still shivering and dizzy from her climax. She blinked around her, wondering if the world really had changed since the last time she saw it, or whether she’d imagined it.
Evander leaned forward as if he were going to kiss her. His eyes were wide and dark with hunger, his lips slick. For a moment, she wondered if she would taste herself on his tongue.
The thought sent a fresh wave of heat through her.
He seemed to think better of it and pulled back. The air cooled between them, although Skye’s hazy mind could barely grasp it.
“Yer dress will need laundering, lass,” Evander remarked with a sigh, gesturing to the damp elbow. “I’m sorry.”
“S-Sorry?” she stammered. “There’s no need for ye to be sorry.”
He cleared his throat. “Let’s hope that ye still think the same way when ye read over the contract. I shouldnae have done that, Skye. It broke our rules.”
“But I am telling ye I didnae mind. Truly, I am nae angry. I… I liked it. And what about ye? Do ye nae need…” she trailed off, reddening.
Men needed touches like that too, didn’t they?
Of course, Skye had never thought about how to please a man. She’d never particularly wanted to. But now, with her blood still pumping frantically through her veins and the afterglow of her climax shivering through her, she wanted to do something.
She could make him feel good, surely? As if they had done something together, instead of only him pleasuring her. People met each other halfway, didn’t they? She could do it. If he would only talk her through it, tell her just what he wanted, or—
“Nay,” Evander said decisively, half turning away. “I daenae need anything.”
She shrank a little. “Oh.”
He sounded very sure. He she not… had she not pleased him? Was there some secret rule she’d broken? It was entirely possible. The world of men and women together was something that maids whispered about in corridors, giggling and swapping tips.
A laird’s sister was supposed to stay a little more ignorant. There was a fine balance. A very fine balance.
So now, was she missing the point? Was she embarrassing herself and him?
Questions queued up on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask them. Not yet, at least.
Evander’s jaw tightened, and he glanced away. “Skye, ye arenae yerself. Ye havenae recovered all of yer memories. It was wrong of me to put ye in this situation, and I am sorry for it. When ye remember it all, ye will remember the reasons why ye wanted distance between us.”
She blinked, frowning. No answers lurked in her memory.
“Perhaps I wanted to keep our relationship distant for political reasons.”
“Perhaps ye did. But I agreed to honor yer wishes, did I nae? I willnae go back on me word now. Ye had yer reasons for what ye requested.”
“Why can ye nae just tell me what those reasons were?”
He glanced at her, his eyes unreadable once more. Emotions flashed briefly in their depths, too quickly for her to properly identify them.
It was infuriating. Shouldn’t she know him better than this? Why did it feel as though she were meeting him for the first time?
Nay, that’s nae quite true. But why? Why?
The why made no sense, but the what certainly did. She knew what drew her to him. His size and his strength were impressive, sure, but she was used to tall, strong men. Her brother and cousin were both large.
Was it his eyes, flashes of sharp color that caught her attention and held it? Was it his easy grin, the tilt of his canine teeth, that made his smile dangerous?
It couldn’t just be his attractiveness. He was attractive, but there was more. She’d met attractive men before.
He talks to me like nothing else matters. Like no one else matters. It’s just me and him, and me words are important. He looks for me in every room he enters. He has a sharp sense of humor, even if he tries to find it. Lairds arenae supposed to be funny.
It could be any one of those reasons, or it could be all of them.
“Go on,” she prompted, meeting his gaze. “Tell me me reasons.”
“Because I daenae ken them,” he said simply.
“I ken that ye came here full of anger at yer faither’s death.
Ye blamed me faither for his death. Ye learned that I killed me faither, for the shame and danger he brought to our clan.
And… And for what he did to me,” he added, a muscle jumping in his cheek.
“He would have killed me if I hadnae killed him. That was why ye chose to let go of yer anger.”
Skye swallowed thickly, letting her gaze drop to the floor.
“Aye, I can imagine that I would have let things go after that,” she murmured. “There’s no sense in holding a grudge against a man long dead.”
“Even if he does still make his presence felt,” Evander muttered sourly. “Sometimes it feels as though he haunts me, trying to drag me down the same paths he took.”
She wanted to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder. She wanted to look him in the eyes and tell him that he was safe, that he’d never be his father.
But the words wouldn’t come. So she sat still, on the edge of the table, looking at nothing.
Evander cleared his throat and lifted his chin. “Well, have ye eaten enough?”
“I am… satisfied.”
His eyebrows twitched, the corner of his lips quirking as if he wanted to smile. “Very well.”
Skye frowned. Why was his response so unsatisfying? Where was the bite? Where was the fire?
Ye are a fool, she told herself grimly. This isnae a love story.
The words rang wrong in her head, no matter how hard she tried to push them aside.
“Very well?” she heard herself say. “Is that all ye have to say to me? Come on.”
He appeared to bite back a smile. “That’s nae all. Come with me, lass. I’ll take ye to the council room. That is where the contract is kept.”
He extended a hand to help her down from the table. She took it, nimbly hopping down. Her knees shook when she landed on the floor, threatening to betray her. For one awful moment, she really thought that her legs would jackknife beneath her, sending her tumbling onto the flagstones.
A sort of tenderness pulsed through her body, a reminder of her climax. Even the memory of it made her blush.
Evander’s hand tightened around hers. “All right, lass?” he murmured softly.
When she glanced up, his eyes were fixed on her.
If I fall, he’d catch me. I ken that.
Where had that thought come from?
Confidence came along with it, a certainty that she wasn’t quite sure where she’d picked up.
He released her hand, letting her arm drop.
“Ye ready?” he asked tightly, picking up a candle. “It’s late. The keep will be dark.”
She shook out her skirts and smoothed down her bodice. There were wrinkles in the fabric that hadn’t been there before, and heat inched up her neck at the thought of how they had gotten there.
“I’m ready,” she responded. “I’m nae afraid of the dark. Havenae been since I was a wee lassie.”
“If I recall,” he drawled, “ye were once afraid of monsters under yer bed, then yer braither told ye that aye, indeed, there were monsters there, but nae to fear. They were there to protect ye, nae to eat ye. He said that there were real monsters just outside the walls of the keep—within the walls, sometimes—but ye shouldnae fret, because ye had yer own personal monster right beside ye, ready to defend ye. And that worked.”
She bit her lip. “I told ye that story?”
“Aye, ye did.”
“Oh, well, I must have trusted ye, then.”
He gave a quick, approving nod and turned toward the door.
Out in the hallway, a few torches were lit to light the way.
Even so, with darkness falling outside and a clouded sky obscuring the moon, the halls were exceptionally shadowy.
Darkness pressed in eagerly between the torches.
Corners held deep pools of black, where somebody with an overactive imagination might see something terrible.
Skye did her best not to look at those shadows. She focused on Evander’s broad back ahead of her, finding his way with ease through the halls.
“Have I been to the council room before?” she asked when the silence grew oppressive.
“Oh, aye,” he responded, glancing back over his shoulder. “Ye insisted on sitting in on all the meetings. Some of me councilmen werenae pleased. Andrew Kane, for one. He was afraid ye would spy for yer braither, or for yer cousin.”
“Did he nae like me? Leah told me that he was helpful the night I disappeared.”
“That he was. He organized searches when I was too frenzied to think straight. He didnae dislike ye, lass, but I daenae think he trusted ye. Still, he will be pleased to see that ye have returned. With ye gone, war has been inching progressively closer to our doorstep, and any good councilman would want to avoid that.”
They took a sharp right and then a narrow corridor that opened back up onto the Great Hall. Skye shrank back at the expanse of darkness. The torches, occasional braziers, and the flickering candle Evander was holding did little to ward off the shadows.
The ceiling, already vaulted so high above their heads, was a mass of darkness.
All around them, shadows flickered. A few soldiers stood in the pools of light, smothering yawns.
They blinked and straightened up when Evander walked by, watching him expectantly as if hoping to be commended on their diligence.
“Here is the council room,” Evander said, stopping outside a tall, wide door. He fished out a rusted brass key from his pocket and turned it with an echoing grate in the lock. “There’ll be no lights in here.”
The door opened, as he’d promised, into blackness. He set the candle down on something, and she shuffled after him into the room, blinking around.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, lit only by the candle, she began to remember.