Chapter 15 #3
He let out a sigh of relief. The cauldron was there, apparently where he had left it along with a saddlebag.
“We’re fine, see,” she told him.
“But do we need more heated water—”
She shook her head. “The cauldron will do what it does,” she replied.
He helped her add the water and the various herbs that she would use. And even though they didn’t have a fire, the cauldron seemed to steam and create the mixture that she wanted for Finn.
When she was done, she smiled happily and said, “I’ll just take this and see that it’s placed upon Finn’s injury. And—”
“Nay, you go nowhere alone!” he told her. “I will take it.”
“We’ll go together,” Deidre said.
She thought he might argue, but he did not. And she realized that it didn’t mitigate his lack of worry for her—he just thought they were always safest together. Maybe they were.
It didn’t take them long to find the little place where Finn was being tended by the older woman. She was quick to fix the poultice and bandage upon Finn, an expert at her ability to wrap a wound.
Deidre thanked her. When they were about to leave, Finn opened his eyes and caught her hand.
For a second, instinct kicked in and she wanted to wrench away and grab her sword.
Somehow, she managed not to do so.
And all that Finn had to say was, “Thank you! Thank you again for my life. I believe I will live to see my wife and my child!”
“Take care,” she told him.
“Just heal,” Kylin said quietly. “Be ready to stand with our people.”
Finn nodded and closed his eyes again, a small smile curled onto his lips.
They returned to their rooms again, an uneventful walk in the night. Kylin stood at her door, waiting for her to slide the bolt.
She smiled and slid the bolt.
Once she had done so, she heard him heading into his own room.
“Good night, beloved,” she said softly to herself. Alone, and with nothing else to do, she settled down for the night.
She needed to sleep.
But she lay awake, staring at the darkness.
There was a soft glow in the room. She rolled. Her sword, of course.
Always with a touch of a shimmer. A bit of an angel or a fairy? She didn’t know.
She thought about the days past, finding the enemy in the hills—finding magic in the earth, as they had before. And again, she wondered why they couldn’t get at the one fact they needed to know most.
Who is betraying Declan and éire? Who is behind it, garnering men, threatening them with more than their own lives, but with the lives of those they love?
Maybe the mystical beings didn’t know. Maybe they simply heard a bit more than human beings, saw a bit more, or perhaps the magic just gave Kylin and Deidre shards of information, without it all.
They had fought; they had won.
And they had saved Finn. The cauldron had done that for them.
And by night, she had slept by Kylin, so sheltered and warm within his simple hold.
She flushed, tossed and turned, remembering the dream.
She was afraid to sleep. When she slept, the dreams touched her.
But that night she didn’t need to dream about the incredible intimacy they had shared.
They were compatriots, a duo who worked well together, who were equally touched by the ancient gods or the angels.
And there might be someone, a woman, in his life. One more feminine, who practiced the art of weaving or sewing, cooking, even healing.
“Why don’t you just ask him?”
She could have sworn that someone spoke the words aloud. But she was alone in her room, completely alone, except for the shimmer of her sword.
Ask him, casually, of course, in general conversation as they traveled home in the morning. Easy, aye, just ask the question.
What if it didn’t matter? What if there was no one in his life, but he didn’t want her anyway? That concept was a painful one.
She needed to sleep. This was not the time to desperately obsess on a dream, no matter how sweet the dream, how strange.
Embracing some dreams and visions was incredibly important—the vision of Shimmer had given her the sword, and dreams had brought them to the cauldron and the spear and then, perhaps, even the stone . . .
The magical pebble! She wondered about it. Of course, now, knowing the magic that could exist in strange and wonderful ways, it wasn’t terribly surprising that the great “stone” of legend was small, a shiny pebble. Thrown, however, it still made a formidable weapon. But . . .
Is there more? More, perhaps that the pebble can do?
She had no answers at the moment.
And she was so tired.
She tossed and turned, and eventually, she slept, thinking that the ancients might send her another dream, a dream that told her who was behind the evil!
And she did dream, but it wasn’t the dream she had thought might come, one that might give away more of the future.
There was a tap at her door.
And she woke up with a jerk and hurried to the door, pausing. She hoped she was smart enough never to slide the bolt unless she knew who was there.
“Deidre?”
She knew the voice, the sound of his voice was etched into her memory, into her senses.
She opened the door.
He looked at her. She had never understood the strange, silent communication that could come so easily between them.
He didn’t speak again. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his, and she knew that this might not be the dream she needed, but it was the dream she craved.
She stepped back from the door.
And he walked in. And she slid easily into his arms where he held her for a minute. Then their eyes locked once more.
And they kissed.
And kissed. A touch gentle like a feather, at first, teasing as their words could so easily be, teasing in a way that elicited sensation even when it was just words.
But now, it was his touch.
The brush of his lips on hers, the kiss growing deeper, wetter, hotter, tongues dueling and twisting in an elaborate dance that created hunger and urgency.
Then they fell upon her pallet together, still so urgent, yet laughing as they fell, reaching for one another, fighting with their clothing, laughing more, until his lips touched down on the flesh he had bared and it seemed that the whole of her took flight into a beautiful mist of pure sensation.
She stroked his shoulders, the length of his back, his chest . . .
She let her lips flow over his skin, all of his skin . . .
Until they came to a place where passion and urgency surpassed all else, until they had to combine as one, join in the human dance of love that was as old as the ancients and beyond, beautiful somehow, despite or because of the tangle and sheen of their bodies, the need and the hunger that had to be appeased.
And then in a burst, it was . . .
And in the dream, he curled his body against hers, held her tenderly.
His eyes touched hers. And there was something just as beautiful in the way that he held her then, in the way that they curled together.
In the words they didn’t need to say because, as always, a look, a touch . . . communicated all.
And it could be as it had been in the woods, just more intimate as they slept, curled against one another.
But come the morning, she awoke with a start. She stretched her hands over the pallet. She was alone.
She sat up, still dressed in the tunic she had worn to sleep.
The bolt was on her door.
“No!” She said the word aloud.
It had been a dream again. A beautiful, intimate, far too erotic dream.
But she was alone.
Yet, it was almost as if she could still feel his touch.