Chapter 7 #2
He nodded, but only because he was hungry, not because she had given him an order.
A small look of bemusement crossed his face at this ethereal, fragile-looking woman trying to order him around.
He was nearly twice her size and a hardened warrior, for God’s sake.
He took orders from no one but his brother, the Mac Coinnach chief.
Not much of a warrior at the moment, though.
He had never felt so completely powerless in his whole life, at least not since he was a newborn babe.
Perhaps not even then. Already he was itching to be up and out of bed, on his way home to Creagmor and his brothers.
But wait… he’d been so distracted by the lass he hadn’t even asked where he was.
He groaned at his own absurdity and scrubbed his hands over his face, wincing at the pain in his side.
Aye, he was definitely still affected by the fever.
Willa soon returned with a small cup of rich beef broth, which she held carefully to his lips as he watched her with a look she couldn’t quite decipher.
She was elated that she had gone through the trouble to make a stew on the very day the warrior finally awoke.
Usually she would have just eaten bread and fruit and not bothered with a hot meal, not for just herself.
He looked up over the rim of the cup, met her eyes.
His were a fathomless golden brown, sparkling with intelligence and hinting at a rare depth of character.
Those eyes… she could imagine what they would look like just before he leaned close to kiss her…
Whatever she saw there made her heart stutter, and she was finding it difficult to keep her hand steady.
She deliberately looked away and carefully pulled in her next breath so that he wouldn’t see how he affected her.
“Drink this much now, and later I’ll give you some more. You have a long way to go yet, but in time you’ll be good as new, I promise” she said cheerfully. “I’ll see to it myself.” She forced a smile to her lips to cover the strange, exciting feelings that squeezed her chest.
Famished, Drust took the cup from her and held it with a shaking hand, forcing himself to drink the liquid slowly, his stomach protesting after he hadn’t eaten for… how long, a few days?
He finished the broth, carelessly wiping his lips with the back of his hand, and looked up at her, handing back the empty cup. “How long?”
“You’ve been here for nearly a week, now.
“God.” I have to get back… Bren…
“You’re very fortunate you know. For a time we really didn’t know whether you would live.”
“We? Yer brother?”
“Yes, I live here with my brother and his wife Maura. They are kind enough to let me stay with them until I… until I find another place.”
Drust started to wonder why she was here instead of at her father’s house, or perhaps she was widowed? But then he remembered he didn’t even know where here was.
“Where are we, lass?” he rasped.
“In the mountains, the other side of Loch Glascarnoch, from where … where we found you. I hope you don’t mind, that we brought you all the way here.
I… we didn’t think it was right to just leave you to die, and we didn’t know where you had come from, or how you’d come to be injured.
If… if you would be in danger should we have taken you to the nearest town… ”
She paused and looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t explain what had happened or how she had come to find him as she did. She wouldn’t press him… yet. He was still far too weak, and besides, she felt that she really wanted to win his trust. Why, she didn’t know, but it seemed very important.
He shook his head. “Nay… thank ye, I owe ye a debt of gratitude, then, for saving my life. I didna expect to live, but now that I find I have…” He trailed off. He hadn’t yet had time to think farther ahead than finding himself alive.
“Where is yer brother? I would thank him as well.” He needed to know who this brother of hers was and if his intentions were truly as pure as she claimed.
Not many men would stop to help a stranger, especially one who would have soon been dead anyway.
He could still very well be in danger. Enemies of the powerful Mac Coinnach clan were plentiful, and though they knew most of them, there were certainly others they did not.
“He’s not here”, she said, looking slightly nervous for the first time.
She bit her bottom lip between her teeth, as if deciding how much she should tell him.
“He and Maura, his wife, went to her family for a few days. A wedding. You can thank him when he returns, but he’s a good man and I’m certain he would do as much for anyone. ”
Drust narrowed his eyes in thought. Thinking had never felt so difficult.
His head ached. What kind of a man leaves his sister alone with a stranger?
Unless she had a husband… He found that he didn’t like that thought, though he couldn’t imagine why.
It made something clench hard in his chest, even though he could certainly never have her himself, nor did he want a woman of his own.
He didn’t even know the lass, and even if he should want her, he had taken his vows, and he would without doubt uphold them. Still, a woman left alone?
“Yer brother left ye here alone? Are ye wed, then?” Strangely, he felt his chest constrict yet again at the thought of her married… and his heart began to beat faster as he waited for her reply. It made his head hurt even worse than it already did.
Aye, my mind is addled still… it will pass.
“No… no I… I’m not wed.” She shook her head and turned her attention to the empty cup still in her hands, smiling at his apparent appetite.
“Let me bring you a little more broth now, if you feel up to it. You need to start getting your strength back. It’s been a while since you’ve had any nourishment.
That’s part of the reason you feel so weak. ”
She turned and disappeared through the door, leaving Drust to wonder again what kind of man leaves his unwed sister to care for a wounded stranger who could be anyone at all, either sinner or saint.
A currently helpless stranger, to be sure, but a man, none-the-less.
He could not have imagined awaking to odder circumstances.
Perhaps he really hadn’t been expected to live. And God, he felt like hell.
She returned moments later with more of the broth, and this time she sat down on the edge of the bed with a sweet little smile that made his breath catch and his heart thud hard in his chest. Her hair fell around her shoulders and framed her perfect face, the ends falling just to the swell of her breasts…
he wondered what it would be like to touch her…
What the hell is wrong with me?
After he had taken another long sip, he asked, “Lass, did I perchance take a blow to the head?”
Her smile disappeared and she looked worried. “No, I don’t think so. I tended every inch of you myself. I think I would have noticed if you had a head wound...” Her hand went automatically to his brow. “Does it hurt? Are you dizzy?”
“Nay, lass. Not badly. Just the fever, most likely.”
She tended every inch of me herself?
Had her hands been all over him, then? She had touched him, while he was unconscious.
Had surely washed him, as the blood he knew he had been coated in was gone.
Had she washed him… everywhere? The thought of it…
it was far more thrilling than it should have been.
Against all odds and despite his frustrating pain and weakness, the fatigue of his fever-wracked body, and the dull ache in his head, his cock began to harden.
God, how in hell? The blood of the Mac Coinnachs was stronger than most, but this… bloody hell, he couldn’t believe it.
He almost laughed out loud at the irony.
No woman in his memory had ever stirred him so easily, and yet here he lay just saved from the grave, drained of half his life blood or more, and his cock hard and aching as it had ever been.
He was fairly certain he would not even be able to muster the strength to so much take relief with his hand!
Oh how Bren and Eian would laugh if they could see him now.
He must have actually smiled in rueful amusement, because she looked at him curiously.
“What is it?”
“Naught.” He was thankful for the heavy blanket pulled up over his hips, or she would have seen for herself.
Even so, she narrowed her eyes, as if knowing there was something he wasn’t telling her.
“I just feel like hell, that’s all. Been injured lots of times.
Never felt quite this bad before, though. ”
He managed to down the rest of the broth, knowing how badly his body needed nourishment.
In truth, it was delicious. Perhaps the best he’d ever tasted, and he wondered if she had made it herself.
When he finished, she stood, this time pointedly handing him a cloth to wipe his mouth.
His lips almost turned up again at that.
Women. She smiled at him approvingly as he handed it back to her, then she looked to the window.
“I have some chores to do before it’s dark. Try to rest now. I’ll be back to check on you later.”
She pulled the blankets higher on his chest, dragging them across his absurdly aching cock, which did not seem to care one bit that the rest of his body was half dead and needed rest. He sucked in a breath and just barely bit back a groan.
Bloody hell! He had ever been this bad off before?
Perhaps some strange reaction to nearly dying?
Or maybe she’d given him an herb that was also an aphrodisiac?
As she leaned over, he again caught her sweet scent, and his chest did that strange tightening thing once more, even as his cock pulsed hard under the covers.
Aye… aphrodisiac… only explanation. Not normal for a man just back from near-death to have a raging erection. That much he was sure of.
He wondered how she managed, here on her own, without a man to protect her, and with his sorry arse to take care of on top of it all.
If he weren’t so damned weak, he could help her, and protect her.
What would it have been like to have such a beautiful lass all his own, had life set him on a different course?
A woman all mine to love and protect… The whole idea made him feel slightly panicked, so luckily his life had taken a very different course, and he had made choices that suited him just fine.
He would remain forever alone, a warrior and protector of the Mac Coinnachs.
Protector of his brothers and of their wives and children, never his own.
He had long since become comfortable with his decision, proud of it, even.
Two years ago, he had secretly taken vows as an elite warrior of a Druid sect.
A celibate sect, where all of a man’s energy was supposed to go to honing their skills and fighting against the many evils of the world.
Protectors of mankind. Bren had grudgingly given him his support when he saw how important it was to Drust, but told him quite bluntly that giving up sex for anything had to be at least foolhardy if not an outright sin against Nature.
It hadn’t been so bad. The constant training and physical exhaustion had kept the better part of lust away.
The rest had been little more than mind over matter.
He absently ran a hand over his still rock-hard erection, groaning at the sweet ache.
Perhaps the two years of celibacy he had endured had finally caught up with him… and at a most inopportune time.