CHAPTER SIX #3
“It’s all right,” Allie said, taking her hand. “Your son is sick. But he won’t die.”
Magaidh’s eyes shot to Allie’s. “Can ye heal him? He’s been poorly fer days,” she whispered.
“Can you keep this a secret?” Allie asked, thinking about Royce again. She owed him. If he thought she should be discreet, she would try.
Magaidh nodded.
Allie took the toddler in her arms. He started crying.
He did have a fever, but it wasn’t terribly high.
He had a sore throat, though, and Allie knew it could be strep—which could be fatal without the proper care.
Allie stroked his brow and smiled at him, sending a white healing light through him.
As he wasn’t very sick, he was easy to heal.
The little boy started smiling and playing with her hair.
Magaidh’s eyes were popping. She touched her son’s brow. Her eyes went impossibly wide.
Allie looked at her. “I am not a witch. I am a Healer.”
“Thank ye,” she cried. She kissed Allie’s hand, took her son and hurried from the room.
Allie followed her to the open door. Magaidh paused before Ceit. “She healed him.” Then she ran down the corridor and outside.
Ceit turned and looked at Allie, her eyes wide with fear.
Allie sensed so much suspicion and wariness. She walked determinedly over to her. “I haven’t thanked you for helping me get out of Carrick this morning.”
Ceit shook her head, backed up, turned and ran.
“Great,” Allie muttered. She folded her arms and stood there grimly. Making rounds was not a good idea. Not right away, anyway. Besides, no one was seriously ill. If someone was suffering and in danger of losing his or her life, she would feel it.
She really hoped Ceit or Magaidh did not start a nasty rumor.
HE WAS EAGER, too eager, to return to his home.
He had been anticipating the moment for the entire day. Now, his foolish heart sped and raced, for he was riding across the drawbridge.
Images of the little Healer were suspended in his mind, and no matter the issue at hand, even as he settled a dispute with a rival chief, she remained there, hovering, like a tiny, sultry, tempting fairy. He was beginning to think himself enchanted.
He could not cease recalling her in the low-cut, linen bodice and that tiny scrap of pink lace.
And he recalled her kneeling at the rockslide, too, straining to heal the stranger buried below.
He had been stiff with lust for most of the day. Now, uncomfortable and more displeased than he could ever recall being, Royce leapt from his steed and handed the hotheaded white charger to a young lad. “Cool him well,” he said. He smiled at the boy, Donald, even though he barely saw him.
“Aye, milord,” young Donald said eagerly.
His displeasure was double-edged. Aidan had joined her in the jest, and the jest had been on him. He flushed. No man from his time would have ever dreamed she wore it as she did.
And she had ruthlessly played him. He had broken his resolve and had been able to think of nothing other than getting her into bed and beneath his body.
He had been about to finally experience her very warm depths.
She had then refused him. Women did not refuse him.
They fought for his attention. Then they begged for more.
But she had broken him and then turned him away.
The warmth in his cheeks increased. Hadn’t he known, from the very start, that she could seduce the Pope? She was the victor here. She was lord and master, not he!
He did not like being made a fool of and he did not like being played.
He could have had his way with her because she had been as hot as he was.
With another woman, he would have stroked and caressed her and had her crying out in a climax before they’d ever gone to bed.
He had walked away from this one, but he was still the defeated party.
He’d walked away, but not because he’d wanted to. That morning, in her chamber, he’d wanted to fuck her a hundred times—and watch her take her pleasure a hundred times, too.
Not this way. Not with anger….
He had walked away because of the torment, doubt and regret in her eyes. Was he now twice the fool? Had he really seen such emotions? And why, the gods damn it, did he care?
He strode through the gatehouse and into the inner ward.
If he cared, it was because she was a Healer and she was a part of the Ancients’ plan.
If he cared, it was because she was an Innocent under his protection, and he felt her pure white power every time she was near.
All Innocents were good. She was far more than good; she was angelic in her motives.
He had never met anyone who wanted to help and heal more than she did. Not even Elasaid.
She deserved more than his protection; she deserved his respect. Especially because his accusations of her being ruthless were a complete and selfish lie.
She was in love with him. He had lurked shamelessly in her mind, wanting to know her every thought and care and did not even try to respect her privacy. Nor would he. She had loved him in the future, and she was starting to love him now.
The gods could only know why.
He should not be savagely satisfied, but he wanted her foolish, romantic emotions! He cursed. He had to keep the greatest distance possible now.
Royce slammed open the door to the hall. And he halted in his tracks.
Ailios stood in the center of the great room with one of his peasants, an older man who, when younger, had been a great soldier. She had cocooned Coinneach’s face with her white light and it pulsed there.
And three more villagers stood in a line, as if awaiting their turn to be healed.
He was deafened by the roar of his heart. Her pure white aura pulled at him, entrancing him, the way her hot sex and stunning beauty did.
She wore a long skirt in a bold, bright pattern of black, red and blue flowers on white, and the smallest bodice once again, although this one covered her shoulders, barely.
And he knew she wore the chemise Aidan had brought for her, the pink lace garment that would only cover her breasts, the one he was going to burn, for the beaded and lace straps stuck out from the tunic.
His blood rushed to his loins; it heated his mind. He knew she felt him but she did not look his way. She was completely focused on healing Coinneach.
He fought the blinding urge to stride to her, gather her up in his arms, and end this mad mating ritual of pursuit and flight, seduction and denial. Why not?
He could not go on much longer this way. He had needs—and only she could relieve them, he was certain. All he had to do was put a stone wall around his heart.
They could share rapture—and nothing else.
His mind felt peculiar and dizzy now. He focused, fighting past the blinding red lust.
She was healing a toothache?
He breathed hard a final time and strode forward, in some small degree of control. “Ailios.”
She now clasped old Coinneach’s face in her hands and smiled at the aged warrior. “It will never bother you again,” she said softly.
Coinneach’s face burst into an expression of amazement. “My lady! T’is been over a year and now, there’s no pain!”
Ailios smiled sweetly at the old man. As if she’d smiled at him that way, Royce’s heart turned over, hard.
“It was quite the infection. It will not come back. Go home and enjoy your evening,” she said.
Highlanders were proud and hard, every last one of them, high or low, but he dropped to his knees and kissed the hem of her skirt. “Thank ye. Bless ye. Yer a saint.”
Ailios laughed, the sound like shallow spring water rippling over moss-strewn stones. “I am not a saint.” Her smiled faded. She touched his shoulder, encouraging Coinneach to rise, and finally, she turned her large, dark eyes on Royce.
He stared back. He had asked her not to display her powers. Three villagers had just watched her heal old Coinneach. And he was certain they were waiting their turn to have their particular ailments relieved.
She bit her lip. But something eager and bright flickered in her eyes, a beautiful light, like joy, and he lurked and saw how happy she was to see him, even after only a few hours. “Hallo, a Ruari.”
He tensed impossibly. They had been speaking English together. He knew, however, that she understood every word of Gaelic he or anyone else spoke. His heart lurched at the sound of the old tongue flowing like honey from her lips, just as it thundered in pleasure that she was joyous to see him.
He looked more closely at her. Her lips were painted with something pink and shiny. He wondered what it tasted like.
He wondered what she tasted like, and didn’t feel like waiting another five hundred and seventy-seven years to find out. “Yer healin’ a tooth.”
“The infection was severe,” she breathed, worry crossing her face. Her gaze drifted to his bulging leine. She wet her lips.
He lurked.