Chapter 11 #2
“Arran, stop.” She’d meant for it to come out as a command, but it sounded more like a plea. “Just stop, all right?”
“Nay.” He shook his head sharply in the dark, and his hands, still on her shoulders, pulled her a little closer. “Nay, I cannae stop. Not if ye are doing something that is so dangerous. I need to ken that ye arenae doing what I think you’re doing. Kenna, please.”
Kenna knew that she should push him away. That she shouldn’t let his kindness please her. That she should walk away.
But something about this man seemed to knock the good sense right out of her, so she let herself seek comfort, just this once. She rested her forehead against the curve of his shoulder. He put his hand to the back of her head, cradling her there.
“They are to prevent pregnancy,” she whispered. It was the first time she’d ever spoken it aloud. “Katrina MacAllan once showed it to me.”
Arran huffed out a breath, like this was all his worst suspicions confirmed. He pulled back to look down at her, worry clear on his face. He seemed to be trying very hard not to sound angry.
“Ye must stop,” he said fiercely. “It isnae safe. Christ, Kenna, it could kill ye!”
“I dinnae care,” she snapped. “A babe… It would tie me to him forever. It would be another way for him to-to hurt me.”
She felt her throat go tight at the mere thought of how fully Ashbourne would control her if he threatened her child. If she bore him a son, he would at least value the heir. But what if the babe was a girl? No. It was not something she could ever risk.
“I would rather die,” she said, this time with conviction rather than ire. “If my choices are death or being bound to him forever… then I would choose death.”
Arran searched her expression at this proclamation, determining that she was utterly fixed in this, closed his eyes and nodded.
“I… understand,” he said quietly. “I cannae say that I like it, but… I can understand, as much as anyone on the outside can.”
His words rushed through Kenna like the first warm breeze of spring.
She hadn’t known how badly she needed someone to understand her.
Anna knew what was happening, but she didn’t know it all, and the maid fretted.
Arran was standing here and told her that her decisions were risky but that he accepted that they were worth it.
“I dinnae like it either,” she said with a bitter little laugh.
He didn’t laugh back. His arms tightened around her for a moment. She quite liked standing there with him. She wished it could last forever.
“Why do ye stay?” he asked. “If it’s a matter of aid… I can help ye get away. I dinnae ken how, just yet, but I can help ye.”
Her heart ached at the offer, but she shook her head.
“I cannae,” she said. “If I leave, Ashbourne will just say that I died, and that will free him up to marry again.” She had to clear her throat. “And my father will force one of my sisters to take my place.”
Her voice broke on the last word and Arran swore, long and low.
“Christ, lass,” he breathed into her hair as she clutched at him and he held her fast. “I’m so bloody sorry. That’s hideous. I didnae realize—”
“How could ye?” she asked into his chest. “My whole life is a lie. I do everything I can to hide it because otherwise, it will be worse. The other option is always, always worse.”
For a moment, his hand just stroked over her hair. Kenna tried to memorize every second of the simple touch. It had been so long since anyone had caressed her.
Then, his body went subtly stiffer, in a way that she knew she would not have noticed if not for how tightly she held him.
“Nay,” he said. “That cannae be the final answer. We will figure something out, Kenna. I dinnae ken what, but I will help ye. I swear it. I should have protected ye before… but I will start now. I willnae abandon ye.”
He really believed it. She could tell that he did.
She wanted to believe him, too.
But she did not dare, not yet.
What she could believe, however, was that he wanted to help her. And that was so much more than what she usually had that she could not help but bask in it.
She tipped her head up to look at him, then pressed a hand to his cheek.
“There is nowhere for me to go,” she cautioned him. She didn’t want him to get his hopes up, either. Not when she knew how badly it hurt when those hopes were dashed. “It isn’t just Ashbourne. My father… He would burn down the world to find me if he thought that I had made a fool of him.”
The words were meant as a caution, but Arran did not look deterred. If anything, his determination only grew more fixed.
“I’ve lost enough to the fire,” he said fiercely, and she wondered if he thought of his parents, yet another set of victims in that terrible, terrible night. “I dinnae plan to watch anything else burn. Not again.”
He didn’t need to fear fire, she thought as she looked up at him. For determination burned so brightly in him that clearly he was truly in control of those flames.
She wanted to feel that, too. She wanted to feel him, wanted to feel like this moment between them was something real, something she could keep.
She pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him deep.
In the barest second before their lips met, his mouth curved into a smile, as if it was the greatest joy in the world to be kissing her. She knew she had to be flattering herself with the mere thought of it, but she didn’t much care, because she was smiling, too.
His mouth was soft and warm, though not as warm as his tongue as it probed lightly against her bottom lip, then stroked into her mouth as she granted him entrance. She had never been kissed like this, never. She instantly felt giddy with it, knowing she wanted it just as much as he did.
He wanted her, just as she wanted him.
And here, in the dead of night, in the deepest recesses of the least used corner of the Keep…
Nobody would interrupt them.
She wound her fingers through his thick hair, the lighter gleam of gold that wound through it obscured by the dimness. Touching him still felt as precious to her as any gold, however, and she hoarded the feeling of the soft strands between her fingers like a miser.
“Arran…” she murmured his name right into his mouth, feeling another thrill that she was there with this person that she had chosen to kiss.
This man, who was generous to her because he wanted to be, who kissed her because he liked the look and feel of her.
He was far from perfect—he’d jumped to unfair conclusions about her, and he certainly had his secrets—but he had helped just because she had asked.
He’d said he understood her, even when he didn’t agree with her.
And he kissed her like she mattered, like she was more than just a tool to be bargained with, like she was worth more than duty.
He made her heart race.
They kissed for several long minutes, hands questing over shoulders and arms, mouths humming approval, desire, longing.
Kenna clung to it, to this moment, to this feeling of connection, to Arran as long as she could.
When their kisses faded to soft brushes of lips on mouths and cheeks, she let her arms drop from where she’d held them around his neck.
Reluctant and practically dizzy with loss, she pulled back and looked up at him.
She couldn’t even manage to worry that her expression revealed far too much of her thoughts.
She could see his amber eyes burning even in the dim light of the moon.
“I willnae forsake ye,” he vowed, and she wished that it was a vow that he would be able to keep. “I have lost enough to other men’s cruelties. I willnae allow ye to suffer for the sins of another.”
“I hope ye are right,” she whispered.
She finally had someone on her side now for the first time in so very, very long.
That would be enough.
She could make it be enough.
It was more, after all, than she’d ever had before.