Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
“So…where’s this cove?”
I had run the first part of the trail, a little bit to tease Rowan but a lot out of pure joy. There was nothing like running downhill with the wind in your hair. Then tight switchbacks edged close to the cliff edge, and I took a break.
The breeze kicked up, tossing my hair about before it teased Rowan’s collar, then zipped into the stocky forest behind us.
The trees, spruce and fir, were all angled back from the nearly constant wind.
The understory grew scrubby and squat out of the litter of gnarled bark and pine needles underfoot.
The sea spray and insistent foul weather created a tough environment where only the hardy survived.
And even then, only to dwarf size compared to their inland counterparts.
Rowan was still panting. He braced his hands on his knees. “Oh aye, yer fast.”
“Downhill, I’m like lightning; uphill, I’m a tortoise. How far until we’re on MacLaoch land?”
“Right when ye stepped off the lawn of the church ye were on MacLaoch land.”
“Is the castle another hour or so?”
“Half if ye run. But it drops down onto the rocky beach here and there, so it might be longer at tortoise speed.” He grinned and kissed me. “But here is where I wanted to stop anyway. Come.”
He pushed aside the deep green, leathery leaves along the downward slope.
“The cove is just below—can ye see it?” He called back. I followed Rowan to a goat trail. Some enterprising shrubs and herbaceous plants grew in the craggy rock face.
“It’s a little farther,” Rowan said as he slipped on some loose rock.
“Rowan!”
He grinned back at me. “Now that you know magic, I’ll expect never to have to go to hospital again.”
“Ha!” Holding onto a scraggly branch as long as I could, I picked my way down the path, “You’ve got high hopes for my skill set, sir. Let’s not put it to the test today.”
“Ye’ll get there.”
“From what I learned today from Ethel, I think I might be able to bring the cairn knoll back to life.”
“Tha’s a big deal…”
“Ethel’s got a theory. She said that the field, my energies, the drama of Ormr—”
“Ye mean trauma.”
“Whatever. Thanks to all that, I am sucking the life out of that area, and out of others I’m connected to.”
Rowan looked at his hands. “Me too?”
“Maybe? Probably.” I thought of the way he fell back down into the bed the other night, “We’re definitely sharing energy.
“That spot of land since it’s where we held the ceremony, and I’ve spent considerable time there, is taking the most absorption.
But mostly, she said it was the m-ma, hell”—I cursed, I still couldn’t say magic—“metaphysical energy–laced slurry we drank. It transferred the powers from Ormr to me permanently. She thinks it was a prank Ormr played.”
“Prank?”
“She said it was a plan of his. But prank feels more accurate.”
“Aye, right.”
“He was all: I’m off to Valhalla, but let me leave a fat chunk of my essence with my granddaughter so I can live on in glory.”
“I detest the man, but I can say for certain that his bloodthirst was tamed only in the moment ye were punching his lights out. In a verra, and I mean verra, strange way, I think he’s proud of ye.”
“Gross.”
“He recognized that you were stronger than him in both mind and heart. Then, in a narcissistic display of love, he left ye what he felt was missing from your life: his power.”
“Ugh. Sucks.”
“Aye. I can imagine.”
And then Rowan jumped.
I finally stopped staring at our feet and looked fully out. We’d made it to the concealed rocky beach. Protected from the waves, it was peaceful at low tide. The water lapped up onto the rocks in a lulling, sleepy rhythm. It felt secluded, secretive, and rocky.
“Rowan?”
“Aye?” He raised his arms, ready to catch me.
“This looks real rocky, babe.”
Instead of jumping into his arms, I used his hand to brace myself and jumped down to the beach as well.
Keeping hold of his hand, I took in the high moody clouds of that afternoon. They added sultry darkness to the private cove. Rowan hugged me in against him. He gave me a kiss that was both an I love you and a question: Are we really doing this? I can’t decide.
I breathed him in, letting my lips linger on his, and reiterated, “It’s all rocks down here.”
He kissed me again. “Come over here.”
Much like the loch at Castle Laoch, this too had an imposing cliff face that, at first glance, was solid rock. Then, as my eyes adjusted and absorbed the edges and juts of the gray basalt, the nooks and crannies were revealed—and also, where Rowan had disappeared.
I followed his lead along the rocky face and found what he knew was there: a cave.
Hands momentarily lingering at the edge of the opening, I slipped to the side into a narrow passageway then slipped back as the path serpentined in. Then the mouth of the cave opened wide.
“Whoa…” I murmured as I took it in. It was the proper idea of a cave.
Over the millennia, the water had surged into it and cleaned out a ten-foot high and wide cave.
A big basalt bubble. It tapered toward the back like a teardrop, though didn’t seem fully closed back there, as I felt a cool stream of air feeding into the cave.
In balance, the dark basalt rocks at the entrance heated under the sun, transferring their warmth throughout the cave.
It was good enough to live in. And live in someone, at some point, had.
A stream of light beamed into the cave, illuminating a fire pit.
The fire pit hadn’t seen fire in a very long time.
There was also a flat rock that looked wide and long enough to hold a twin mattress.
“Does high tide clean this place out?”
“A good storm surge will clean the floor, but at high tide, only the beach is gone. This cave remains dry. And with that corkscrew entrance, it’s protected from the spray.”
I touched the walls and felt the smooth rock face bump under my fingers. I was in awe; someone had spent time in here, and somehow it felt familiar.
“Who lived in here?”
“Lived?” Rowan asked, confused. “No one. Why?”
I made it to the flat rock I envisioned as a bed and sat; there was a definite feel to the place, it was as if hands were reaching for mine, trying to tell me something.
“Nothing…”
Rowan leaned against the opposite wall, tossing and catching a rock he’d picked up. “I used tae pretend when I was a wee lad that I was meeting a fair maiden here, and we’d neck until the sun went down.”
I laughed and lay back on the flat rock mattress bed. “Where? Here?”
His eyes held mischief. “Aye, right there.”
“And what did this maiden look like, sir?”
He grinned at the memory. “It’ll give ye goose flesh.”
Thoroughly intrigued, I asked, “Snakes for hair? Raptor eyes?”
He shook his head. “Nae. Different kind of spooky.”
“Hmm…” Watching him, his eyes going soft as they rested on me: “A seal goddess, what is the Gaelic term for them?”
“Selkie, and nae, it would be like bedding my own kind. She was a manifestation of what a young boy thought true fair maidens looked like.”
“Mmm,” I murmured, “so, like, a Penthouse centerfold?”
Rowan laughed out, playing along. “Oh aye, maybe that’s where I saw her.”
“Tell me, what did your fantasy woman look like?”
“Luxurious copper curls that cascaded down her back and green eyes that set my guts on fire.”
“Not last year, Rowan—when you were a kid.”
“I told you it would make you shiver. I dreamed of ye when I was just a wee lad and being back here reminded me of how vivid those dreams were.”
That settled down into me. Rowan as a teenager was mooning for a woman who looked like me. “Ohhh.”
The hands that seemed to be trying to touch me since I’d arrived at the cave finally did.
“Oh!”
Rowan heard the tone change. “Oh, what?”
I sat up, looking around. “Rowan?”
“Aye.”
“What exactly happened in this cave, Chief?”
He came off the wall and to stand in front of me. He let the stone fall with a clink to the cave floor and held his hands out to me. I put my hands in his.
“It’s best if I show ye.”
“Excellent. As you know, I am a visual learner.”
He slid over me as I lay back. His fingers walked up over my sweater, brushed my cheek, and dove into my hair before gently tugging my hair tie out of my curls.
Then, with a soft touch, he fluffed my hair out until he was satisfied.
“Aye, like that. Spread wild as if ye’d been tossed down in a fit of passion. ”
Watching my lips, he added, “Yes, then”—he kissed me—“a wide, sultry smile, just like tha’.
” Down onto his elbow, he brushed another kiss over my lips.
“There is a small but consequential part of me tha’ feels as if I’m fulfilling a long-held fantasy and will likely want tae to do this over and over and over again. ”
I laughed out, and Rowan kissed my exposed neck and murmured, “Aye, that too, lots of lust-filled laughter, and when in a few moments I whip out my cock, lots of sounds of admiration and comments on it being the largest one you’ve ever seen.”
Our laughter was the bond of our next kiss, sealing the joy within our comingled breath.
“In this fantasy, do I call you chief, sir, or my liege; like, ‘oh, my liege, your cock is so huge’?”
The deep sound of Rowan’s laugh rumbled in his chest before it escaped.
“Just like that.” His lips brushed my ear before he continued, “Nae, I only remember her knowing what to do. She’d tell me tae take my clothes off and, at some point, to hold verra still.
I’d lay here with my cock out and wait and imagine her taking it deep inside, but it took forever because I had to make the hole. She was a virgin, after all.”
“Make the…hole? Oh, sweet boy Rowan.” I put my hand on his cheek and fell in love with him all over again. “You thought you had to make the hole?”