His Magick Touch #2
She sucked in an audible breath and looked up into amber eyes flecked with gold. She recognized those eyes. “I know ye.”
His smile was familiar as well – crooked with a single dimple set in the right cheek. “Aye. Ye do.”
He’d been two years her senior when he crawled over the curtain wall of Kisimul Castle to give her a satchel of eiderdown feathers for her sixteenth birthday.
He’d been known by her kin as the Falconer of Barra.
They were worlds apart in station: he, the son of a crofter, and she, the eldest daughter of the chieftain.
He’d always reminded her he wasn’t worthy of her affections, but that didn’t stop him from seeking her out in secrecy the summer before he went to war.
“I taught ye how to skip a rock across the loch,” he reminded her when she didn’t respond. “And showed ye how to gig a frog,” He held her chin and traced her bottom lip with the tip of his thumb. “And I gave ye your first kiss when ye were just a wee lass.”
The memory of that kiss exploded in full colour in her head. She’d been so young, so na?ve to believe they could have a future together. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but had only been seven years.
“Ye do remember me, aye?” He lifted her chin higher so she might study him better. He had a man’s face now – a long lean nose, thick black brows, a high forehead. A coarse shadow darkened his strong jaw beneath sharply angled cheekbones.
“Keiran.” She touched a bruise colouring the side of his face, not yet believing him real.
Then her gaze dropped to his lips, so perfectly thick and lush and kissable.
Her belly filled with sensations, like a school of minnows flipping and flopping on dry land.
When his privy parts hardened against her thigh, she became very aware of their state of undress. “I remember ye with more clothes on.”
He chuckled, but made no attempt to separate himself from the intimacy of their embrace. His hand slid over her hip and cupped her backside. “’Tis good to see ye again, Sorcha.”
Mayhap he never returned from war. Mayhap the sea goddess sent him in her stead to collect Sorcha. “Are ye dead?”
“Nay.” His chest bounced with laughter.
“Am I?” Her questions sounded foolish, but given the circumstances she felt justified. She couldn’t have survived the fall, and if she did, she would have been bruised from head to toe at the very least. Yet, she felt right as rain.
“Ye almost died, but I saved ye.” Pomp and pride lined his expression, but his arrogance was of little import at the moment.
She frowned, confused. Why had he been there? How had he known Hector was going to push her off the cliff? And why wasn’t she in pain?
“Ye are safe now, Sorcha.” He trailed the tips of his fingers up and down her spine, tickling her.
It felt good to be coddled, to be caressed.
She’d longed for tenderness the whole of her life and could easily remain in his arms forever.
Keiran had been the only person who’d ever made her feel like she was more than a piece of property.
He’d vowed to protect her, but those had been the words of a boy who also promised her the moon for a kiss.
The undeniable strength of his erection told her his desires were no longer so innocent. “Where are we and why are we naked?”
Keiran’s grin was only half as wicked as his roaming hands. “We are on a ship bound for Barra, and we are naked because I had to warm ye, else ye might have froze to death.”
“Thank ye for saving me.” Sorcha sat up, pulling the furs with her, worried her gratitude wouldn’t be enough payment for his heroics.
“’Tis a vow I made long ago.” The light pouring into the small cabin showed her his muscular torso.
Battle scars crisscrossed his abdomen, but what caught her attention more were the Pagan symbols covering his left arm like a decorative sleeve.
The blue-black markings formed a design that wrapped over his shoulder and around a crucifix over his heart.
Many of her kin had been raised as Christo-Pagans, but Keiran and she had both been forbidden by their Christian fathers to practice the Pagan ways.
When he reached for his undertunic, she saw a bruise wrapped around his wrist. Blue ovals tinted his forearm much like the ones Hector had given her when he’d dragged her to the cliff.
She looked down at her own wrists where Hector had bound her hands.
Not a smidgeon of colour tinted the skin. “Why am I not hurt?”
She caught Keiran wincing as he pulled on his undertunic and spun out of the small bed built into the bulkhead. “Because I took your pain.”
Her brows popped up. Obviously, Keiran had gone against his father’s wishes to practise the Pagan ways, which meant he was most likely dead.
“Dinnae look so surprised. I’ve spent the past nine months with Magda.”
Sorcha eyed him curiously. “My grandmum is dead.”
Keiran shook his head as he draped a blue and yellow plaid over his shoulder and began fingering the pleats into a thick leather belt. “Your grandmum is verra much alive and once again living at Kisimul Castle.”
“’Tis not possible.” Sorcha had been first in line to offer Grandmum a gift to take to the afterlife. “Ye were at her burial. Ye placed a feather on her grave.”
“I know not who we buried that day, but ’twas not Magda.
” He tied the laces of his deerskin boots.
“When I was at war on the mainland, I suffered from what should have been a fatal wound to the side. I was left for dead, but awoke some weeks later in your father’s solar at Kisimul Castle.
I have no memory of how I came to be there, but Magda nursed me back to health and taught me the Pagan ways while I was abed.
Three days past, she sent me to collect ye. ”
Sorcha struggled to believe his tale, but found herself weakened by the hope that Grandmum was alive and protecting Peigi.
He handed Sorcha a dry undertunic. “Magda is waiting for ye to come home and lead the clan.”
“I cannot lead the clan.” Sorcha shook her head adamantly. The man was a dunderheid if he thought her capable of such a task.
Both Keiran’s brows slid up. He set himself in front of her, then ran his fingers up and down the column of her neck. “Then ye will name a tanist to reign in your stead.”
His intentions suddenly became very clear.
Had he cared for her at all, he wouldn’t have waited til Da died to save her from Hector.
He’d always been determined to change his stars.
An invisible wall of protection wrapped around her heart as she realized he’d saved her now because he wanted her title.
No man had ever wanted her for herself. Da had traded her for an alliance.
Hector had married her for land. And now Keiran intended to seduce her with gentle caresses for the power of the chieftainship.
She jammed her fists into the sleeves of the tunic. “I suspect ye think I’ll name ye tanist.”
“’Tis my hope that ye will find me worthy of the position.” His smug grin set her teeth on edge.
S’truth, other clans had named tanists outside of their chieftain’s heirs.
However, Clan MacNeil had remained true to its bloodline for generations.
Regardless of her viewpoint on the matter, she intended to refuse him simply because he’d hurt her.
“Unless the laws of our clan have changed, there are only two men who can lay claim to the chieftainship: my husband or Peigi’s. ”
Keiran stared at her, head shaking slightly, lips parted to protest, but she didn’t give him the opportunity to sway her with words.
“If the chieftainship is what ye desire, then mayhap ye should set your silver tongue loose on Peigi. She’s of marriageable age now.” Pent-up anger made Sorcha spout such foolishness.
Keiran’s amber eyes darkened, his brows pinched tight in the middle. “I dinnae want Peigi. I want ye.”
“I already have a husband,” she hissed, knowing hurt drove her words now.
Hector never loved her, nor had he been kind by any stretch of the word.
S’truth, he’d been a wretched husband, but he taught her one thing during their marriage.
“If I live long enough to become a widow, I can assure ye, I’ll never take another husband. ”
Keiran stared at her for long moments before he sheathed his weapons and strode towards the door. “Should ye have need for anything, m’lady, I’m here to serve ye.”
Everything Keiran had done in the past seven years had been for her. He’d trained to be a warrior, for her. He’d fought and killed for the clan, for her. He’d learned her religion, and the foolish wench couldn’t see that he’d done it all for her.
The afternoon air did nothing to ease his frustration as he paced the quarterdeck, all the while cursing the tenderness in his side. He’d taken her pain away. He’d saved her life. And she accused him of doing it all for the chieftainship.
“Ye seem to be frettin’ over a’thing.” Sileas descended the steps of a companionway, then leaned against the rail. “Has your woman fallen ill?”
“Nay, she is well. But she is not my woman, nor is she keen on naming me tanist.”
“She remains faithful to the old laws,” Sileas guessed and rolled a slender piece of wood from one side of his mouth to the other.
Keiran nodded.
“Then we go back and make her a widow,” Sileas suggested without pause.
Keiran hadn’t raised his broadsword since Leckmelm. His sword arm shook just thinking about what he’d done. “She will think I killed her husband for power.”
“The cur pushed her off a bluidy cliff. Ye would be avenging her.”
As much as Keiran relished the idea of seeing the man dead, his main goal was to get Sorcha to the stronghold where she would be safe. “We need to be patient. Give her time to see how things have changed.”