“Conor...”
He plunged ahead. He had nothing left to lose. “Do you know where I would be without you? Do you?”
“Yes!” Her voice cracked. “You wouldn’t have a hole just above your heart. You’d have your life, your health. You’d be happy!”
“I’d be alive. But what is health without a heart? What is life without someone to share it with?”
“You will have someone. You will have your son. He is what you desire most.”
“And what do you desire most?”
“It matters not.” She turned her face to the door, resting her forehead against the dark wood. The mantle slipped down her back, revealing her hair. The spiky ends had been evened out but did not even brush her shoulders. He would always blame himself for that.
“What do you desire most, Erika?” he asked again, his voice hoarse with persistence. “A place to call home? Done. To have the adoration and respect of our people? Done and done.”
He rose to his feet, his back flat against the wall to maintain his balance. His good hand stretched towards her, willing every ounce of emotion and love he possessed into his gaze. “My body, heart and soul forever linked to yours? Done and done and done.”
She looked at him, her beautiful violet eyes blurred with tears. For the first time, Conor saw a flicker of hope, and it gave him strength to say, finally, what needed to be said.
“I have loved you long, lady wife. From the beginning I loved your bravery, your devotion and your strength. When you rescued me from myself, I became yours. I knew in my mind that you were blameless when Brochadh put the accusation to you. Yet in my heart, where I love you most mad, in my heart, I am a jealous fool.”
“Conor.” His name broke from her on a huge sob.
“I’ll not let you go, Erika.” The conviction of his words circled the chamber. “If you leave I will follow, to the ends of the earth if needs be, and I’ll bring you home. Once I captured your body, but you have captured my heart.”
“Conor, please—”
“Oh, but I wish to,” he breathed, not bothering to dash away evidence of his own weeping. “I have much to atone for. When I heard you declare to Ronan that I would not come for you, I near died inside. Magda did her work well, but if I had but dared to believe what I felt, what I knew—if I had let go of the past long before now, her words would not have had the power they did.
“Forgive me, wife. Allow me to spend the rest of my life finding ways to make you love me again, to make you laugh again. I’ll start by telling you that I will love you beyond my last breath. Do you believe me?”
“Conor.” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Conor.”
When naught but tears answered him, he said, “You have besmirched my honor. I demand satisfaction.”
Surprise dragged her tears to a halt. “Are you challenging me to a duel?”
“I am.”
She gestured the length of him. “Are you mad? You are in no condition to fight a duel!”
“True,” he admitted. “A month hence, I will be fine.”
A ghost of a smile dusted her lips. “A month hence, I will still be losing my meals. No more swords during pregnancy.”
“A wise precaution.” Conor assembled his features into an expression of gravity. “And then there is the birthing and weaning. That is near two years hence.”
Erika dried her eyes with the back of her hand, then took a step towards him. “What will happen if I birth a daughter?”
“I will love my daughter and spoil her in full measure,” he declared. “But since she will no doubt be as beautiful as her mother, I would like a son to help me fend off unwanted suitors.”
Her tremulous smile was like a balm to his soul, restoring his heart. “That puts our duel near four years away.”
“Aye, it does at that.”
“What shall we do in the meantime?”
She was finally, blessedly, close enough to touch. Heedless of his injury, Conor captured her wrist and pulled her to him. “Will you forgive me?” he asked, his voice ragged. “Will you try to love me again? With but half your love, I would be content. Even half.”
She touched his cheek with her good hand, her eyes spilling anew. “You have all my love, Conor. You always have. It is just that I thought you didn’t love me.”
He didn’t want to let her go, but he was near to toppling over. “Sure I told you, at the cliffs? I wanted you to know with my dying words that I love you.”
She made a sound half-laugh, half-sob. “I heard you apologize for not loving me.”
“You’ll never misinterpret my words again. I love you, mo leannán.” He repeated the words in Latin and Norse for good measure, then sealed the pledge with a kiss.
His fingers touched her shorn locks, and another bolt of pain pierced him. “If I could kill him again, I would.”
A touch stilled him. “No more,” she whispered. “No more darkness and dwelling on things past.” She took his hands, placed them on her belly. “Our lives are here and now. Our lives start here and now.”
She was right. The past was gone, and with it the darkness. The future stretched before him, bright with promise and love.
Energy spent, Conor all but collapsed onto the bed. “I’ll not have more hair than my wife,” he declared, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Think you can trim it for me? And rid me of this beard while you’re about it?”
Her eyes brightened, then dimmed. “I don’t think I can ever point a blade in your direction again, after I sealed your wound.”
He took her hand, drawing her down beside him. “You did what you had to do to save me, and I’m grateful. No more dwelling on things past. Your words, my lady. If the future starts here and now, we must do something to mark it. I can think of nothing more fitting, except perhaps a certain pale leine worked with silver?”
The smile went to her eyes, chasing the last fragments of pain and doubt away. “I would like nothing better than to mark the occasion,” she whispered. “But between my arm and your chest, I don’t think we make one whole person.”
“You’re wrong about that, my love.” He held her close. “Between the two of us, we are complete.”
Epilogue
Seven months later
Erika awakened slowly, still in the clutches of sleep. With careful movement she turned onto her side, suppressing a groan at the ache deep in her womb. It was to be expected, after near a day spent giving birth. Expected, yet so very worthwhile.
Conor sat in a chair beside her, dressed in a blue leine embroidered with a gripping-beast design she’d sewn herself. In the curves of his massive arms he held the fragile forms of their twin daughters. His expression was a potent mixture of emotions: pride, wonder, love and joy.
Her throat tightened. She’d received those emotions in full measure in the months since they were freed from their chamber. True to his word, there was not a day that went by that Conor did not find a way to show her that she was loved, and she did the same for him.
He had been ever beside her, his presence constant since the first pains announced the beginning of her travails a day ago. How he’d endured her vituperations she didn’t know. Some of the names she’d called him made her flush with shame. He had borne it all, soothing her when she needed soothing, urging her when she needed urging. She knew she could not have done it without him.
She raised her gaze, startled to find him quietly staring at her, his silver eyes shining. “Good morrow.”
His gaze brightened, and she felt as if she’d just been kissed. “Good morrow, wife.”
She gave him a wavering smile. “You’re not disappointed that I didn’t give you sons first?”
“Never.” His eyes misted as he cradled their children. “Two daughters, two beautiful, perfect daughters. They’ll not want for anything, and they’ll be free to make their own destinies.”
He gave her a warm smile, his eyebrows arching upward. “Though ’tis true I’ll
enjoy the making of sons, when you’re up to it.”
“Conor.” Laughter was beyond her at present, but it colored her voice.
“I’ll need the help protecting my daughters from every young prince from here to Constantinople.”
Erika snorted softly. “I doubt that any will want to cross the mighty Devil of Dunlough. And for that matter, who’ll protect my sons from every noblewoman from here to the Orient?”
He snorted. “With the Angel of Death as mother, our sons will be well-protected indeed.”
“My days of fighting are behind me,” she whispered, “now that I have what I fought for. I love you, Conor mac Ferghal.”
The smile he gave her stole her breath. “And I love you, Erika ni Conchobhair. Not a day will go by that you’ll not know it.”
“Promise?”
“I do.” He leaned forward most carefully, so as not to awaken the children, and kissed her. “A promise has been made.”
She reached up, cradling the clean-shaven cheek of the man she would love forever. “A promise shall be kept.”
Author’s Note
While this is very much a work of fiction and artistic license, I could not have created this world without research. I am forever grateful to the following works and writers: A Social History of Ancient Ireland by P. W. Joyce; A History of the Vikings by Gwyn Jones; The Story of the Irish Race by Seumus MacManus; and the Book of Irish Names by Ronan Coghlan.
Any inaccuracies are entirely my own.
About the Author
Mallery Malone is a pseudonym of award-winning author Seressia Glass. She lives south of Atlanta with her guitarist-machinist hero, gamer son, and two attack poodles. When not writing she likes to belly dance, watch anime, and collect purple things.
She can be reached on the web at www.seressiaglass.com or via email at [email protected].
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A Promise Kept Page 31