by Henry, Jane
I’m falling for this woman.
Hard.
When night falls, we take our positions. Caitlin’s in the room with me, sitting meditatively in a chair by the window, the book she borrowed from Caira momentarily forgotten.
“Keenan,” she begins, her index finger tracing the raised, golden title on the cover.
“Yes?” I’m assembling my weapons, tucking them into the harness I wear, checking my ammunition.
“I’ve made a decision.”
I look to her in surprise. “Have you, lass?”
“I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’ve decided not to fight the inevitable.”
Her trick of speech makes me smile.
“How so?”
“You said that my marrying you will be for my safety and the safety of others,” she says. “Can you explain that?”
“I can,” I tell her, turning to face her. “Your mother was a Martin. Confirmed by both my mother and uncle. You’ve a right to Martin’s inheritance and a place at his table, as his granddaughter. But the Martins are a ruthless bunch, our greatest rivals. If he knows you exist, your life is forfeit.”
Bravely, so bravely, my lass holds my gaze and nods. “He would kill me, because I’m assuming he has another in my place?”
She’s a smart girl. “Aye, lass.”
“And how does my wedding you prevent any fallout?” she asks, tipping her head to the side adorably, like a little kitten, her long black hair gleaming.
“Clan law,” I tell her. “He cannot touch a hair on the head of a Clan Chief,” I explain. “If he does, his own life is forfeit. He has no son, so if his life is forfeit, his Clan must join with another.”
Her brows furrow, and she nods. “Furthermore, how would my marrying you prevent danger coming to others?”
“Inevitable peace between The Clans, lass.”
She works her lip, biting down meditatively, her book forgotten. “Even for the boys?”
“Aye. Especially the boys.”
She nods, as if accepting this. “Honestly, Keenan,” she says. “I have to admit, I don’t know what else I would do with myself. The home I knew is no longer. By all intents and purposes, I don’t even exist. I can’t very well sail away and find a job, or traverse the endless terrain to find a job…”
What on earth is she talking about? I let her go on.
“I’ve no interest in living the life of a spinster,” she says, and I swear the lass is so fetching, I want to gather her to me and kiss every inch of her. “I was lonely in the lighthouse. But with your family… I feel at home. I could… I could grow to love them.”
I walk to her and take her hands, drawing her to her feet and close to me. “I wish I had the luxury of time with you right now, sweet Cait,” I whisper. “I would show you how thankful I am. You’ve no idea what it means to be the wife of the Clan Chief, but I promise you. You’ll want for nothing. You’ll have the protection and respect of The Clan. And as mine, I’ll take care of your every need.”
I gather her face in my hands, bend, and brush my lips to hers. She closes her eyes and kisses me back, gentle and sweet. She tastes like sugar-dusted shortcake, rich and sweet and decadent.
I love you.
I don’t say it. I don’t love her, not yet, though I know the tiny seeds of love have been planted. With time and attention, perhaps they’ll grow.
Nay. With time and attention, they’re sure to grow.
I pull away with reluctance when a knock sounds at the door. Malachy and I will take our positions, prepared to ambush if our women are attacked tonight. Caira and a few others have planned to go to a local pub, to draw out the attackers. Caira’s afraid, but Malachy assured her we’ve got this under control. That we’ll keep them safe. The girls are wired, my men armed.
“Take me with you,” Caitlin says.
I snort, the very idea preposterous. “Are you out of your mind?” I shake my head.
She doesn’t hesitate. “Then let me go with the girls.”
I narrow my eyes on her, but I can’t help but smile. She knew I wouldn’t take her with me, but perhaps thought she could manage another way. I look about the small room. We don’t have enough men to do detail inside and out.
“You were hedging your bets, weren’t you?”
“Hedging my what?”
I slide my hand up the edge of her dress and cup her bottom. “You were playing me. Manipulating me.”
I know I’ve hit my mark when her cheeks pink, or maybe it’s because of the punishing grip on her arse.
“Well. I like to think it was a form of reason,” she says. “Plus, Keenan, you do know that I’ve never been with… friends? On a night out like this before?”
“It’s hardly a night out, lass. It’s to draw out the perpetrators.”
“True, but I trust you. You won’t let anyone hurt me.”
There’s no use hiding her from the Martins anymore. I’m going to make this woman mine, and the sooner we do that, the better.
“Of course I won’t.” I sigh. “Fine, then. You can go with Caira, but you do exactly what I say.”
“Yes,” she says, pulling away so she can get changed, but I grab her wrist and yank her over.
“Not yes,” I correct.
She blinks. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Will you still have me call you that when we’re married?”
“Aye.” My dick hardens. I want to fuck this woman so badly I ache, my hunger for her ravenous. “I’ll have you do loads of things when we’re married.”
Her eyes widen momentarily, and she bites her lips. “Well, there’s that,” she says. I laugh out loud and kiss her pretty mouth, before we prepare to go.
Tonight. Tonight, I’ll have this woman, my future wife.
It’s with great trepidation I allow Caitlin to go out with Caira, arm in arm. Though they’re wired and being watched, I don’t like how easily they could be harmed, especially given what’s happened to the other girls most recently.
As Captain, I’m the one who should oversee any type of sting, but not tonight. Tonight, I insist on being the man on them, nearby, prepared.
The first half of the night goes off without a hitch. I’m in the cramped black car outside the pub, listening to Caitlin in my earpiece. The other girls enjoy her company. How could they not? She’s friendly and kind, intelligent and quirky. She’s damn near the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
I wonder if we’ve hit amiss with this sting, when we enter the third hour of the girls’ night out without so much as a snare.
“Anything at all, Keenan?” Malachy asks in my ear.
“Nothing.”
“Shite.”
“Patience,” I tell him.
“Fucking grasshopper telling the master, eh?”
I snort. “Something like.”
“Listen up, lads.” It’s Nolan. He’s disguised at the bar, and though I’ve told him to lay off the drink, I’ve no doubt he’s snuck a shot or two in. We go silent. It’s then that I hear a man’s voice talking to the girls. I have to force myself to stay where I am, not to run in there and yank my lass back to safety and protection.
“He’s one of ‘em,” Nolan says. “I can see his feckin’ ink from here, telltale mark of a Martin.”
My pulse spikes. We suspected the Martins were at play in this, but if any of them see and recognize Caitlin…
“Caitlin safe?”
“Aye, brother,” Nolan says, his tone amused. “You know it.”
I don’t fucking know it, but she’d better be.
There’s the sound of the girls getting up and coming outside. I wait. They’re at the door, I can see them from where I am. They’re walking to their cars. The man who was speaking to them accompanies them out. My body goes rigid in anticipation, prepared for the ambush. Fucking hell, I hope they give me a reason to strike.
They don’t. Not yet. The girls get into their car, and it’s when the car pulls away, I see a car begin to follow them. Not our
s.
My own car purrs along at a safe clip behind them, marking what happens, when another, larger car pulls alongside the first.
“You girls safe?” I say into the mic.
Caitlin’s clear voice speaks aloud. “They’re following us, Keenan.”
“Aye. We’ve got you covered, lass.”
With great reluctance, I allow more distance between my car and the girls’, giving the Martins enough rope to hang themselves.
I don’t see it coming. Peeling around the corner at a breakneck speed, a car comes straight at the girls. I hear their screams, the squeal of tires. Their car is sideswiped, skidding along until it slams into the guardrail. Six hooded men exit the vehicle.
I’m driving as fast as I can, and Nolan and Cormac are on my tail, but I can’t get to them fast enough. They’re too far away. Too fucking far away.
I peel after them, throw the car in park, open the door, and my gun’s in hand, pointed at the perpetrators. They’ve already got the girls, manhandling them into the waiting cars, when I shout.
“Hands off! Fucking hands off them!”
They move faster.
Caira’s shoved into the car despite her fighting back, and a second girl goes in with her. I shoot at the tires, and my mark is solid. The tires deflate. They will not fucking get away. Nolan’s at my side and Cormac on my right, and in seconds, we’ve got them surrounded.
“Fuck!” Nolan screams as a gunshot rings out, narrowly missing him. I get a good aim at one and pull the trigger. The girls scream when glass explodes and blood splashes on the ground. My aim was pure. The man holding Caitlin’s shot straight between the eyes. He falls to the ground, and she comes with him, but she’s still flanked by men.
“Weapons down,” one shouts. “Weapons down or we shoot the girls.”
Nolan and Cormac look my way. We’re outnumbered. Caitlin meets my eyes, hers filled with trust and bravery. She nods. Christ, she’s going to do something, but I don’t know what. I open my mouth to tell her no, not to do something reckless and dangerous, but she’s already moving. With an ear curdling scream, she falls to the ground and lunges for her assailant’s knees. He crumples on top of her, but she doesn’t lose her head. She grabs his arm and bites.
He howls, rears back, and whacks her with the butt of his gun across her head. She whimpers but doesn’t release him. I’m blind to anything but killing this man, of releasing my woman and ending the man who hit her. In two strides, I’ve got him by the neck. He’s purple, flailing, when I point my gun at his temple and pull the trigger. He slumps to the ground, and I look up to see Nolan and Cormac with guns to the heads of the two remaining men. The others lie dead.
We’re panting and silent for a moment.
“All Martins?” I ask.
“Aye,” Nolan says.
“Bring them back for questioning.”
Chapter Eighteen
Caitlin
I knew that being with a man like Keenan would mean something like this would happen. I just didn’t know it would be… well, quite like that. I shudder at the memory of the puddles of crimson blood and vacant eyes of the deceased.
When I close my eyes, I see them. When I open my eyes, I see them. I can still taste the metallic blood of the man I bit.
We’re back at the school, and Keenan won’t let me go, even as he issues orders like a drill sergeant. “In the meeting room,” he says. “And I want Lachlan with us.”
“Keenan, he’s a child,” Cormac begins, but Keenan cuts him off.
“The boy needs to earn his spurs. He’s eighteen years old and old enough to drink, old enough to vote. He won’t kill, but he’ll learn to interrogate. Now get him.” I shudder. I’ve been to the interrogation room back at their home, and I can only imagine what sort of wicked things they do.
I don’t know how I feel about him summoning Lachlan. He’s only a boy, and yet… Keenan has a point. They were trained at a young age, and if he’s to learn their code of conduct… still, it troubles me, all of it.
I wish I didn’t like these men, these fierce, vicious men who flaunt the law and dwell in darkness. But I do. Not only do I like them, I have a strange sense I can’t ignore that I’m somehow meant to be here. That I belong. I’ve never even so much as uttered a curse word or driven a car, I’m as naïve as humanly possible, and yet I feel I belong among this family of criminals.
Maybe I’m going mad.
I watch, under Keenan’s protective hold. He’s got me pinned against him so tightly it’s hard to breathe, and yet I need the weight of his arm and strength of his body at my back. I watch as the men drag their prisoners, bloodied and sulking, through the doors of the hall. Just as they bring the men in, one turns his head sharply to me, his eyes wide as if he’s seeing a ghost.
Uh oh.
“Keenan,” I say quietly, as they close the door behind their prisoners. “You need to know… the second one. He recognized me.”
“Aye,” Keenan says, and he seems unperturbed.
“But what if he goes back and—”
He stills, his voice tight and sober, and his stern look darkens. He doesn’t meet my eyes when he mutters, “He won’t be going back, lass.”
Of course not. No, he won’t. A chill runs through me at the realization.
“You’ll wait for me tonight, Cait,” Keenan says, not a question, though there’s a hint of a plea in his voice.
“Of course.”
“I may be a while.” He turns me toward him and kissing the top of my head fiercely.
“Take your time.”
He grabs my chin so tightly I gasp, but I know he isn’t angry with me. Staring into my eyes, I don’t know what he’s trying to see, but I don’t look away. I don’t blink.
“Are y’alright?” he whispers. “You are my brave girl.” His men drag their prisoners to where they want him and rouse those they need. There are phone calls and curses, doors opening and closing, and soon, it’s just the two of us.
“I’m fine,” I lie, my voice tremulous. I’m not fine. I was attacked tonight, I bit a man straight through skin, and the memory makes me want to vomit. But I’ve agreed to marry into this clan, into this vicious group of warriors who surround me like modern-day Vikings. I’ve agreed to become his wife, for my safety and for the safety of all. And for the first time since any of this began, as Keenan’s eyes meet mine, it dawns on me.
My mother was a Martin. My mother was born into a situation just like this. It’s unlike anything I could have ever imagined or wanted, and I know it’s disordered and dangerous. But part of me is proud that I’ve come from sturdy stock, even if her family are rivals to the one I’ll become. Something tells me she’d understand. I never knew my mother, but in that one brief moment in time, I feel as if maybe I understand her. Maybe she’d be proud of me for being brave, as Maeve is.
“You’re not fine, lass,” he says sternly, rubbing his thumb along my cheek. “But you will be. And tonight, when I come back to you, I’ll make it better.”
I swallow. “I trust that you will,” I say with as much courage as I can muster. “Now, go, Keenan. Do what you have to. And come back to me.”
He closes his eyes while drawing in a breath, then exhales with a sigh. Bringing his mouth to my ear, he whispers, “I’ll make you happy you said yes.”
And then his mouth’s on mine in a kiss too brief, before he’s handing me off to his brothers. It’s not lost on me that he doesn’t send guards, but his own flesh and blood to watch over me. In these circumstances, he doesn’t trust anyone more than Cormac and Nolan, and it pleases me somehow. These men are to be my brothers as well. Cormac stands on my left and Nolan to my right as they walk me back to the bedroom.
I forget how big Cormac is, all burly and bearded, until he has to duck to get into the building. He’s a gentle giant, though, this one. I heard him plea for the innocence of the boy Keenan’s to teach. And though I know he can be firm and unyielding, the man’s got a soft spot.
&
nbsp; Nolan’s got a twinkle in his eyes when he opens the door for me and ushers me in.
“You look a bit shell-shocked,” he says. “Could use a bevvie.”
“You get her plastered, he’ll kick yer ass,” Cormac warns.
Oh, dear. They want me to drink with them.
“You get me plastered, he’ll kick my arse,” I retort, which makes both the men burst into raucous laughter.
“There’s a world ‘a difference between tipsy and banjaxed,” Nolan says with a smile.
“And you’ve got that world in your pocket, aye?” Cormac says.
We’re back at the room, and I’m feeling suddenly exhausted. “How long do you think he’ll be?”
“Good long while,” Nolan says, pulling up a chair and taking a flask out of his pocket. “Drink up, girlie. He won’t mind you takin’ the edge off.” His green eyes twinkle at me, and he pushes the tufts of blond hair off his forehead.
Maybe he has a point. Maybe it’ll be good to “take the edge off.”
I reach for the flask, open it, and take a long pull. Oh my, I’m not prepared for liquid fire. I gasp and sputter, and in a very unladylike manner, spew the stuff all over the room. My throat burns, and flames lick at my chest.
“Oh!” I cough and wheeze. “Goodness!”
“It’s goodness alright.” Nolan slaps his leg and guffaws, but Cormac’s concerned.
“Christ, Nolan,” he says, his dark brows drawing together. “Keenan’ll kill you if you hurt her.”
“Hurt her? I’m givin’ her a taste of drink is all. Didn’t know she’d suck it down and near choke.”
Cormac pats my back with concern. “Y’alright?”
I try to sit up primly and wipe my hand across the back of my mouth. I’m not going to let one stupid encounter with alcohol dissuade me from learning how to do this right. I’m going to be the wife of the Chief. “Let’s try that again.”
Nolan grins. “Now easy, girl,” he says. “Little goes a long way, aye?”
I nod. “Aye.” I take a small sip, letting the slightly sweet, bracing liquid seep into my mouth before I swallow. It travels in a trail of heat down to my chest, and I sigh. It is nice. I feel warmed through and invigorated. Nodding, I take another sip, then another.