“If you knew me better, you would’ve.” He turned her hand, kissed her palm.
His touch was distracting. It sent flickers of sensation through her, fuzzing her wits.
“Sweet lass, I have missed you.” He released her hand, lifted his own to smooth her hair. He was so close – he smelled of something warm and rich, perhaps sandalwood, the scent overlaid with a hint of peat smoke and the night’s cold, brisk air.
He made no move to kiss her, though he stroked his thumb across her lower lip, gently as if he wanted to memorize its curve. The thought unsettled her.
She didn’t want to be remembered, she wanted to be loved.
Her heart was jumping about in her breast, threatening to split wide so that everything she’d spent two years dreaming of could tumble out, revealing her need for him.
But something was wrong, she could tell.
She inhaled deeply, steeling herself. “Why are you here?”
“Is missing you no’ enough?”
“Not this night.” She held his gaze. “I saw your face as you came toward me. I have been out here long enough for my eyes to see well in the dark.
“You’re troubled,” she finished, sure of it.
“Indeed,” he admitted. “That is so. It’s why I came to speak with you.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
You ask? Precious lass, I would find you if you slipped beneath the edge of the great sea; if you climbed a moonbeam to the heavens and hid behind the stars.
Katla blinked, not sure if he’d said the fanciful words, or if her heart had spun them. She couldn’t tell because Glaum was leaning into him and he’d bent down to rub the dog’s head.
“I’ve been on the loch several times these last few nights.” He glanced up at her as he scratched Glaum’s ears. “My journeys took me past here. I’ve seen you out with your dog.
“Your late night walks seemed a good time to find you alone.” Straightening, he pulled a few twists of dried beef from beneath his plaid and gave them to Glaum.
The little dog snatched them, quickly dropping down beside a rock basin, a beef twist clamped between his paws. He began chewing the treat at once, his attention – for the moment – on the dried meat, and nothing else.
Gunnar turned back to her, an undefinable emotion flickering across his face. “I’d have words with you,” he said, frowning. “I ken your chief’s guardsmen are about, but that cannae be helped. I’ll no’ be leaving until you’ve heard what I must say.
“If the patrol finds us – so be it.” He stepped closer, his eyes glinting in the shadows.
“We agreed to meet at Odin’s Flame. I don’t understand your urgency.”
“You will.”
“I think I am beginning to.” Katla’s belly tightened. She didn’t like his tone.
She pushed back her hair, trying to ignore how his nearness stirred memories of their kiss in the herbarium garden. It’d been hard and swift, igniting a fire inside her, but not quenching the flames. That heat burned in her still.
Her need for him also damned her because…
She’d guessed what he’d come to say.
“Are you here to tell me not to watch for the winter fire?” She straightened her back, bracing against an answer her heart didn’t want to hear. “Have you changed your mind about wanting me to join you atop Odin’s Flame? Can it be, now that you’ve returned to Druimbegan – the old laird’s son, come home – you’ve realized what a mistake it’d be to tryst with me?”
“Is that what you think?” His brows shot upward, his eyes widening. “For truth, lass-”
“I see the truth all over you.” Hurt burst through her. “You’re here to tell me to forget.”
“Damnation!” He grabbed her, pulling her hard against him. “You’ve bespelled me – all this time. I couldnae bear to lose you. No’ e’er again.”
“I want to believe you.”
“You should – you must.” He tightened his arms around her, his voice roughening. “I have feelings for you. They are strong, more powerful than I’ve e’er felt for anyone.”
But not love. Katla stiffened, waiting for the words she so hoped to hear.
When they didn’t come, she pulled away, straightened her cloak. “I have seen a lot, Gunnar of Druimbegan. Anyone who flits about as silently as a servant is often overlooked. Few heed us in the halls of great men’s castles, seaside market villages, or the taverns and inns of towns.
“A man who cares for a woman comes to her in daylight. He woos her properly, before all men.” She rushed on when he looked ready to argue. “He does not slink about in shadow, seeking her kisses when no one can see.”
“I am no’ here for kisses.”
“That I know. I understand.”
“A pig’s ear, ye do!”
She turned to gaze at the water. “This is not the first time a man of noble birth-”
“I am a Highlander – more that than aught else!” He stepped round in front of her, looking furious. “We protect our own. You should ken that about us.”
“Perhaps I do. But I am not yours.”
“Vexing is what you are!” He shoved a hand through his hair, snarled a curse beneath his breath – old Norse words, she suspected.
“I might say the same of you.” She folded her arms, sure she could feel her own Nordic temper rising.
“Have done, lass. I’m no’ here to fight you.” He leaned close, so near that his warm breath fanned her cheek. “This is about my people. You ken my uncle is laird. His son Ross – my cousin – is the reason I came. He accosted you at Kyleakin. He’d take you from me if he could.”
“I do not like him.” She shivered. “He could never-”
“You dinnae understand. He has nae interest in courting you. That’s no’ his way.”
“Then why speak of him?”
“Because you need to be wary,” he said. “I believe he’ll try to hurt you.”
Chapter 11
Bluidy hell! Gunnar drew a tight breath, furious – at himself – for the surprise, nae, the shock, that he’d just seen flash across Katla’s lovely face. He shouldn’t have spoken so bluntly. He ought to have couched his words so that his caution about Ross wouldn’t distress her too greatly. Yet, he’d had to warn her.
If he’d held his tongue and something happened…
He could feel his jaw tighten, fisted his hands against the coil of rage in his gut.
As if she knew, Katla furrowed her brow. “You think he will leave Druimbegan, come here to capture me?”
“I dinnae ken what he’ll do.” He wished to the gods he did.
She glanced up at Eilean Creag’s battlements. “Surely he wouldn’t dare? Duncan would-”
“Your chief would ne’er see him. Ross isn’t a man who strikes openly. Whate’er he does – if he tries aught - I’ll no’ let him harm you.” He cleared his expression, took care to level his voice. “I’ve watched him since Kyleakin. I’ll no’ let him near you again.”
“That I know.” She spoke softly, her trust warming him like the sun after a spring rain.
“I am glad.” He stepped closer, lifting a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. “It wasn’t my wish to frighten you, but knowledge is power. I couldn’t keep silent. I ken my cousin well, and I dinnae trust him beyond the end of my sword.
“We have a long history – we’ve ne’er been on easy terms. Even as lads, we fought. He was aye after whate’er caught my eye, see you?” I’ll no’ be telling you what he’d then do, how he’d make certain such things stopped bringing me joy.
“I am not afraid.” She met his gaze. “There were shield maidens in my mother’s lineage,” she told him, her voice strong, pride shining in her eyes.
Boldly, she gathered up her skirts, swishing them aside to reveal the lady’s dagger strapped to her thigh. “I am prepared to defend myself always. And” – she let her hems drop – “I’m not squeamish. Blood doesn’t scare me. Not my own, and for sure,
not the spilled blood of an attacker.”
“You’ll no’ be needing your dagger.” Gunnar turned toward the loch, fixing his gaze on the black-glistening water. “If a blade is drawn, it’ll be mine,” he vowed, hoping he didn’t sound strained.
He suspected he did.
When she’d whipped up her skirts to show him her leather-sheathed blade, she’d unwittingly displayed more than the weapon. She’d also treated him to a quick but tantalizing peek at her inky-black woman’s triangle.
He was sure she didn’t know.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t forget.
The unexpected glimpse had roused him painfully, setting him like granite. To be sure, there were many things about her that he admired. Her passion and spirit, her appreciation of the old ways, and how much she loved cold, frost-bound nights. The way she thrilled to snow and ice, her delight in the winter fire. Her abandonment as they’d danced in its dazzling light, her smiles and laughter. He’d never been happier, nor had he ever lost his heart so swiftly, falling hard for her then and there, irrevocably.
But for all that, he was also a man.
In the two years since Odin’s Flame, there wasn’t a night he hadn’t dreamt of her. In those cherished hours, he’d again see her as she’d been: naked and beautiful, sprawled gloriously across his silver wolf cloak, her raven hair spilling about her shoulders, her arms reaching for him, her legs invitingly opened, and not a single, luscious inch of her hidden from his view.
She’d bared herself for his delectation – and he’d savored her as the gift she was, almost worshipping her.
Now, this night…
Here on this narrow strip of shingle and seaweed-draped rocks, the walls of her chief’s mighty stronghold towering above them, the night wind freshening…
He wanted her even more.
He’d not lain with another woman since leaving her. He’d lost all desire for anyone else. So the tantalizing peek at her sweetness had almost knocked him to his knees.
Nae man should glance on a woman’s nether curls, and no’ be able to reach out and touch them, better yet drop to his knees before her, tasting and savoring her – as he’d done on Odin’s Flame, and ached to do now, and so badly.
She enchanted and tempted him in so many ways.
Sometimes he’d swear she’d bewitched him.
Almost sure of it, he glanced at his coracle, still upended over a cluster of rocks. He needed a moment to school his features, wrest his thoughts from the pull at his loins, the urge to seize her, satisfying the passion that blazed between them. He could feel its heat scorching the air, crackling around them.
Fisting his hands, he heaved a deep, much-needed breath.
He wouldn’t lose Katla by behaving like a rutting beast. He had plans – a carefully laid strategy, aimed at winning her back, this time forever.
No man would stop him.
Not his cousin, not his uncle, nor even the great Black Stag of Kintail.
~ * ~
“Perhaps your cousin is not the threat you believe he is.” Katla touched his elbow then, and the simple contact sent his blood rushing through his veins. “You thwarted him once. He may think twice before he approaches another woman so brusquely.”
“He’ll no’ be changing.” He turned to her, speaking true.
“He likely desires the same thing all men do.” She lowered her hand from his arm and laced her fingers, clasping her hands before her as if they spoke in a fire-warmed hall, and not here on the cold and windy shore, the wind howling past them. “He saw me at the food stalls, haggling over the cost of fish. That told him I am not a lady. And so he sought what he thought he could gain – easily.
“I hope never to see him again.” She shrugged lightly, gave him a small smile. “I do not know if he can be blamed for doing what many men would.”
“Ross is no’ like other men.”
“And you are a MacLeod.” She stood a bit taller, her tone challenging. “So is he. Druimbegan MacLeods are proud, sworn never to redden their swords on a friend – to prefer death to blooding a blade on a brother. Even here at Eilean Creag, we have heard the tales of your clan’s fierce loyalty.” She reached out and touched his shoulder, trailed her fingers along a fold of his plaid. “It is said that the mere whisper of ancient wrong will have you whipping out your swords. These hills ken few clans so-”
“I ken that I’ll kill the man who harms you, kin or no’.”
Her gaze dropped to his sword, then back to his face. “Are you such a hard man?”
Gunnar almost choked. He hoped his brand was all she’d seen. “If you were in peril, I’d be merciless.” The devil himself would run from me.
“Even though I’m a MacKenzie?”
“Think you I care what your name is?”
“Perhaps you should.” She held her ground. “Our clans have feuded for centuries. The strife goes back so far that nae man remembers why it started. So many years of warring can’t be forgotten.”
“Did you ken, sweet, that there are places where the cares of men are swallowed by such vastness that even a thousand year blood-feud is of less consequence than an eye-blink?” Gunnar knew such lands – frozen, ice-clad, and barely habitable. They’d taught him much, such as what a man aught value most.
In his world, that was her.
“Come Yule, a truce will be met at old Alpin MacKinnon’s Dunakaid Castle,” he reminded her. “Peace or no’, since the night of the winter fire, I have burned for you. I wouldnae care if you were a tanner’s gel, if you carried the blood of Robert the Bruce, or” - he threw a glance at the loch – “if you were a selkie.”
He took her hand, squeezing her fingers. “None of that matters, see you?”
She straightened to her full height, her eyes narrowing. “So what does?”
Protecting you – loving you. He looked to the far end of the shore, where shadows hid the curve of the curtain wall, the broad stretch of the loch on the other side of the stronghold. “There could be dangers in thon darkness. I would know you safe.”
“So you have said. Is that why you’ve been out on Loch Duich these last nights?” Chin high and her eyes glittering, she looked so much like a Valkyrie that he almost felt whisked back to his beloved Northlands. “‘Tis a long journey from Druimbegan simply to sail past Eilean Creag in the blackness of the small hours. There are skerries in these waters – submerged reefs so jagged they’d rip a hull before you knew you’d struck them.
“Can it be” – she drew a breath, her raven hair shining in the starlight – “that you risked such troublesome sailing to spy on me walking Glaum of a night?
“That doesn’t seem so.” She folded her arms, causing her cloak to draw tighter across her chest, giving a hint at the lush swells of her breasts. “Yet if the reason was your cousin, you should have known that nothing can harm me here. Eilean Creag is safe, wholly impenetrable. My laird-”
“Duncan MacKenzie is a great man,” Gunnar owned, troubled by her oversight – the harrowing truth that no man was invincible, no stronghold entirely secure.
If a black-hearted soul was bent on evil, he’d find a way to smash the man or slip through the slightest crack in a curtain wall. Both could be conquered by treachery.
He knew that well.
“The truth is, even the mightiest men can be felled or tricked.” He struggled not to show the depth of his worry, or to cast any shade of disrespect on the Black Stag, a man he’d aye admired, even in the days before any mention of a truce. “A stronghold is easily taken by trickery. Where force fails, vulnerability within can win the day for a besieger – all it takes is to find the right soul, one whose greed or ill-will lets him be turned by coin. When that happens, a postern door can be left ajar, guards silenced by a slit throat, or a proud chieftain sent from this world by poison.
“Many are the ways, lass.” He knew his voice was gruff, and his stomach roiled with the thought that she could be threatened through such measures.
�
�You know them all, it seems.”
“I do – much as I wish that weren’t so.” He stepped closer, gently smoothed the hair back from her face. “I have listened on long winter nights as clan seannchies stood by the fire, spinning tales of blood and glory, and the deeds of cravens and traitors, how they met their ultimate end, valor and goodness aye winning. My journeying, too, has shown me much.” He touched her cheek, skimmed his thumb along its curve. “I would keep you from such villainy. That is why I’ve sailed here these past nights, aye.
“I didnae do so to spy on you and your dog.” He glanced at the wee beastie now, something inside him softening to see how happily Glaum gnawed on the last beef twist.
“‘Twas by chance that I saw you out here, for I only took the Solan – my ship - past this castle isle on my way to the far shore of Kintail.” He looked back at her, knowing the moment of reckoning was nigh. “I’ve been setting men ashore there, using the coracle to take them there in groups of twos and threes.”
She blinked. “Why send MacLeods into the heart of my chief’s lands?” Her voice held suspicion, her doubt spearing him. “Do you think to prevent the truce, to undermine a chance of peace?”
“Bluidy hell, lass!” He scowled. “You ken that is no’ so.”
“I ken very little save that you enjoy kissing me!”
“I do! I’ll nae deny it. I relish much more than that, too. Indeed, I crave every inch of ye!” He glared at her, not caring that his voice rose. If anyone on this bleeding spit of rock heard him, so be it. “But my feelings go deeper, much deeper. ‘Tis time you learn of them, and more.”
~ * ~
“Then speak!” Katla challenged him, her eyes sparking. “I have nae bog cotton in my ears.”
“Odin’s balls! I have been.” Frustrated, for he’d not been gifted with a silver tongue, Gunnar strode away from her, toward the edge of the loch. He pulled a hand down over his face, and then cursed beneath his breath, uttering a string of other Norse oaths that would’ve fried her gizzards if she’d heard and understood.
By all the blessed Norns, he didn’t want to unsettle her.
Captured Hearts and Stolen Kisses Page 54