Captive Heart

by Erin O'Quinn

  Today as I breathed, I found it harder than usual to free my fevered thoughts, to tear my mind away from my own mistakes and poor judgment. I kept seeing Murdoch’s glittering, accusatory eyes, and I felt an aching lump form in my throat. I fought back the negative thoughts, but I knew even as I took in the pure, sweet air that I was not at all grounded. I was almost floating, clinging to old ideas and old habits, and I was conscious of hot tears just behind my eyes.

  I heard Magpie’s voice at my shoulder. “…ready to begin, my friend?”

  I opened my eyes and looked around. Brindl and Swallow had already begun to practice, facing each other calmly in a little circle several feet away. Magpie was looking at me with her head cocked in that distinctive way, just like her father Jay Feather, seeming to read then assess my very thoughts.

  She regarded me with her luminous eyes. The little red freckles danced across her nose and cheeks. “You are captive,” she said in her melodic, wind-chime voice.

  “Whatever do you mean, my friend?”

  “Your heart, SoothTeller. Let it go. Set it free. Else you will be ready victim to any weapon at all.”

  I backed away and motioned for her to stand three paces from me. I held my shillelagh as Liam had taught me—very loosely in my right hand, with supple wrist, pointing inoffensively at my left foot.

  We stood regarding each other in the small circle, and I knew even before she attacked that she was right. Whether she had been holding a twig or a sword, she could easily defeat me. All my skills were as nothing in that one moment of truth, for I felt my heart frozen in place as though immersed in the frigid waters of the raging Foyle.

  I did not see her attack. One moment she was standing quietly, and the next moment her little face was an inch from mine, her shillelagh pressed against the back of my neck.

  “You see?” she asked. “Oh, Caylith, I sorrow to see you in that place.”

  I was angry and annoyed—not at my friend, but at myself. “There is no ‘place,’ Mag. I am not—just not myself today, that is all.”

  “You are still you, SoothTeller. But your heart is in a cold place. That is a pain inside me. Let us back away and try again. Let us breathe longer this time. Yes?”

  “Yes, Mag.” I smiled at her. I felt a deep love for her, and I could see the depth of her own affection for me. I resolved to restore my inner balance, for her as well as for myself. Once again I stood, this time alone, three feet from Magpie. I began to breathe again. This time, I let the pine-scented air rest even longer, deep in the pit of my stomach. And when it finally escaped it left me so slowly that my mind began to ease and melt around the edges, until I saw only a clear, bright place.

  And then I saw Magpie. She stood gazing directly into my eyes, and jade green met sea green in a sudden clashing of sky and wave. I saw her attack—a stroke of emerald lightning aimed at my very eyes—and the relentless, crashing sea swallowed the lightning in a sudden movement of batas. Magpie and I stood weapon to weapon, two tiny women locked in a battle of titans. My weapon was angled across my forehead, and hers was resting on my own. And we stood like that for what seemed minutes instead of seconds. At last we both stepped back.

  “Better,” she said, as though she were the teacher. I smiled again, and this time my smile melted a very small corner of my heart.

  * * * *

  Brigid and I rode home at a slow canter. I thought about today’s practice, how I had won not a match the whole day. The best I could do, as with Magpie, was to settle for a draw. I thought she knew that I was deliberately slowing the pace, and she rode quietly beside me, waiting for me to speak.

  “Bree, I have made a huge mistake.” She was silent, but she looked at me with her wide, clear eyes, inviting me to continue. “A man’s heart reached out to me, but I was not free. Instead of slaying the monster, I allowed it in. This happened not once but twice. Two different men. Same mistake.”

  “How did you let it in, Cay?”

  “I found a beautiful woman for each of those men, thinking that would set me free. And set them free, too.”

  “Yes, I see how that was a mistake, a chara. Those beautiful women were but a reflection of you. You still gave yourself to them.”

  I thought about her words, and tears began to flow down my face. “I see it now,” I said, barely above a whisper. “Now they are bound not to one heart but two. And I am bound to three.”

  She stopped her little white mare, who began to browse the roadside contentedly. “Ah, Cay. The human heart is too complex to rein in, to teach tricks, to bind and set free at will.”

  “What can I do, Bree? How can I undo all this hurt?

  “As I said, it is not a matter of untying a knot, of letting the butterfly flutter free from your hand. It is something to be done slowly and carefully, so the hearts do not break. How you do that is what will define you as a real person. As an adult woman and as a wife.”

  Adult. Wife. At last, after nineteen years of the imaginary fairy-princess life, I was being forced to see the vicious thorns under the soft-petalled rose. I thought I was teaching that lesson to others back when I was a willful sixteen-year-old playing warrior games. Now, somehow, I had to go back and undo the hurt I had caused. And if I did not do it right away, I stood to lose the one man in the world I loved beyond all others, the one whom I must never lose.

  I sat on my golden pony, my chest caved in and my head down, letting the tears flow unabated. Brindl leapt from her horse and stood next to NimbleFoot. She reached up her hand and waited for me to take it. I grasped it hard.

  I sat on my pony, connected to Brigid by a tight handclasp, waiting for her to speak again. At last she did.

  “I have never been one to bore others with bright-eyed advice. I can only tell you what I myself would do, if I could.”

  “Tell me, a chara mo chroí.”

  “I would give myself wholeheartedly to my husband—even more than I already do. No, I do not mean I would become fettered to him any more than I would chain myself to a table leg. I mean I would bind my deepest feelings to his own deep heart, so closely that there would be no space to let another man in.”

  “And if I hurt—those other men?”

  “Then that will be the result of wanting what they must never have. They grasped the apple that drove Adam from the garden. Then they must be content with only one beautiful woman—not you—while you love your heart’s desire.”

  I looked at her and squeezed her little hand as hard as I could. “I must start right away, Bree. Liam is all my life, all my joy.”

  “Do it, a chara. I wish you unbounded happiness.”

  As soon as I got home, I saw Angus tethered at the haggard. When I unsaddled NimbleFoot I saw Liam standing quietly, head bowed, in the six-foot circle we had outlined with small river rocks behind our teach. His hands were at his sides, and his bata was thrust into the leather thong that held his breeches tight to his waist.

  I could see right away that he was deep breathing, waiting for me to join him in the combatants’ circle. I brushed NimbleFoot more quickly than usual, then approached my husband and stood three paces from him inside the circle.

  I stood with my hands hanging at my side, the same way Liam was standing. I began to take in the tangy air that always swirled a bit faster, felt a little more chill, here by the river. As I always did, I tried my best to separate my deep emotional feelings for my husband from my sentiment as a dispassionate warrior. At that moment, he was a worthy opponent, nothing more. But nothing less.

  He was standing so that neither of us would be looking into the setting sun, and I appreciated this small act of courtesy. I could not see his chest moving at all. His expert breathing was a tribute to my own training of him, for when we first began to practice together, he was captive to his own ragged breath, and I had won our matches easily.

  Now we stood almost casually, not looking at each other at all, only breathing. At last I raised my head, and I slowly pulled my shillelagh from my belt. I
saw that Liam had already drawn his weapon and that his deep brown eyes were riveted on me. We stood, each taking the measure of the other. I lowered my body, bending my knees until I felt the center of my weight holding me to the pliant earth beneath my feet, strong and steady, yet able to move with blinding speed. Liam had already done the same.

  I watched his marvelous eyes fill with the wings of a graceful waterfowl, and I knew he saw me at that moment almost as a pure white swan, graceful, yet armed with a dangerous, knobby bill common to all mute swans. The moment before he struck, I felt my own wings rising and my body thrusting forward like the great swans of Ravenscar, and I was on top of him. My hard bill in the form of a burnished cudgel struck across his neck—but softly, a pretend blow, a split second before his weapon found my own neck.

  We stood in that posture, straining against the other’s bata, until we both slowly lowered our weapons at the same time. I saw his eyes fill with a lustful hunger that mirrored my own. Our cudgels forgotten at our feet, we drew into each other with a ferocity that would have astonished an onlooker, and we began to bite and suck each other’s mouth and necks.

  “Finn’s thigh’s, Cat, I will eat ye until ye cry stop.” He gathered me up into his arms and took me inside, kicking the door shut behind him. He almost threw me onto the large bed, and he removed his bríste with one practiced movement. Then he was kissing and biting me again-—my neck, my breasts, my stomach, and I cried out his name. He pulled off my trousers, then my top, never seeming to lift his hot mouth.

  “Liam, Liam, never stop. Oh bite me, suck me, do not stop.” I dug my nails into his arms, then his butt. When he began to eat at my thighs, then between my thrashing legs, I wrapped my legs around his head while he feasted on me. I was bucking and arching my butt, and somehow he kept sucking until the great wave crashed over me and I cried, “No! Stop, oh, stop!”

  I lay with my legs still circling his neck, my groin pressed hard into his chest to still the throbbing. My chest heaved with the effort of catching my breath—not at all like a warrior. He gently pulled my legs from his neck and laughed softly, echoing my own thoughts. “Mighty warrior. Now ye can eat me.” He began to knead my buttocks, rubbing my thighs against his huge erection, until the rhythm and the hunger in his eyes made me flare with renewed desire.

  “Come here, come here, let me suck you,” I demanded, and I began to explore him with an intensity that I could hardly believe. He moaned and cried my name, and every sound made the fires burn more hotly between my legs, even up into my butt. I was on top of him, trying to eat and swallow his mighty bata, then running my tongue down until I captured his testicles and sucked with a noisy, ravenous sound. I could not eat my fill, he made me want his body so much. Again he seemed to read my thoughts, and he seized me by the waist and guided me so that I enveloped him, deeper and deeper. Then I was using my legs, riding him up and down, until he cried out as I had. “Do not stop!” It seemed only moments before I felt his hot fluids shoot into me, then down the inside of my thighs, and I climaxed again with the heat and joy of it.

  Afterwards, we lay close, stroking each other’s tousled hair. “Ah, Liam, my love, you fill me so deep I am brimming over.”

  “That is how we made…baby,” he said, so gravely that I began to laugh.

  “Yes. Let nothing ever come between us except this growing baby—and only while it is still in my stomach.”

  “Fear agus bean chéile. Agus mac.” Man and wife, he had said. And son. Then, for the first time, I agreed with him, in a place deep inside my heart. A son would be just fine with me, too.

  Chapter 11:

  Future Tense

  Friday morning, well before dawn, I woke with the fierce compulsion to see Michael and tell him about going to Inishowen. If Murdoch were going on a booley to discover the hidden Isle of Captives, he would need Michael right away to take over the building of the homestead. What if Michael could not leave so soon? What if he and Brigid had made other plans? What of his work on my own brugh? Surely he could not just walk away. He would have to make arrangements so that the work could continue in his absence.

  I looked over at Liam. He lay in the soft candlelight that always lit our large bed. His auburn and light brown hair spilled across his forehead as he lay on his stomach, his head facing me, his arms raised slightly above his head. One leg was lying across my own, pinning me to the bed. I eased it out, always uncomfortable with the feeling of being pinned like a specimen butterfly.

  My movement caused him to shift, curling up somewhat, clearly needing to finish a dream. I wanted to stroke his soft hair, and I reached out a hand, then withdrew it. Let him sleep a while. Making sure the fire was burning brightly and the candles lit for Liam, I walked again down to the welcome waters of the Foyle.

  This morning as the shock of the water roused my body, I felt rested and invigorated. Quite unlike yesterday, when I was tormented by demons of guilt, I felt that today could be the beginning of a new, happy life. Whatever I needed to do to make Liam happy, that I would do. I knew he would not require me to be servile or to give up my longing for adventure, so my promise to myself was an easy one.

  The hard part would be dealing with Murdoch. I desperately needed to turn him softly, without hurting him, away from his unseemly feelings for me. As long as his emotions clung to me so closely, I would not be able to be near him—for Liam’s sake as well as my own and Murdoch’s, too. And yet he was about to undertake a booley for my sake, to find a dangerous lair of criminals. How could I not show him my gratitude and friendship? I felt that any emotion from me would be misunderstood, the same way Torin had misunderstood me from the beginning.

  I thought about Torin, back to the day we first met outside his father’s mead hall in Tara. After Liam had been captured by unknown assailants, bludgeoned and thrown unconscious across his own horse, I journeyed to Tara to talk with King Leary and unexpectedly met Liam’s brother. My heart was aching. I loved and feared for Liam with an anguish I had never known. And suddenly, in front of my very eyes, his virtual twin stood with his telltale crooked grin and his mocking eyes.

  For a moment I lost all rational thought. Here was my lost Liam! But no, it was his older brother Torin. Except for having no beard and mustache, Torin was the image of his brother. Before I could shield my emotions, Torin read the longing and love in my eyes as feelings for himself.

  I did what I could to tell Torin to keep his distance—that I loved Liam. And yet the damage had been done. Every gesture of friendship became, in Torin’s mind, a veiled signal of love. I appreciated his struggle to overcome his feelings, his reluctance to betray his feelings in any way. And so, thinking I was doing the right thing, I introduced him to the most beautiful woman I knew, the breath-catching Swallow Feather.

  Even now, I was convinced that Torin loved Swallow. They would marry soon, and all of us could live normal, happy lives. And I knew that Murdoch, too, was drawn to the lovely Persimmon. My one mistake had been to play with other people’s lives—to try to teach a heart, like a pony, to do tricks at my bidding.

  That damage could not now be undone. But I could withdraw gently but firmly, leaving my friends to work out their emotions without me. If I could show them just how deeply I loved my Liam—

  He knew I loved it when he came up behind me, pressing his warm body against my cold back and buttocks. Just then I felt his heat, and I thrilled when his warm hands cupped my breasts. His chin on my shoulder, he greeted me in his husky, breathy way. “Dia duit, a chuisle mo chroí.”

  I put my hands over his own as they covered my cool breasts. “Hello, I love you.” I turned my head and then, slowly, turned my body, too, until my chest and thighs were close against his. We kissed, slow and deep, not with passion but with the need to be as close to each other as possible.

  After washing each other, we walked hand in hand to our door. The sky was still dark, and the birds had not yet called out to the coming dawn. As Liam and I sat eating our stir-about, I told him
my plans for visiting Michael this morning.

  “Good, Cat. He leaves soon…he returns soon. Forget not, he makes a cart for Uncail Eóghan first.”

  “Oh!” I had forgotten that Michael had told Owen his intention to build a special cart for him, one that could endure the often-rugged path to his destination and beyond. “That could take a while to build, Liam. I had completely forgotten.”

  “Me cousin can do anything,” he said with a delighted smile. “He sets his mind—it happens.”

  “Do you want to come with me today, love?”

  “Only if ye want it, Cat.”

  “Then no. I think our talk will be very boring.”

  “What of Murdoch? Did he meet the pretty woman?”

  The mention of Murdoch spoiled my good mood, but I tried not to show it. “He did. I think he was smitten, Liam. He could not take his eyes from her. And Persimmon liked him, too.”

  “Is it…so easy, Cat? Change love from one to the other?”

  “No. But it is a start, a mo chroí. He has gone for years without knowing any woman at all. He needs a chance to let someone into his life. If not Persimmon, then another.”

  “But not you.”

  “No! Absolutely not, Liam. Not me.” I reached out and stroked his cheek, running my fingers in his soft beard. “Even if I have to give up his friendship, he must and will change.”

  He caught my fingers in his mouth, then in his hand. “And if…if he does not?”

  “Then I am sorry to say it, but I will have to make sure he stays far away. I think you and I will both know as soon as he begins to change. And I will let you be the one to decide—shall he stay close, or remain far away the rest of our lives?”

  He caught my hand in both of his large hands and held it for a while. I waited, quiet, for him to consider my words. “I agree to it, Cat. I will know. Sure an’ I will know, as well as ye.”