“Why don’t you take your own advice?” Cailean suggested gently. “You and Alexander waste too much time being defensive, when it’s obvious to the rest of us that you are dying for one another.”
Delaney gave a hollow laugh, then the smile slid into the most desolate expression Cailean could ever recall seeing on her cousin’s usually animated face. “I don’t know, Cailean. He is such a hard man to get close to. I know he feels this same explosive thing there is between us, but he can be so damn hardheaded and he wants to run everything and tell me what to do and—”
Cailean found her first real smile in what felt like days. “Not that you’d have any understanding of that personality type or anything.”
Delaney had the grace to smile sheepishly. “Maybe we’re too much alike, I don’t know. But it feels like it’s because he is like me that he’s the only one who really gets me, who really understands what motivates me. I catch him looking at me sometimes, Cailean, and my entire body turns to hot mush.” She fanned her face. “He’s annoying and frustrating and autocratic and pompous and—”
“Stay here, tonight,” Cailean interrupted. “Stay with him. All those things you said about Rory and me apply to you as well. I know it’s scary and maybe it will make it hurt later, but like you said, could you forgive yourself if you walked away now?”
“God, I hate it when you’re right.”
Cailean laughed, but she caught Delaney in a hug.
“What about Maggie,” Delaney said.
Cailean stepped back and squeezed Delaney’s hands before letting them go. “Maggie will need us both, I’m sure, but tonight it’s probably best to leave her alone and let her grieve privately.”
“How can we go off when she’s alone and in such pain?”
“Do you think she’d rather we were alone, too?”
“It’s just so damn unfair.”
“I know. Go find Alexander. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s trying to clear rubble from the passageway leading to his old rooms. You know where Rory is?”
She nodded. She knew where he was supposed to be searching, but she had a very strong feeling he was somewhere else. “I think so.”
They made plans to meet at eight in the morning and Cailean watched Delaney head out of the main room.
Cailean found Rory right where she’d thought he’d be.
She pulled the fur tighter around her shoulders, and stepped away from the stone portal and into the moonlight. He sat in the same place he had the first time she’d found him here. That sunrise seemed ages ago now.
The wind was screaming and he couldn’t have possibly heard her arrival. Just the same, she hadn’t taken two steps when he turned and lifted his arm for her to join him.
She made her way carefully to his side, then tossed her fur around them, as he shifted his across their laps.
They sat and stared in silence at the growing array of stars. The sky was remarkably free of clouds and the temperature was almost balmy. Not warm, but there was no winter bite in the air.
“What are ye thinkin’ upon so hard, Cailean.”
His voice immediately soothed her and just as immediately it jacked up her fear. Something wasn’t right. “I’m not sure.”
That elicited a surprised chuckle from him. “Yer thoughts are so confusing ye know no’ what they are?”
She liked it when his burr flavored his speech, as it did almost all the time now since his reunion with both brothers.
“Something like that,” she said, feeling the relief of a smile curve her lips. But its warmth was short-lived. “I’m feeling sort of pummeled by all these feelings and I’m not sure I want to deal with trying to figure them out anymore. I worry that I’m leading everyone on this giant goose chase but I can’t stop trying because—”
“Cailean, stop.” He pulled her close, then rested his cheek on her hair as they both continued to stare at the night sky. “Ye knew where to find me, so yer feelings must be more on target than you think.”
“I knew you’d be up here because I know you.”
He turned to her then. “And what of me do ye know? Why di’ ye come to look for me here?”
His sudden demand startled her. “If you’d rather be alone, I can—”
“I dinna want to be alone. I came up here because I needed to say good-bye to Duncan. And yet all I have thought about is you.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
His tone gentled. “I’ve been needin’ ye, Cailean. And you came to me.”
“It was Delaney who made me come find you.”
Rory scowled. “Well, you’ll forgive me if I dinna seek her out to thank her.”
Cailean smiled, craving the much-needed warmth it brought her. Rory and Delaney made a great show of seeing who could out-insult the other, but she sensed that underneath it there was a growing respect for one another, grudging though it may be. “She was worried about you.” At his snort, she added, “Alexander, too.”
“Worried that she won’t have a sparring partner perhaps. The two of them are more suited for each other than any two people I’ve met. Surprised they haven’t killed each other. But she does keep him from sticking his nose in my business every second, so for that I suppose I do owe her a great debt.”
“Not that you’d ever share that with her.”
“And dinna be tellin’ her yerself either, or there will be no livin’ wi’ her.”
Cailean laughed. “And ruin all the fun? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She noticed he kept his hold firmly around her. Cailean pulled that feeling of security around her even more tightly than the blanket and used the strength it gave her to say what was on her mind. “I feel like you’ve been pulling away from me. It scares me.”
He looked at her with honest surprise on his face. “How can ye say that? I’m all but on top of ye.”
“I don’t mean physically. I mean emotionally.”
“Dinna go and get scientific on me, Cailean, it’s been a very hard day for all of us and I—”
“You really need to listen to me. We’ve been physically close. A lot. And I revel in that connection, Rory, I do. But it’s in all the other ways. You don’t look at me for very long. It’s as if you’re afraid I’ll see something you don’t want me to see. I feel like a freak enough as it is and I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around me in any way. But it hurts when you close yourself off like that. I’m not just a Claren Key. I’m a woman and that’s who it hurts. It would be easy for me to let you do that, to pull away myself. After today, I thought maybe I’d do just that. But Delaney said I should fight for this time we have, that we should—”
“Delaney says, Delaney says,” he exploded suddenly. “What d’ you say?”
“I say I love you,” she shouted back. Then they both sat back from one another, as the words hung there between them. Those words she had said before, those words he had shown her in every possible way that he felt too, but had never once spoken. “I witnessed perhaps the most wrenching scene of my life today when Maggie and Duncan said their good-byes. It made my heart hurt so bad I thought I wouldn’t survive it, and that terrified me.”
Rory’s expression was totally unreadable. “Why would it terrify you?”
She hadn’t missed the return to his excruciatingly correct English accent. “You’re doing it right now.”
“Doing what? Asking you a question?”
“Distancing yourself. It scared you, too, didn’t it? This whole week, the sensation of time ticking away, all of it.” She worked hard to keep her voice steady and try her best to explain it. “It terrified me because I feel those same strong emotions for you that I saw in Duncan and Maggie and because I have this feeling, this sick, dreadful, nauseating feeling that our time will come just as theirs did and I’m not certain I can bear it. Maybe you feel that too and it’s why you’re pulling back. Maybe that’s why there is always this part of you that is tucked away. I wish I could do that, kee
p one part of me safe and whole, to cling to later when the rest shatters around my feet. But I can’t step back from this, from what I feel. And maybe that is what scared me the most. Knowing that I’ve given all of myself, everything that matters, over to a man who might not want to keep it.”
She started to tremble as she looked into his still impassive eyes. “When Duncan offered to take you with him, I thought I’d fall to the ground, and die right then.” When he said nothing, she doggedly pushed on. “When you refused him, the relief was so profound I almost passed out. You want terror?” she said fervently. “That was terror. Because I knew that you didn’t refuse Duncan because you wanted to stay here and make this work. You refused him because you don’t really believe your curse can be reversed.” She felt as if her whole life was slipping through her fingers and there was no way left for her to hold on. “I guess I had hoped that I was worth fighting for, too. That you would have faith in me, even when I don’t have any in myself.”
“I do have faith in you.” He spoke so quietly, so suddenly, she had to hold her breath for the words to reach past the sound of her pounding heart. “And that is precisely why I’ve done what I’ve done. Terror is a pale description of what my feelings for you do to me.”
Cailean’s chest began to burn and she trembled at the depth of pain and anguish in his eyes.
“It is not the continuation of my immortality that I fear. And it is precisely because I felt those very same things when I watched my brother and Maggie today that I knew I had to preserve and maintain what little was left of myself. It was both selfish and unselfish.” He dipped his chin and fell silent, then slowly, as if by force of great will, dragged his gaze back to hers. “I willna be able to bear our end, Cailean. I knew the anguish you felt in watching them, I saw it in your eyes as you watched them and could no’ bear you lookin’ at me the same way when my time comes. And come it will. You were right in that.”
She cupped his cheek, held him there when he would have looked away. “What are you saying? You can’t mean—” She broke off on a gasp. “You can’t still mean to end your own life when the curse is lifted, not after all we’ve—”
“No, no.” He slid her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm deeply, then curled her fingers in his and held her hand to his chest. “But I’ll go anyway, Cailean. I know it to be true, though I can’t explain the how of it. Maybe I have some of your sight myself, or maybe it’s part of the knowledge that comes with living with this curse as long as I have. When the curse is lifted, my time on earth will be done and there will be no choice in the matter.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, then rested his forehead against them. “There is no future to fight for beyond now.”
She knew he spoke the truth. This was the reason for the black chill she’d felt earlier. This was the impending doom she’d feared. But she’d also felt hope, felt that there was goodness to come. Had that changed? She was so jumbled now she didn’t know what she felt. “Then we simply won’t find the key.”
He pulled her into a tight embrace. “We have no choice there either, Cailean. Ye know that as well as I. Ye’ve been feeling its discovery and it will happen soon whether we choose it or no’.”
“No.” She wanted to shout it, defy what she knew was the truth. “We’ll stop looking.”
“I dinna think its discovery is in our hands. It will find us.”
He looked into her eyes again. “You have been the brave one, while I wasted time runnin’. I’m sorry, Cailean. Yer right, I regret no’ usin’ the time we had to its fullest. I have been both fool and coward.”
“We’re just human. No matter how many years you spend on earth, you’re still human. But our time isn’t up yet and I refuse to believe there won’t be another choice. It can’t just end.”
And yet, hadn’t it done just that today for Maggie and Duncan?
He kissed her until her trembling stopped, until she relaxed enough to give in to what they had left together.
“I would fight for you,” he said against her lips. “I would spend all eternity fighting for you.”
She cried. And when the flow of tears finally started, they came in a great hot torrent and there was no stopping them. Rory held her and rocked her, his own tears streaming down his cheeks to mix with hers.
She felt desolate. “Wait for me.”
“Och, Cailean, ye dinna know what ye—”
“Promise me,” she demanded, needing to hear him say it.
He kissed her hard and fierce until she moaned with it. “I’ll wait for ye, always, ye know that. But dinna give up yer life waiting for it to end. There is much out there to see in this world and I want to discuss it all wi’ ye when we are reunited. That you must promise me, or I dinna think I will bear it. I want ye to fight for that like you fought for me, do ye understand?”
She could only nod as fresh tears washed over her again.
They clung to each other and time finally ceased to have meaning. What existed was each moment. He kissed her, stroked her, and held her until the moon was high in the sky. Then he laid her down on the furs and made slow, maddeningly, unbearably sweet love to her, their salty tears mixing with moans of pleasure.
He pulled her tightly to his chest, wrapping his body around her. He kissed her tenderly on the lips. “Forgive me for not saying these words sooner.” He held her face and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Cailean.”
And then it happened.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Delaney found Alexander that night in what used to be his chambers. He’d cleared the rubble, but there was nothing else in the room. “Not very homey,” she said, leaning in the doorway.
He had been staring sightlessly into the centuries-cold fireplace, but didn’t seem startled by her presence. “No, it’s not.”
She frowned. There was a hollow, almost vacant tone in his voice. Perhaps Cailean had been more on target than she gave herself credit for. She wanted to go to him, console him on the loss of his brother. She couldn’t conceive what he was thinking or feeling or, worse yet, what he would do now because of it. For the first time in many years, she felt supremely inadequate.
So she took a different tack altogether. Maybe they would find the way together. “How do you have a fireplace inside of a mountain? Where does the smoke go?”
He answered in the same toneless voice. “There are fissures in the rocks that have been vented for such a purpose.”
“And the smoke that rises from the mountain, how is that explained?”
“I don’t imagine it much mattered back then since our mountain peaks couldn’t be scaled. I suppose Rory has had to deal with the modern problems of helicopters and such, but there are enough hot springs with steam vents on the surface that I doubt anyone would pay much mind, if they happened to see it.”
Now she was getting angry. She’d never heard him so emotionless, so empty. She wanted her passionate, opinionated man back. She wanted him to be angry, she wanted him to fight.
“I’m surprised to see you just give in like this.”
That got his attention. His gaze fixed on hers. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’re a man with a mission. A man who is willing to do whatever he must to return to his clan and fight for their continued existence. No matter the cost.” She sidled into the room, moving closer to him despite the fire now brewing in his eyes. Good. Fire was good. “I know you lost Duncan today. But I didn’t expect you to take his leaving so hard.”
“That is a harsh thing to say, even for you.”
She took that arrow in stride. “These are harsh times. You were willing to lose your brother on the field of battle. I would think you’d be happy that he is reunited with his clan right now, with your father. Or are you just upset that you’ve lost a capable warrior?”
He spun on her so fast she gasped even though she was hoping he’d react.
He took her arms and shook her. “How dare you speak of Duncan that way?
Have you no real soul in that body of yours? For a self-proclaimed romantic, your heart is a cold place indeed.”
She made no attempt to break free. “I am not heartless and the last thing I am is cold. Especially when it comes to you, Alexander.”
“We’ll see about that, indeed we will.” He spun her to the nearest wall and pinned her against it. Had she wanted to, she could not have fought her way free, so securely did his body pin hers.
“Kiss me, Alex.”
He growled something beneath his breath, but take her mouth he did. It was a punishing kiss that had more to do with control than with passion, but she could withstand the assault and would do that and more if it would reach him.
She kept her mouth soft and gentle, her responding kisses coaxing and reassuring. She had no idea that she was capable of such softness. Her assault was far less brutal and far more devastating to his defenses than his assault was to hers. His anger was spent quickly as she kept her mouth as pliant under his as she was able.
And then he was kissing her as if his life depended on it. Taking from her, feeding from her mouth as if his life force emanated from there. He groaned and leaned into her and she thought her heart might actually break so anguished was the sound that issued from deep inside him.
“It’s okay,” she whispered against his cheek when his lips moved from her mouth to her jaw and on to her neck. He still had her hands pinned to the wall and she slowly slipped them free and wove her fingers into his hair. His hands curled into fists by her head as she continued to stroke him, to rain sweet, soft kisses along his cheek. “It’s okay to grieve, Alex. You don’t have to be in control all the time. Not with me. Never with me.”
He slipped his arms around her and pulled her tight against him as he reversed their positions. He slid down the wall enough to pull her between his legs and angle her head so that he could take her mouth again. He did not speak but let his kisses communicate his torment for him.
The Legend Mackinnon Page 34