by Ruby Duvall
The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to scream.
A large hand clamped onto Rossalyn’s arm. She gasped, pulling away. The hand yanked her into the shadows, shooting pain up her arm that exploded in her shoulder. She cried out even as she tried to keep her footing. When she might have fallen to her knees, she was caught against a wide chest. The man whipped her around and pinned her against the cold, rough bark of a tree. His lips hovered close to her ear.
“What news?”
Rossalyn shuddered against him and pulled him even closer. Her wrap fell to the ground. It was a few seconds before she could speak past the pulse in her throat. “T-the laird is furious. Ye stole Duncan and Finian’s best bull.” As she spoke, he gathered her skirts in his fists and began pulling them up. “He offered a reward to anyone who catches or kills any thieves.”
“How much?” he whispered. His fingers found her thighs and he easily lifted her, pulling her legs around his waist. She didn’t know the reason but the rough way he handled her—the way he trapped her between the tree and his body—it sent her heart racing and she clung to his shoulders with wanton greed.
“I dinna ken. His men-at-arms meant to patrol the outlying crofts at random.”
“Where will they patrol tonight?” he coaxed, reaching beneath her.
She moaned, wiggling against his probing fingers. “I dinna ken about tonight but tomorrow they willna pass through the glen just west of the village. The croft in the center has several heads.” She groaned when he rubbed just the right spot. “Nowt would be there to s-stop ye.” His warm breath splashed across her cheek and the fur he wore brushed deliciously against her bare knees.
“What of the laird? When will he be on the roads?” he asked. Rossalyn swallowed hard. The laird’s leuchd-crios would never give that kind of information to someone like her.
“I-I dinna ken. I’ll keep asking,” she stalled. “The laird’s son is sometimes seen away from the castle. I may be able to find out where he goes.” Something besides his fingers began to prod her. She moaned with impatience.
“Ye want this, do ye no’?” he teased. “Ye ken what to say.”
“Craig, please,” she begged.
“Say it.” The head of his cock slipped inside her. She writhed, trying to take more of him.
“I willna.” He pulled free of her and she smacked her fist against his shoulder in retaliation. “No.”
“Say it or I walk away.” She hit him again but he only laughed. Arrogant bastard!
She clenched her teeth. “I am a Campbell whore.”
He adjusted his stance. Sank into her. Began pounding into her. His hands were tight against the backs of her thighs. He wasn’t gentle and she didn’t expect it. She moaned loud and long.
“The truth feels good, does it no’?” he asked.
“Ye talk too much, Craig,” she hissed. She didn’t like the things he said or the way she enjoyed the things he did to her. She didn’t want to like the sound of his loins slapping against hers. She hated how she moaned whenever he was rough. Perhaps he was right though. She hated him for saying it, but she let him take her anyway, didn’t she?
The cheek brushed hers with every thrust that heaved her upward and she turned her face toward him, thinking she might be able to see his expression in the moonlight. Their lips nearly touched and she realized that they had never kissed. She turned her head away, afraid it might happen.
His hips went faster, beating against her and giving her everything she wanted. She drowned in the feelings, the smell of his skin, the sound of their heaving bodies.
Craig groaned. “I’m close, lass.”
“Aye,” she gasped. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and closed her eyes. He whispered violent curses and gripped the backs of her thighs so tightly that she knew he was bruising her. Pleasure ripped through her. Her womanly flesh shuddered and for a moment she felt close to Craig, felt as though he shared something with her that no one else could touch.
His hips pinned hers against the tree as he pressed deep and finished inside her, moaning with relief. He didn’t linger long and pulled out, setting her on her feet. He then stepped back and straightened his clothing. She leaned on the tree for a few breaths, trying to get the strength back in her legs.
“Same signal then?” he asked. “Ye’ll tell me when the laird plans to travel?” She nodded, wondering how long his patience would last. He wanted to kill the laird, but she would never be the one to bring it about.
She took a step away from the tree. “Aye,” she lied.
“Ye’re a good girl,” he said with a smile. He smacked her rear and walked away. When she could no longer hear his footsteps, she sighed.
“Am I?”
—
Emma wandered through the dark rooms of her parents’ house, feeling at home and yet disoriented. The dimensions were right but the rooms looked so much bigger. The ceiling was farther away and the furniture was arranged differently. Entering the living room, she looked around with confusion. Hadn’t her parents gotten a new coffee table? Where was the super expensive flat-panel TV that her father had drooled over? The old couch that the dog had tracked mud on was still there too.
Colored light caught her eye and she looked at the end table next to the couch. Inside a rectangular chunk of glass was a laser-etched angel, her outline lit from within by a bulb in the base, which slowly spun the tiny angel in a circle. Blue light was followed by green, then yellow, red and purple.
Seeing it enraged her and she walked over to snatch up the cold chunk of glass. Hurling it across the room, she listened with satisfaction as it shattered on the floor in the adjoining kitchen.
The angel shouldn’t have been there. It hadn’t been on the table for five years. And why was it so cold in the house?
She went to find the thermostat, her arms getting goose bumps and her toes nearly numb. As she walked from the living room to the front hallway, she stopped abruptly, surprised to see Jack’s old freshman MVP plaque from high school back on the wall. It was supposed to be in a box in the attic.
Red and blue lights cut through the peaceful darkness of her parents’ house. Running to the front window in the sitting room, she spotted a cop car sitting outside. One officer remained in the car and the other was walking up to the front door.
The frigid air sank deep into her skin, sapping all the warmth left inside her.
She turned back to the hallway just as the doorbell rang. She tried to run to the front door but it was like running through water. Her father, still wrapping his robe around his pajamas, was closely followed by her mother in her blue nightgown as both walked past the sitting room to the front door.
Emma ran harder, faster and finally broke free of the force dragging at her. Skidding into the hallway, she made it just in time to see her father open the door. A grim-looking police officer stared at her parents with dispassionate, dead eyes.
“Mr. and Mrs. Campbell? Do you have a sixteen-year-old son named Jack?”
No, no, no! Not again! She didn’t want to hear it again!
She screamed. “Jack!”
—
Iain jerked upright. Before he knew it, he had tossed the blanket away and was on his feet. His first instinct may have been to run to the door and seize his sword from the wall but instead he looked at Emma in the bed he had set up against the back wall, perpendicular to his own.
She had kicked off her blanket and was panting for air. In the fading firelight, he could see the sheen of a cold sweat on her face. A few locks of her hair were stuck to her cheek. A nightmare. Emma gingerly sat up, her back to him. He heard her sniff and then watched her wipe her hand across her face. She sniffed again as she tried to gather up her blanket.
His hands still shook from his abrupt awakening even as a different kind of tension filled him, a tension that made him want to cross the two steps separating their beds and… He stopped his body from following through with that thought but he knew well the
keen anguish that had ripped the shriek from her throat and his ignorance of her former life plagued him yet again as he wondered with an aggravating stab of jealousy just who “Jack” was. He wanted to ask but could already guess that she wouldn’t answer.
Emma grew quiet and still. He did his best to smooth away the emotions playing across his face but when she slowly turned her head to glance over her shoulder, he knew he had failed to mask his need and jealousy when she cringed upon seeing him.
She turned her head away but not before he saw tears in her eyes. “Sorry about that,” she said softly. Having covered her legs again with the blanket, she rubbed her hands together and hunched her shoulders. Without asking for her permission, his body moved toward her and he reached out his arms. Emma glanced up at him with wide eyes. “I-Iain?”
He first tossed the blanket off her legs and then slid one arm around her back and the other one under her knees. He lifted her slight weight, walked the short distance to the larger bed and set her in the center. She silently stared at him. “Because ye look cold,” he haltingly explained. It was the best excuse he could conjure.
With a nod, she relaxed and settled into her usual position, though not as close to the wall as before. Taking a small chance, he crawled in behind her and for the first time in many days, let her use his arm as a pillow. She gave no argument and even snuggled into the curve of his body. He closed his eyes, breathing in her sweet scent and wishing he could feel the softness of her cheek against his arm.
After tucking them both under the blanket, he told her to go to sleep but all that answered him was a soft exhalation.
—
Iain stood at the door of his home. Sunlight poured down, its heat stirred by a gusting wind. To the north, paddocks were full of fat, healthy animals grazing on abundant green grass. To the south, fields of barley were growing well and full. His chest swelled with pride.
“Isn’t something missing?”
He whipped around, expecting to see the red-haired interloper. She wasn’t inside the house. “Or perhaps, someone?” He turned back and spotted her standing on the paddock wall. She wore a green dress long enough to hide her feet. Her wings flapped once and then settled. She smiled at him.
“What are ye talking about?” he asked.
She pointed toward the trees beyond the barley. “That way.” Iain looked to the forest. Aye, something was missing. He could feel it now. Something was missing and something else was here that didn’t belong. “Goodbye, Iain,” she said.
He began to ask her what was missing but she disappeared. He had no time to wonder where she had gone though. He had to find whatever it was that should have been here. A sense of urgency filled him. His hands itched as his feet carried him past the fields and into the trees.
The sunshine slipped off his shoulders. The air around him pressed close, heavy and cold. The sound of dead leaves crunching under his feet was loud and grating. He walked faster.
A woman’s voice. It was filled with panic. He ran. The ground was rising quickly and he clambered up the hillside. Blue eyes, he remembered. She had blue eyes and soft hair. Skin as smooth as cream.
He crested the hill and paused, huffing for air as he searched the forest in front of him. There. A bit of light caught his eye and he was off running again.
“Jack?” Emma called. “Don’t leave me here!” His hands fisted at the sound of another man’s name, at the thought that someone had abandoned her. “Please, Jack! I don’t want to be alone.”
Dodging around a tree, he spotted her. A gap in the forest canopy had let in a single beam of sunlight, wide and bright. Emma stood in the spot of light it created on the ground. Her bare feet were covered in mud and she looked cold in only a knee-length smock.
“Emma?” he said gently. She gasped, turning toward him. He came closer to the light and her startled expression softened into relief. “Iain.”
He took a deep breath, realizing for the hundredth time just how beautiful she was. A step closer and he could touch her. Another step closer and he could see tears swimming in her eyes. “Jack’s gone,” she said. “He left me.”
Iain pulled her into his arms. “I’ll stay with you.” Her arms slid around him. She smelled sweet and natural. Her body was warm and soft. His heart was pounding but not from exertion.
Sunlight poured in, expanding the ring of light and pushing back the darkness. Emma gasped and pulled him closer. He swallowed hard, his body reacting to her nearness, to the feel of her arms around him, accepting him and wanting him. His hands moved of their own will, both seeking to comfort and needing to discover. The smock was so thin.
Grass sprouted beneath their feet as he ran one hand over her hip. His fingers gathered a fistful of material and then gathered more, slowly bringing up the hem of her smock. When finally he touched bare skin, he couldn’t stop the groan from leaving his throat. Sliding his hand under her clothing, he cupped her lush backside and greedily squeezed.
She moaned, surprising him. Her hands slid up his back to grasp his shoulders and she pulled back to look at him. Her cheeks were flushed, her expression both knowing and longing. “Iain,” she whispered.
They came together, their hands searching and stroking. Iain pressed feverish kisses to her neck even as he yanked her smock from her body, ripping the neckline and dropping it to the ground. Her arms came back around him, encircling his neck as he drew her up from the grass and held her tight against him. Her legs climbed up his body, wrapping around his hips.
“Kiss me.” She brought her mouth close, waiting for him to meet her, to penetrate her lips as a prelude to what was coming.
He couldn’t. He saw those full, pink lips and hesitated.
“Iain?” Her eyes opened. She seemed confused.
“I…I canna,” he whispered. Her confusion became pained disbelief.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?” Christ, she didn’t understand just how much he wanted it, how he stared at her mouth when she spoke, how he envied the cup she drank from. As if she had heard his thoughts, she said, “Then do it, Iain. Kiss me.”
He felt her hands tighten on his shoulders and let her pull him closer. He closed his eyes and tilted his head.
And woke up.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, Emma was woken with a gentle shake. By the time her shoes were tied, Iain had already washed his face and was stoking the fire. Feeling more self-conscious than usual, she shyly pulled her kirtle over her head.
Something felt very different between them and she couldn’t put her finger on it. It had been the same after she had cried that second night but the tension had lessened and then disappeared in the days following. The feeling had returned though, a disorienting flutter in her stomach, like little butterflies. She felt an impatient need to be near Iain, to look at him and to have his attention.
Last night, when he so easily plucked her out of her cold, lonely bed and placed her on the wide mattress still warm from his body heat, she had been confused at first, wondering why he would offer his bed just when he had it to himself again. She was immensely relieved when he offered up a thin excuse to let her stay. She also hadn’t wanted to admit that she needed more from him than heat, so she let him use whatever pretext he wanted. Perhaps he was lonely as well and hoping for something more intimate. Perhaps she was starting to feel the same way.
She wasn’t the sort to delude herself but she worried about the reasons for her feelings. Was she coming to depend on him simply because he was helping her? Because he made her feel safe? She couldn’t be entirely sure but what she did know was that she felt guilty, more so with each passing day. Iain wanted the truth from her but she knew that he wouldn’t believe the truth and she had no way to satisfy his curiosity about her previous life.
When she was dressed and had nothing else to pick at and smooth, she glanced over at the table to see Iain setting out the leftover bread she had made yesterday and some cheese that Aili had helped her make.
Approaching the table, she watched as Iain retrieved a cup of ale for himself. She didn’t like having to brew ale but it was probably a large amount of Iain and Kenneth’s calorie intake every day, considering that it was made from barley. Pouring some water for herself, she sat across from Iain just as he took a seat.
“Good morning,” she said, breaking the silence. Iain made a sort of grunting noise in response. “I’m sorry about last night.” Iain broke apart the remaining bread and set half of it on her plate.
“A nightmare?” he asked, doling out some cheese next.
“Yeah. I haven’t had that nightmare in a long time.”
Smoothly cutting a slice of cheese from the chunk sitting on his plate, Iain applied it to his bread and raised his hand to his mouth. “Who is Jack?” He took a bite of his food, his free hand gesturing for her to start eating. Emma didn’t have much of an appetite though.
“He was my older brother.” Iain’s jaw slowed down for a few seconds, his gaze heavy. Emma realized that he wanted her to continue. “Well, Jack was my hero. When he died, it was very hard on all of us.”
“How old were ye?”
“Fourteen. Jack was two years older.”
Iain took another bite of his food, slowly nodding. “When did he die?”
“A little over five years ago.” Had it been five years already?
“So that makes ye nineteen?”
“Twenty,” she corrected. “How old are you?” She had tried to guess many times but his beard made it difficult. Iain frowned at the question.
“Twenty-eight.” She was relieved to know that he was younger than he looked but still, eight years was a large difference—not that their age difference should have anything to do with anything. Right?
Iain drank a swallow of ale. “What is a woman with only twenty years doing in the middle of the Highlands with no kin or a home to call her own?”