“He had two blades,” Keenan said

by Editor

  The fire caught greedily on the dry wood, and Keenan fed some fresher branches as well. It drove back the chill, and light bathed the clearing in cheery glow. Serena stared into the flames. She pulled off the other glove and held both hands out to the warmth. Keenan stood close but didn’t touch her. Fear lurked in her face. She seemed so fragile, like a glass angel in her shimmering cocoon of silk.

  As she moved her arms before the fire, catching the heat, Keenan remembered her dance. Even amongst the roughness of drunken men, Serena had found peace in the movements around the Romany bonfire.

  “Dance Serena. Dance around the fire, into the calm oblivion that ye find around the flames.”

  She stared at him, her fear turning to confusion, and then to unease as she glanced between him and the waving flames.

  He stepped back. “I willna touch ye while ye dance. It is yers alone, lass.” He turned her by the shoulders, careful not to caress the skin that slid under his fingers. He let go and spoke low near her ear. “Close yer eyes, listen to the crackle of the wood, hear the flute and drum in yer mind. Find yer peace, lass.”

  He stepped back. The large oaks and ash trees swayed around them. The dark cool breath of night crept inward. Serena stood motionless.

  Keenan took a deep breath and ran his hands over his face. Foolish idea. But then she stepped closer to the flame. Serena’s head rolled to the side and back along her shoulders, her hair cascading down to her knees. As she leveled her gaze again on the flames, Keenan watched her naked arms rise up and over her head, her wrists mimicking the twists in the fire that licked upward into the crisp, clear night. He could see her profile flushed with fire heat. Her eyes were half closed.

  Serena’s hips moved slowly with her arms and she took a step, then another as she began to dance around the perimeter of the fire. As her body turned and canted, twisted and bowed in near perfect match to the dance of the flame, Keenan watched. She was a moonlit wood nymph bathed in fire glow, dancing in union with the scorching flame, taming it, worshipping it, becoming it.

  In that magic-filled clearing with night falling around, Keenan felt something working within him as he watched the beautiful woman, his wife, dance. He began to hear the flute, the drum, the fiddle of her tribe playing a timeless tune, as timeless as the movement of flame, as timeless as the movement of a woman’s body. The rhythm of nature and the magic that flows up from the earth itself.

  Keenan felt bewitched, caught in Serena’s spell. She held his breath hostage. Her body pulled but he forced himself to stand still, distant. He waited on the perimeter as she passed. Turning, her hair brushed against his arm. The pain in his groin rose higher into his chest as lust gave way to something stronger, deeper.

  On she danced, around and around, her arms graceful, her steps floating as she skimmed the earth on her toes. The silk shift flared and twisted tight as she swiveled in arcs full of beauty and spirit.

  Twice Keenan took a step out into her path, and twice he forced himself to recede. His breathing became more ragged as he followed her every turn, hoping with each circle that she would stop before him. As she passed him again, Keenan groaned low and turned his back to the heat to set his eyes on the sharp darkness that had descended around them. He sucked in the cool air, trying to force it down through his burning body. The fire blazed against his back, urging him to turn around again, enticing him to take her.

  Keenan turned abruptly and stopped still. Serena stood there directly before him, her arms resting at her sides. He took a step toward her, his fists balled. Her eyes were open, without fear. Keenan raised his hand to touch her face, but stopped. She must come to him.

  Serena stepped forward guiding her flushed cheek into his palm. He cupped it gingerly and rubbed his thumb across its smoothness.

  “So warm, so soft,” he murmured with an undercurrent of longing he could no longer hide. “So beautiful.”

  Serena closed her eyes and stepped into him, her form pressing into the contours of his hard body. She looked up at him. “Love me, Keenan Maclean. Wipe out the lies of other men’s minds. Teach me the truth. Teach me about the pleasure I feel in your touch.”

  Time froze as Keenan stared down through her violet eyes into her heart. She trusted him, she loved him. He felt it as if they were his own emotions. Instead of shying away from the intensity, his chest released, filling his body with power. His blood raced, his heart battered against his chest. Keenan controlled the tremor in his hand as he moved it to the back of Serena’s head and wound her hair, slowly, reverently. His other drew her even tighter against him, melding, making them one. Her softness in brilliant starkness against his own hardness.

  Keenan’s lips met hers and she opened under him. He groaned and tilted her head to gain better access to her sweet taste. He felt her small plea against his mouth and pulled back. Passion glazed her eyes.

  “Keenan,” she breathed.

  He picked her up and carried her to the pallet he had laid beside the fire on a soft mound of moss. Several blankets lay nearby to chase the chill once the fire died down in the night. He lowered her and pulled his linen shirt from over his head.

  Serena’s eyes washed over his muscles and down his chest. Keenan leaned forward, his arms coming down on either side as he supported his weight above her. She was trapped, captured within his circle of strength. Keenan kissed her, tasted her, explored her until Serena groaned against his mouth. Her hands roamed his skin, lower still until she reached his hardness. The timid touch through his trews culled a roar from deep down out of Keenan, and he rolled to his side to strip quickly out of the rest of his clothing.

  He knelt beside her, naked and fully male in the warm glow of firelight. He watched her cover him with her eyes, lingering on him for a moment. Her perusal fueled his own desire. Keenan touched the edge of her shift ready to pull it up, when a glint of fear dampened the desire in her eyes.

  “Och, lass. Doona fear me.” He bent down over her for a sweet kiss then moved over to her ear, touching it teasingly with his hot breath. “Let yerself go.”

  Keenan felt her breaths quicken, and he kissed her again before teasing a hot trail along the delicate lines of her neck. His hand cupped her breast, and he began to roll her nipple through the silk. Serena moaned and he worked his mouth down to the searching peak, sucking it tight through the damp fabric.

  “Keenan,” she murmured and then gasped as he grazed his teeth against the sensitive flesh. His hand rubbed and massaged along her leg under her shift, pushing the fabric higher until he reached her hip.

  His hand smoothed over the soft roundness of her abdomen, pausing to dip into her navel. Keenan continued to raise the shift until the thin fabric pulled over Serena’s head breaking the kiss. The shift caught Serena’s hands for a moment, holding them hostage extended above her. The flickering flames glowed against her flawless skin.

  Serena’s round breasts stood full and erect, rising and falling with her breaths. Keenan’s eyes traveled down along the slope of her torso to the soft amber curls at the juncture of her legs. His gaze came back up to the birthmark on Serena’s stomach. He released her hands and touched the unique mark.

  “The dragonfly.” He kissed it tenderly. Serena shivered and he lay back next to her, his hands stroking her exposed skin. She stared back into his eyes and nodded. “Na’ tingling along it right now?” he asked in reference to the spirit crone.

  “No tingling there.” A small smile crept onto Serena’s lips. “Perhaps there is some tingling elsewhere.”

  “Lass,” he drawled out in his deep burr. “When I’m loving ye, ye will tingle everywhere.” He kissed her forehead. “From the top of yer sweet hair,” he ran his parted lips along her throat, down between her breasts until he crouched, placing feathery kisses on her stomach. He looked up. “To the soft skin over yer womb.” He ran his finger from her naval down to the soft curls at the vee of her legs. “To yer sweet, slick lips,” he said and watched her as his fingers gained entrance to her heat
. Her eyes fluttered nearly closed, and she moaned softly. “To the tips of yer curled toes, ye will tingle.” He began to work his fingers, moving between the wet folds against her nub and then inside to a most sensitive spot. She moaned louder and closed her eyes.

  “Nay, Serena, keep yer eyes open. I want to see yer passion.”

  Serena’s eyes, dark and sultry, opened to watch. Keenan’s muscles bunched within him. She was ready and he could no longer wait to feel himself within her.

  Without stopping the purposeful stokes below, Keenan laid on his side next to her. His thumb rubbed rhythmically against her sensitive nub and he bent his head to catch a peak between his lips. She gasped, arching up against him.

  “Keenan, please…please.” She was lost in the storm brewing within her body. Her skin flushed and dewy, warm and soft yet seemed strung as tight as Keenan felt.

  “Aye, wife, let it come.” His ragged breath moved back up to her ear. “Let me hear yer pleasure.”

  Serena’s eyes closed as she threw her head toward the blankets. A deep, resonating sound, somewhere between a moan and a scream came up through her to fill the clearing. Keenan’s fingers continued to move in the flooded folds while her body pulsed. Before it completely ebbed, he moved above her.

  In one swift motion, Keenan pushed himself inside her at the same time his lips met hers. His tongue moved intimately inside her as he drove through her maiden’s barrier, fully claiming her as his own. She tensed for a moment and he stilled, fully embedded within her sensuous frame.

  Keenan kissed her, his hands stroking through her hair, waiting until she grew accustomed to his intrusion. His forehead beaded with sweat as he fought to remain still within her tight passage. Slowly he felt her relax as he kissed the side of her long, smooth neck.

  “Does it feel better now, Serena?” he asked as he pulled back to see her eyes.

  “Aye, it does,” she said mimicking his brogue and pressed her hips gently upward. “Except that ye arena’ movin’.”

  Her teasing lilt was also reflected in her eyes. It was all the permission Keenan needed. Serena rose upward again.

  “Prepare to tingle, lass,” he said, his own teasing tone all but ruined by the rough need rushing within him. A need to move within her, to sweep her up with him. Breathing rapidly, he captured her mouth again and moved. Slow at first, but as Serena increased her rhythm, he took over. She moaned under his weight, meeting him with unexpected strength. Keenan felt her body begin to clench as his own body neared the precipice.

  “Open yer eyes, Serena lass,” he ground out while grabbing a length of Maclean plaid lying next to them. He slowed their rhythm as he wound her hand and his together in the wool. Glazed and liquid, her eyes stared back to him.

  “Before the stars, within this enchanted place, I claim ye, Serena. I bind ye to me, I bind ye with my body,” he growled, circling his hips and grinding into her. She moaned, her eyes closing and then opening. He stopped until she focused again on him. He leaned down to her lips. “And I bind ye with my heart.” His breath mingled with hers. “Do ye claim me lass?” he asked still not moving despite her attempts to continue.

  She nodded. “Keenan, please.”

  “Say it, lass, the words,” he gritted out, his last bit of strength obstructing the tide within his straining body.

  “I claim you, Keenan Maclean, I claim you with my body,” she said and Keenan thrust deeply, ripping a scream from her. She grabbed the back of his hair, her nails biting into the sides of his head, and pulled his lips down toward hers. She pierced him with her eyes as her climax began to crest. “I claim you, Keenan Maclean, with my heart,” she yelled. All her passion erupted, pouring through her, pulling along his shaft.

  Keenan pounded into her, all control gone, lost to the crashing wave of ecstasy that now toppled over him. His roar thundered through the clearing as he filled her, following her into bliss.

  ****

  The blaze behind Keenan relaxed into that of a normal fire, and Serena curled contentedly in his arms. Keenan cocooned them in the blanket on a pallet of moss. Serena nuzzled into the side of him, exhausted. He kissed her forehead and she sighed in her sleep.

  His one free arm pillowed his head as he stared up at the clear night sky ringed by the trees. Stars glittered in the inky blackness, unblocked by clouds. One star shot across the circle. Keenan followed its wide arc until it disappeared. A shooting star.

  Elenor had told him as a child that he must wish upon every shooting star he witnessed. She said that they were magic and would grant him his wish. For decades he had watched stars trail across the wide skies of Britain, but had never once wished upon one. For Keenan Maclean didn’t know what his wish should be.

  Should he wish to defend and die quickly, without prolonged agony? It didn’t seem right to wish for death, it went against the warrior in him that battled. Should he wish to live a long life? A life full of missed opportunities because he refused to fully live knowing that he was meant to die. That would be a torture much worse than death. So instead, he just followed them with his eyes as they shot across the night, watching him, listening perhaps for his wish, a wish that never came. Until tonight.

  Serena murmured contentedly in her sleep, rubbing her leg across his thighs. Keenan pulled her closer and caressed her hair, while his eyes searched the circle above. There, off to the right, another one. His hand stopped in a soft tangle as he watched. The star blazed a trail across his view, its tail so bright it seemed to etch the darkness. Keenan’s breath caught as he watched the pinprick of light begin to fade. For the first time in his life, there in that magic-filled clearing, Keenan Maclean, second son of the Macleans of Kylkern, wished upon a shooting star.

  Chapter 14

  “Caoch!” Drakkina cursed as she hurled a flash of energy at the brass basin of swirling water, causing it to pitch off the granite slab at the center of ten stone monoliths. The water soaked into the tall grass. Drakkina kicked her hazy foot at a clump of yellow wildflowers. The flowers waved as her foot passed through them.

  “Caoch! Where are they?” she yelled into the wind whipping through the circle where once Gilla and Druce’s house had stood near the western shore of Scotland’s Highlands. All that remained was the hearthstone and the stone altar. The altar had once served as their table at the center of their cottage. It was a table built for purpose, built with magic. Drakkina collapsed upon it, resting her cheek against its cool solid structure. At least the magic alter held her form.

  Self pity rolled through her, mixed with frustration. “They married, that should be enough,” she growled up at the passing clouds. “And now they’ve disappeared,” she grumbled and looked back down at the tumbled brass scrying bowl. She tapped her gnarled finger on her full lip. “Where could Serena and her mate have disappeared to? The demons?” Drakkina frowned, but then shook her head. “They have no idea in what time she’s hidden.” Drakkina shook her head again, slipping her loose indigo veil off her gray hair to fall around her shoulders. “Serena and Keenan are still here somewhere, just hidden right now. Hidden by some other power, not Serena’s. The child doesn’t know enough yet to hide from me. There’s magic all over this world that she could have slipped within.” Drakkina frowned. “My pull on her has also been severed.”

  The sun grew heavy and began to drop toward the horizon. If she listened deeply, Drakkina could just make out the roar of waves hitting the beaches beyond the stones and pines. She sighed. “If I can’t look to find them, perhaps I can scry a bit into their future.” Drakkina focused a thread of energy out of the center of her wrinkled palm toward the abused basin. The bowl teetered in the tall grass, slowly rising up to sit once again on the stone table. She closed her eyes, imagining the small brook not too far from the circle. Once again Drakkina threaded her power to the brook, gathering a fistful of water, pulling it through the trees, past the stones and back to hover over the basin. As she released the water into the bowl, she leaned against the table. “Don’
t be so quick this time to knock it over,” she chastised herself. “This is no time to waste energy.”

  She covered her hair once again with the thin shawl and peered past the small pool reflecting the deepening sky above. “Once again then, but a little different to search for what is to come,” she murmured and threaded her power in an intricate weave above the water. Once the colors lay in a perfect pattern hovering in the air, Drakkina lowered her hand and the woven magic lowered onto the surface of the water in the brass basin. The colors swirled across the slick surface, bending and mixing. Drakkina watched, her breath shallow as she waited for the images to coalesce into something meaningful. “Speak to me of Serena and her mate,” she whispered, her breath reaching the shadowy surface. “Show me what is to come of them.”

  Images began to collect on the surface. Serena and Keenan kissing. Drakkina smiled. Then Keenan charging off into a battle, gun smoke, blood curling around his figure as he grimaced in pain. Serena’s image appeared, sobbing.

  “No, no.” Drakkina yelled at the water. “This can’t be their future. They are wed now, bound to one another. She loves him, I heard her confess it.”

  The images swirled apart melding into others. Serena and Keenan smiled at three grown children who rushed into their arms. Bountiful orchards, fluffy fat sheep. Then the image changed. Serena held a wee baby against her while she cried, clinging to a grave marker. Lachlan appeared, spitting angry words, then hiding, then charging.

  Drakkina shook her head silently. Keenan’s image appeared again, throwing himself before his brother. Keenan turning from the battlefield, fear changing his face to stone. Serena laying in a pool of blood as it gushed from her belly.

  On and on the images swirled under Drakkina’s tense stare. When the images began to repeat, she took a deep breath in and closed her eyes, releasing the scrying spell. “It’s no use. The future’s still not firmly set. No matter how hard I look, I only see possibilities.”