Þú verður mín að eilífu.
A shiver stole her breath and she broke the kiss, dropping her forehead onto his chest. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“You will be mine forever. It’s an Icelandic promise.” He lifted her chin and smiled. “It’s the first thing we say to our mates to establish our bond. We are now physically connected as well as emotionally.”
“Is that what happened? I felt a chill or something up my spine.”
“Aye.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled something out. “I was going to wait, but I think you should have this now.”
“What?”
He opened his hand and in his palm sat the most exquisite ring Charlotte had ever seen. A huge diamond sat proudly in the middle of a diamond-encrusted band.
She gasped, her eyes filling with new tears. “Oh, Niall. It’s beautiful.”
She bit her lip. The ring probably cost more than her car.
Don’t worry about the cost, love. He knelt before her. “Charlotte Paige Whitmore, would you do me the great honor of becoming by wife?”
She nodded and he slipped the ring on her finger. It was a perfect fit. He stood again and pulled her into his arms for a heart-melting kiss.
“Does that mean you’ll bond me now?” she asked.
He stroked her hair and took a deep breath. “No, love. I can’t bind you here.”
“Bind. Sorry. I had a feeling I wasn’t saying it right.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Why won’t you bind me here?”
He lifted her chin, running his thumb along her lower lip. “You don’t want to go through the conversion in a hotel room, and I want you to feel safe.”
“Conversion?”
“Aye. Your body will change once I bind you and...” He trailed off.
“What?” she pressed.
“It’s painful.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How painful?”
Niall grimaced. “Worse than childbirth, I’m told.”
Her mouth gaped. “Oh, forget it then,” she joked.
He smiled and kissed her again, sliding his fingers into her hair and tipping her head back. She looped her hands around his waist and pulled herself closer.
On second thought, bind me now.
Niall broke the kiss with a grin. “You’re a terrible temptation, love.”
She frowned. “Will it really hurt?”
He tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded. “I’ve been told it does, but Grace will know better.”
“Maybe it would be better not to know.”
“Maybe so,” he said. “You are going to have to get on my plane, though.”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “Never going to happen.”
“We’ll talk about it further after we get to know each other a bit more, eh?”
“Don’t waste your breath, buddy,” she said, and patted his chest. “Not worth the trouble.”
“Change of subject.” He smiled and handed her wine back to her. “Did you get Nikolai’s phone number from your sister?”
“Oh, yes. I did. And a couple of pictures of him from her phone. She doesn’t know I did, so that’s probably going to bite me in the butt.” Charlotte pulled her phone from her purse and handed it to him. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to have him checked out.” He sent the contact information and photos to his phone and then forwarded them on to Oliver.
“You have that ability?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow before smiling. “Aye, love. I have that ability.”
She sat on the sofa, dragging one leg under her bottom. “Through Rogue?”
“You know about Rogue?”
Rogue was a non-profit company Niall started with Max to aid and protect women and children in abusive situations.
“Who’s got two thumbs and is your number one stalker?” she asked.
He laughed. “Right. No, this isn’t officially through Rogue.”
Charlotte sat up straighter. “Oh? Do tell.”
“It’s a bit of a long story.”
She rubbed her hands together and grinned. “I love long stories.”
He set his phone on the table and sat beside her. “I met a young Irish woman about ten years ago who managed to get away from a man who’d captured her and held her against her will for almost a year.”
“Did she know him?”
Niall shook his head. “No. He’d snatched her off the street.”
“Wow. How did she get away?”
“She waited and watched, and as soon as his guard was down, she ran. What she didn’t realize was that she was no longer in Ireland. She was in Scotland... Edinburgh to be specific. I think someone was truly watching over her, because she ended up on my doorstep.”
She frowned. “Of your house?”
He nodded. “It took a lot of courage for her to ring my doorbell, let alone let me help her... I was a strange man, and she didn’t know if I was friend or foe.”
Charlotte gasped. “How frightening.”
“Aye. It was. I wrapped her in a blanket and made her drink gallons of hot tea. We sat on my front stoop for over an hour, until she felt comfortable enough to come inside.”
Charlotte smiled. “You’re like that with everyone, aren’t you?”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Kind. Gracious. Gentle. Protective.”
He chuckled, linking his fingers with hers. “I suppose I am, unless I shouldn’t be. Don’t put too much of a halo on me, love. If someone hurts those I care about, I’m never kind, gracious, or gentle.”
“Yes, I’m beginning to see that.” She kissed his palm. “But honestly, that just makes the halo bigger in my book.”
He stroked her cheek with the hand she’d just kissed and smiled. “You’ll always be safe, Charlotte. I will make sure of it.”
“I know.” She bit her lip. “You have no idea how that makes me feel.”
“I think I do. Will you tell me about the dream? Your fear during it was palpable.”
“It’s not just one dream.”
“It’s not?”
She studied him for several seconds, unsure of how much to tell him. There were things she hadn’t even told Grace, but when he ran a finger gently down her cheek again, she knew that there would never be anyone she could trust more. “No. Although, they’re connected, I think. I started having them when I was little. I can’t remember exactly when they started, but maybe I was six? Sometimes the same dream would make me panic, other times I’d feel calm. I couldn’t figure out why the same images would be peaceful one night and then a nightmare another, but I didn’t much care on the nightmare nights, I suppose, because I couldn’t go back to sleep. Then, after Blake, they got much more intense.”
“What did your parents say?”
Charlotte shrugged. “I never told them.”
“Not even yer mum?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No. I mean, she’d come in and soothe me if I woke her, but I always told her I didn’t remember. I don’t know why, I just felt like I shouldn’t tell her.”
“What is it with this need to keep your fears and hurts buried and secret?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted with a sigh. “Self-preservation, maybe?”
He squeezed her hand then picked up his wine. “Do you remember all the dreams, or just snippets?”
“All of them. In vivid detail. The ones I had “with” you were different. Something was missing.”
“Oh? What was that?”
“Typically, there’s a man, a really tall man, like eight feet tall. He’s a giant, really, more than a man.” When she caught his slight smile, she rolled her eyes. “I like details.”
“I’m picking up on that.” Niall chuckled. “Sorry, love. Continue.”
“So this giant is running toward me in slow motion. He’s got long blond hair, and he’s carrying a weapon. An axe maybe, I don’t know, I never really get a good look at it. He’s bare-chested and his face
is”—she laid a hand over her chest—“his face is angry. No, not angry. Angry’s not the right word. Violent. He looks like a warrior from a thousand years ago, you know? Maybe Viking, or something like that. He’s coming at me like he’s going to kill me, and I can’t move. I’m frozen to the spot, and I’m trying to figure out how such a young, handsome man could hate me so much, he’s ready to kill me.” Charlotte’s heart raced as panic set in, but Niall grasped her hand and she calmed once again. “Thank you.”
“Does the man attack you?”
Charlotte shook her head. “He jumps over me, and that’s when I wake up. Every time. You’d think I’d remember that he doesn’t hurt me when the dream starts, but it’s as if I’m dreaming it for the first time every time I have it. I’ve woken up a few times with my hands blue and freezing, but I don’t feel cold. They return to normal within seconds, but I often wonder if I’ve slept on them or something. What’s weird is that I feel like I’ve seen him a few times... in real life. The warrior, only not in warrior clothes, and I find myself looking for him in crowds. I started seeing him after the “incident,” and I thought maybe Blake was having me followed. And the panic starts again, and then he gets lost in the crowd.” She groaned. “I’m sure it’s my obsession with that Vikings show... or my love of crime dramas. Fair warning, I have a very morbid bend.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Niall smiled. “Are you okay?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I am now that you’re calming me. I have never told anyone about the dream. Not even Grace.”
“I’m flattered, sweetheart.”
“Well, I felt like I probably needed to fill you in on a few things.” She smiled. “Since you were kind of in one with me.”
He chuckled. “Aye.”
“I feel like I’ve known you my entire life.”
“I suppose in some ways you have.”
“How does that work?”
“You have access to my thoughts, my memories, my heart.” He ran a lock of her hair through his fingers. “I doubt anyone in the world could know me better than you.”
She blushed, taking a few minutes to process his adoration. It was humbling. “And you’ll never cheat on me.”
“I will never cheat on you.” He scowled. “And the likes of Blake Harris will never touch you again.”
Charlotte cupped his cheek, calming him this time. “I haven’t thought about him in a really long time.”
“And you’ll no’ have to think about him again.”
“I appreciate that.” She took a deep breath and sipped her wine. “Anyway, enough about me. What happened with the girl on your front stoop?”
“Before we go into that, just one more thing.”
“Oh?”
He leaned forward and kissed her. A sweet, comforting kiss that still managed to be sexy beyond reason. She slipped her hands into his hair and scooted closer to him. He pulled her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her and deepening the kiss. She broke the kiss with a sigh and laid her head on his shoulder, kissing his pulse. “Thank you.”
He gave her a gentle squeeze. “You needed a distraction.”
“You can distract me like that any time you want to.”
Niall chuckled. “Good to know.”
“Continue, or I’ll be forced to ravage you.”
He grinned. “Colleen was the girl on my stoop. She was fifteen at the time, and when she told me what happened to her and her friends, I realized I’d just had a nasty introduction to a trafficking ring not far from my home.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Aye. They had a warehouse where they held the girls.” Niall grimaced. “She was one of six that had been either lured or taken from Dublin. The bastard who’d taken them had sold all but two of them, and Colleen was one of the ones not sold. She was ‘mouthy,’ therefore, unsellable. But not unusable.”
“How awful.”
“Yes, but she was incredibly brave.” Niall linked his fingers with Charlotte’s. “She was instrumental in helping us find four of the other girls...”
“What about the last one? The last girl?”
“She didn’t make it. She overdosed on the heroin they injected. Siobhan was her name.”
“No! That’s awful. Her poor parents.”
He scowled. “Her ‘poor’ parents weren’t devastated enough, in my opinion.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the Dublin police informed the mother of her daughter’s death, she was drunk at the time and said she was happy the tart wouldn’t be around to seduce her boyfriends anymore,” Niall hissed through his teeth. “Siobhan was only fourteen.”
Charlotte felt the anger in Niall and flattened her palm to his chest. “I bet her mother felt differently when she sobered up.”
“I’m no’ so sure.”
She glanced up at him. “Where’s Colleen now?”
“She works for me, actually.”
“She does?”
“Aye. She helps to counsel young women who are rescued. She’s a vital part of my team. We needed a human faction that we could keep separate from our Cauld Ane interests.”
“Yes, I’d imagine you would. Does she know you’re not human?”
“No.”
Charlotte ran a finger absently over his chest. “Who heads up the faction? Is it you?”
He nodded. “Yes and no. Ollie and I run it together, but we also have help from the security team that works in tandem for the royal family.”
“As in the English Royal family?”
“No. We have our own.”
She leaned back. “You have your own royal family?”
Niall nodded. “The Gunnach Clan, headed by Dr. Kade Gunnach, who is our king. The oafy one in your dream is the third brother, Brodie. He’s bonded to Payton, who’s been my closest friend for years.”
“Gunnach. Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Probably because the king’s wife, Samantha, was Maggie’s doctor.”
“Wait.” Charlotte pulled her hand out of his and rose to her feet. “Are you saying that a queen was Maggie’s doctor? Like a real queen?”
“Yes.”
“If she’s a queen, why the heck is she a doctor?”
“She was human.” Niall stood and took her hand. “She and Kade haven’t been bound for long.”
Charlotte rubbed her forehead. “Wow.”
“You okay?”
“I’m a little... ah... I don’t know. Overwhelmed, I guess.”
He pulled her close again. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long.”
“To do what?”
“React like a normal human being.”
She pulled away, frowning up at him. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not normal?”
He chuckled. “Yes. In the best of ways.”
“Well, at least you aren’t a liar.” She smiled. “You know, my friend Rose works for Shared Hope International.”
“I didn’t know that,” Niall said. “It’s an incredible organization.”
“I know, and she’s perfect for the job.”
“Yes, she would be, wouldn’t she?” Niall’s phone buzzed and he released her just long enough to grab it. “Oliver’s responded.”
Charlotte bit her lip. “What does he say? Has he found something on Nikolai’s phone?”
“No. It’s a burner.” Niall sighed.
“Well, that throws a wrench into everything.”
“I was expecting that, honestly.”
“You were?”
He nodded. “If he was on the up and up, the phone wouldn’t be disposable.”
“Which means he’s probably a bad guy.”
“Aye, love. He’s probably a bad guy.”
Charlotte groaned. “My sister’s an idiot.”
“Or he knows exactly what to say to elicit the response he’s looking for.” He stroked her cheek. “You’d be surprised the young girls who fall for predators.”
“Yes,
but that’s not Vandi,” Charlotte stressed. “You heard her on the phone when we picked her up. She won’t put up with BS, of any kind.”
“That’s good, sweetheart. But in the meantime, I’m going to look into this guy further, just to be sure.”
Charlotte bit her lip. “Do you think we might be overreacting a bit?”
He shrugged. “Possibly.”
“I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble, Charlotte.” He raised an eyebrow. “Would you rather I drop it?”
“No. She’s still reeling from my parents’ divorce, so she’s vulnerable. Daddy issues and everything.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and settled her cheek against his chest. “You feel so good.”
He ran his hands through her hair and stroked her back. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“I am so not a hugger.”
He chuckled. “Really?”
“Yes, really. But, good lord, I like hugging you. You smell delicious.”
He kissed her head. “You want me to bind you here and now, don’t you?”
She nodded and slipped her hands under this shirt to explore. The ridges of his chiseled chest and stomach were like a roadmap, guiding her to wonders she’d never seen or felt before. That was her last coherent thought before he kissed her.
NIALL BROKE THE kiss and watched her eyes as they flickered from blue to red and then to green. He bit the inside of his cheek when Charlotte shifted, straddling his hips without breaking the kiss, and sliding her hands into his hair. She let out a groan as she slipped her hands under his shirt and stroked his chest.
“Your hands,” he said.
“Mmm... do you like that?”
“They’re like ice.” He leaned into her touch. “They feel incredible.”
She smiled against his lips and slipped her hands under the waistband of his jeans. He couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except feel. His body called to her. He broke the kiss with a groan, pulling her hands away. “We have to stop.”
Bound by Dreams (Cauld Ane Series, #5) Page 12