Devil's Angel

by Mallery Malone

  “No!” Keeping one hand on the ledge, Conor wrapped the other about Erika’s waist. “Wake up!” he ordered, shaking her. “Do you hear me, Erika? Open your eyes now!”

  Her eyes opened, much too slow for his liking. “Conor?”

  “And who else would be holding you like this in a cold lough?”

  She gave him a wan smile. “I suppose you are going to shout at me again.”

  “I am. But I will wait until you are dry.”

  “You are most k-kind.”

  Her dry tone made his lips twitch, until he saw that she wore nothing but her shift. “What befell your dress?”

  “Y-you’re shouting.”

  He wanted to strangle her and kiss her at the same time. In a quieter voice he repeated his question.

  She stared at him with eyes glassy from cold. “The water wanted it. It would have pulled me down, but I was able to discard it.”

  And thus become chilled that much the sooner. A cold fist of fear formed in Conor’s gut. “You brave, foolish woman,” he said, though he felt near to tears. “What am I to do with you?”

  “Y-you should not have jumped in,” she said, her words slurring together as if she’d partaken too much ale. “You could become ill.”

  “And you could not?”

  “Our f-fjords are like this most of the y-year. I am u-used to it.”

  She was not used to it. He could see that clear in her eyes, the way she no longer trembled from the cold. “Ardan is bringing rope. You are to hold to that ledge and not let go. Do you understand me, wife? You are not to let go!”

  It took much too long for her to answer. “I do not know if I can promise you that, but I will try.”

  Conor was snarling with impatience by the time Ardan arrived and dropped the rope to him. Wrapping a good length about his arm, he reached for Erika, but she shook her head. “B-Bebhinn f-first,” she said. “I d-d-don’t know how bad she f-fares.”

  Fear tightening his chest, he managed to tie the rope quick and secure about the unconscious girl’s chest, a difficult process with one hand free. He’d be damned if he’d leave Erika behind, however. “Pull her up and quick now!”

  That done, he turned back to his wife. If possible, she was even paler. “Hurry, man, with that rope! My wife needs out of this water now!”

  The rope returned. “Now, my lady, take the rope and up you go.”

  Pale hair was plastered to her head, making her eyes stand out huge and vulnerable. “I’m afraid my fingers disobey us both, for I cannot seem to move them.”

  He reached over and pried her hands free. Their iciness sent an answering stab of ice into his soul. Wrapping one arm with the rope, he placed the other around his wife. “We’re both of us coming out of this damned water now.”

  Her smile was sad as she closed her eyes. “I want to help, b-but I cannot seem to make my limbs move. It seems that I fail you yet again.”

  He kept silent lest he loose a snarl of rage at her reckless behavior or a howl of anguish at her condition. The journey to the top of the embankment seemed to take an eternity, but at last they made it. Hands pulled them over the ledge and blankets were piled over them. Conor ignored them all, his need to see to Erika overriding everything else.

  Her head pitched forward against his chest; she didn’t even have the strength to shiver. “Conor is angry with me yet again,” she whispered. “It seems that is all I am capable of doing, angering him. Tell him I am sorry for that. Tell him to forgive me.”

  She went limp in his arms.

  Exhausted from her ordeal, Erika slept a feverish sleep through the night and most of the next morning. Conor spent the majority of that time berating himself for the weight he had settled on her shoulders. Múireann, Padraig and Ardan all told him how she had quit her sickbed to tend the ill in the village, working without rest to save the children’s lives. That dedication had almost cost her life.

  She took too much upon herself, he realized as he sat at her bedside. She was mistress of Dunlough, not a servant. A princess of the tuath, not a soldier. While his heart swelled with pride at how she threw her whole heart into the protection of their people, his heart also skipped at the thought that one day she might succumb because of it.

  “Conor?”

  Erika blinked, attempting to sit up. He splayed one large hand on her chest, pushing her back down. “How do you fare?”

  “Well enough,” she answered, then spoiled the assurance by shivering. He lifted her, bedclothes and all, and carried her to the hearth, settling her amid the warm furs waiting there. He picked up a serving tray sitting near the fire then returned to her.

  “This is a broth Aine said will warm your insides,” he told her, lifting a wooden bowl from the tray. “Are you able to hold it?”

  She reached out with both hands. The broth sloshed in her grasp. Conor wrapped his hands around hers, guiding the warm liquid to her mouth. Her eyes fastened to his as she sipped at the liquid. “Argh.” She shuddered. “Sure, and ale will warm me faster?”

  “Perhaps,” Conor said. “But this is better for you. Have another taste.”

  She let him tip the broth to her lips again, and again her eyes watched him. What transpired behind that lavender gaze, he did not know.

  When she finished half the bowl, he took it from her, returning it to the tray. “Are you warm enough?”

  “Yes. But I am ready to return to my duties.”

  “You are to rest.”

  “I cannot. There is much to do, and I would see how Bebhinn fares.”

  “Others will do what needs to be done,” he told her, noting that her eyes were still ringed with sleep and fatigue. “As for Bebhinn, she is well. She did not take much water.”

  “Thank the gods. My father taught me how to push the water out.”

  He reached up and touched a lock of her hair. “Your hair is all entangled. Shall I comb it through for you?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “If it pleases you,” she whispered, dipping her head.

  He left her but a moment to retrieve her comb. Pulling a stool behind her, he took a seat then lifted a lock of hair in his hands. She stiffened at once, then pulled the blankets close about her. Shivers caught her again as he lifted her hair, revealing the curve of her neck. “Should I return you to the bed?” he asked. “I thought the fire would be good for you.”

  “I am well,” she replied, her voice just a whisper. After a pause, she spoke again. “Why do you do this?”

  “Because it needs to be done. Because it is my duty to care for you.”

  “Duty.” She huddled deeper into the bedcovers. “You do not have to do this, Conor. I am sure there are other duties about the dun that are more important.”

  “At this moment, nothing is more important than ensuring that you are well.”

  She fell silent, neither moving nor making a sound as he worked her silver mane free of tangles. He enjoyed the simple pleasure of touching her hair, seeing how the firelight cast shadows and shimmers through it. But concern for her health overrode his enjoyment, so he lifted her in his arms and carried her back to the bed.

  She struggled to get up. “There is much to be done.”

  “It will not be done by you, not this day.”

  She turned on her side to face him full. “So are you still angry with me?”

  “Should I not be? No sooner than you regain your feet, but you must stave off a plague and rescue drowning children, never once thinking of how you risk your life. How many times do you think you can throw yourself into death’s path before he will catch you?”

  “And what of you?” she asked, her cheeks pinking. “Do you not do the same, again and again, in the hopes that he will catch you?”

  “I am the Devil of Dunlough. It is what I do.”

  Her gaze was heavy on his skin. “Your people need the Devil of Dunlough, true enough. But they need Conor mac Ferghal more.”

  Right uncomfortable were her observations, making him defensive
. “What they need is promise of the future, which can be achieved through my sword or my son. For now, my sword is all that I have.”

  Blood drained from her cheeks, and Conor recognized his harsh words for the accusation they were. “Erika, forgive—”

  “There is nothing to forgive, Conor,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I know I have failed you.”

  Her words, so soft, so sure, pierced his soul like arrows. “Failed me?”

  “I know I have not been the wife you wanted. I know that I did or didn’t do something that caused you to turn away from me even before—”

  She swallowed the tremor in her voice. “I know you blame me for what happened to our babe. I know how important the child was to you. If I could have given my life for his, I would have.”

  Though she whispered, her voice was like a shout in the still of the room. Her words resurrected the fear that even battle could not slay. He had been near to losing her. He had ridden away like a coward after her miscarriage so that he would not have to see her die.

  “I would not ask that sacrifice of you,” he managed to say, struggling to keep the horror of such a thought out of his tone.

  She did look at him then, her eyes dark and solemn. “You would not have to ask it. I would have done it most free, to give you that which you desire most.”

  “No!”

  His bellow, summoned by the fear her words wrought, tore from him, stunning them both. Fisting his hands to keep them from shaking, he said, “You have done enough.”

  He had meant to reassure her, but his words had the opposite effect. She paled, as if about to faint. “It’s done then?”

  “What’s done?”

  Agitation marked her features as she quit the bed like an arrow loosed from a bow. “You’ve chosen her?”

  He was becoming dizzy, trying to follow her path and understand her questions at the same time. “Chosen who? And for what?”

  “Do not pretend to misunderstand me!” she demanded, pacing before him with wobbling, angry steps. “You know of whom I speak. Did you think I wouldn’t know, that I wouldn’t care?”

  “Tá tú ag glagaireacht! You must have hit your head when you leapt into the lough yester eve.”

  “I am not talking nonsense, you oaf of a man!” she exclaimed. Her frenetic pacing carried her to one of the chests on the far side of the room. “The whole dun knows you have not been to our bed since your return. And this—this treatment of me now is a mockery born of your guilt, nothing more.”

  She flipped the chest open and rummaged in it, never once halting her tirade. “I have endured much, but this goes too far!”

  Upon finding what she sought she straightened, then crossed to him. “If you believe I will be docile and idle while you take another woman to bed, you are mistaken.”

  Of a sudden Conor found himself juggling a mass of metal rings as Erika thrust the shackles into his arms. “It is bad enough that she is mistress in all but name. If you give her that name, I become less than a servant. I’ll not be second to anyone! I would rather be put back in chains.”

  Head buzzing as if he’d drank too much ale, Conor could do naught save stare at his wife as she retreated from him. “You think I have taken another because you miscarried our babe?”

  “Did you not?” she asked, her voice cracking. “You made me a solemn promise, Conor mac Ferghal. You swore to me that when tragedy claimed the next soul of Dunlough, you would not leave me. On your honor and your life you swore that to me. I asked you not to leave, and when I awakened, Olan told me you were gone.”

  Anguish coursed through him, bitter poison. His suffering was far from over. Her words flayed his soul as she continued, “When I awoke and found you gone, I thought—I knew—that I had failed you.”

  Her violet eyes were stark as she beheld him. “I became angry with you, Conor. For a time, I was near to hating you for breaking the vow we’d made. Then the children of the village fell ill, and I had to go to them. Tending them, I understood why you had to go, but not why you had to stay away. Until yesterday.”

  His fingers dug into the pile of metal in his hands. “So you believe I have turned to another? To Magda?”

  All the fight drained from her as she collapsed onto the side of the bed. “I cannot do this, Conor,” she whispered. “I have tried to find my place here, to no avail. You will not allow me to fight. Magda rules your household. It will be years before I achieve Aine and Gwynna’s skill for healing, so your people don’t need my skill with herbals. If you refuse our bed, ’tis obvious you don’t need my body either. I am set aside in all but name.”

  He was shaking. From fear or anger he could not tell. How had they gotten so far apart that she could believe he wanted her out of his life?

  “I do not want Magda for wife,” he managed to say, every bit of control he could summon thrown into his voice. “I do not want another in my bed or as mistress of my household.”

  The shackles bit deeply into his hands. He wanted to tell her that she was what he desired most, his angel, and his heart. He couldn’t. Not until he knew that she would stay, consent to be his—forever.

  “What do you want, Erika?” he asked. “If it is in my power, I will give it to you.”

  Her shoulders lifted in a bone-weary sigh. “I want you to forgive me for all that I have done. I want to be necessary to you and to Dunlough. I want to bear you the child you desire.”

  Unshed tears spiked her lashes as she looked up at him. “But if I cannot bear you another…”

  He lowered his head, blinking against the sudden pain that shafted through him. Blessed Danu, he had driven her away without conscious aforethought.

  “Then you will have your freedom.” The cuffs dug into his palms as he held them in a death-grip. “All you have wanted, since before we were wed, is your freedom. I will give you that. I’ll not hold you—not by vows, not by these damned shackles!”

  With every ounce of strength he possessed, he jettisoned the heap of metal rings out the high window. “You are free, if that is what you want.”

  His heart pounded like a thousand horses galloping. If she asked for her freedom he would give it to her. Sweet skies, if it was the one thing that would bring a smile back to her eyes he would do it. How he would be able to live with her gone, he did not want to contemplate.

  Looking at her, at the sadness that slumped her shoulders, was akin to looking into his soul. He saw the sadness and the anguish, the resolve and resignation. Beneath it all he saw a deep, elemental need. A need, he realized, that mirrored his own.

  Before he could speak, she reached out one pale, slender hand to him. “What I want, what I’ve always wanted, is you.”

  “Me?” It wasn’t that simple. It couldn’t be that simple. “When every right thing I have attempted to do for you becomes wrong? Why would you be wanting me?”

  Her eyes swam with tears. “Can you not know? I love you.”

  It was that simple. His senses reeled as he stumbled to his knees before her. “Erika.” Her name ripped out of his very soul as he wrapped his arms about her waist and buried his face into her lap, her empty womb. He wanted to give the words back to her, tried to say them back, but they were trapped by the powerful surge of emotion in his chest.

  She curled over him, and he could feel hot tears scald the back of his neck. “I choose free to stay here with you, Conor—if you’ll have me.”

  He raised his face to her. “Do you think I could be without you, you who have been the wellspring of my happiness these last months?”

  “Conor.” She threw her arms about his neck.

  “Ah, aingeal.” Rising to his knees, he buried his face in her hair. “I need you sure as a homeless man needs a place to lay his head and food to line his belly. You’ve given me back my soul, and I thank you.”

  She answered him, but he couldn’t ascertain her meaning through the tears and tremors that shook her. Truth to tell, he wasn’t dry-eyed himself. Crying females made him uncom
fortable, right enough. The Angel of Death reduced to tears undid him.

  For a long moment they were silent, grieving together. He consoled her best as he could, with gentle touches and light kisses to her forehead, eyelids, cheeks and jawline. Using the pads of his thumbs, he brushed away the tears that tracked her cheeks. He brushed a feathered kiss across her lips, intending only to soothe. Her lips opened beneath his in invitation to give and receive succor, and he accepted.

  The kiss deepened, opening a pathway to the passion that always simmered between them. He wanted to give more than take, to show her by actions what he could not with words.

  Slow and gentle, he marked kisses down the slim column of her neck, dipping his tongue in the pulsing hollow at the base of her throat. She sighed, trembling, then angled her head to bare her throat full to him.

  When her hands dropped from his shoulders to the belt about his waist, he drew back. “Nay, my lady wife. This is for you.”

  Her hands fell away as he molded his palms to her thighs, pulling the fine material of her shift up her legs with the upward motion of his caress. Once she was free of the garment, he returned to the fullness of her lips and throat.

  Still kneeling before her, he cupped the silken rise of her breasts in his calloused, battle-roughened hands. The rosy peaks swelled at his touch, blossoming beneath his tender ministrations. Lowering his head, he placed kisses to one hardened peak then the other, then laved each with his tongue.

  Erika gasped then arched her back, presenting her bounty for his feast. He bore her back on the bedstead, shifting until they were side by side. As he continued his impassioned worship of her breasts his free hand tracked a path down her ribcage, skittering to a stop on the now-flat plane of her stomach.

  Her hands threaded through his hair. Raising his head, he saw the misty understanding smile she gave him. His heart surged in response, and his hand continued its southern journey until it reached the pale curls that hid her secrets.

  With gentle strokes he found the core of her femininity and slipped a finger inside, just a light caress. She warmed at his touch, her essence drenching his finger as she moaned his name. He continued his slow, tender loving until she shuddered and gasped her release.