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“You exaggerate, warrior,” I whispered. “I’ve hardly given you pleasure.”
“If we live,” he said, his eyes drowsy now from his blood loss, “that is something we will have to remedy.”
“Aye,” I heard myself reply. “It is.”
And darkness overcame me.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN I AWOKE, it took me several seconds to figure out where I found myself. My body felt trapped under a heavy weight, and my arm throbbed with a dull searing ache.
I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the dim interior.
The cave.
Vivid light seeped through the narrow door opening. Late afternoon light. I had been asleep for several hours.
The warrior lay next to me, so close I could see the stubble on his now-peaceful face, framed by the long strands of his dark hair. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to touch the thick silk of it, smoothing it back from his strong brow, fingering the braids that knotted back from his temples. His features were bold and striking, hardened by work, war and sun, softened only slightly now in this dark haven. Or tomb. Time would tell.
His arm was slung over me, pinning me against the bulk of his huge heated body. I tried to move, but he grasped me tighter, causing him to grimace and groan even in his unconscious state. I tried again but could not budge him.
Should I attempt to sneak away from him, to take my bag of food and flee northward?
I dismissed the option almost instantly. I was too weak. I had no idea as to the extent of my injury. Or his. And I had no intention of leaving him to die. I remembered the look on his face when he’d removed my helmet. The direct fascination in his eyes, the impact of his blue gaze. The new, tingling awareness of my own heat and my own skin, and more than that: my own life.
I would take my chances.
“Warrior,” I said, trying to rouse him.
No response.
“Wilkie,” I attempted. “You must let me go, so I can tend to your wound, and my own. I’ll fetch water for you to drink.”
His eyes opened, blue even in the semidarkness.
“Roses,” he mumbled.
“Aye. ’Tis me. Release your grip on me, warrior.”
“Kiss me, angel. Before this life leaves me.”
His eyes seemed to gain focus, and I thought I detected a brief glimmer in their sapphire depths. I was wary, mainly because of his size and his obvious strength, but he was a temptation to me in ways I did not understand. I wanted to disengage from his grip and at the same time settle yet closer to him.
“Then will you release me?”
A hint of a smile lingered in his eyes but did not touch his lips, which parted only slightly. “Aye,” he whispered.
I brushed my lips softly against his mouth. I meant it to be brief, a means to the critical end of attending to our injuries. But the feel of his mouth against mine, the warmth of his breath on my face, held me there. I let my lips touch to his for a moment longer, savoring the soft contact. Then he kissed me back, sweetly, his mouth just open, so I could feel the wetness on his lips. I pulled away, shocked by the feel of it.
“Let me go, warrior.”
He obeyed my request, drawing his arm away from me. But the action pained him greatly, and he groaned and closed his eyes as he lay back on our makeshift bed. I could see then that his injury was indeed severe. The front of his shirt was near-saturated with his blood. He faded from consciousness again, although his sleep seemed fitful and agitated.
I jumped up, ignoring the burning ache in my left arm. Using my knife, I cut away Wilkie’s tunic, revealing the gaping wound inflicted by my own hand. It was longer but less deep than I had feared, running in a diagonal line below his rib cage along his right side. I was relieved to see that the edges were cleanly sliced, so they would be relatively easy to sew back together. Ismay had allowed me to assist her with wound care and stitching, even though Laird Ogilvie had once forbade it. She saw no harm in it, she’d said, and was only too pleased to have a willing, eager student.
Infinitely grateful that I’d happened to grab the needle and thread and the healing paste in the midst of my hasty departure, I intended to put them to good use now. But first I needed to clean his wound. Looking around the cave for a vessel to carry water, I spied the bowl.
I ran down to the pool and filled it.
Wilkie remained unconscious, and I used his stillness to my advantage. Washing away the blood from his torso took several more trips to the pool. Then I carefully sewed his wound, taking care to pull the edges neatly together before smoothing the area with healing salve. I found the process strangely taxing and was heated and exhausted by the time I’d finished but pleased with my efforts. I cut a clean strip off of his tunic to keep the wound covered, but when I tried to lift him, he wouldn’t budge. The man was possibly twice my own weight, and my strength had been decidedly tapped. So I tucked the strip around him for now; I could tie it when he awoke.
I took a moment to admire the graceful lines of his chest, so powerfully built, the muscles curved and sculpted. His chest and arms carried many battle scars, lines of paleness against the brown of his sunned skin. I traced several of them lightly with my finger, imagining the battles he had fought over land, honor, women. I clearly wasn’t the first to wield a sword against this seasoned warrior.
It was then that I was reminded of my own battle scar. I had been so immersed in my task of healing the warrior that I’d temporarily forgotten my own injury. But now the pain flared as if in protest. My body felt unusually warm, almost tingly in places.
I went back to the water’s edge. Quickly, I removed my tunic. Before I did, I unclasped the glass-jeweled pin that adorned it, a small piece that had belonged to my mother, given to her by my father on their wedding day. It was the only belonging of theirs that remained in my possession, and I wore it each day, as a tribute to their memory. I stopped briefly to look at it, to run my fingers over the smooth rounded surface of its face. A daisy, with curved metallic petals; at its center was an amber-colored glass jewel that gleamed now, in the sun. My mother’s name had been Daisy. The sweetest, prettiest flower, my father used to say. My Daisy, my Roses. I have my very own flower garden, right here, in our house. My lovely girls.
I placed the pin on a small rock to the side of the pool and scrubbed my tunic to remove the blood, the memory of my parents surrounding me peacefully. Their kindness and generosity. Lost to me now. I hung the tunic on a near branch to dry in the breeze.
I washed the sweat and tears from my face. I cupped my hands and drank. Carefully, I washed my wound, removing the dried blood there and surveying the damage. The burning sting of the raw, exposed flesh made my eyes water. But the sword had sliced across the skin, rather than cutting deep, so the injury would likely not require sewing. I could douse it with healing salve and bandage it, and leave it to heal on its own. And I would forevermore carry the scar inflicted by Wilkie Mackenzie. Like a seal.
A seal.
It looks like a seal of some description.
I pushed the unpleasant memory out of my mind, concentrating instead on drying myself, and quickly. The warrior might wake at any time. Or his clansmen might have found his trail, or mine. They’d have noticed his disappearance by now, for certain. It was hours since he’d spied me at the wall, as he’d emerged from his own pool. I let that memory linger. I had beheld his magnificence, even amid the panic of the moment. I had never seen a man so beautiful and so...naked. And not a shred of modesty. Just confidence.
I wore my thin sleeveless shift—which I had shortened to a length I could accommodate with men’s riding clothing—leaving my tunic off, for now. I didn’t want to aggravate my wound with the thicker fabric yet, as it was bleeding freely again since I’d removed the layer of dried blood. I carried my tunic and the bowl, now filled with fresh water.
The warrior still slept. This worried me slightly.
I applied healing salve to own wound, which stung frightfully, bringing tears to my eyes. Once the pain had eased, I wrapped a second strip of cloth from the warrior’s tunic around it several times to apply pressure. It was the only cloth I had access to, aside from my own clothing, and it was in such a state of disrepair already, it couldn’t be salvaged.
After my bandage was in place, I sat next to the warrior and placed my hand on his forehead. No fever, yet.
He needed an experienced healer, one with knowledge, teas and tinctures. Would he wake soon? Would he be able to make the trek back down the mountain? He should drink.
I lifted his head gently into my lap.
“Warrior,” I whispered in his ear. “You must drink. Wake now. I have fresh water.”
He groaned softly, and his eyes blinked open. I held the bowl to his lips.
“Drink this. ’Tis cold and will quell your thirst.”
He gulped it thirstily, drinking most of it. This relieved me. I put the bowl aside and smoothed his hair back from his face. He turned his head to gaze up at me, the expression in his eyes unfathomable. There was fierceness there, and something more. Was he still vengeful? If I healed him and comforted him, he might forgive me my crime. I dared to imagine he’d let me go and trade food for duties I could perform for him, such as sewing or preparing healing paste, or...gardening, even. It was a lofty hope, though, I knew; he’d be unlikely to trust me inside his clan’s walls. And what of this warrior and his kinsmen—could I trust them? I knew of the ways and intentions of tyrannical lairds and their ranks, and I was wary.
The warrior winced briefly at his own movement as he reached to touch the long off-white end strands of my hair. I hadn’t yet braided and bound it after it had come loose during our chase and our battle, so it hung down around my shoulders to graze his arm. He wound his fingers through it and held it to his cheek where he rubbed it softly against his skin.
“You left me,” he accused, somewhat sulkily.
“Only for a moment,” I said. “I went to bathe my wound.”
His gaze traveled to my bandaged arm, as though he’d forgotten.
“I cut you.”
“Aye, but I’ll live. And I cut you. Now I must heal you.”
His head turned just slightly, so that his cheek barely touched the pillowy curve of my breast. I blushed at the contact, as the thinness of the cloth of my shift would have, in different circumstances, been fairly scandalous. I had not yet put on my tunic. The warrior’s breathing became heavier then, so I could feel the hot strikes of his breath through the very light layer of my clothing. Where his heat warmed me, sensation gathered and pooled, spreading across my skin and deeper, to the lower depths of my stomach. Against my will, my body responded. My nipples, so close to his mouth, budded into tight peaks, almost painfully.
And he noticed. The black pupils of his eyes grew, swallowing all but the outer blue edge of his irises. This sudden darkening made him appear all the more dangerous.
I was unsettled enough to consider how I could carefully lower his head back to the furs, to remove myself from his hold, but his hand remained coiled around my hair.
“Your hair is so fair,” he said. “As wheat. As honey. As gold.”
And I didn’t want to run from him. His touch was too delicious. I knew it was sinful to gain pleasure from such things, but it was hardly a most pressing concern. Here I was, a traitor and a thief. In the past few days, I’d stabbed two men, stolen as much food as I could carry and now found myself trapped with a fearsome warrior who might just as well kill me as save me. My list of crimes grew longer by the hour. Kissing a handsome stranger was the very least of my wrongdoings. Surprised by my own urges, I leaned ever so slightly forward, allowing his mouth just the tiniest bit closer...
The thoughts evaporated as his mouth closed over my breast. Even through the thin veil of my shift, the pressure was exquisite as he pulled my nipple farther into the hot flame of his mouth, licking his tongue against the underside of the tip, biting gently with his teeth. The scraping, scalding pressure funneled into my body, between my legs, where I grew moist and swollen, tingling with expectation.
A small moan escaped me, and him, too, as he moved to reach for my other breast. He held the full weight with his large hand, rousing sparking pleasure in my body with the pinching, circling pressure of his fingers.
It startled me, my reaction to him, the need he summoned in me. But I offered no protest when he lifted the front of my shift to gain access to my bare breasts. He gasped a savage, deep sound, touching me with the most careful placement of his fingers, rubbing me gently and pulling me to his mouth. With no barriers between my skin and the slippery play of his tongue, the craving that had begun the very first time I’d looked into his eyes grew in its power. The pulsing heavy ache in my nipples as he teased me with his teeth and his mouth swelled and compounded to touch my heart, my core, my soul, overwhelming me entirely. I held his head, stroking his hair, offering myself to him.
“Angel,” he said, almost panting. “You’re a dream, yet I feel you. I’ve never felt so much. Do you feel me?”
“I feel you, warrior. I feel all of you. Everywhere.”
“How can you be here, like this, burning me so? You can’t be real. Who knew death would be so enchanting and so achingly beautiful?”
His words slurred at the end, and it occurred to me then that he might have been somewhat delirious and that his heavy breaths and his moans were double-edged. He needed to be careful not to rip his stitches, and the way his arm had looped itself around my waist was endangering his recovery. I suspected that the severity of his injury was the only reason I was able to extricate myself from his grip, to place his head gently on the furs and lie next to him.
“You must rest, warrior. I’ll stay here with you.” My fingers smoothed his unruly hair.
“Roses,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving my face.
“Aye. I’m here.”
“Where have you come from?” he asked. “Why are you alone?”
Only hours ago I had fought against him to avoid a very similar question. But now, softly touching his chest, with his hand cupping my face and his blue eyes vivid and sublime, I wanted to give him whatever he asked of me. I wanted to satisfy his curiosity, and more.
“Clan Ogilvie.”
“Ogilvie?” He contemplated me thoughtfully, as though surprised by this information. “You don’t look like an Ogilvie.”
“I wasn’t born an Ogilvie. I was adopted as a child of three or four.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know, warrior. My origins are a mystery.” A wretched mystery that had left me with a small inked tattoo and a restless spirit. “And now I work at the Ogilvie keep as a kitchen servant. Or at least I did. Until yesterday.”
His thumb brushed across my bottom lip. He studied my face as I studied his. I could feel his aching beauty down to the pit of my stomach.
“I have many questions to ask you, mysterious angel,” he said, “but first I need you to kiss me again. Your lips are too sweet. If I’m to die, let it be with your taste in my mouth. Kiss me, angel. I’ll die a happy man.”
“You’ll not die, warrior.” The thought jarred me. I needed to seek out help for him. I felt his forehead. Too warm.
He murmured a husked word that might have been please.
I leaned over him, running my fingers along the rough surface of his jaw. His dark-lit blue eyes were dreamlike, his lips beckoning me. I touched my lips to his, as I had once before. His hand reached to grip the nape of my neck with raw strength, even in his weakened state. He held me in place as he returned the kiss. I felt his tongue lick my top lip, then slide gently between them. As soon as my lips parted, his tongue delved farther. He tasted of desire and of sweet hunger. I opened to him, wanting everything about this connection to continue. I had never felt anything like the sensation this warrior delivered with the touch of his tongue to mine.
He seemed to forget himself then, and he moved as if to rise over me, to hold me closer. But the effort clearly speared him with pain. He fell back, releasing his hold.
“Warrior?” I whispered, but he was gone to me.
I could stay here and watch over him and do my best to help him. But I was not an expert healer. Ismay had taught me well in our many stolen moments, and she’d often commented on my natural abilities, but there was much I felt I still didn’t know.
I had to seek out his family, and quickly. They would take him home to his comfortable, lush chambers, to their team of healers and their stores of medicines, cooks offering hearty broths and ale, to the best care a man could be given.
I laid my riding blanket over him, up to the middle of his chest. And I adjusted my own clothing, pulling my shift back down into place. I replenished the bowl of water and left it within his reach. Then I found the bag of loot I’d stolen from his clan’s gardens. I put an arrangement of fruit next to the bowl of water.
“I must get help for you, warrior. I’ll come back to you as soon as I can.”
I took a moment to loosely stitch together the gaping rip in my tunic, at the shoulder, where Wilkie had sliced through it, making a small attempt to improve my ragged appearance. Then I eased it over my head and fitted it into place, taking care not to dislodge my bandage. I went to hunt for my sword, which, after some searching, I was able to find. I strapped it to my belt, grabbed three apples for myself, and began walking down the mountain toward the Mackenzie keep.
CHAPTER THREE
AS I APPROACHED THE guarded gates of the keep, I could take some comfort from the assumption that they were unlikely to turn me away. Not when I was the one who could lead them to their missing clansman. And not just any clansman: the laird’s powerful brother. Once he was returned to them, I hoped they would let me go, peacefully.
When Wilkie Mackenzie recovered—if he recovered—would he awaken in anger? I thought again of his kiss. Of his mouth on me. The fresh memory of it brought warmth to my body, and it infused me with an unrestful anticipation. But still, I was the one responsible for his injury. And if he died, it was possible that the blame would be placed on me. I might be punished or killed in retribution.
There was much activity in the vicinity of the Mackenzie keep. Search parties on horseback were taking leave, it appeared. Wilkie’s absence had made itself known.
Two guards watched my approach with puzzled expressions. I stood before them. “I would request to speak with Laird Mackenzie,” I said. “I have news of Wilkie Mackenzie’s whereabouts.”
The two guards looked at each other, skeptical, but they took my words seriously, and they didn’t waste time. “Follow me,” one of them instructed, and began walking toward the stone castle. Several young boys were playing in the gardens, and the guard called to them. They scampered over, eyeing me, my clothing.
“Run to the yards to see if the laird can be found there. He is needed in the hall urgently. Hurry to it!” he commanded them. The boys ran off, gleeful with their assignment.
I was led at a brisk pace along a wide path to the looming stone castle. I was struck again by the beauty and orderliness of the landscape. Workers paused in their tasks and stared at me as I walked alongside the guard. I envied these workers their teamwork and camaraderie, their clan and sense of belonging. I wished I, too, had a clan I could feel a part of and that I could be allowed to contribute to in a meaningful way. I had felt as if I’d belonged to the Ogilvie clan for a time, until the death of my father and my mother’s quickly following decline. Since then, I’d felt less like kin and more like a servant and outsider who didn’t quite fit either my role or my surroundings. My spirit had been well and truly stomped upon, my wings insistently clipped. In my heart, I felt my destiny lay elsewhere.
The guard escorted me through the giant wooden doors of the castle, into a grand entrance hall. Tapestries adorned the stone walls, and fine, wooden furniture decorated the room’s interior. The details and upkeep of the castle were clearly more refined and prosperous than those found in the Ogilvie keep.
I wondered, as I sat in a chair and waited for the guard to return, whether Wilkie had woken. I knew he would call out to me if he found me gone. I felt an undeniable longing to go back to him, to heal him with my own hands. But it was best this way. The fever was upon him, and his chances of survival were far greater under the care of his clan. And I badly wanted him to live.
Commotion and loud footsteps approached from the interior of the castle. And into the room strode a small crowd of people, led by an enormous man who could only have been Wilkie’s brother, Laird Mackenzie. His resemblance to Wilkie was striking, his hair equally as black, but he was even larger, his look more imposing. Rather than a vivid blue, his eyes were a distinct shade of light gray. To his right stood another brother. Kade, if I remembered correctly. This brother was similar in size but slighter, almost lanky, his hair a dark shade of brown, his eyes blue, like Wilkie’s, but lighter in hue. The look in his eyes suggested less restraint than his brothers, an innate recklessness that was, at a first impression, somewhat unsettling. This effect was further emphasized by the veritable arsenal he wore: several belts strung with a number of knives and swords, as well as a leather strap across his chest fitted with pouches and pockets where more small knives and other sharp objects were cached.
