The Tempted

by Donna Grant

  Time slowed, allowing him to see her nutmeg brown eyes widen and her lips part in surprise. Stefan managed to slow himself, but it wasn’t enough. The woman stepped back to get out of his way, only there was nothing behind her. Her arms flailed, and those big eyes of hers filled with panic. Then she was gone.

  Stefan slid to a stop, one foot going over the side of the cliff as dirt and pebbles followed the woman down. He leaned over the side and spied the body amid the thick ferns and jagged rocks below.

  He wanted to forget the woman, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t just her eyes, it was her face. Creamy skin unblemished except for a small, dark mole at the corner of her right eye. Inky black brows that matched her long braid gently arching over her eyes. High cheekbones and full lips made for kissing.

  The woman wasn’t Romany. Her skin wasn’t nearly dark enough, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been sent by Ilinca.

  Stefan stared down at the unmoving form of the woman for long moments. She was most likely dead anyway. The odds of her missing any of the rocks were slim. Besides, he had a gypsy to kill.

  ~ ~ ~

  Pain, ferocious and intense, roughly dragged Morvan awake. She inhaled, and then wished she hadn’t as agony reverberated through her. She was afraid to move and make the pain worse. Yet she couldn’t remain where she was.

  Drops of water fell on her face. Morvan opened her eyes and looked at the sky, blinking from the rain that had slackened to a light drizzle.

  She wiggled her toes, thankful that it seemed nothing was wrong with her legs. Next she moved her fingers, again feeling nothing amiss with her upper body other than her ribs. Gingerly, she rolled onto her side, gasping at the pain. It took several attempts before she was able to move to her hands and knees. That’s when her arm began to throb.

  Morvan looked at her left arm, but there was no tear in her dress or any blood. She could move her arm, so she didn’t suspect it was broken. Her ribs, however, already bruised from the buck’s kick, were the worst of everything.

  Keeping her breathing light, Morvan eventually made it to her feet. Then wished she hadn’t when she grew dizzy. She was able to grab hold of a tree growing between two rocks to steady herself. She stood silently for several moments waiting for the world to stop spinning. Morvan closed her eyes and evened her breathing. That’s when she recalled the man.

  He’d looked as wild and untamed as the animals in the forest. His eyes, a stunning hazel mix of blue, green, and gold, were stony and feral. Half of his face was hidden by his long, light brown hair.

  But it was his lips formed in a cold, hard line that frightened her most of all.

  There was no compassion in the man, no kindness or gentleness. He’d shown that when he hadn’t tried to help her when she’d lost her balance. The fact he also hadn’t come down to see if she were alive or dead spoke volumes.

  It reminded Morvan why she chose the forest and animals over the village and the people within. She understood animals and their behavior, but people she could never fully grasp. One of her downfalls was believing people spoke honestly, when in fact they never did.

  Animals didn’t lie or deceive. Animals didn’t betray or manipulate. They didn’t exploit or abuse, steal or cheat.

  Morvan opened her eyes and held her sore left arm against her battered ribs. It was going to be a long walk home.

  ~ ~ ~

  Stefan circled the area to get an idea of any potential threats, but all he found was the woman. To his amazement, she was on her feet, though she looked the worse for wear. Her skin was pale, and by the way she held her left arm, she was injured. Yet the woman didn’t shout for help or wait for someone to find her. She began walking.

  Stefan once more chose to ignore the female. She was alive, and apparently knew where she was going. He, on the other hand, had hunting to do.

  Ilinca.

  He had no idea how many days had passed while he paced and fumed inside the darkness where she had confined him, but it didn’t matter. Whether it had been a few days or several years, he would find the gypsy.

  There was no holding back his fury – nor did he want to. He fed the rage, nurtured the wrath until every bit of gentleness and humanity his friends cultivated in him vanished.

  He was the monster his mother feared he would become.

  He was his father.

  Stefan used to fear he would become his father, but now he embraced his lineage, welcomed it with open arms. It would be what freed his friends. It would be what helped him kill Ilinca and break whatever magic she’d used to put him in that dark hell.

  By then he would be too far gone to ever be among people again. But it was a price he would gladly pay once he knew Morcant, Daman, and Ronan were liberated from Ilinca.

  Stefan didn’t walk the forest. He stalked, he hunted. He moved as quickly as a hare, as silently as a hawk, and as deadly as a wolf.

  The farther he went from the stone cliff, the sharper his senses became. He didn’t care how long it took him to find Ilinca, he wouldn’t stop. If he had to walk the length and breadth of Scotland a hundred times over, he would do it. Nothing and no one would stop him from his mission.

  The gypsy took him from the only family he had, the brothers who kept him from giving in to the monster inside him. For that, she would pay with her life.

  Stefan paused when he heard water. It seemed like eons since he’d heard such a sound. It was…musical. Unable to forget it, he shifted from his path and went towards the sound of the flowing water. When he reached the stream, he simply stared.

  The rain stopped and the clouds parted long enough for a ray of sunlight to shine upon the water. The glint of the light off the surface made it appear golden, and caused Stefan to raise his hands to shield his eyes from the brightness.

  Suddenly, he found his mouth dry. He was so thirsty. He took stock of everything before he walked to the stream and knelt beside it. Stefan cupped his hand and brought handful after handful of water to his mouth.

  When he was satisfied, he took in the majestic view of the mountains rising all around him. Even with the gray sky, there was nothing more beautiful than the Highlands.

  It made him think of his friends. They were the only reason he was sane enough to recall their names. It saddened him that he would never be able to talk to them again. He didn’t want them to see what he had become. All three would try and change him, and they would never stop.

  But there was no changing him back to what he was. The monster was loose. The anger had become a living, breathing thing inside him that nothing could defeat.

  This was how his life was always meant to turn out. His mother had tried to change his future, but there was only so much she could do once his father refused to acknowledge Stefan’s existence.

  Just thinking of his father sent a wave of fury rumbling through him. Stefan could still remember his father’s stony look, his callous laughter when Stefan was six and ran away from his mother to go to his father.

  That’s the day he learned he was a bastard. It was the day the monster inside him was born.

  It was also the day he learned the only person in the whole world who cared about him was his mother. She tried to help him control his anger, anger that was passed from his father onto him. If not for his mother, Stefan would’ve been lost to his monster, just as his father had succumbed to his.

  For the next ten years, it was just Stefan and his mother. Then his mother died suddenly. Stefan had been terrified of the anger inside him, but there wasn’t fear now. Now, he embraced it.

  He rose to his feet and started back to the trees when a sound to his right drew his attention. His head jerked around and he saw the woman from earlier stumble out of the forest to the stream.

  Stefan hid behind a tree and watched her. She had leaves sticking out of her braid, or what hair remained in the plait anyway. Her gown had patches of mud and dirt on it. After she drank, she wrung out the water from her skirts and hung her head.

  As she sat
there, Stefan was shocked to see a buck walk up to her. When the buck lowered his head, Stefan thought the deer might attack her. To his surprise, the buck pawed the earth as if to get her attention.

  When the woman lifted her head, she looked at the deer and smiled. He couldn’t tell what she said from the distance, but she was talking to the buck. Stefan grew more confused when the woman draped an arm around the deer’s neck and it helped her back to her feet.

  Stefan shook his head and turned away. There were still several hours of daylight left. He walked another ten minutes before he found a road that cut through the forest.

  He remained hidden as a man on horseback rode past. Stefan took note of the plaid and the sword the man carried. It didn’t take long for Stefan to decide to follow the man even though it took him back in the direction he had come from.

  Stefan hadn’t been following the rider long when the man drew his mount to a stop and simply sat there. Stefan couldn’t see the man’s face because of his cloak and hood, but the man was being cautious. A moment later, he clicked the horse back into a walk.

  Stefan was glad of his decision to follow the rider when they came to a castle. He recognized the preparations taking place. With all the activity, it was apparent the clan was gearing for war. He took note of the number of warriors this clan held.

  Stefan crept closer to the castle and overheard someone mention the name Sinclair. If he was on Sinclair land, then that meant he was only a hundred miles or so from where he was last with his friends.

  He turned and made his way back to the forest. Now that he knew where he was, he knew which direction he needed to go. Which was where he had been headed to begin with.

  Stefan easily made up the time he’d lost by following the man. He found the stream again and kept going, running low and fast. As the sun began to set, he crested a hill and saw smoke curling from the trees. Hunger rumbled in his stomach and he decided to check it out.

  Surprise ripped through him when he found a small cottage and the same woman from the cliff. Instead of being inside tending to her wounds, she was feeding the chickens while barely keeping on her feet. It was while she tried to bring in more wood that she collapsed.

  Stefan waited a few moments to see if she would wake. When she didn’t, he walked from the trees and squatted beside her. He moved aside the black hair that had fallen over her face to look at her.

  Why had she been so far from her home? What had she been doing on that cliff?

  He didn’t want those questions running through his mind, and he certainly didn’t want the answers. He stood, intending to turn away when he recalled her face up on the cliff right before she fell. He had no idea how he’d gotten on the cliff, and there was a chance something similar had happened to her.

  A sliver of emotion churned in his gut. He felt responsible for her injuries. That’s the only reason he bent and gathered her in his arms and stood. He kicked the door to the cottage open and walked inside to the bed before he set her down. As he pulled his arms from beneath her, his hand touched her skin and he felt the coolness.

  If the lass could live after such a fall and make the trek all the way to the cottage, fate had a plan for her. That’s the only reason Stefan hurriedly removed her wet boots, stockings, gown, and shift.

  As he was pulling the blanket over her, he spotted the huge bruise covering her left side. Stefan tucked the blanket tight, threw a log onto her dying fire and walked out, intending to forget her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Morvan was on her side when she woke. She opened her eyes and looked into the flames in the hearth. The last thing she remembered was trying to get more wood to stoke the fire. When had she gotten it? More importantly, when did she get undressed and into bed?

  She clutched her side and slowly sat up, realizing she was naked. Something was definitely wrong because she never went to bed naked.

  Morvan wrapped the blanket around her and stood to walk to the window. She looked out the shutter to see the faint glow of the sun just breaking over the mountain. Her stomach rumbled loudly. She turned away from the window and walked to the table where she cut a piece of bread and added a slice of cold ham to it. Morvan ate four pieces of ham and two portions of bread before she retrieved a clean gown and petticoat. Her boots and stockings also in her arms, she walked from the cottage.

  She had never walked down to the loch in nothing but a blanket, but there was no one about to see or disturb her, so Morvan didn’t worry. She was more concerned with the missing hours she couldn’t remember.

  Had she fallen so hard that she would lose time? Surely if that were to happen, it would’ve happened right after she woke from the fall off the cliff. She hadn’t hit her head on any rocks, but that didn’t mean her brain hadn’t been addled a bit by such a rough tumble.

  When Morvan reached the loch, she draped her clean clothes over a low-hanging branch along with the blanket. Then she walked into the water. It was cool against her skin, making her catch her breath at the contact. When the water reached her hips, she dove under, remaining beneath until her lungs began to burn.

  When she surfaced, she played in the water for a bit, trying to relax after the day before. It wasn’t just her injuries or the fall, it was the fact she had been on Sinclair land for a long time. As far as she knew, none of the MacKays had seen her, but she also didn’t want to go into the village and find out if she was wrong.

  Morvan gathered sand from the bottom of the loch and began to wash. She was so out of sorts that she’d forgotten her soap at the cottage. When she finished, she walked to the shore and wrung out her hair.

  It wasn’t until she was walking back to her clothes that she had the suspicion someone was watching her, which was ridiculous. No one would want to spy on her.

  She used the blanket to dry off and then hurriedly dressed. Only then did she look around, but she could find no indication that anyone was there.

  “I’m just rattled,” she murmured.

  That had to be the excuse. After the man had come out of nowhere on top of the cliff and she’d fallen, she hadn’t been the same. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. It had begun yesterday morning. She still couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but everything about the day before had been a little off.

  Morvan gathered the blanket and made her way back to the cottage. She needed to mix some herbs to help with the pain of her ribs, not to mention a poultice to deal with the ugly bruising.

  Once inside, she made the tea and added some herbs for the pain. While she drank the mixture, she combed out her hair, which proved difficult with her ribs. When the tangles were all out, she left her hair free and ventured back into the woods to look for the herbs she would need for the poultice.

  If she had been thinking clearly yesterday after she’d helped the buck, she would have gathered them then. She’d used her last bit on the blacksmith’s horse two days earlier when it had come up with a lame leg.

  Morvan brought some oatcakes with her since she was still hungry from missing two meals the day before. She wasn’t twenty steps from her cottage when she found a hare caught in a trap.

  She looked around because she hadn’t set the trap. Someone else had. Someone else who had been close to her cottage. Morvan bent and touched the frightened hare. The animal instantly stopped fighting and stayed calm as she removed the vine from its hind leg.

  “Off you go,” she said and watched it hop away.

  It wasn’t that she minded someone hunting. Everyone had to eat. What disturbed her was that it had been done so close to her cottage, and she hadn’t even known about it.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Morvan saw movement. She jerked around, but there was nothing but a fern leaf swaying. Before she could react to whatever was out there, she heard a group of men stomping through the forest. The fact that the sound was coming from the direction of her laird’s castle meant that her clan was probably marching off to war.

  Morvan quickly hid behind a large oak and pl
astered her back to the bark. The men were getting closer. They were talking in low tones, but the mood was dark and dangerous. She didn’t want them finding her because her clan or not, she wasn’t exactly welcome.

  Men on their way to battle were likely to do all sorts of things to a woman alone. If everything she knew about her clan were true, then it was only the roughest, meanest warriors who remained.

  Suddenly, there was a shout from one of the men. Everything went silent for a heartbeat, and then chaos erupted. There was no clang of swords, yet there was no denying the sounds of battle. The shouts of pain, the bellows of outrage, and the grunts of the dying could clearly be heard.

  Had the Sinclairs ambushed her clan?

  Morvan glanced around the tree and saw her clan. And one man attacking them. She gaped in astonishment that one man could do such damage to a group of fifteen men. He was quick and agile, swift and lethal. He used no sword, just his hands and a dagger.

  As the man pivoted away, she caught a glimpse of his face. It was the same man from the cliff. She was mesmerized, captivated.

  Six of her clansman left alive ran back the way they had come as the man fought a seventh. She covered her mouth with her hand as her clansman fell. The man from the cliff stood among the dead breathing heavily. He started to turn away when one of the six who’d run off returned and threw a dagger that landed in the man’s thigh.

  The stranger’s face turned deadly, as feral as a wild animal’s when he locked his gaze on his attacker. In quick order, he had her clansman in his grip, and the man died quickly and violently.

  Morvan knew she couldn’t be seen by the man. Even as he staggered and slammed against a tree, she knew she had to leave. She waited until he pulled the dagger from his thigh before she took a step back. She held her breath when her foot landed on a stick and it split, the sound as loud as a crack of thunder in the silence of the forest.