by Kat Bastion
He had made a sarcastic remark, as per usual.
Had told Isobel nothing, as per usual.
But not one thing within Skorpius remained remotely usual.
Anticipation of returning to Brodie Castle thrummed through his veins.
Because he’d actually hoped to run into Brigid.
Hoped.
Like some lovesick human adolescent.
And at the sound of Brigid’s angered reactionary outburst, his pulse had accelerated.
With excitement.
And joy.
All feelings no self-respecting warrior angel ever embraced.
Yet the sight of Brigid, eyes blazing with fury, tempestuous emotions running hotter than ever, at the sight of him?
Worth it.
After too many days of trying to occupy himself without any new mission, popping into various timeline points as a casual watcher, monitoring the progress of Cass with Connell and Gunna—from afar, so as not to interfere with their adjustment—he came alive with a true purpose again.
Gain back Brigid’s trust.
Except…now what?
Skorpius had no plan. No clue as to how to proceed.
Other than a strong desire to get under her skin again.
Brigid had told him she needed time to think.
Skorpius had given her almost a week.
Ages, as far as he was concerned.
Skorpius had decided to give Brigid another full day to recover.
Or stew.
Either worked in his favor.
But he refused to waste one more night.
The festive excitement at the castle had elevated to a fever pitch. Based on the chaos in the kitchen, the priest located in the great hall, and the palpable level of anticipation in the air—to do with their commander, Robert, dragging newcomer, Susanna, under the mistletoe the evening prior?—Skorpius would swear a Highland wedding was about to take place.
Angels didn’t partake in such vow-filled nonsense.
But then, Skorpius had apparently evolved beyond mere angel. Twice over.
And he had an entirely different kind of bond to secure.
When guests began appearing through the hall’s front door, Skorpius floated his shadowed energy through the darkened hall upstairs, down the way from the bedchambers. Right as Brigid and Isobel stepped out from one of the doors.
Brigid slid flattened hands down the bodice of an emerald gown while Isobel adjusted an unruly copper ringlet that had fallen loose from Brigid’s hairpin. Once the curl had been secured, Isobel clasped Brigid’s hand and began leading her down the hall toward the stairs.
Until Skorpius fully materialized.
Both females paused and turned toward him, peering into the shadows.
Angelic power had that effect.
Brigid scowled.
Skorpius engendered that effect.
She sighed heavily, then turned toward Isobel. “Go on without me.”
The Traveler glanced down the hall then turned back toward Brigid, casting her a concerned look. “Are you certain?”
“Aye. I hold my own with him.” Brigid turned back toward him after Isobel nodded then departed out of sight. “I’ll deal with… Cupcake.”
At the condescending nickname, an instinctual growl reverberated from his throat.
But then the corners of Brigid’s mouth twitched, as if she fought a smile at his reaction.
Oh, yeah? She liked him riled?
Right back at you, goddess, he cast out to her. I love how you hold your own with me.
Chapter 44
Brigid stalked down the hall, the silken skirt of her favorite emerald gown rustlin’. As she neared the darkest alcove at the end, she heard the door to Susanna’s bedchamber softly thud as the Englishwoman closed it to join those gathered in celebration downstairs.
“Why are you hoverin’ here, Skorpius? I warned you to stay away from me.” Her blood nearly boiled over as his spectacular form came into view from the shadows. No amount of fury at him lightened the impact he always had on her—a fact that angered her all the more.
He gave her a cool smirk. “Why ever would I want to stay away from you? You wear pissed-the-fuck-off so very well.”
Accustomed to modern-speak profanity from Isobel and Iain, Brigid rolled her eyes.
“Niiice,” he purred, drawin’ closer.
Brigid backed up a large step, not that one fiber of her Highlander self would ever back down from a fight or challenge—especially with him—but…she found she couldn’t breathe. Skorpius had stolen all the air.
His immense power washed through her.
Dark.
Erotic.
Undeniable.
In sudden panic, she turned.
But Skorpius flashed from feet away to against her, pinnin’ her body to the cold stone wall.
Brigid froze, immobilized.
Those glossy black wings arched high over his head, then curled around her body. The soft warm feathers brushed over her bare arms. He towered over her, then bent his head down. Strands of his wild hair tickled across her cheeks.
Brigid turned her face away, did her best not to inhale, and pinched her eyes closed. “Go. Away.” The words got growled out between clenched teeth.
Her traitorous heart fluttered a rapid beat.
And unable to hold her breath any longer, lungs burnin’, she finally inhaled deeply.
When his musky cinnamon scent filled her nostrils, she well-nigh sobbed as a flood of tender memories crashed through her.
Skorpius’s voice softened, a deep raspy purr that misted heat over the skin of her neck. “No.”
Brigid wanted to punch him, wished she could knee him in the groin…needed to make him feel some fraction of the pain she felt—the all-consumin’, torn-to-pieces, scorchin’-veins-with-everra-heartbeat torture she’d been endurin’. Yet their closeness and his massive strength prevented her from causin’ him physical harm. Though she knew if she delivered it…he would take it.
“Please.” The whispered plea that fell from her own lips both surprised and irritated her.
Skorpius eased back. His blue-green eyes seemed to flash their own tortured pain at her. “I’ll do as you wish…for now. But you know it’s impossible for us to part. You’ve seen to that.”
And then, to her amazement, a hot flare seared into her breast. Their hearts’ bond vibrated anew, from a surge of magick from him. The thread glittered bluish black, golden white, and a third flamin’ scarlet color.
Brigid set her jaw, anger firin’ hot. “Doona make this my fault,” she growled, advancin’. “’Tis true, I’ve made choices. But you made them first.”
Skorpius edged back while she pressed forward. But his unexpected yieldin’ only bolstered her aggression.
Brigid pushed into his space until he’d backed against the opposite stone wall. She glared up at him, her nostrils flarin’. “Mine were selfless. Yours…were not. Touch that good heart I know you have down deep in that chest of yours and give me the space I need. Do somethin’ for another, for once.”
A dangerous low growl came from his throat, vibratin’ so powerful, it rattled her teeth. The beast within him flared and his eyes did flash at her, brightly, their blue-green color swirlin’.
Skorpius bent low into her face, forehead nigh touchin’ hers as he stared at her, heated gaze penetratin’ her verra soul.
Brigid held her ground, refusin’ to move.
“Every damn thing I’ve done since I’ve met you…has been for you.” Pain radiated from him.
Agony burned in her heart. From havin’ injured him. From bein’ destroyed by him.
Expression tortured, his eyes drifted closed. He inhaled deeply, as if capturin’ her scent.
Then he abruptly vanished.
Brigid stumbled forward into the cold stones of the wall, where he’d stood a second prior.
Tears sprang to her eyes, heart feelin’ as if he’d ripped it straight from her chest and taken it
with him.
But she stifled her sob. Choked down her emotions. Pinched back her tears.
Then Brigid squared her shoulders, turned on her heel, and strode down the hall toward the celebration downstairs, toward her clan. To be among family: those who’d never betray her.
Chapter 45
Less than an hour later, Robert and Susanna’s nuptial proceedings had concluded.
The celebratory feast had commenced.
Musicians played a lively tune.
Revelers danced with unbridled gaiety.
And diners ate and drank…and laughed.
Skorpius materialized in the kitchen and leaned a hip against the corner of a sturdy worktable.
The cook and four servers stared wide-eyed at him.
“Hungry?” A server angled a silver platter with a roasted goose toward him.
“No, thank you.” Polite decline. Human custom. Helped pass the seconds until the next part.
Three.
Two.
One.
Brigid stormed into the kitchen, from the back entrance.
Skorpius glanced at her, unhidden warmth in his gaze. “Hello, love.”
“You.”
“Yes. Me.” Skorpius shoved off the table, spread his legs shoulder width apart, and squared his shoulders, preparing for battle. “And you.”
No doubt in his mind.
The trouble would be getting Brigid to admit it.
Brigid swept a cutting gaze at her serving staff.
But in their paralyzed shock, no one moved a muscle.
Chest huffing with unspent energy, she lifted an empty crystal bowl from a wooden buffet and hoisted it high, as if to throw it at him. But she clenched her jaw and replaced it back down.
“Out,” Brigid growled, glaring at him.
“You want to throw something at me.”
“Aye.”
“But you don’t wish to actually destroy a prized object.” Crystal and glass were still rare at that Earth-realm time. Rarer still, sought after, and incredibly expensive in the Highlands.
Her eyes narrowed at him. “Out,” she commanded again.
“Magick would come in handy.” An innate nature that she struggled to keep a lid on. “Create a bowl. Destroy a bowl.”
The kitchen staff either didn’t take the hint or didn’t think Brigid had been addressing them. But with their rigid stances and glazed-over eyes, Skorpius suspected they’d been shocked into inaction. One way to solve that.
On the worktable between them, he manifested a lineup of fist-sized launching items: crystal bowls, silver platters, glass stemware.
Brigid grabbed a silver platter and beamed it at him.
He dematerialized long enough for it to pass right through him.
The platter crashed against the stone wall.
A golden goblet followed. Then a bejeweled tankard. Followed by a crystal wine decanter.
Each time Skorpius went incorporeal for the split second required. Satisfying explosions followed.
The staff blanched, white as ghosts. At Brigid’s throwing. At his disappearing.
Then Skorpoius glared at them, flashed his eyes, and snapped his wings wide. Out! he bellowed into their feeble minds as his primary feathers scraped pots and platters off the tables to launch them crashing to the ground.
The gawkers scattered in an instant.
Skorpius folded his wings back, rounded the worktable, and stalked Brigid with measured steps.
She edged back, keeping the distance between them. “You lied!”
“Withheld mission-required information.” Not much of a defense, but the truth.
Magick simmered just under the surface of her anger. A shimmer of golden aura flared out, but then vanished when she drew in a deep breath. Her struggle to contain her massive power was evident. To find release, she fisted her hands, let out a hearty growl, then screamed in frustration.
Breaths labored, eyes wild with fury, she reached for another item to throw.
Skorpius manifested a fist-sized crystal ball onto the worktable.
Brigid pitched it at his face.
When he shifted incorporeal, the ball sailed right through him, out the kitchen doorway, then collided with satisfying smash on a stone wall out in the great hall.
“I never directly lied to you. Not about anything that mattered. Never about us.”
She grabbed a crystal platter from the table, then whizzed it with the flick of her wrist. “There is no ‘us.’”
After the platter sailed right through him, he materialized once again as it shattered in the other room.
He held her gaze, took more slow steps forward. “Now who’s lying?”
Brigid backed farther away. And moved dangerously close to flaming ovens.
Skorpius stopped his advance, not wishing her to be harmed.
“You’re twistin’ things.” She advanced a step toward him, face reddening. “I trusted you!”
When she reached for a plate filled with food, Skorpius manifested a half dozen expendable metal items in a row.
Brigid plowed through the lineup, launching each item at his body. All the while, she growled and shouted unintelligible words that vibrated with the pain of her emotions.
Yet for each one of those missiles, Skorpius decided to remain solid. He took the beating she wanted to dish out. Each item bounced off his muscular frame, then ricocheted in various directions around him: crashing against a kitchen wall, banging across wooden shelving, clattering to the floor.
Tears welled in her eyes as the last was thrown. Her lower lip quivered, but she bit it into submission. “Where are the wee ones?”
“The children? Safe.” All he’d been able to divulge at that moment.
Brigid pinched her eyes shut and shook her head. She wrapped her arms around her middle, an effort to console herself.
Skorpius longed to pull her into his arms, wanted to ease her suffering. Yet he’d been the cause of it. And she needed the fight between them, all part of the healing process.
“I canna stay here. I doona belong,” she muttered. “Not any longer.”
Wearying of the fight, she drew in a shaky breath, then exhaled, shoulders slumping.
“You belong with me.” To prove it, he pulsed another burst of magick along the thread between their hearts. And the bond vibrated with warmth.
Brigid gasped in surprise. “Doona…”
But Skorpius didn’t stop. Couldn’t even if he’d wanted to.
He took another step closer. “It takes courage to be true to ourselves.”
“Doona touch me.”
“To accept who we are takes bravery.”
“And what of bein’ true to another?”
Skorpius held her mercurial gaze. “Trust without proof takes the greatest strength of all.”
Tears sprang to her eyes again. Deepening breaths grew ragged. Trembling lips parted, but no words came forth.
With a tortured groan, she lunged forward, punched her fists forward to knock him out of her way, then fled into the castle’s great hall.
Skorpius scowled, displeased that she still denied the truth beneath it all, and stormed after her. Nothing in any realm would stop him. Not even her doubts.
When he entered the great hall, he caught a glimpse of her copper tresses flying behind her before she disappeared down a dark corridor on the opposite side of the hall. The wedding celebration in the middle of it had ground to a silent gawking halt.
Onlookers stood motionless on the dance floor, stared at him from the trestle tables.
Father John, the clan’s priest, stepped forward, as if to intervene. Yet the male gaped at him and crossed himself. Twice.
Skorpius glared at the brave but foolish male as he passed and arched his wings high. “Not. One. Word. Priest.”
Then he shot a scathing look toward the clan’s commander, Robert. A warning.
But Skorpius never broke stride and crossed the large room in a handful of seconds.
“You’ve said that before.” Before they’d come to know one another. Before they’d realized they were different. And made for each other.
“I mean what I say.” Silver eyes sparked at him, full of passion.
Finally taking the liberty he’d been longing to, denying himself no further, he enveloped her in his embrace and brushed his lips across hers.
A gasp feathered across his mouth.
Their hearts’ bond surged with renewed strength, glittering bluish black, golden white, and a novel burnished scarlet.
And they both joined into the kiss, tender, slow, filled with love, pain, and a fragile glimpse of hope.
Until someone approached, about to enter the corridor from the great hall. The Traveler, by the energy signature. A friend Brigid would need for support.
Skorpius drew back, holding Brigid’s gaze with ferocity.
“Take great care.” He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. Wide entranced eyes stared up at him. “You’re leaking magick again, goddess.”
The glittering aura she’d been unable to contain seconds ago—as she’d surrendered to their kiss—snapped back inside her.
Skorpius fought a smile as he licked the sweet taste of her from his lips.
Not only had he gotten under her skin, he’d proven that she needed to take a good truthful look there herself.
Then he vanished. To give her the last amount of time any of them could afford.
Chapter 46
Brigid wandered the keep the followin’ day, lost inside the tumblin’ thoughts in her head, confused by the jumbled emotions of her achin’ heart.
Isobel and Susanna had consoled her the night before.
When Skorpius had vanished—again.
After he’d kissed her. And…she’d kissed him.
Oh, how she longed to believe him. Trust in the two of them.
When she ventured back through the great hall for the hundredth time, her brother Gawain stood at the far end, facin’ the Christmas tree they’d decorated as a clan two nights prior under Isobel’s direction.
Brigid dinna need to see what had captured his attention.
