Hidden Jewel (Heartfire Series)

by Strong, Jennifer

  He nodded but turned to Jacob, eyeballing his twin with a distinctly accusatory glare, soundlessly demanding an explanation. Without taking his gaze from his brother's face, Micah pulled his hands from the warm cup and placed them on Ailill's cheeks, showing Jacob the perfect match in the size of his own hands.

  "I did," Jacob said in answer, his voice low, husky with regret. "And I'm sorry for it. I thought you were dying." His voice caught on that last word and he looked away, afraid that he might break down and cry again.

  Questioning, Micah turned his eyes back to Ailill's face. Her cheeks flushed under his palms, her eyes shiny with moisture, but she met his gaze with open honesty. "I am fine," she whispered, trying hard to give him a reassuring smile. "Still only you; no other. And you are not dying. I would not let you. My... ability, is not quite up to par yet, so the healing will take a bit longer. I'm sorry." The tiniest spark of a smile showed in the depths of his eyes and his hands fell away in exhaustion. "I believe you have a concussion though, so you cannot go to sleep. I'll be here to keep you awake," she added, raising the cup once again to his lips.

  His eyes met hers over the rim and she almost laughed aloud at the blatant question she saw there.

  "No, Micah, you can't," she scolded gently. Jacob looked at her in surprise, but said nothing. "Do you remember what happened?" Ailill asked after a moment.

  A hesitant nod turned into a shake of the head and he opened his mouth, earning a sharp look from Ailill. With a grimace, Micah shrugged and waggled his hand from side to side. So-so. His eyes traveled upwards, looking hard at the dark branches overhead before meeting her solemn gaze again.

  "It was already dying when it hit you, Micah," Jacob said in a low voice. "Ailill shot it twice. She saved your life. She saved both our lives." Turning toward her, Jacob asked, "how did you come to be there at just the right time, anyways? Did you dream this, too?"

  There was an edge to his tone that instantly set Ailill's frazzled nerves to humming. Micah watched a blanket fall over her eyes, closing the expression in them before she turned a dispassionate gaze on his twin.

  "I did not," she answered in clipped tones. "I was on my way to the cabin. I did not want to sleep alone. This is not the Highlands." Her voice sounded oddly detached and both men looked at her carefully.

  "Scairt." Micah's voice rasped barely above a whisper. He immediately raised the cup to his lips, soothing away the discomfort of that single uttered word.

  "Lonely," she corrected softly, the closed expression gone as suddenly as it had come. "It is far too easy to get used to sleeping between you. Which is the same reason you were on your way to me." Her eyes glittered in sudden fury. "Except that Iwasn't stupid enough to get high before takin' a walk in the dark! If it had been myself under that tree neither one of you would've had the quickness of your minds to save me. Imight be dead because you were both too fuckin' stoned out of your fuckin' minds to even aim your rifles at the right fuckin' beast!"

  Ailill stood abruptly, her eyes blazing, the color magified by tears that threatened to spill over. "You say you can't live without your brother, that you'd be dead, Jacob, but you know what? Icannot live without either of you! I told you not to come and you didn't listen. Now look what you've almost done! Thirty-four stitches between you; a terrible concussion! I thought you were both goin' to die tonight. I have never been more afraid in all my life! I do love you, can ye not see that? If anything were to happen to you Iwould wish to be dead because Iwould be to blame!"

  Two huge tears spilled over the dark fringe of Ailill's lower lashes, leaving a trail of quicksilver down each cheek. She turned away, shoulders hunched as if to ward off a blow, her heart squeezed in an agonizing emotional stranglehold. Yanking the leather strap of her rifle over her shoulder, she stepped soundlessly into the shadows.

  Micah stared after her until it became painfully obvious that she would not be returning anytime soon, if she returned at all. The doorway was close by, all too easily accessible. She could slip away without a backward glance. That much was a given. The question was, would she? He turned an intense gaze on his twin, his eyes gleaming like cold steel in the firelight, waiting. If he could talk, if his throat didn't feel like that cat had reached in and used his voicebox as a sharpening stone for it's claws, Micah would rip into his brother with the daggers that suddenly filled his mouth with a foul taste. If his head didn't feel like an anvil constantly hammered by the blood pounding mercilessly through his heart, he would call Jacob out for what he had done to Ailill; he would lay hands on his twin to avenge her. All this showed clearly on his face when Jacob finally met his eye; pulling back, his own eyes widened in surprise at the vehemence in Micah's expression.

  "I didn't do nothing!" he hissed with a sharp shake of the head that set the long tangled waves of his hair to swaying. "You heard her yourself. She said she's fine!"

  Micah stared at him hard for a moment, then, reaching over, grabbed up Jacob's hands in his own, yanking hard to pull him closer; raising them to his face, he inhaled deeply of her scent. The only proof he needed, in his eyes. Flinging Jacob's hands away in disgust, Micah leaned back against the tree, clutching his throbbing head in his hands with a rasping moan.

  "I was really scairt for ya, Micah. I thought all the screamin' you did hurt you more! When you passed out, after, I honestly thought you were dead. I freaked out on her, even after she told me you were alive. I demanded that she heal you, like she healed me and she said she couldn't, that she was still too weak. I thought she was lyin' and I hit her. She didn't say nothin', not one goddamned word. I wanted her to cry for you and she wouldn't so I hit her again!"

  Jacob's breathing was ragged, his eyes gleamed with a touch of his earlier rage and Micah stared at him, seeing the look that Ailill had witnessed herself, seeing the truth in the black fury that threatened to consume Jacob all over again. It was a look he'd seen all too often in the eyes of a beast, a usurper by the name of Kiah Black.

  "I used her," he spat, glaring into Micah's eyes. "I forced her to lay there and take all that I could give, all my anger, and even as I was ready, more than willin' to pound into her all I could think about was you, and everything that you told me, about the taste and smell of her. How you would never be with her if she didn't make you better. I couldn't do it, got that? I was gonna rape her and I couldn'tbring myself to do it!I can hear her, same as you; I can read her face like a book. She's meant for y'all, not me, and so I damn near sucked her dry, fucked my own fist not an inch from her cleft! Yeah, I used her hard, but I-did-not-fuck-her! She ain't mine, she's yours, and I promised myself that if she didn't make you better, if you died, Micah, then I would kill her and then myself and burn in Hell for all eternity for loving my own Brother too goddamned much!" Jumping up, Jacob stormed off into the darkness of the forest, in the opposite direction than Ailill had gone, leaving Micah much more wounded than he would ever know, vulnerable in more ways than one.

  "Open your eyes, Micah, ye need to stay awake."

  One dark blue eye peeked out through a narrow slit between thick black lashes, rolling slowly over her flushed face. "I knew you'd come back," he rasped, wincing at the scratchy feeling in the back of his throat. Taking the cup she held out to him with a sweet smile of gratitude, he drank deeply to slake his thirst.

  The sun was just beginning to peek through the tops of the oak trees Ailill had made her camp beneath and he squinted at her in agony. "Light hurts," he mouthed apologetically, pointing up at the sky with his eyes squeezed shut.

  "Oh, aye." Muttering incoherently, her voice muffled momentarily, Ailill slid a pair of dark sunglasses over his chiseled nose, grinning at the sight. "Better?" He blinked at her through the shaded lenses and nodded solemnly. "Ye look like a blind man." He smiled.

  "Ciamar a tha thu?" Her voice was soft, almost childlike, and Micah looked at her in surprise.

  "Head aches." He reached up, tentatively touching the bandage she had wound around his head hours before as he lay unc
onscious.

  "You hit your head on a jagged stone when ye fell." His dark eyebrows rose in query. "Twenty-two," she answered calmly. "And eight in your arm, where the cat's fangs punctured your flesh in her last grip on life. Jacob broke her jaws clean apart. If she hadn't already been dead, I believe he would have lost all of his fingers." Blood had soaked through the cotton fabric and dried into rust colored stains on the underside of his right arm. Micah stared at her in silence. "I have no idea where he has gone, only that he hasn't been back. I am sorry." She looked away and blinked, uncertain if it would be wise to say more.

  The light , feathery touch of Micah's fingers on her cheek brought Ailill's attention back to him. "Don't be sorry," he whispered, "don't ever be sorry, Abby. You saved us both." With a gentle tug, Micah pulled her unresisting onto his lap, wrapped his long arms securely around her small body. He kissed her with more tenderness than usual, drawing it out until he felt a tentative response in the relaxation of her limbs and a gentle stirring within himself. Raising his bandaged head, he whispered, "I'm sorry for what Jacob did to you. Did he...are you hurt?"

  Ailill shook her head. "I told you, I'm fine." Micah eyed her dubiously and she sighed in exasperation. "Will you be needing me to prove just how fine I am then, Micah?"

  He grinned down at her, the pleasure he felt at once again hearing her usual sarcasm suddenly very obvious between them, even as his head swayed from side to side. "Head aches," he repeated hoarsely, making Ailill laugh aloud.

  "That's right," she said, her voice suddenly sensual, full of regret. "You couldn't handle it anyway."

  Micah studied her closely through the darkened lenses, curious about her sudden change of mood. It was by unspoken agreement that both were still clinging to their informal union; it wasn't as if they'd said vows, after all.

  "You could?" His breath moved the hairs that had come loose from her plait and she ducked her head, unsure of how to answer. A deep flush rose up from the skin of her chest to her hairline and Micah pulled the glasses away, eyes squinted against the brightness of the sun, watching. He kissed her again, because he felt that he must; because he felt a tremor run through her that signaled another shift in the emotions already so close to the surface and he wanted to hold on to that particular one for a while longer.

  When they parted at last Ailill was breathing hard, her face awash with tears. "I'm sorry," she said hoarsely. "I was so worried about you. I'm sorry that I didn't fire sooner, you wouldn't be so wounded if I hadn't hesitated. It's my fault. I'm sorry that I made you scream and hurt your throat; you can't even talk and tell me what hurts. But mostly, I'm sorry... I cannot heal you, Micah. It is just too dangerous, with Kiah gone missing. If he were to show his face here, I wouldn't easily be able to defend myself. I cannot take such a chance. I'm sorry, so sorry-"

  "Shhshh, it's o.k." he whispered, smoothing the damp hairs away from her face. "Shh, listen." She stilled suddenly, her wet cheek resting in the palm of his large hand. She could hear his heart beating, feel the pulsebeat in his wrist; his steady breaths touched on her face like a caress. "I love you, Abby." The whispered words sent chills up her spine and she shivered, pressing against him for his warmth.

  Holding him close some time later, her head in a fog, her eyes shining softly with the reflection of the sun in the blue orbs, Ailill answered him with a whisper and fell into an exhausted slumber, cradled protectively in his arms, for the first time without the ghosts of her dreams, her memories, whispering in her ear.

  A warm breeze rustled through the endless ceiling of emerald leaves, stirring the thick black mass of tangled hair that had fallen across Micah's cheek, making his eyes pop open once again behind the dark lenses that shielded them from the brightness of a mid-morning sun. The air smelled of damp, loamy earth and growing things. A fresh, healthy scent that made his nose twitch and the back of his raw throat tickle. His limbs tingled with the need for exercise and he shifted uncomfortably in effort to ease the ache and numbness that had settled in his backside after five hours of sitting upright against the trunk of a tree. He wished that he could stretch out next to Ailill's soft body and go to sleep, as he had wanted to do the night before.

  He had been watching her sleep, wondering at the many sides that she had shown him already, unsure of how many more layers he would find hidden deep within her; unsure if he really wanted to see more, though he knew there would be more to come for, if his suppositions were borne out, if she was truly what hehad begun to believe that she was, even the simple fact that she was not quite human was enough to know that there had to be far more to her. It was a fact that had held his thoughts often in the past weeks, though he had not even revealed the whole of his thoughts, his seemingly wild imaginings, to Jacob, let alone anyone else. Ailill had proven herself over and over since her return to Jewel Mountain. She was the most accomplished person he had ever known, in any area. If she were his daughter, Micah thought, he would feel much more than simple pride for her. And yet, her parents seemed to always want more; as if being the very best at everything that had ever been set before her was not good enough. It was more than difficult to understand exactly what was up with the Mackintoshes, especially when he had seen firsthand how hard she pushed herself in order to appease their unwarranted demands, their abnormally high expectations. James, himself, didn't seem to be as accomplished as his own young daughter, though Micah would readily admit that he was much better rounded than Kiah would ever be; and yet, when the man spoke of her taking over the leadership, he made it sound as if it were as daunting as the ruling of an entire country instead of a tiny village well-hidden high up in the Smoky Mountains with a piddling population of only a few hundred people. Ailill fairly killed herself on a day-to-day basis with the intense physical aspects of working a prosperous ranch, keeping her body in top form by daily workouts with weights and an odd form of stretching exercises, "to keep her battle muscles limber" her grandmother had explained when Jacob had asked. The tiny woman's abilities, her stubborn perseverance and inexhaustible stamina, in any form of physical combat had shocked Micah, especially after James had insisted that she take on both he and his twin in a sparring match with broadswords. Two against half, as he had thought it at the time, though she had shown how very well she had learned under the tutelage of some sort of cousin back in Scotland; an unfair set of odds, most definitely; she had made it look easy, beating both men in less than a quarter of an hour with such a look of intense fury that it stole the very air from Micah's lungs, as well as the ability to think rationally. She'd seemed to become an inhuman beast, or at least something very close to that, for a very brief moment, though Micah knew, from the teachings of Kiah, and later of James, that that was part of it; the ability to psych out the enemy using any means possible. That was the harsh side of her; the shockingly battle-hardened young woman. The softer side was what he awoke for each and every day; the sweet, loving side. She was the nicest girl he had ever met; the most loving; though she had laughingly explained that away as the unfairness of genetics, in that she had been born with the purest of pure, and that made her have the "strength of a man, yet ever after be cursed with the emotions of a wee lassie." She had too many layers within her small self and it troubled him. He thought that it was highly possible that she was like a living time-bomb, that the constant demands of every person in her life might one day touch on the wrong button, a raw nerve, and that the resultant explosion would be quite devastating. There were signs already that she was struggling with her own inner demons far more frequently than she ever had before; and it wasn't only the dreams that proved it. Something had come over her not long before, although, try as he might, he could not put his finger on exactly what it was or what had brought it on.

  Moving suddenly as the sun's rays lit on the blaze of her hair, Ailill had drawn back, her eyes staring through him, pupils dilated into dark pools of desire. She was lost somewhere deep inside herself, did not hear his breathless grunt of surprise as she straddled him
or even the demands, the unspoken truths, that her own husky voice mumbled in a continuous stream into his ear. Her small, strong hands, wrapped about the taut organ beneath his kilt, her legs held him still as she moved on him, fully clothed yet taking from him the reassurance of his inviolable will to live with gentle force and a breathless cry of triumph as she felt his body shudder beneath her hands. She had expressed her love for him then with a sweet kiss and a soft whisper, collapsed against his bare chest with a sigh of relief, and had not woken up since.

  He wondered if that was her way of saying goodbye to him, to the love that he had given her since the first day they met. He hoped not.

  The fire had nearly burnt itself out, the perfectly laid cube of deadfall collapsing one layer at a time with such precision that Micah was sure he could set a clock to it, if he had so desired. Eying the pot of medicinal tea that Ailill had left on the outermost ring of stones, Micah slowly pushed himself up, away from the softness of the bison fur and Ailill, holding onto the rough bark of a tree for support as the whirling sensation in his head ebbed little by little. One slow, cautious step, and then another brought him within arms reach of the pot and he drank thirstily, ignoring the burn far back in his throat from the sudden heat. Setting the empty container in the dirt next to the firepit, he swallowed down a sudden wave of nausea and moved to the edge of the clearing to pass water. When he turned back, Jacob was standing beside the firepit, gazing down at Ailill's sleeping face, a distant look in his deep blue eyes, as if he, too, were lost in that same place that Ailill had been before the demands of her body took over.