The Blood and The Bloom (Men of Blood Book 1)
Page 35
“So, she is the one you broke your vow for?” his father asked, surprising Tristin.
“How did you know?”
His father’s grin was slow and knowing. “Son, it’s hard to hide that kind of affection for a woman. Every time you look at her, I can see you revisiting those intimate moments in your mind.”
Heat rushed into his cheeks. Damn, but he never thought to have this kind of conversation with his father.
“Aye, she is the one.”
“And…you plan to marry her?”
“Well, there has to be a wedding, otherwise the king will be none too pleased,” Tristin reminded him, jesting.
His father’s laughter bounced around in the gathering darkness. “The king cares more about marrying off his toadies than he does about your marrying.”
“But…you said…” Tristin tripped over his own thoughts. “You lied?”
“That I did…but…it seemed like the only way to keep the cardinal from stretching your neck.”
Flabbergasted, Tristin blinked down at his father, a man he obviously knew little about. “What happens when the cardinal finds out?”
His father’s grin grew to encompass his face. “Then I will go to confession.”
Feeling lighter than he’d ever felt, Tristin let the chuckle rumble from his chest, the sound carrying with it the tension and fears that had weighed on him since his boyhood.
“Tristin,” Elric appeared at the inn doorway. “She’s awake!”
Chapter Thirty-One
Bell Heather blinked slowly, trying to focus her eyes on the room. There was light, a lot of light… Moonlight? She wasn’t in the dungeon any more…
They’d come for her, dragging her, laughing… She was going to die…
“Calleaux, please. Hang me, I care not. But you cannot harm her…” Then, there was Tristin’s voice in the dark. He was speaking about her, he was trying to save her…
“Tristin,” she croaked.
“Bell Heather!” Tristin cried, then she felt his hands on her cheeks. He was warm. He was alive.
“Am I…alive?” she rasped, trying to see passed the haze over her eyes.
He chuckled. “Aye.”
She licked her lips, then blinked, hating how vulnerable she was, lying there, blind and ignorant.
“What…what happened?” she forced out through her parched throat. “The last thing I remember is being dragged from the cell…”
Tristin growled, and she recoiled, uncertain of the direction of his ire.
“Calleaux meant to hang you,” Tristin replied, his voice heavy with anger.
Her thoughts fluttered back to the bits and pieces that she’d heard…but hadn’t that been a dream?
“But ye saved me,” she interjected. “Ye offered yerself in my place…” She swallowed the hot tears forming. “Why would ye do that?” The tears spilled free and she sobbed.
She felt strong arms encircle her and she let the tears fall. She missed this—she missed him. All those long hours in the dark, terrified and hopeless. All those hours wondering if Tristin had abandoned her. And he’d saved her, instead. Just as he promised he would.
“I would die a million times if it meant the chance to save you just once,” Tristin replied, his deep voice sending shudders through her. Her tears fell faster, her sobs racking her frame, and she could feel the wetness of Tristin’s tunic against her cheeks.
Once the tears were spent, she blinked, and the room finally came into focus. She pulled away and looked up. Tristin…the face of the man she loved. She wanted to soar, to revel in the fact that he hadn’t betrayed her. But then, she remembered; another voice in the darkness…
“…my son wrote to me…chosen a bride…”
He was getting married. A fist of anguish slammed into her heart and her breath caught. She trembled, trying to sit up, to pull away from the embrace of a man who wasn’t hers.
“Bell Heather? What is it?” Tristin asked, his black eyebrows furrowing in concern. He shouldn’t be concerned about her. She wasn’t his responsibility anymore. His burden. His duty.
“I think I should be going. I cannot begin to think what Maude has been doing in my absence,” she replied, her tone thick with a new wash of unshed tears.
He grabbed her arm and she pulled out his grasp, reaching for the counterpane to throw it off her legs, but his hand was on hers before she could.
“You have been unconscious for two days. I have been feeding you water and broth, and sitting at your bedside, praying you would return to me. You are in no condition to travel. I told Elric to send up some proper food from the kitchen. You will eat, you will grow strong.” Tristin removed her hands from the counterpane and pressed them to his chest. She tried to take her hands back but he held them tight. “Once you are well, we will travel to Clarendon together.” Shocked, Bell Heather glanced up at him, his black eyes were dancing. “I think it is time I officially met Maude. I have quite a bit of apologizing to do.”
Wary, Bell Heather narrowed her eyes, trying to ignore the suddenly rapid heartbeat beneath her palms. “And why would ye need to apologize to Maude?”
A slow, wicked, dastardly smile spread across his handsome face, and her heart thudded. “Because, I will need her to like me so that when I ask her for her blessing, she will gladly give it,” he answered, his voice a deep, rumbling she could feel in her fingertips.
She swallowed.
“Blessing? For what?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
He leaned forward and brushed his lips over her forehead, then her eyes, then the tip of her nose, before finally brushing his lips over hers. His breath was hot against her mouth, and her body responded to her nearness.
“I want to marry you, Bell Heather,” Tristin murmured against her mouth, and when she gasped, he pressed in, capturing her lips. He buried his hands in her hair, holding her to him as he ravished her mouth like a man starving. And she was starving, too. Moaning, she entwined her arms around his neck, pulling him down, desperate to feel him against her. But, before she could beg him as her wanton body demanded, he broke their kiss, drawing back to look down at her. Scorching, his eyes raked over her face, taking in her eyes, her mouth, and the rise and fall of her chest. He was panting, too.
“I love you, Bell Heather. You have enchanted me from the beginning, and I never want to awaken from your spell. You are the heart of me, the breath of my body, and I want to spend the rest of my life breathing you in.”
Her heart flew, rising into the sky on wings of joy. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes, but Tristin wiped them away with his thumbs. “Ye mean it?” she whispered, her voice a desperate plea.
Tristin’s face lit up, his love shining from every feature. “Aye.”
Another sob escaped—a happy one.
“Do you love me?” he asked, worry creasing his forehead.
She grinned, sliding her hand over his chest, up his neck to cup his face. “I love ye, and I think I have since ye brought me roasted grouse and carried me into the forest to piss.”
Tristin threw back his head and laughed, the rich sound welcome.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, leaning down to whisper the question against her lips.
In answer, she kissed him, pooling every last ounce of her love for him into it.
A loud cough dragged her from the moment. “I take it that there is something to celebrate?” Glenn’s voice said from the doorway. Bell Heather jumped back, her body immediately tense. Heat flew into her cheeks and she noticed Glenn was standing beside Elric who holding a tray and was standing beside a man Bell Heather had never seen before. Elric and Glenn were grinning like fools, but the other man was peering at she and Tristin with a wistfulness she’d never experienced before. He had the look of Tristin around the eyes, though his hair and eyebrows were silver.
It was Tristin’s father.
“You have god-awful timing, Fraser!” Tristin bellowed, and Glenn, Elric, and Tristin’s father b
eat a hasty retreat, leaving the food tray, and closing the door behind them.
Alone again, Tristin turned back to her, and it was her turn to grin like a fool.
“So, I will take that as a yes, my love?” Tristin drawled, a shadow of fear and uncertainty in his eyes.
“On one condition,” she said, not quite ready to let the moment pass.
He snapped up straight, his expression serious. “Anything.”
“Ye will need to build us a new cottage, a larger one,” she said, dipping her face and gazing up at him from beneath her eyelashes. He blinked down at her, confusion written in his forehead.
“Why?” he asked.
She slid closer to him, kissing him on the neck, then the chin. He trembled against her and she smiled. “Because, I want you to fill it with many children.”
Tristin pulled back to stare down at her and she laughed at the look of utter bliss on his face.
“Oh, I can do that,” he boasted, sliding his hand under the counterpane to grasp her thigh. She shuddered, moaning, glorying in his touch.
“Which one,” she purred, drawing out the moment for just a bit longer, her hunger for food forgotten.
He chuckled low, deep, sensually. “Both.”
And as a ray of moonlight burst through the cloud cover outside, it shone into the room onto them, bathing them in its blessing.
The tales of the Men of Blood have only just begun. Be sure to return for Elric’s story in, The Fire and the Sword, Men of Blood #2.