“The ultimate gift.” She touched her nose to his and grinned. “I promise not to argue with you for one entire day.”
Hmm, let him try not to take that bait.
* * * *
John chuckled as mischief danced in Katherine’s big blue eyes. She knew just how to tempt and entice him as no other woman ever had. “That is one tempting offer, little imp.”
“I do try.”
“I will need to think on it.” He slid his fingers through her long white-blond hair glimmering gold in the firelight. “But mayhap from that chair. Being in the same bed as you is addling my senses.”
“Nothing addles you.” She traced the indent in his chin then kissed the spot. “Please, I’d love to see your sacred cavern.”
“Mayhap if you spoke of your nightmares and shared the burden, I might consider that a justifiable bargain.” He stroked down her sides and over her hips. “They haunt you and I cannae stand it.”
“You strike a hard bargain.” She breathed deep and slowly nodded. “All right. In my nightmares I see my death.”
“What?” Surely she jested, only from the firm expression on her face, she didn’t.
“When I’m asleep, I keep reliving the moment before I arrived, while I was stuck between times inside the faerie circle. I see myself bleeding from a wound on my neck.” She nibbled on her lower lip and he rubbed his thumb along the reddened mark.
“Continue. I wish to hear it all.”
“My dreams feel more like returning memories.”
“You came through the veil with no wounds.”
“Yes, which makes my dreams all the more strange.” She trailed a finger down his neck and into the deep V of his tunic. “Do you recall Marie’s neck wound?”
“Aye. When Archie took his blade to Lachlan during the battle at the Rhinns, Marie cried out and clasped her neck as a wound suddenly opened out of nowhere. Archie held his hand against MacLean, then bound hers and Lachlan’s wounds. She bled because her paternal ancestor did.”
“In my dreams, I suffered the same injury as Marie, in the exact same spot.”
“Archie didnae take MacLean’s life. He bound her wound and she survived.”
“There was so much blood, and I had no one there to stem the flow like Marie did.”
“Nay, I dinnae believe it. You’re alive and have no’ perished.” He pulled her closer, held her tight.
“I also dream of my parents. They were there with me in the circle and I have no idea how that could’ve happened, not when—” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I fought for each breath I could until one of the fae shimmered into sight and pressed again my chest. The heat of her touch moved through my body and everything felt so peaceful.”
“I was there when you came through the veil.” He aligned every inch of their bodies. “You were well and truly alive with no’ a drop of blood on you.”
“Yes, but I think the fae must have removed it. The next thing I remember is coming to and hearing Marie call my name. Then you and Archie arrived.” She sniffed. “I know it all seems strange, but the moment you and I touched, I felt like I’d just come home, as if I was whole again.”
“You are home when you’re with me.” Rubbing his cheek against hers, he gave into the deep need within him to draw her even closer. He rolled her onto her back and looked deep into her shimmering blue eyes. “Katherine, may I kiss you?”
Her breath hitched and her pupils darkened. “There’s something about you that calls to me, but kissing really should be off the table.”
“That’s no’ the answer I seek.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, history must remain on course.” She raised a brow. “I can’t change the path you’re supposed to travel, and kissing me isn’t part of that path.”
“One kiss willnae change my future.”
“You’re also a temptation I need to resist.”
“And you’re a temptation I have no intention of resisting.” He brushed his mouth over hers, so gently, so softly, then as she softened underneath him, he urged her lips farther apart and delved deeper into the delicious recesses of her mouth. Desire swarmed his senses and he feasted, kissing her as he’d secretly longed to since the moment they’d met.
“Oh my goodness, are we truly kissing?” She melted against him, her breath whispering softly across his tongue in a teasing caress he wanted more of.
“Aye, and I need another.” He kissed her again, indulging and welcoming the raw intimacy he hadn’t a chance of halting.
“You make me feel so alive, John.” She tugged his shirttails free and slipped her hands underneath his tunic. Palms warm against his flesh, she stroked along his sides and over his lower back. “Tonight, the fae also told me there was magic all around me, and to draw on the touch of fae in my blood.”
“You have fae in your blood?” He lifted up and stared into her eyes.
“Not that I’ve ever known. Neither of my parents certainly ever mentioned a thing.” She pressed her breasts against his chest, kissed along his jaw and nibbled his ear. “You taste so good. Even though I shouldn’t, I like kissing you.”
“If you are part fae then that would explain how you so easily scatter my thoughts.” He rubbed his hips against hers and his cock stiffened and pushed into her belly. “Aye, and far too much.” He blew out a long breath and flopped onto his back. “My apologies. I’ve let things go too far.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“’Tis time for us to sleep.” He fisted his hands so as not to reach for her again. “Rest, Katherine. I’ll watch over you throughout the night.”
“I know you will.” She closed her eyes and as her breathing evened out, she fell asleep.
He too allowed sleep to take him.
Chapter 2
Content and deep asleep, images swirled through Katherine’s mind. The lushness of the forest beckoned and John held her hand, his fingers tangled with hers as he led her along a thin leaf-strewn trail. Low branches brushed her arms as they tramped. “Where are we?”
“Close to the cliffs overlooking the ocean.”
The sanctuary of the woods gave way to water gushing somewhere close by.
“We’re almost there.” He withdrew his sword and slashed the thick vegetation blocking the path then stepped through into a beam of sunshine.
She stumbled after him and gasped. Water rushed over a stone ledge, streamed around thick boulders and flowed into a river completely concealed and surrounded by towering trees. “What a beautiful waterfall.”
“’Tis one that hides the entrance to my sacred cavern.”
“I can’t believe you actually brought me here.”
“Destiny ensured ’twas so.” He glanced skyward where thick gray clouds rolled in and blocked out the sun. “It looks like a storm is about to roll in. We need to hurry.”
Birds twittered from their nests high above as he guided her toward the waterfall then jumped from boulder to boulder and onto the stone ledge. She followed in his tracks.
“This way.” Between two cracks in the rock, slick with the water’s spray, he squeezed through.
“I’m coming.” She eased through the gap then scampered down the precariously wet tunnel carved of stone. “Thank you for sharing this place with me.”
“You and I are bound, Katherine, in a way I dinnae understand. ’Tis best if there are no secrets between us.” He leaped from the edge of the passageway and landed with a soft thump onto the grainy white sand three feet below. Arms extended, he nodded. “Jump.”
She sprang into his arms and he swung her down beside him. Water lapped onto a small curved beach surrounded by black rocks glistening from the hot pool’s rising steam. So beautiful.
“Do you see that vent?” He pointed upward at the craggy ceiling where a trickle of light beamed through a tiny cavity and washed over the pool’s glassy, darkened surface.
“Yes. Is that the vent that leads out over the cliffs?”
“Aye, the very on
e, although ’tis too small to climb through.”
“It’s a wonder you ever found this place.” She brushed gritty sand from her teal skirts and a stringy cobweb from her arm. “How often do you come?” It would be a crime not to enjoy the seclusion and beauty this place offered.
“There’s rarely time when my duties to my clan come first.” He removed his sword belt, propped it against a rock and divested himself of his wrist daggers. His dark brown hair wisped with golden ends swept his shoulders as he crouched at the water’s edge and swirled a hand through. Waves rippled across the stillness.
“Sometimes one has to make time.” Grinning, she unlaced her gown’s front stays, wriggled her hips and allowed the fine velvet to slither to the ground. She picked it up, laid it overtop one of the boulders at the rear of the cave and rolled her sark’s sleeves to her elbow.
“You shouldnae undress afore me in such a way.” John stared at her, a hunger in his eyes that made her catch her breath, a look that she secretly loved.
“Sorry, but I don’t see a dressing screen here.” She dipped her toes into the water then waded in. Her ankle-length white linen shift tangled around her legs as she lowered to her chest. “In the future, women wear swimsuits, not a sark to swim in.”
“And what is a swimsuit?” He perched on a rock and tugged off his boots.
“It’s a small suit of clothing one wears in the water that allows fluid movement.” She lifted her sark’s hem over her head and tossed it onto the sand where it hit with a resounding slap.
John’s hands stilled on the fastening of his white tunic’s ties. He lifted his gaze and ogled the mop of wet linen on the sand. “You unclothed yourself?”
“I’m wearing the equivalent of a two-piece swimsuit underneath. My bra and panties will do as a bikini. A girl can’t give up all her favorite pieces of clothing when she travels to the past. Anyway, it’s dark and I’m underneath the water. Just strip off and hop in.”
“You tempt me beyond my endurance.” He shucked his tunic, leaving his black leather pants on as he strode toward her. His wide chest held a smattering of hair, the same dark shade as his head. Thick biceps bulged as he dove in, his entire body sculpted from hours of rigorous training. Underneath the water, he appeared as a murky shadow until he emerged in a spray of water, a mere breath before her. “Aye, ’tis dark enough. I see naught.”
“Trust me. You’ve nothing to fear from my underwear. Let me show you.” She caught his hands, slid them around her waist. “A bra has two pieces of fabric which cover a woman’s breasts and—”
“Oh hell.” He stretched his hands and spanned her bare skin more fully. “Your belly is exposed.”
“And my legs.” She eased his hands down her sides, over the thin silk edges of her panties and along her outer thighs. “But everything important is covered.”
“’Tis becoming far too difficult to keep my hands off you.” Husky words that made her shiver with need, and for the life of her, she couldn’t push him away.
Instead, she rested her cheek on his chest and allowed the heavy beat of his heart to soothe her. For some reason, his life force did. “John, I—”
His form wavered and he disappeared.
Another barrage of images flared to life, of a scraggly bearded warrior with a grass-stained tattered tunic smeared with blood. The warrior hauled her toward a skiff beached on the shore of an isolated cove. “Make haste,” the man snapped.
“You have to let me go.” Arms bound behind her, she stumbled in her heavy sapphire skirts across jutting rocks and onto a pebbly beach, the sunshine glinting off her amulet and catching her in the eyes.
“The MacDonalds watch you like a hawk. The guards will notice you’re missing afore too long. There can be no delay.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’re the faerie my chief brought into camp when we fought to take the Rhinns, the one who appeared from Dunyvaig’s faerie stones. My chief believed since a MacLean came forth from the guardians’ circle, it proves Islay belongs to us.”
Few could tell the difference between her and Marie, and it could only have been her sister he’d spoken of. “I’m not only MacLean but also MacDonald.”
“Aye, but with Lachlan choosing to use you to lure the MacDonalds into a battle, then so will I. Except on our own land where we’ll have a greater fighting force.”
“I’ll never aid you in your war, not when the fae have given me the task to bring about some peace.”
“There will never be peace.” He spat on the ground. “You have the power to aid us in the return of our land, and even though the MacDonalds captured my chief and handed Lachlan over to the king’s men following our battle, I willnae give up his fight. As my hostage, you’ll provide me with the bargaining power I need over the MacDonalds. The Rhinns will be ours. Make no mistake about that.” He tossed her into the skiff’s hull, pushed the boat into the water and sprayed drops over her as he bounded in.
In the distance along the coastline, the MacDonald stronghold stood guard like a sentinel. She’d never wanted to leave John this way. Pain speared through her.
* * * *
A heart-wrenching cry echoed around the room and John snapped upright in bed.
“Please, no.” Katherine sobbed as she stood across the chamber rocking before the narrow window, her face eerily pale in the moon’s glow. “The MacDonalds will come after you, Finlay. There can be no more bloodshed.”
“Katherine.” He burst across the chamber, grasped her shoulders and turned her around. “’Tis I, John.”
“So c-cold,” she mumbled, her gaze blank.
“Wake and all will be well.” He pulled her into his arms and murmured soothingly, “’Tis naught but a nightmare which holds you. Who’s Finlay?”
“Finlay MacLean.” She blinked and her gaze cleared. Clasping his face with chilled fingers, she gasped. “John?”
“Aye, you’re awake now.”
“I’m at Dunyvaig?” She glanced around the chamber, squeezed her eyes shut then opened them again. “My nightmares have taken a turn. I didn’t dream of my death tonight but of something else.”
“You spoke Finlay MacLean’s name. Come and tell me all.” He eased her in under the covers, wrapped himself around her in order to provide as much warmth as he could then nudged her to begin.
“The first dream was so sweet. You took me to your sacred cavern. A waterfall streamed over a stone ledge and a tunnel led deep underground. Steam rose and glistened over black rocks surrounding a pool of hot water.”
“I spoke of the cavern this eve.” Not that he’d mentioned the stone ledge and waterfall. “Mayhap you dreamt of it since ’twas one of the last things we spoke of.”
“I saw it so clearly. A trickle of moonlight beamed in through an overhead vent that lead out over the ocean’s cliffs. We swam and I listened to your heartbeat.” She gripped his hem, lifted his tunic over his head and tossed it onto the floor. Swiftly, she edged over top of him and straddled his hips. Her gaze skimmed his chest then she wriggled down and pressed her ear to his chest. “The sound of your heartbeat soothed me, just as it soothes me now.”
“Tell me more about the cavern.” He couldn’t deny the accuracy of her description of the hidden entrance.
“There was a hunger in your eyes and I wanted to kiss you.” She pressed her mouth to his flat nipple, teased the tight flesh with her tongue and teeth and sighed. “Sooo good.”
“Katherine, you cannae tempt me so.” Sensations stormed through him, a whirlwind of desire and need. Nay, he wouldn’t take advantage of her, not when she’d awoken so distressed. “You cried out and spoke of a MacLean warrior, that the MacDonalds would come for him, and that there can be no more bloodshed.”
“One moment I was in the pool with you and in the next, the dream changed. I saw a warrior, a man who believed me to be Marie. He’d seen my sister during the battle at the Rhinns. I didn’t deny I was her.”
“We captured as many
of the warriors who tried to take the Rhinns as we could. None remain on Islay, that I’m aware of.”
“He was never caught but trekked here and now wishes retribution. He took me as his hostage, to use me as a bargaining chip in this war.”
“I’d never allow the enemy to take you.”
“The dreams feel so real, like a foretelling of things to come.” She sat upright and planted her hands on his chest. “The faerie. She said there is magic all around me, that I only had to open my eyes to see it.”
“Do you believe you have the sight?” He couldn’t deny the extenuating circumstances of her arrival. Magic had brought her here, and through time itself. Perhaps her dreams were an omen of things to come.
“I’ve never seen the future unfold before, but then again, I’ve never traveled through time either. A lot of firsts have happened since I’ve arrived on your isle. I’ve dreamed of my parents, my own death, and now your cavern and my abduction. It all feels so real. I need answers.”
“Mayhap it is all real.” He caught her hands, pressed her palms to his lips and grazed his mouth across her soft skin.
“Oh, when you touch me like that, I swear I can feel it to the depths of my soul.” She leaned in and brushed her lips across his. “Do you feel it too?”
“Aye.” Since the moment she’d fallen through the veil something strong had bound them together. Deep in his soul, only peace came when she remained close by and within his sight. Cradling her face in his hands, he murmured, “On the morrow, I shall take you to my cavern. Promise me you’ll keep its location a secret.”
“Of course. I would never show another.”
“Then ’twill be done.” He wrapped his arms around her, held her close. “I’ll permit no more secrets between us.”
“You said that in my dream, or something very like it.” She lifted her chin, her gaze firm on his.
“Then I clearly meant it. Rest now. I’ll watch over you throughout the rest of the night.”
“Thank you.” She settled against him, her breath blowing warmly across his chest.
Highlander's Faerie (Highlander Heat Book 5) Page 3
