by Lucy Monroe
"If you drop me, I'm afraid I'll sink into a dark abyss, that the water will hold me down until all my air is gone, until I die… I… I feel like the lake is bottomless, that I will be lost forever. Promise me, you will not drop me."
He was impressed with her for having the courage to voice her fears. "I have already made this promise."
"Say it again."
"I promise I will not let you sink."
She smiled gratefully, though it was a poor attempt. Her mouth trembled and she had turned the color of parchment. "Thank you."
"The loch is not bottomless either, lass."
"I know, but…"
"I am standing on the bottom now and it does not go over my head for a dozen or more feet out."
"I would like to learn to swim here then."
He kissed her softly on her partially parted lips. "All right, sweeting."
A hot blush stole over her cheeks at the endearment and it was all he could do not to kiss her again. She was so damn precious. And she made him smile. He'd been laird for a decade, ever since his father's death in battle, taking on the responsibilities shortly after his voice changed. He'd learned restraint early. He'd also learned duty was more important than pleasure and he had spent the last ten years proving that.
This slip of a woman made him crave the pleasure. She was dangerous, but she was also irresistible.
She gasped and grabbed onto his shoulders the first time he tried to let her go. He found himself almost forgetting their shared nudity in his quest to help her overcome her terror of the water. It took an hour to get her floating with his hand only lightly touching her back, but he was so proud of her for getting that far that he was grinning when he heard an approaching soldier.
He looked down at her lovely body exposed to his gaze and the summer sun and for the first time in an hour saw her as the soldier approaching might see her. Her breasts, belly and thighs floated above the water, while the rest of her was revealed through its crystal clear depths. He had swum naked with femwolves before, and even had sex with them afterward, but never before had he felt the sense of possessiveness he did toward Emily right now.
She was not his woman, but he did not want anyone else to see her this way. Her berry-ripe nipples were beaded from the cold water, and the golden brown curls on her feminine mound glistened with droplets of moisture. Her thighs were apart just far enough for his hand to slide between them and touch her delicate folds if he wanted to.
His hand itched to do just that, but his senses told him the soldier would be there soon.
He sighed soundlessly and then spoke. "Someone is coming."
She'd been floating with her eyes closed upon his instruction, but now they flew open and she tried to sit up. Because she was in the water, she started to sink instead, of course, and he had to grab her to keep her face from going under.
She spluttered and latched onto his shoulders with urgent fingers. "Where? Who?" She frantically looked around the clearing. "I don't see anyone."
"He will be here in a few seconds."
"I suppose you can hear him," she said sarcastically.
"Yes."
She frowned and shook her head. "It makes no sense and I don't know why, but I believe you."
"I do not lie."
"I need my clothes." When he didn't move fast enough to suit her, she tried to shake him. "Now, before he gets here."
He was in complete agreement, but it still took him a moment to force his muscles to obey the command to leave the water. Now that he wasn't focused on teaching her to swim, his need for her was taking precedence over his common sense. His wolf wanted to touch and taste her delectable naked curves.
"Lachlan!"
The wolf would have to wait along with his wholly human need. Using the speed of his inner beast, he carried her to the shore, and then threw his plaid around her like a blanket. The soldier was approaching at a run and would break through the concealing trees in a few seconds. She grabbed the edges of the plaid, making sure it covered her. It was not a woman's plaid and though he was much bigger than she was, a good portion of her legs was still exposed.
He shoved her shift and tunic at her. "Go over there and dress." He pointed to a dense clump of bushes that would hide her from even a werewolf's gaze, though the man approaching was only human.
Lachlan didn't need to be in wolf form to pick up Ulf's scent at this distance. His senses were superior even in his human body, but not quite as good as when he changed.
Emily had grabbed her clothes and disappeared behind the bushes. "You are going to meet your soldier naked?" she called.
"It is my brother."
His plaid landed on the ground a foot or so from the bushes. "Get dressed."
"A captive does not give a laird orders," he instructed her.
"This one does."
He almost laughed at her impudence. He knew no other woman like her… femwolf or human. He had just picked up the plaid when Ulf came into the clearing.
He was scowling. There was nothing new in that. His brother smiled less frequently than he did, but the look of accusation in his eyes irritated Lachlan. Ulf believed his family position gave him the right to question his laird, and Lachlan often humored him. It was not his brother's fault he had not been born werewolf.
He had pitied his older brother since the year came for Ulf's first change and it did not happen. Their father had been disappointed; their mother had been relieved and Ulf had learned that unlike what he had believed since childhood, he would not one day rule the Balmorals. There had been signs that his brother was fully human all along, but their father had ignored them, insisting his sons were both wolves.
He had been wrong. Only one had carried the ability to change and it had been Lachlan. From the week after his first full moon as a werewolf, he had been trained to take over the clan one day. Ulf had never protested. It would have done no good. A human could not survive a challenge by a werewolf and Lachlan would have challenged Ulf's leadership if he had tried to assert it. For the good of the clan.
His entire life had been lived toward that greater good and he was not about to forget his responsibilities now.
"Where is she?" Ulf demanded by way of greeting.
Lachlan could hear Emily pause in her struggle to tug her clothing on. She'd also stopped breathing, as if waiting to hear how Lachlan answered.
He nodded toward the bushes with his head while he secured his plaid.
Ulf's scowl grew more pronounced. "What is she doing over there? You're wet. You were naked when I arrived. Have you taken to tumbling your enemy's castoffs in the water? I thought you only indulged in that sort of thing with femwolves."
Lachlan knocked his brother to the ground with a hard shove. "Guard your tongue."
Ulf had the grace to look chagrined when he realized what he had said. Emily was no more aware than most of the humans in the Highlands of the wolf nature inhabiting some of their clanspeople. Ulf knew the penalty of betraying the Chrechte's secrets to those who should not know.
Death. And being the laird's brother would not save him.
Lachlan did not know what Emily would do if she knew the pack's secret, but she was human and that meant they did not take the chance.
Then, to cover both Ulf's blunder and his own correction, he said, "She is no one's castoff, as I have told you."
Emily muttered something about arrogant men poking their noses into business that was not theirs and he had no doubts she could hear every word he and his brother spoke.
Ulf showed no evidence of hearing her low-voiced grumbling as he climbed to his feet. "Yet she does belong to your enemy."
"He refused her." Lachlan was bloody weary of discussing the Sinclair laird.
"And you plan to keep her in his place?" Ulf asked with derisive bite.
"No." Lachlan did not understand his brother's derision.
Emily was human, but so was Ulf. She was not the other laird's castoff and if Lachlan chose to keep h
er, he could not see what objection Ulf might raise. Unless he, too, was concerned about Lachlan's children being born wolf.
Ulf, better than anyone, knew the price paid when a child born to a Chrechte and a human took human form instead of a wolf's. Their race did not reproduce easily, but to do so and not pass on the gifts of the Chrechte was a tragedy.
"You are giving a great imitation of a man governed by his lust rather than his head." Ulf's criticism stung because it was so close to the truth.
Lachlan was too proud to admit such a thing though. "I grow weary of your harping, brother. You sound like a fretful old woman."
"Better than a man at the mercy of his beast."
Lachlan usually let comments like that slide, but enough was enough. His brother needed reining in. "Be careful I do not unleash my beast on you," he said with chilling bite.
Ulf winced, but quickly controlled his features. His strength in the face of even a Chrechte's threat impressed Lachlan. He had always admired his human brother and while he had pitied Ulf's inability to make the change, he'd never made the mistake of thinking the older man was weak for what he was.
Not wanting to risk Emily hearing anything more that might betray his secrets, he led his brother far from the bushes she was now simply hiding behind. She'd finished dressing but had not come out, and he didn't know if it was because she was embarrassed or because she didn't like his brother, or both.
He stopped a good thirty feet away. "Say what you came here to say."
Ulf's hands fisted at his sides. "First tell me honestly if you have plans to marry the woman."
"You should know better than that. I will not marry a human."
"Not even a clanswoman?" Ulf asked.
"Nay."
"You're worried the Chrechte's secrets will be revealed."
"That is part of it." Intermating always carried such a risk. There had been a time when it had been expressly forbidden, but that was before the Chrechte joined the Celtic clans. Many maintained the ancient ways though.
His father had not.
"You're afraid all of your offspring would be like me, instead of just one, aren't you?" Ulf asked, sounding bitter.
"It is the responsibility of all Chrechte, but especially the leaders, to make sure our race does not die out."
"I am no less a Chrechte warrior than you because I have no beast to overcome my human logic."
Lachlan did not agree, but he could not explain to his brother, who had no wolf, what it meant to know the beast lived inside him giving him strength and superior abilities. Far from diminishing his ability to think logically, his beast added an animal cunning to his thoughts that no human could emulate.
"There is no need for this argument. I have told you I do not intend to keep the Englishwoman. Why is not important."
"To you maybe."
"To you either. My decisions are not subject to your approval, nor are my thoughts."
"You're so damn arrogant."
"Emily thinks that's a Highland trait."
Ulf did not smile at the jest. "She has a low opinion of us all."
"That you have done nothing to rectify."
"Why should I? I care not what my enemy thinks of me."
"She is not your enemy."
"I do not dismiss the truth in favor of my cock's urgings. She is English and she is promised to the Sinclair laird. That makes her my enemy."
"She is a Balmoral captive, which puts her under my protection. Consider that the next time you are tempted to treat her like your enemy," Lachlan said in clear warning.
"I came to tell you that Duncan is here to give his report." The lack of urgency in Ulf's manner indicated the spy's report was not to tell them that the Sinclair had gathered his troops and was even now crossing the sea to lay siege to the castle.
"I will return to the keep shortly."
Ulf nodded, his mouth set in a tight, grim line, and left.
Lachlan could have ordered the soldier to escort Emily back to the keep and therefore left sooner himself, but he worried Ulf would hurt her tender feelings. When he had started worrying about such inconsequential matters, he did not know, but he refused to leave her to the not-so-tender mercies of his brother.
Emily paced the tower room, her emotions and thoughts in turmoil. She had done and felt so many shocking things she could not decide which one was the most astounding.
She'd exposed her deepest fear and told Lachlan her darkest secret. He had not mocked her fears or implied there was something lacking in her that her father could do such a thing. She had always worried that if she had been more lovable her father could never have rejected her so completely, but if Lachlan saw things that way, he had not said so.
She still struggled with accepting the fact that she had trusted him so utterly.
But then he elicited a unique response in her in more ways than one. She did not find his mouth or touch intrusive, but diabolically tempting. She'd returned his kisses with an ardency she had never dreamed a lady could be capable of. Then she'd let him undress her and when he had removed his own clothes, far from running, as any other unmarried lady would have done, she had touched him. Intimately.
She went hot all over remembering the feel of his hardness in her hand. He had liked her caresses and instead of embarrassing her, that made her feel proud. But he had not taken advantage of her wantonness to tumble her as Ulf had insinuated. Lachlan had used her distraction to get her into the water.
She could barely accept the memory of her being in the lake was real and not a dream. She had floated. Okay… with his support, but for a woman who refused to bathe in water that went above her knees, that was an amazing feat.
And he had not laughed at her nervousness even though it was obvious he was very comfortable with the water himself. He also had not exposed her to his brother's ridicule, but had sent the soldier back to the keep before calling her from behind the bush so he could escort her back. His consideration left her as breathless as when his lips were on hers.
Lachlan had walked her all the way to the tower room and left her here. But he had not barred the door. She'd been listening closely for the sound of the bar sliding into place, but it had not come. Did that mean she had the freedom to leave the room if she wished?
Despite her emotional outburst the day before, she had no desire to hide from his clan. She was not so weak-minded. If she could face Sybil every day of her life from the time she was eight until she'd left for the Highlands, she could face a few possibly hostile Scottish women.
She could have asked Lachlan what her position was if he had stayed even a few moments, but he had not. He had seen her into her room, told her they would repeat the swimming lesson the next day and left without a backward glance. It had taken all her self-control not to reach out and touch him as he left. She had wanted him to stay and now missed him as if she were used to seeing him every moment of every day of her life—an odd thing to feel for a man she had met only the day before.
She picked up the brush from the table, meaning to tend to her hair, but she went still at that last thought.
She had known him for two days and she had shared more of herself with him than she had anyone in her whole life. She remembered reading a poem about love at first sight, but had thought it rather silly at the time. She could not imagine such a thing. She could imagine it now.
She sat down with a thump on her bed and began to brush the wet tangles from her hair. How could she be so stupid? If she loved anyone, it should be Talorc. She would have to marry him. She had no choice. How could her heart have betrayed her this way? Or were her feelings nothing more than an instinctive trust in a strong man and a strong lust she had no experience controlling?
She could only hope it was the latter, because if she did love the laird, she was destined to have her heart broken.
Love or desire, she had not acted like a lady with Lachlan, but she could not regret it. No matter how shocking the events of the morning, Emily would n
ot undo any of them. And she would be ready for her swimming lesson tomorrow morning with Lachlan, too. If he kissed her, she would kiss him back. If he touched her, she would learn pleasure at his hand and not regret it.
She had enjoyed every moment in his company… except when she overheard him tell Ulf that he would not keep her. That had hurt, but it should not have. It was not as if his stance had come as a big surprise. He'd told her the same thing, only using different words. He did not want a future with her, but that shouldn't matter because a future was out of the question anyway.
She would not love him. Only a fool loved where heartache was sure to follow and she was no fool. She would enjoy this time as a captive as a respite from the life she was committed to living, but when the moment came to return to that life, she would return.
Highland warriors were not the only ones who knew their duty.
Cait was snuggled into Drustan's body, her own a boneless mass of satiated pleasure. She had never known lovemaking could be like it was between them. It certainly had not been in her first marriage, but she did not tell Drustan that. The werewolf was arrogant enough as it was.
And he had made her beg.
She wasn't ashamed of that fact. She was impressed with his strength.
It had been a mating night filled with unbelievable pleasure and when they had woken that morning, he had renewed their intimacy. She'd remained hidden in bed when a servant brought them breakfast and had only protested weakly when he'd taken that as an invitation to explore the desire between them further. She wasn't sure now why she had protested at all.
His hand brushed up and down her side. "You are a passionate femwolf, Cait. It will be a pleasure to have you in my bed for the years to come."
She didn't know where he got the energy to talk. It was all she could do to kiss his chest where her face rested against him in acknowledgment of his words.
A rumble of pleasure rolled through him.
