“I speak to you the truth, you are most beautiful,” he said.
“I like the way the muscles in yer stomach ripple.”
He let her praise wash over him, warm and inviting. He knew she would not speak the words unless they were true, giving power to her praise. He gently lay down on top of her, pulling the blanket over them. He snuggled as close as he could without crushing her and wondered what to do next. After spending many years defending his celibacy, he wished he was not so inexperienced at that crucial moment. He knew in general terms what should happen next, but how did one get there? Besides, despite his interest he had another problem.
“I-I fear I am too cold,” he admitted.
“Aye, ye’re cold; hurry and warm me.”
“I… I am not sure that I can. Things are really cold.” His first time, and it was going to end in failure. He might as well jump back in the lake.
“What do ye mean cold? Ye mean ye’re no’ interested?”
“No! I am very interested. It is when a man, he is cold, he gets…” He was not going to say “small.” Nothing in the world could force him to finish that sentence.
“I want to be on top,” demanded Morrigan. He complied instantly, rolling them around. Maybe she knew what to do.
Morrigan put her hands against his chest, feeling her way down. He sucked in air.
“No’ good?” she asked.
“Your hands are cold, but do not stop, I beg you.” The fact that he noticed her cold hands meant he was warming.
She replaced her hands with her mouth and he gasped again. This time she did not stop. She worked her way down; his heart pounded harder with every inch lower she traveled. She kissed the muscles of his abdomen, his navel, and kept going lower. He grabbed the blanket in his hands to keep himself still. It was sweet torture.
Moving farther down, she kissed the inside of his thigh. His breathing came in short gasps, his body tingling in anticipation. She turned and kissed… him. He groaned uncontrollably, and he felt himself growing with her exquisite touch until he throbbed with need. The blood was probably leaving vital organs he needed to survive, but he cared not a whit. He would happily die for that pleasure.
She returned to him, and he spun her underneath him again, primal need drowning out fear, inexperience, and all rational thought. Pain throbbed in his fingers and toes as they slowly thawed back to life. He did not care, he only wanted one thing, and he did not care if it killed him to get it.
He thrust wildly and completely ineffectively until she slowed his movements by putting her hands on his hips and wrapped her legs around him. He touched his cheek to hers, shaking with cold and need.
“I do not know how…” he confessed.
“Slowly now, it will be well.”
Dragonet took a deep breath and looked down at the woman he loved. The woman he would love for as long as he could still draw breath. He could look into her eyes forever. Slowly he began to rock forward and back, moving in concert with the beating of her heart.
She smoothed her cold hands over his back and backside, encouraging, accepting. He took a deep breath and moved forward, drawn by desire and her heat. She shifted beneath him, and moving forward again, he was drawn into pure bliss. He groaned and collapsed on top of her. Sweet heaven, she was so hot.
“Ow!” cried Morrigan, her face twisted in pain.
He struggled to take some of his weight off her. “Am I hurting you?”
“Aye. And my fingers hurt like hell.”
“Do you want I should stop?” He started to withdraw.
Her eyes flew open, her lips twisted in a snarl. “Do ye want I should kill ye?”
He moved forward again and discovered what intense pleasure he had denied himself. It was good, very, very good. Oh, what a loving God who created this.
He continued along, allowing her to adjust the position of his hips until she closed her eyes and sighed happily. He had not seen her so enthralled since the time she snuck gingerbread fresh from the oven. He was glad to elicit the same ecstatic response.
He moved with increasing speed, a building desire sweeping through him like fire. He moved faster, yearning for release. The pleasure of his growing need mixed with the pain of his thawing fingers. Every movement made him hurt more, but oh, he had never felt anything so good. “Ma chérie. Mon petit trésor.”
She arched her back and cried out, clutching his back with her fingernails. He could not stop. Suddenly the growing wave of pleasure crashed, sending spasms of joy through him. “Je t’adore. Je t’aime!” He cried out, uncontrollably expressing his adoration and love.
The edges of his vision grew fuzzy, and he collapsed beside her. “Je ne peux pas vivre sans toi.” He gave in to the darkness and knew nothing.
Twenty-One
Morrigan woke up warm and content in the arms of her lover… an occurrence so unprecedented it took her several minutes to remember all that had happened. Icy river. Freezing to death. Cuddling to keep warm. And then… well, she did not even have words for it. If she knew what she had been missing all these years, she would have abandoned her sword and signed on as a tavern wench.
Except she didn’t want that from any man. Just one. The one who was softly snoring next to her. The one who opened a world of unknown pleasure. The one who used her to find the cave that held the treasure.
She elbowed him in the side and was rewarded by a snort and louder snoring. She elbowed him harder. He started and awoke. His eyes went wide.
“Morrigan!” He jerked his arm from around her as if she was poison. “I… we…”
“I have a problem.”
“I am so sorry.” Dragonet pressed his head into the blankets beside her. “It was the only way to save you from the freezing to death.”
“Ye regret it?”
“Never!”
“Neither do I. Now back to my problem. I need to find something in this cave. Andrew’s life is at stake. I need to know if ye will help me or if I need to kill ye, for as much as I appreciate our… er… ye saving my life. I still need to save his.”
“I will help you as I am able.” Dragonet’s eyes were solemn, as if he were speaking a vow. Her instinct told her to trust him. Of course, last time her instinct had been dead wrong.
Morrigan nodded and sat up. Dragonet did too, taking his blanket and his heat with him. She inhaled sharply at the shock of the freezing air hitting her naked body. Scrambling up quickly, she wrapped one of the blankets around her. She was cold again, but not dangerously so.
Her clothes were still soaking wet and half-frozen, discarded on the floor of the cave. Putting them on was not a possibility. Outside the mouth of the cave darkness had fallen, a single shaft of light from the rising moon illuminated the cavern. Her shoulders sagged. She could barely keep herself alive, let alone find some hidden treasure and save Andrew.
“May I cut a strip from this blanket to fashion shoes for you and me? Now that feeling has returned to my feet, they are quite cold,” said Dragonet.
Morrigan nodded. She needed to start thinking smart. Grabbing her belt, she wrapped it around her blanket at her waist, gathering her blanket around herself and pinning it at her shoulders the way the men in her clan wore their plaids as a great kilt. The belt was still wet, but it kept her wool blanket around her and provided for more overall warmth.
“Here,” said Dragonet, kneeling at her feet. She lifted up one very cold foot, and he wrapped a strip of wool around it as protection from the freezing temperatures. It worked well, or at least much better than nothing, and she willingly held up her other foot.
So many questions rattled around in her head it hurt. What did he think of her? Why had he misled her before? Why was he searching the cave?
“Ye spoke many words in a foreign tongue at the end when we…” Morrigan cleared her throat. “Were ye calling out the name o’ yer betrothed?”
Dragonet hung his head and finished with her foot. He sat on a rock and began to fashion shoes for him
self.
“I think ye owe me some answers,” said Morrigan.
Dragonet nodded, but did not look up from his work. “In my life there is no lady but you. I told you I was raised by the Hospitallers. What I did not say is that I am a Hospitaller Knight.”
“A knight? But I thought the Hospitallers were all monks.”
“They are.”
“But ye are not a—”
Dragonet looked up at her, her eyes large and mournful in the dim light.
Morrigan gasped and put her hands over her mouth. The truth sank cold and heavy in her gut. “Ye’re a monk?”
Dragonet’s eyes met hers, holding them as she held her breath waiting for his reply.
“Yes.”
Morrigan staggered from the shock of his confession and sat down hard on a rock. “A monk? But why did ye…?” A fresh wave of anger rippled through her, familiar and warm. “Why lie to me?”
“An important relic was taken by the Templars and hidden in Scotland. I was sent on a quest to find it.”
“But why lie to everyone? Why not say ye were a Hospitaller?”
“Several men came before me, trying to find the relic. They were all killed. I was sent in disguise with the Duke of Argitaine. We hoped that if no one knew I was looking for it, I could have better success.”
“I dinna ken anything about ye,” she murmured. She had been completely and utterly misled.
Dragonet sighed, worry lines etching on his forehead. “I never meant to hurt you.”
Morrigan picked up a rock and threw it at him.
“Ow!” said Dragonet, rubbing his shoulder.
“Oh, did I hurt ye? Maybe if I said I dinna mean to, it would make it better.” She picked up another rock and Dragonet backed away from her. She followed.
“If ye were a monk, why kiss me? Why feign interest?” Morrigan threw hard and was rewarded by a loud thud as it bounced off his chest. “Was it all a ruse to find the location of the cave?” Morrigan set her jaw and grabbed another rock. Maybe she was going to kill him after all.
“I was interested! I am! How can I explain it?” He continued to back away, running his fingers through his hair and making it stick out at odd angles. “I took my vows when I was twelve. The Hospitallers had lost many of their brethren and were willing to let me continue to stay with them, but only if I took orders. My family all died in the great death and I had nowhere else to go. Taking a vow of celibacy was nothing to me. What did I know of women at that age? It was not until I met you that I knew true temptation.”
“Should I be flattered?” She let another rock fly.
“Ow! I beg your forgiveness. Everything I did with you, every time I touched you, was wrong. But it was not false. Ow! It was true to my heart. If I were free to marry you, I would.”
Morrigan stopped short. Something inside her crunched in pain. She fell back on a boulder and put her head in her hands. Finally a man who wished to marry her, and he was a monk. That was the ol’ McNab luck at work. “Ow,” she said softly.
“If the circumstances, they were different…”
“If ye are trying to make me feel better, ye have missed yer mark.”
“I am sorry…”
“For the love o’ the saints, stop saying that! It does not help.”
“Oh, I am…”
Morrigan shot him a glare.
“Right. Sorry.” He cringed.
“Ye canna help yerself.” Morrigan shook her head. She did not know what to feel any more. Strong emotions were so jumbled inside she went numb. She took a deep breath. Whatever he was or whatever they had done, it was not relevant to her current situation. What truly mattered was she was still alive, and Andrew would not be if she did not meet the abbot’s demands to get the medicine.
Morrigan stood and gestured wildly in the air as if to banish the conversation and its confusing emotions. “I dinna have time for this. I concede ye played me well. But I still need to find something in this cave to save Andrew’s life.” She stood with a large, jagged rock in hand. “Are ye going to help or do I need to kill ye now?”
“I am at your service.”
Morrigan nodded. She could not begin to discern her feelings for him, but she did know she could use some help. “I propose we work together to find it. We can fight over it later.” It was time to get back to the problem at hand. She needed to save Andrew.
“How is anything in this cave going to save Andrew?” asked Dragonet.
“Mother Enid’s medicine at St. Margaret’s was stolen by Abbot Barrick. He is demanding I bring him something he believes is here before he will give me any more medicine. Andrew wanes; he has a fever. He needs it.”
Dragonet nodded. “What did he tell you to retrieve?”
“A silver box.”
Dragonet’s eyes flashed, but he said nothing.
“That is what ye are seeking too?” asked Morrigan.
“Yes,” acknowledged Dragonet softly. “Barrick must never be allowed to have it. He may be the one who killed the monks who came before me.”
“I dinna doubt it, but Andrew must not be allowed to die.” Their eyes met across the dimly lit cave. So close, and yet a barrier loomed between them. Lovers and enemies. For once in her life she knew exactly what she wanted, and it could never, ever be hers.
The moon was rising, and soon the angle would block its light from the cave. She needed to push aside the remnants of her heart, her dreams, and her dignity, and get to work before they were in complete darkness.
“Truce for now?” she asked, belting on her sword.
“Agreed.”
“I believe I have a candle in my saddlebag,” said Morrigan, searching for the precious item. She held out a tallow candle in success. “Now to light it before we lose the moonlight.”
They had no flame or kindling, but Morrigan scraped off some cloth fibers from her blanket, which Dragonet lit with his flint, and from that tiny spark, she lit the candle.
Morrigan was pleased with their success but not with the prospect of going farther into the cave. She liked staying where she could still see the sky. The back of the cave stretched out before them like a gaping hole of doom. She did not wish to enter.
Dragonet belted a knife around his waist and made a clumsy attempt to copy her method of wearing a blanket.
“Och, let me,” said Morrigan, turning to help Dragonet arrange his blanket.
“I can manage.”
“Nonsense, ye’re making a mess of it.” Morrigan took the ends of the blanket from his hands and peeled it down to reveal his waist in order to pleat the garment correctly. She worked quickly, her mind abandoning its needful focus on her quest to admire the muscular physique before her. Dragonet was a tall, trim man. She bit her lip and resisted running her hand over his rippling stomach muscles.
Morrigan stepped around to his back to finish her work and get her mind off his chest, and froze at what she saw.
“I can take it from here,” said Dragonet trying to cover his back.
Morrigan stepped back and allowed him to cover the deep, ugly scars searing tracks down his backs. “What are those scars?” she asked, trying not to wince.
“It is nothing. Let us continue our quest.”
“Are those burns?”
“I was an awkward child.” He took the candle and walked into the darkness of the cave.
Like a moth to the flame, Morrigan followed. “No one is that clumsy. Tell me the truth.”
Dragonet turned, the candle’s orange light flickering on his face. “To find this box, we must focus most diligently. Do you know where it is located, did Barrick give you any clues?”
Morrigan gave Dragonet a hard look. She did not like to have her questions ignored.
“Please, Morrigan.” He spoke softly.
Morrigan sighed. She wanted to understand him, to know if he could be trusted. Yet what she really wanted was forever beyond her grasp. She needed to let him go.
“I dinna ken there is an
y treasure here,” said Morrigan, allowing her question to drop. “Archie said he searched but found nothing.”
“That does not bode well.” Dragonet continued down the passageway of the cave, which became narrower with every step.
The walls were closing in on her, suffocating her. Morrigan worked on controlling her breathing. She must not let the cave get to her. She must not let him see weakness. “Do ye ken where it is hidden?”
“I am sorry, but no.”
“What have I told ye about apologizing?” asked Morrigan with a sharp edge. Her anxiety was turning her usually sunny disposition into something less than hospitable.
“As you wish.”
They walked on a little farther, utter blackness stretching on ahead and behind her like an abyss. All she could see were the cave walls around her, illuminated by the dim light of a single candle. Morrigan’s heart pounded, throbbing in her ears. She wanted out.
“Here, what is this?” Dragonet ducked his head to fit through a narrow gap and disappeared. Morrigan rushed after the light and stumbled into a large cavern. Gleaming crystals on the walls and ceiling reflected the light of the candle, dazzling the eye with its brilliance. Morrigan squinted at the sudden light and turned a circle awed by the sparkling crystals.
“Which path?” asked Dragonet.
Morrigan realized that multiple passages led from the dazzling room. “I know not,” said Morrigan. She turned back the passages she came from and drew her sword to make a mark on the floor before the tunnel they had come from. She did not wish to be lost there.
“What is it you are doing?” asked Dragonet.
“Marking the tunnel we came from so we can get out of here.”
“Good idea.” Dragonet began looking around the entrances of the other tunnels. “I would wager the Templars did the same thing.”
True Highland Spirit Page 19
