"I still wish to share these quarters, Aedan," she said instantly. Some of the tension seemed to leave his body. How could she make him understand that she wished not only to share "quarters" but her body and her heart? She longed to share everything with him. But there was something she had to know, words she needed to hear him say. "Do you know who you are yet?" She held her breath, waiting.
He looked at her levelly, a bittersweet smile playing faintly upon his lips. "Och, aye, lass. I am Aedan MacKinnon. Son of Findanus and Mary MacKinnon, from Dun Haakon on the Isle of Skye. Born in eight hundred ninety-eight. Twice-removed grandson of Kenneth McAlpin. And I am the last of my people." He turned his gaze back to the portrait.
His words, delivered so regally, yet with such sorrow, sent a chill up her spine. "Beyond that, you need only tell me what you wish," she said softly.
"Then I bid you listen well, for I doona ken when I may have the will to speak it again." That said, he grew pensively silent and gazed into the fire, as if searching for the right words.
Finally, he stirred and said, "When I was a score and ten a… man of sorts… came to this castle. At first, I thought that he'd come to challenge me, for I was heralded the most powerful warrior in all the isles, descended from the mighty McAlpin himself. Mayhap I was a bit pleased with myself." He grimaced self-deprecatingly.
"But this man…" He trailed off shaking his head. "This man—he terrified even me. He looked like a man, but he was dead inside. Ice. Cold. Not human, but human. I know that doesn't make sense, but 'twas as if all the life had been sucked from him somehow, yet still he breathed. I feared he would harm my people and mock me while doing so. He was great and tall and wide, and he had powers beyond mortal."
When he paused, lost in his memories, Jane whispered, "Please go on."
He took a deep breath. "Ma and Da were away at sea with all my siblings but the youngest. I was here with my wee sister." He gestured to the portrait. "Rose." He closed his eyes and rubbed them. "Although I may have suffered my share of arrogance, lass, all I'd e'er wished for was a family, children of my own, to watch my sisters and brothers grow and raise their children. To live a simple life. To be a man of honor. A man that when he was laid into the earth, others said, 'He was a good man.' Yet on that day, I knew that such things would ne'er come to pass, for the man who'd come for me threatened to destroy my entire world. And I knew he could do it."
Eyes misting, Jane hurried to him, sank onto the footstool, and placed a gentle, encouraging hand on his thigh.
He covered it with his own, staring at the portrait.
After a few moments, he turned his head and looked at her, and she gasped softly at the anguish in his eyes. She wanted to press kisses to his eyelids as if to somehow kiss all the pain away, to make sure nothing ever hurt him again.
"I made a deal with the creature that if he left my clan in peace I would go with him to his king. His king offered a bargain and I accepted, thinking five years would be a hellish price to pay, wondering how I could withstand five years in his icy, dark kingdom. But it was ne'er five years, lass—'twas five hundred. Five hundred years and I forgot. I forgot." He slammed a fist down on the arm of the chair. Thrusting the kitten at her, he leaped to his feet and began pacing. Sexpot, alarmed by the sudden commotion, scampered off for the calm of the bedchamber.
"I became just like him—the one who'd come to claim me. I lost all honor. I became the vilest of vile, the—"
"Aedan, stop," Jane cried.
"I became that thing I despised, lass!"
"You were tortured," she defended. "Who could survive five centuries of… of…" She trailed off, not knowing what he'd withstood.
Aedan snorted angrily. "I let them go. To escape the things that the king did to me. I let memories of my clan, of my Rose, go. The more I forgot, the less he punished me. God, there are things in the dark king's realm, things so…" He snarled, shaking his head.
"You had to forget," Jane said intensely. "It's a miracle that you survived. And although you might think you became this Vengeance creature who came for you—you didn't. I saw the goodness in you when I came here. I saw the tenderness, the part of you that was aching to be a simple man again."
"But you doona know the things I've done," he said, his voice harsh and deep and unforgiving.
"I don't need to know. Unless you wish to tell me, I need never know. All I need to know is that you are never going back to him. You're never going back to him, are you?" Jane pressed.
He said nothing, just stood there, looking lost and full of self-loathing. His head bowed, his hair curtaining his face.
"Stay with me. I want you, Aedan," she said, her heart aching.
"How could you? How could anyone?" he asked bitterly.
Ah, she thought, understanding. He hungered to be part of the mortal world—that was why he'd come back to Dun Haakon, rather than turning to his king—but he felt he didn't deserve it. He feared no one would want him, that once she knew what he'd been, she would cast him out.
He glanced at her, then quickly glanced away, but not before she saw the hope warring with the despair in his gaze.
Rising to her feet, Jane held out her hand. "Take my hand, Aedan. That's all you need do."
"You doona know what these hands have done."
"Take my hand, Aedan."
"Begone, lass. A woman such as you is not for the likes of me."
"Take my hand," she repeated. "You can take it now. Or ten years from now. Or twenty. Because I will still be standing here waiting for you to take my hand. I'm not leaving you. I'm never leaving you."
His anguished gaze shot to hers. "Why?"
"Because I love you," Jane said, her eyes filling with tears. "I love you, Aedan MacKinnon. I've loved you forever."
"Who are you? Why do you even care about me?" His voice rose and cracked hoarsely.
"You still don't remember me?" Jane asked plaintively.
Aedan thought hard, pushing into the deepest part of him, that part that still was iced over. A hard shining tower of ice still lay behind his breast, concealing something. Helplessly, he shook his head.
Jane swallowed hard. It didn't really matter, she told herself. He didn't have to remember their time together in the Dreaming. She could live with that, if it meant she could spend the rest of her life here on this island with him. "It's okay," she said finally with a brave smile. "You don't have to remember me, as long as you—" She broke off abruptly, feeling suddenly too vulnerable for words.
"As long as I what, lass?"
In a small voice, she finally said, "Do you think you could care for me? In the way a man cares for his woman?"
Aedan sucked in a harsh breath. If only she knew. For the week he'd wandered, he'd thought of little else. Knowing he should do her the favor of never returning, yet unable to stay away. Dreaming of her, waking to find his arms reaching for nothing. Until, unable to push her from his heart, he'd faced his memories. Until, scorning himself for a fool, he'd returned to Dun Haakon to force her to force him to leave. To see the disgust in her gaze. To be sent away so he could die inside.
But now she stood there, hands outstretched, asking him to stay. Asking him to make free with her body and heart.
Offering him a gift he hadn't deserved but vowed to earn.
"You wish that of me? I who was scarce human when you met me? You could have any man you wished, lass. Any of the villagers. Nay, even Scotia's king."
"I want only you. Or no one. Ever."
"You would trust me so? To be your… man?"
"I trust you already."
Aedan stared at her. He began to speak several times, then closed his mouth again.
"If you refuse me, I'll cast myself into the sea," she announced dramatically. "And die." Not really, because Jane Sillee wasn't a quitter, but he needn't know that.
"Nay—you will not go to the sea!" he roared. Eyes glittering, he moved toward her.
"I am so lonely without you, Aedan," Jane said sim
ply.
"You truly want me?"
"More than anything. I'm only half without you."
"Then you are my woman." His words were finality, a bond he would not permit broken. She had given herself to his keeping. He would never let her go.
"And you'll never leave me?" she pressed.
"I'll stay with you for all of ever, lass."
Jane's eyes flared, and she looked at him strangely. "And then yet another day?" she asked breathlessly.
"Oh, aye."
"And we could have babies?"
"Half dozen if you wish."
"Could we start making them now?"
"Oh, aye." A grin touched his lips; the first full grin she'd ever seen on his gorgeous face. The effect was devastating: It was a dangerous, knowing grin that dripped sensual promise. "I should warn you," he said, his eyes glittering, "I recall what it is to be a man now, lass. All of it. And I was ever a man of greedy and demanding appetites."
"Oh, please," Jane breathed. "Be as greedy as you wish. Demand away."
"I will begin small," he said, his eyes sparkling. "We will begin with the pressing of the lips you so favor," he teased.
Jane flung herself at him, and when his arms closed around her, she went wild, touching and kissing and clinging to him.
"Woman, I need you," he growled, slanting his mouth across hers. "Ever since I remembered the things a man knows, all I could think of were the things I ached to do to you."
"Show me," she whimpered.
And he did, taking his sweet time, peeling away her gown until she was naked before him, kissing and suckling and tasting every inch of her.
He experienced no difficulty whatsoever finding her most private heat.
Fifteen
The Unseelie king sensed it the precise moment he lost his Vengeance. Though the mortal Highlander had not yet regained full memory, he loved and was loved in return.
The king's visage changed in a manner most rare for him; the corners of his lips turned up.
Humans, he thought mockingly, so easily manipulated. How infuriated they would be if they knew it had never been about them to begin with, and, indeed, rarely was. His Vengeance had performed precisely as he'd expected, twisting his three nebulous suggestions, and with obstinate human defiance, aiding the king in his aim.
Eons ago, a young Seelie queen for whom he suffered an unending hunger had escaped him before he'd been through with her.
She'd not risked entering his realm again.
His smile grew. If he must stoop to conquer, it was not beneath him.
He swallowed a laugh, tossed his head back, and let loose an enraged roar that resonated throughout the fabric of the universe.
The Seelie queen beard the dark king's cry and permitted herself a small, private smile.
So, she mused, feeling quite lovely, he had lost and she had won. It made her feel positively magnanimous. Sipping the nectar from a splendidly plump dalisonia, she rolled onto her back and stretched languidly.
Perhaps she should offer the dark king her condolences, she mused. After all, they were royalty, and royalty did that sort of thing.
After all, she had won.
She could simply duck in and back out, gloat a bit.
And if he tried to restrain her? Keep her captive in his realm? She laughed softly. She'd beaten him this time. She'd proved that she was stronger than she'd been millennia ago when he'd caged her for a time.
Feeling potent, inebriated on victory, she closed her eyes and envisioned his icy lair…
The iciness of his realm stole her breath away. Then she saw him and inhaled sharply, sucking in great lungfuls of icy air. Her memory had not done him justice. He was even more exotic than she'd recalled. A palpable darkness surrounded him. He was deadly and powerful, and she knew from intimate experience just how inventively, exhaustively erotic he was. A true master of pain, he understood pleasure as no other could.
"My queen," he said, his eyes of night and ice glittering.
Even as powerful as the Seelie queen was, she found it impossible to gaze into his eyes for more than a moment. Some claimed they'd been emptied of matter and pure chaos spooned into the sockets.
She inclined her head, averting her gaze ever so slightly. "It would seem you have lost your Vengeance, dark one," she murmured.
"It would seem I have."
When he rose from his throne of ice, and rose and rose, she caught her breath. Not quite fairy, his blood mixed with the blood of a creature even the Fae hesitated to name. His shadow moved unnaturally as he rose, slithering around him, wont to move independently of its host.
"You seem unperturbed by your defeat, dark one," she probed, determined to savor every drop of her victory. "Care you not that you have lost him? Five centuries of work. Wasted."
"You presume you knew my aim."
The Seelie queen stiffened, staring into his eyes for a moment longer than was wise. "Pretend not that you intended to lose. That I have been manipulated." Her voice dripped ice worthy of his kingdom.
"Loss is a relative thing."
"I won. Admit it," she snapped.
"I doubt you even knew what game we played, young one." His voice deep, silky, and mesmerizing, he mocked, "Did you come to gloat because my defeat made you feel powerful? Did it make you feel safe in seeking me? Careful. A being such as I might be inclined to find you reason to condescend. To sink to my depths."
"I have sunk to nothing," she hissed, feeling suddenly foolish. She was young by his standards, for the king of darkness was ancient—sprung from the loins of an age she'd heard of only in legend.
He said nothing, merely regarded her, his stare a palpable weight. She repressed a shiver, remembering her last excursion to his land. She'd nearly failed to summon the power to leave. But, she conceded with a thrill of sexual anticipation so intense that it nearly brought her to her knees, she'd not quite been in a hurry to leave the dark king's dangerous bed. And therein lay double the danger…
"I came to offer my condolences," she said coolly.
His laughter alone could seduce. "So offer, my queen." He moved in a swirl of darkness. "But offer that for which we both know you hunger. Your willing surrender."
And when he was upon her, when he had gathered her up and his great wings began to flap, she let her head fall against his icy breast. Darkness so thick it had texture and taste surrounded her. "Never."
"Heed me well, light one, the only thing you are never with me—is safe."
Much later, when he possessed her completely, a full blood moon stained the sky above the Highlands of Scotland.
Aedan made love to Jane like a man who understood that this day, this moment, only this now was securely in the palm of his hand, taking her with the passionate urgency of a tenth-century Scotsman who knew not what tomorrow might bring: brutal war, drought, or crop-destroying tempest. He made love like a drowning man, desperate for the surety of her body—she was his shore, his raft, his harbor against what storms may come.
And then he made love to her again.
This time, with exquisite gentleness. Brushed his lips against the warm hollow of her neck in which her heartbeat pulsed. Kissed the slopes of her breasts, tasted the salt of her skin and the sweetness of her passion glistening between her thighs, and flexed himself deep within her innermost warmth.
He became part of her. Finally, he knew the kind of loving that made two one and understood Jane was his world. His ocean, his country, his sun, his rain, his very heart.
And that sleek, iced citadel behind his breastbone—behind which he'd concealed from the dark king that which was most infinitely precious to him—cracked at the foundations and came crashing down.
And he finally remembered what he'd sealed away there… his Jane.
"Jane, my own sweet Jane," be cried hoarsely.
Jane's eyes flew wide. He was buried deep within her, loving her slowly and intensely, and although he'd called her name aloud many times during the loving, his v
oice sounded different this time.
Could it be he'd finally remembered all of it? All those years they'd spent together in dreams, playing and loving and dancing and loving?
"Aedan?" His name held the question she was afraid to ask.
Framing her head with his forearms, he stared down at her. "You came to me. I remember now. You came when I slept, in the Dreaming."
"Yes," Jane cried, joyous tears misting her eyes.
There were no words for a time, only the soft sounds of passion, of a woman being thoroughly loved by her man.
When finally she could catch her breath again, she said, "You were with me always. You watched me grow up, remember?" She laughed self-consciously. "When I was thirteen, I nearly dreaded seeing you because I was so gawky—"
"Nay, you were no such thing. You were a wee lovely lass, I watched your womanhood ripening and saw what you would become. I ached for the day you would be old enough that I could love you in every way."
"Well, you didn't have to wait quite so long," she voiced a long-harbored complaint. "Mmm," she added, gasping, when he nipped her nipple lightly with his teeth. "Do that again."
He did. And again, until her breasts felt ripe and exquisitely sensitive. Then he rubbed his unshaven cheek lightly against her peaked nipples, creating delicious friction.
"I claimed you when you were ten and eight," he managed finally.
"Like I said—long. I was ready way before then. I was ready by sixteen… ooh!"
"You were a wee babe still," he said indignantly, stilling inside her.
"Don't stop," she gasped.
"Doona think for a minute 'twasn't difficult for me to naysay you. 'Twas that my mother insisted all her sons forgo impatience and give a lass time to be a child before having bairn of her own."
"Please," she whimpered.
Heeding her plea, he thrust without cease, and she cried out his name over and again, digging her fingers into his muscular hips, pulling him as deep as she could take him.
Beyond the Highland Myst Page 216
