A Storm of Passion

by TERRI BRISBIN

  “Have you heard of such a thing, or do I worry for naught?” he asked.

  She’d not lied to him yet—not through their time together, in good or bad circumstances, even when she hated him and would have liked to. She’d spoken the truth to him. Now, for the first time she wanted with all her damaged and torn heart to lie.

  So deep in thought, she never saw his hand move, so his touch surprised her. He gently slid his finger across her cheek and held it for her to see. Tears. Closing her eyes, she fought them, but her throat burned and her eyes filled with them until they spilled over onto her cheeks and could not be hidden from him.

  “You cry for me?” he asked. “After everything you have suffered because of me, you can find tears to shed for me?”

  Moira tried to wipe them away, to keep him from realizing what she had that day on the beach. No matter how much she wanted to hate him, she could not. No matter that his words caused events to happen that killed her family. No matter that she sought vengeance against him for most of her life.

  He was not to blame.

  She shook her head, denying the thought to herself so she could deny it to him. Her heart had searched for too long for the one responsible for her loss. She’d given up everything—her life, her chance to live, her future—to hunt him down, to find his weaknesses, and to kill him. Could she banish all the hatred that had colored her world, her existence, for these last six years now?

  From the tears, it would seem that part of her already had.

  “So, ’tis true then? What I suspect?”

  She inhaled, but her chest trembled and her breath hitched in spite of trying to appear calm. “I do not know this to be true…”

  “But you have heard? Come now, be the fearless Moira who pummeled me to the floor, but not this Moira with fear written in her eyes. ’Tis not your fate we discuss, but that of your captor, the man who destroyed your family.”

  If he’d said those words hours or days ago, they may have worked, but now, now that she had faced losing him twice and knew that her empty heart felt fear of such a loss, Moira knew there was no turning away.

  “So, Moira the fearless, Moira the avenger, tell me what you know,” he said softly. “I would be prepared if I know I face my death on Samhain.”

  “’Tis said,” she began and paused, trying to form her words. “’Tis said that when the Sith leave behind a changeling, be it in the shape of a mortal babe, or dog, or cow, or even a plant resembling one in the mortal world, there is only so much Sith magic in such a thing.” The tears flowed now, as she gave him his death sentence. “And that when the magic has left, the changeling, be it person or animal or plant, shrivels and dies without it.”

  She watched his eyes as he accepted the truth, but she could tell it did not surprise him. They darkened in color then, and he nodded at her. Moira could not come up with a word more to ease his fears or convince him there was another possibility, for she’d heard enough stories about Sith magic to know it for the truth it was.

  “I may be wrong,” she said, trying, it seemed, to convince herself more than him. “You said Diarmid has an extensive collection of books. Mayhap you could search it for more information or other stories that are right?”

  “Sshhhh,” he whispered, tucking her head under his chin and entwining his fingers with hers.

  “What will you do?”

  “For now, there is nothing that can be done. I imagine Diarmid would not be happy to learn that he will lose his prized Seer, so I will keep it from him. If you are right about the other matter, mayhap I should alert Steinar of my impending death to save him his efforts and the lives of more of his pawns in the attempts?”

  She covered his mouth with her hand. “Do not say that,” she warned.

  “At least I will not be the pawn in their game as they play for control of Mull and the position of chieftain here.” He met her gaze now, and his was clear, with no sign of fear of what was coming to him. “And neither will you,” he promised.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Fear not that I would leave you in Diarmid’s control, nor that of Steinar. And I will not allow you to watch my death, in spite of knowing that is what drew you to me.” He lifted her face to his and kissed her mouth gently. “I told you that I was keeping you, but what you need to know is that, more importantly, I will let you go,” he said. “Now that we have all that spoken of between us, I would think on more pleasant things.”

  Overwhelmed that he was concerned about her at such a time as this, she understood what he was asking of her now. If she could ease his pain and give him some clarity in his thoughts as he faced his death, it was the least she could do. When she had been distraught and begged him to help her, he had, and there was pleasure for both of them. Now, she would do it for him without him needing to ask her. When she reached over to touch him, he shook his head and stopped her hand before she could.

  “I would hold you, Moira. That is all I need now,” he whispered.

  For a man who liked and needed sex to calm the boiling lust in his blood, his refusal was not what she expected. “I would ease your pain,” she said.

  “Lie next to me, Moira,” he whispered again.

  So, she tugged the shift off, tossed it off the bed and slid down next to him. He opened his arms to her and held her close, draping her across his body. Moira reached up and put her hand on his chest again, feeling a strong heart beating there. And although she did not want to believe it, she knew that the story she’d shared with him was true and he would die when the power left him.

  And though she had pursued and craved his death for years, she would not be able to bear to watch it now. Her heart, the one that had been empty for so long, now hurt as it opened just a bit to let something stronger than fear or hatred or the need for vengeance in. It had been so long since she’d felt it there, that she could not understand how it came to be.

  “’Twas your kindness, Seer,” she whispered. “Your kindness made me think about a good life once more.”

  As she fell asleep in his arms, she dreamed good dreams for the first time in those long six years. Her family happy and alive around her. Her sister and brothers all grown with bairns of their own. She could see her husband’s hand on her shoulder as she nursed her wee babe under his watchful eye. She dreamt of things now impossible, but for those hours she allowed the life that could have been to play out in her thoughts.

  The days passed quickly then, too quickly now that she understood what was to be. He spoke of Samhain only a little, and only when Diarmid mentioned it as the anniversary of his birth and announced a celebration for the Seer. Try as he might to dissuade Diarmid, the plans moved forward, with Diarmid already choosing those whose favor he wanted most. Obviously, Diarmid had not heard or considered the stories she had and never seemed to doubt that his Seer would continue on with even stronger visions in his service for years to come.

  Connor spent more and more time in Diarmid’s company as the visions came closer, but he had been right about one thing: his bed play with Moira kept his pain away. Oh, there was still an edge to him, and if he pushed her hard when they joined, harder and deeper with each passing night, she let him take his ease on her.

  The one thing she did not ask him about was his plan to let her go. Moira understood that she was truly Diarmid’s prisoner, and, even if Connor willed her to be free, the lord would ignore him and hold her for his own use. If anything convinced her of the futility of thinking she would ever leave here alive or free, Diarmid’s visit two nights before the full moon made it clear.

  Connor urged her faster, and she moved over him, like a rider on her mount, sliding her hips and the slick place between her legs forward and back, forward and back. Faster.

  He teased the nipples of her breasts all the while. She felt each stroke or pull on them deep into her core, and it made her move against his hardened prick. He squeezed the tips more, and she gasped, feeling it in her blood and over her skin. When he reached do
wn and brought her to the fullness of desire with his hand between her legs, her body shook and shuddered and contracted around him as her release began.

  With his hands on her hips, he thrust a time or two more, and the seed began to spill deep inside her. He slid his hands into her hair then, gathering her curls and pulling her face down on his so that he could take her mouth as he took her body. She felt his release finish and would have climbed off his hips but for the voice behind them.

  “I can think of a better use for the bitch’s mouth than that, Connor,” Diarmid said with a laugh.

  She heard his heavy steps as he approached, but Connor held her in place as the lord of Mull walked around the bed. He touched her back near the place where the globes of her arse separated, and she pulled herself under control to avoid slapping his hand away. When he plunged his finger into the puckered opening there, she shuddered. Connor’s body stilled beneath hers, and his glance told of the need for inaction just then.

  “Too tight to have been well used. A place you have been neglecting, Seer,” Diarmid said, sliding his finger out of her, but drawing it along the skin of her back, tracing her spine up to her neck. He stepped up next to the bed, bringing himself close enough to face her as she yet held Connor deep inside her.

  “I told you, Diarmid,” Connor said, “I will not share her.”

  “Why not? She must be a sturdy bitch, or, with the way you wear out women during this time before your visions, she should have been fucked to death by now and you should have moved on to another and another.” Diarmid canted his head and looked at them as they sat in the bed. “Anakol’s daughters arrived and were sent here. You refused them. Why do you keep only to this one? Is she so different from the others?” He reached for her breast.

  “Send them to my farm to provide me pleasure when I visit there, my lord. And Dara would welcome the help.”

  She could tell from the tone of his voice that it was a distraction—he’d told her of Diarmid’s way of finding women, some of whom he never laid eyes on and of whose fates he had no knowledge in his name. He said this to get these newest ones out of Diarmid’s clutches. “I will send word to expect their arrival, two days after the vision?”

  Connor pushed her off then and climbed from the bed to face Diarmid on his feet. It gave her the chance to put Connor between her and the lecherous Diarmid. Damn him, he noticed the protective move, even though Connor had made it look casual. She did not attempt to cover herself from his gaze, for it would make things worse with a man like this one.

  “Not to serve you here?” Diarmid asked as he stared at her body. It made her skin crawl, but she dared not move.

  “I told you, Diarmid: she gives me ease. Since she can still walk and breathe and move as you saw so well, I do not seek others.”

  “You always sought other women, Connor. It was not about keeping one with you; it was about using as many different ones as you could during this time.”

  Connor stalked away around the screen—trying, she knew, to draw Diarmid away from her—but Diarmid reached out and grabbed her thigh, wrapping his large, strong hand around it, and pulled her to the side of the bed. Tempted to fight back then, she slid along until he lifted her hips off the bed with his grasp. She could not imagine what he was doing until he leaned over and sniffed.

  “Ah,” he whispered to her, “freshly used cunny.” He sniffed again. “Warm and wet and ready for a man’s prick.”

  “Diarmid?” Connor said quietly. “Touch her, and our arrangement is over.” Then his voice dropped into a tone she could only describe as dangerous. “Take her, and I will kill you for it.”

  The battle lasted only a few seconds, for he was the Seer and she knew that to Diarmid she was not worth losing him or angering him over. Diarmid dropped her, and she scrambled back away from him.

  Connor held out a cup to Diarmid and motioned for him to sit, in the chair of visions. Apparently mollified by such an honor, Diarmid forgot about Moira and drank the wine.

  “You must have had a purpose for coming here. Did I miss your call or not appear as you have ordered?” he asked, taking a sip of his.

  “You are different somehow.”

  “I would think you would be pleased not to have my rages and outbursts disturb your well-run keep, my lord,” Connor added for good measure. “’Tis a simple matter: I slake my raging hunger on her and find ease.”

  “Only one?” he asked again.

  “When she ceases to please me, you will be the first to know.”

  “I should have killed her,” Diarmid said, drinking the last of his wine.

  “Worry not, my lord. She but amuses me.”

  Diarmid’s face lost its lust-filled expression and studied Connor for a moment. “Nay, Seer. She has done something to you. There is no edge; there is no anger in you this time.” Diarmid put the cup down on the carved flat arm of the chair. “Can you still sense the building up of the power within you?”

  “I can,” he answered. It was unlike the recent months somehow, but it was there, building stronger and stronger as the full moon approached.

  Diarmid beckoned Connor to him. When Connor stood close, Diarmid leaned over to him. “If she has done something that will weaken you or your visions, I will kill her. I will cut out all the parts of her you seem to like and the ones I think you waste and then kill her.”

  Connor did not say a word. Diarmid was at his most dangerous when he grew quiet.

  “Your value to me is your power of vision, Connor. For it, I forgive much: your impudence, your rages, your demands, that bitch in your bed. But, mark my words well, for if she has done something to you and, by easing your needs somehow diminished your gift, neither of you will live to tell of it.”

  The lord of Mull pushed Connor out of his way and walked to the door of the chamber, where Ranald stood watching and listening. Diarmid strode out, and Ranald reached in, with a nod, to pull the door closed behind him.

  Connor stood in the silence for a few more minutes, trying to feel the power within him, trying to gain a sense of the limits and expanses of it as it pulsed to life. He did not doubt for one second that she had caused a change in him, but it was not the one Diarmid feared. Instead, with her every acceptance of his body into hers and her satisfying the beast that raged within him, she somehow freed the power inside him.

  By this time of the month, as the moon grew to fullness, he’d been so caught up in the pain and the desire in his blood that he could focus on nothing else. But this time…

  He poured more wine in his cup and walked toward the bed, to the woman who had brought death to him when she sought justice for her family, yet continued to give him reasons to live and the desire to control his power.

  For the first time ever, he had a better sense of which of those presented by Diarmid had true need as well as a true heart. Of the twelve men Diarmid had presented to him, only one was blameless in the situation he brought to the Seer. Only one. He could bring the man and his quest to mind just by thinking of him—an occurrence he’d never caused to happen before.

  And he would try to cause it to happen this time.

  If he only had two more visions, two more months, he wanted to gain what control he could, if he could, before the last one took him. Her movement drew his attention.

  “Do you wish to bring other women to your bed, Seer?” she asked. She stood naked and unashamed before him, her body healing and stronger with each day. But it was her heart and soul that were slower to restore.

  “Do you wish me to, Moira? Should I seek others to fill your place?” he asked her in reply, without giving her an answer.

  For weeks she’d accommodated his every whim and wish of the flesh, without hesitation and without ever speaking of her own needs or desires, only to repay him for keeping her alive. Oh, he could tell what she liked from the way her body responded to his caresses or to his mouth or his cock, but only lately, from the time she saved him from despair during the storm, had he any sense tha
t she wanted to be part of it.

  Now was her chance. If she said the word, he would not take her again. If it meant the pain and the fire these last two months, then so be it. Too many had been manipulated into serving him, and it had to end. He walked close enough to see the color of her eyes and watch them as he asked her again.

  “Does this,” he nodded to the bed, “does it matter at all to you?”

  The moment drew out and out until he feared hearing her answer. She lifted her face to him, and he noticed her bottom lip quivered and that she tried to speak once, twice, thrice before words escaped her. But it was not what he expected to hear after all.

  “Damn you, Seer,” she said in an angry burst, as she pummeled his chest with her fists. “It does matter!” She turned and walked away from him, but stopped and returned to the spot in front of him where she’d begun. “It does matter, and I want to hate you for making it so.”

  Her fists clenched and released several times before she spoke again. “I do not want you to find others to take my place.”

  Then she began to cry. He could sense the struggle and the cost to her for such an admission. To surrender all of her hatred, carefully nurtured over the years to keep her focused on her quest and to give her a reason to live, and to begin to accept that she did not want to kill him—nay, that she wanted him instead—was a heavy price on her soul. Only if her heart desired him could she find peace with it.

  He knew that, but did she?

  Connor dragged her against him, rubbing her back and holding her tightly while she released the tears.

  “I told you it would have been better for both of us had you succeeded the first time. I think that trying to live is harder than waiting to die.”

  He took her to his bed then, but only to hold her near to him. Soon, sleep overtook them, and Connor had dreams of a kind he’d never had before: he saw himself holding a bairn, he saw himself making love to a woman he knew was his wife, he saw a life stretching out for years and years before him. He did not know what the dreams meant, for dreams were signs to those who could interpret them, but he let them come and allowed the hopefulness of them to seep into his soul.