A Storm of Passion

by TERRI BRISBIN

  “Come to me, my Moira,” he said, as he walked away from the bed.

  Confused, she slid off the bed, wiping her eyes so she could she her path around the bed and then around the screen. He sat in his chair now, but it was somehow not Connor there—it was someone more than Connor. He had become the Seer right before her eyes.

  His release still pulsed through his body, and he could feel some part of her remaining in his heart and his soul. They had touched just then. They had joined more than just their fleshly bodies in that moment of ecstasy and passion. Their souls had touched. Their hearts had touched.

  Somehow her need for justice still burned deep within her, for he could feel her soul cry out for it even now. It gave him the strength to give her that one thing she would never ask for herself: a vision to see the truth of her family’s destruction.

  He knew that she would never heal and never be free of the past until she knew all that had happened, and now, as his last vision, he would try to give her what she needed so that she could move on with her life after he was gone.

  He would give her the truth.

  She watched him as he held out his hand to her, and he thought she might refuse to take it, but she moved ever closer until she stood before him, much as she had the first time he’d joined with her. She leaned over and put her hand in his, and he closed his fingers around hers, holding her and willing the power to flow, instead of waiting for it to happen.

  The shock of it took his breath away, and he heard her gasp as she felt it, too. It moved like fire through his body and into hers, filling her blood as it filled his. Soon he could hear her thoughts and see her memories. He’d never moved back through time before, but it was necessary to show her the truth.

  “Take me back, Moira,” he ordered. “Take us back and show me how it was then.”

  He, they, watched a scene unfold before his eyes: the days and years peeled away, and the Moira who held his hand was only a girl now. The brightness of the day was so strong it hurt his eyes, but it was her voice that he heard as she called out to her family.

  “That is Eibhlin, my sister, carrying the bucket from the well. Look! My brothers, Cailean and Dòmhnall, are chasing her now!”

  The girl, younger than Moira, had long blond hair that curled around her bright face. The boys, twins, had the darker coloring of eyes and hair, but the shape of the chins and noses bespoke their relationship. The children passed by her, and she laughed out at their antics.

  Moira turned around and watched them run to the cottage on the lane where they lived. She followed, as did he, and she opened the door on an argument between her parents. Shaking her head, she pulled the door closed. He could feel her discomfort over witnessing the exchange, and her hand grew cold in his as he heard the angry voices spilling out.

  “Moira lass, come with me,” he told the child, and then he leaned back and brought them both high into the sky soaring over the village below. She laughed in childlike joy as he moved them through the air faster and faster until the winds pushed against them and the sun warmed them. The Quinag hills separated their village from the higher mountains, and from their place high above he could see the whole of the peninsula where their town lay. Connor turned in one direction and then another looking, searching for something, until he saw a group of men approaching from the east.

  “Connor…I cannot do this…” she stuttered.

  She said his name in her own voice, and he felt the fear within her growing.

  “Be strong, my Moira,” he said. “You need to find the truth. Hold me tight, and all will be well.”

  Some of this was familiar to him from the time he called it forth for Skuli, but Moira and her siblings had not been part of that vision. Now he remembered seeing only her father’s role, which he knew she would see next.

  They slowed then, and Connor brought them to stand just outside the group of men, some Norse from the look and sound of them and others from Diarmid’s lands. Seumas, son of Neacail and Moira’s father, of Quinag, stood arguing with the man called Skuli of Caithness.

  “You betrayed me, Seumas. If you wanted out of our deal, you could have walked away with nothing more than some gold lost. Instead you sold your honor behind my back. Did my brother pay you more?”

  “Your brother is the rightful earl; you should honor his claim to Orkney,” Seumas said, but Skuli cut off his words.

  “My claim is stronger and has been upheld by the King of the Scots, and you swore you would fight at my side if the king named me earl here.” Skuli drew his sword and held it out in front of him. “You sold your honor and your word to my brother. Your honor is broken, your word no good. All in Caithness and Orkney will know you cannot be trusted.”

  Skuli lifted his sword and would have cut off Seumas’s head had not Seumas called out an offer of gold. “Your brother’s gold is in the village. If you let me leave here alive, I will tell you where I have hidden it.”

  Moira shook as she watched her father betray himself and their family, selling his honor for gold and their lives for his. “No, Papa,” she cried. “No.”

  Connor lifted them up and away, and they could see the Norsemen heading for their village and hear the screams. They flew then, moving over and ahead until they could see the men catch up with her father and take their vengeance out on him, leaving him hanging from a tree as a sign to others of the cost of treachery.

  Now, he felt Moira fall into his arms, and he brought her back the way they’d come, through the years and months and days and hours until she was once again the woman he loved. She sobbed in his embrace for a long time; the terrible truth that her own father had brought death to her family and village would be hard to accept. He watched as she stood and stepped away from him and as the brightness in the chambers began to fade.

  “That was some trick—that could not be the truth!” she cried out. “Did you make me see that believing that I would accept it and condemn my father instead of you?”

  “I wanted you to see the truth, so that you can have peace and live your own life now,” he said, every word he spoke draining him of energy. “You deserved to know.”

  “I told you I did not need to see it,” she pulled away and shook her head. “I did not want to cause your…” Now a look of terror entered her eyes, and he knew she was seeing his end.

  “Connor, do not leave me,” she screamed. “Connor…”

  The room faded, and he felt a coldness pierce his eyes now, draining his sight even as the power seeped away, draining his life. He tried to reach out to her, but his heart slowed and slowed until he felt the last beat.

  And then nothing more.

  He’d sworn not to do this, and now his death was on her soul after all. He’d sworn to fight the last vision, to try to prolong the power until he could learn more about it. And in the end, he’d called down the vision for her to seek the truth she needed.

  Connor was dead.

  She fell on the cold floor in front of him and wretched uncontrollably. He could not be dead. He could not be. She’d wanted his death for so long, but not like this. Not now, not now that she’d accepted his love. Not before she could tell him…

  She looked at him, his body reclining in the damn chair of his visions as though relaxing, much like the first time she’d joined with him, here, in this room and in that chair. She shook her head, not believing it.

  He was right. He was right. His last vision would bring his death, and he’d called it forth for her.

  Why?

  Why?

  So he could make her believe something he suspected? He showed her a scene that could not have happened the way they saw it from above. She’d felt younger when she took his hand and heard him speak in that voice. The one he used during his visions, when someone else sat in his place and spoke his words.

  What could she do now? She looked down and realized she was naked. Running to the bed, she found her shift and pulled it and her gown on quickly.

  He could not be
dead.

  He could not be.

  She needed help. Wanting only to shake him until he woke, she felt her heart pounding in her chest and tried to think of the right thing to do.

  Moira ran to the door and told the guard to find Breac. Then she went back and placed her hand on his chest. His chest did not rise, and no heart beat beneath her palm now.

  But, his face looked at peace. For the first time since she’d met him that small furrow did not form between his brows. She touched his mouth and felt the heat of his body changing to cold.

  She slid to the floor, grasping his hand, and she sobbed.

  Minutes later, or longer she knew not, Breac entered and stood over her.

  “He is dead, Breac,” she said, wiping the tears with the back of her hand. “He called the vision, and it killed him, as he thought it would.”

  Breac did not seem surprised by what he found. Without a word, he moved around the chamber, gathering clothing and other things.

  “Breac, he is dead,” she repeated.

  “I know, Moira,” he answered, coming to stand behind her. “He told me to tell you farewell.”

  She turned to look at him, but he placed his arm around her shoulders and held her chin in his hand. Then, he leaned her head back, and before she could do anything to stop him, Breac poured some foul brew in her mouth, pinching her nose until she swallowed it down.

  The room spun and grew dark, and she stumbled back against him.

  “Breac?”

  Connor had promised not to turn her over to Diarmid if he died. Was this his way of taking her with him in death? Moira forced her eyes to open and took one more look at Connor. Somehow she knew it would be the last one.

  The darkness swelled then, and she fell away from it all.

  Chapter Twenty

  An t-Eilean Muile (Isle of Mull), five months later

  The voyage around past Skye and the lands of Lorn was much different from the last one she took to reach Mull. That one was carried out in secret, as she hid her intentions and her identity, and this one was in a well-made boat sailed by experienced men hired to see her…home.

  When Connor had died, she’d thought her life was over. Waking from the concoction given to her by Breac, she found herself well away from Diarmid’s keep and his lands. His last orders to Breac, before giving him his freedom, were to take Moira to safety and give her her life back. Breac gave her Connor’s last words and a chest of his gold to ease her way.

  And it had.

  For the first time, she controlled her life.

  It took weeks for the grief to lessen enough for her to think about a future. Then it took more to figure out how to find out if his last vision had been true. Her heart ached when she tracked down the truth and found she’d been wrong to doubt him or his love in the end.

  The sun came out from behind the clouds now, and the sea breezes carried the boat along the coast, south toward Mull and Connor’s farm. Well, as Breac had explained, it was Pol and Dara’s farm now, given to them on his death. He’d told her that there would always be a place for her there if she did not find what she was seeking in the north of Scotland.

  The wind tugged her hood, and she let it drop to her shoulders so she could enjoy the warm weather of this spring day. No one would know her now, for she’d used the juice of some berries to darken her hair and she used her real name once more.

  Moira of Quinag.

  One of the sailors called out to her, and she turned to watch them approach the small, wooden dock. If she closed her eyes, she could remember leaving this place to go back to Diarmid’s keep, to face her certain death and the wrath of the Seer. Instead she’d discovered a man imprisoned by the terrible power that controlled him.

  And now she’d found a reason to live in spite of his death.

  The boat bumped up against the dock, and one of the men climbed out, tying the boat to a spike there. When it was secured, he helped her out of the boat. Walking onto the shore, she watched as the cart came over the hill to fetch her.

  Standing there, she tried not to think too much, but memories flooded back at her. Somehow she’d thought it would be easier than this to return to his lands. Wiping away the tears, she walked up to greet Pol as he pulled the cart to a stop before her. He jumped down and came around to greet her.

  “Dara is glad that you decided to visit,” he said, nodding to the men who stood waiting at the boat. “Secure the boat and use the horses to come to the farm,” he called out to them.

  Several horses and another cart were always kept here for use in traveling back and forth to the farm some miles away through the coastal hills. She had already explained it to the men when she hired them, asking them to stay at the farm for a few days while she made her decision. Pol helped her into the cart, her bags were tossed in the back, and soon they had crossed through the first line of hills along the path that would take her…home.

  She’d known she made the right decision when she stepped off the boat, but she wanted to speak to Dara first and make certain of her plans. Somehow bearing Connor’s child and raising him or her among the people he loved seemed the right thing to do. They would keep his name and memory alive and teach her son or daughter about the father he would never know, just as she would teach him about her family.

  They would remain alive in the memories and hearts of those who loved them forever. Her only regret was never having the chance to recognize that she loved Connor or to tell him of her love before he died. If only she had realized what he was doing and the price he would pay. If only…

  She wiped more tears away. It seemed all she did lately was cry, but according to one midwife she’d spoken to, that was to be expected in a woman carrying.

  Moira did not speak much along the way, and Pol must have realized there was little she could say then. They rode in companionable silence, the miles flowing by quickly. By midmorning, the farm came into view, and she straightened on the seat, watching it grow closer and closer. When they reached the house, several people stood waiting for her.

  Breac and Agnes and Dara.

  Pol helped her down, and Dara reached her first, throwing her arms around her and hugging her. The thickening waist and stomach between them was noticed quickly.

  “It cannot be,” Dara exclaimed. “Yer carrying?” Dara looked at her closely, rubbing her hand over Moira’s stomach as though she could tell something by the size or shape of the growing bump there. “’Tis Connor’s?” she asked in a whisper, before the others came close.

  “Aye,” she said with a teary smile. “’Twould appear that neither of us was barren after all.”

  From the symptoms and what she remembered, she could only think that it had happened that last, magical time that they made love. It had been different from every other time they joined, in some way she could not say and she was sure that this bairn was the result of it. She’d not known for some months, and then she’d refused to believe it for she’d never been caught before in all those times and all those years.

  But, that last time they loved…it had been a true joining of bodies and souls, and somehow the fates, or the Fae—she knew not which—had granted her this piece of Connor to keep with her. She rubbed her hand there and was gifted with a flutter of movement beneath her palm.

  Breac and Agnes reached them, and Dara shared the news with them. Agnes stood quietly at her side, touching Moira’s belly and smiling at her as though she always knew it would happen. Breac, well, he tried to say something, but would end up just shaking his head at her, stunned into silence by the news.

  “Are ye feeling well, Moira?” Dara asked as they walked toward the house. “Any of the sickness or dizziness?”

  “I am well, Dara. Strong as an ox and just as stubborn, I think,” she said.

  “Will ye be staying here then?”

  They reached the gate to the house, but Moira was not ready to go inside yet. Now that she was here, more than anything she wanted to visit a place Connor had spok
en of those months ago. A meadow where he’d promised her he would perform every sort of wicked delight for her pleasure. She smiled even now, just thinking about the place.

  “I think so,” she said, with a nod. “I think it would please him to have his child born here.”

  Dara turned away then, as though unable to speak of Connor, but she grabbed Moira’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

  “Connor told me of a meadow near the sea. Is it close enough for a walk?” she asked.

  Dara looked past her to Breac and Agnes before answering her. “’Tis a fine day for a walk and ’tis not too far or hard to find.”

  Within a few minutes, with a skin of watered wine and a sack filled with bread and cheese, Moira headed up the path toward the place Connor had promised to bring her on a fine spring day. She did not fight the tears then, but let them flow as they seemed wont to do. The mile or so along the path took little time, and she followed Dara’s directions off the path, through the trees to the meadow.

  She held her breath as she passed the stand of trees that separated the path from her destination, and the view of it was well worth the effort to get here. Already the warming temperatures hastened the growing season here and covered the field with a mix of soft grass and spring flowers. Turning to see if he’d told her the truth, she spied the hill that he had claimed was an entrance to the land of the Sith.

  The small rise was just as he’d described, and she began walking toward it. He’d claimed that much as he would like to tup her here on the soft meadow grass, with the flowers all around them and the sun shining down to warm her naked skin, he could not, for fear that the Sith would come out of their burrow and steal her away to their lands.

  They had driven each other to madness with words that day, but now seeing it as he’d said it would be made her heart heal a bit. She thought she heard soft laughter as she passed on her way to look out at the sea, but she could see no one around in the meadow. She was walking toward the sea when she saw someone, a man, sitting nearer the edge of the cliff.