Some Like it Plaid

by Angela Quarles

  Last night when he’d located Mungan and inquired about sending her back, Connall was shocked to learn the true cost of the spell Mungan had cast—it took a year off Mungan’s life. He had made him swear, however, not to tell anyone else this fact.

  “It’s what I want,” the spellcaster had said. “My way of giving back to a tribe that took me in as a foundling.”

  Since he was only a few years older than himself, Connall had no memory of a time when Mungan wasn’t with the tribe, but he’d heard the story like everyone else had—Mungan had been found as a six-year-old wandering the moors and speaking a strange language and wearing even stranger garb.

  When the door quietly shut nearby, Connall dropped his chin and blew out a breath. This was it.

  He glanced over his shoulder and drank in the last sight of her as she trudged the short path from their home. Too soon, she was swallowed up by Eithne, the other older women, and half the village who surrounded her and followed her down the slope. From what he’d heard, most were accompanying her to Achnabreck.

  Everything in him wanted to leap into that crowd and pull her back inside their hearth. To say, no, she’s mine, she’s staying, but then he remembered her listless state upon his return. He’d done that to her.

  The fire he’d admired about her was gone.

  How could he be happy with himself, if his needs for the tribe left her unhappy?

  He couldn’t.

  Mungan’s spell to find the woman meant for him had not been specific enough. He’d found the woman meant for him, aye, but not the one meant for his tribe as well. Though it negated the whole point of bringing her to his land, he had to do this. Had to sacrifice his personal need for her for the good of the tribe. Had to sacrifice his happiness for the sake of hers.

  Better for her to be in her land where she’d be happy, he told himself.

  A little while later, unable to watch the progression to Achnabreck any longer, Connall pushed away from the keep’s bulwark—the best vantage point to watch her and the accompanying party become specks in the distance.

  At one point, he could swear that the figure he knew to be her had turned her head and looked back upon reaching the opposite shore, but he couldn’t be certain. He’d raised a hand in farewell but knew he was too far away for her to see it.

  He strode to the trap door that would lead him into the keep and knelt, gripping the iron handle. A glint from an unclouded, lowering sun—a rarity—striking a small object along the wall made him pause. Frowning, he straightened and walked over to the side facing the loch and crouched.

  Nothing.

  But he’d swear he’d seen something metallic.

  He shuffled back a step and pushed his hands through the few leaves which had somehow worked their way up here from the wind. A sharp pain pricked his middle finger.

  Cursing, he shoved the leaves away and found it—the kilt pin Ashley had crafted for him.

  Carefully, he picked it up and stood, cradling it in his palm. How did—?

  He glanced around, and his heart squeezed. This was where they’d first shared a kiss. Their first kiss. When they’d come up here to locate the ideal spots for her signal towers.

  Memories of all the times they’d been together assailed him. Helplessness and despair gripped him. How could someone be so right for him, but so wrong for the tribe?

  That fierceness of spirit he admired so much and which kept him on his toes—he’d thought he could keep it stoked in private but subdued in public. He’d failed to see in time, that by indulging himself, he’d weakened the tribe. If the only way he could lead them meant she had to be unhappy? Broken?

  He gripped the pin, strode to the wall, and leaned his elbows against it, his head bowed. Could he have been wrong?

  No.

  It would be selfish of him to put his own needs and wishes above that of the tribe. Above her. And he couldn’t forget, she’d wanted to return the whole time she’d been here.

  Tightening his jaw, he pushed away from the wall and opened the trap door. He worked his way down the steps and out into the courtyard, his steps hastening as if being chased by the memory of their time together up on top of the keep.

  Would those memories fade in time?

  He was doing the right thing. Wasn’t he?

  As he approached the door to their hearth home, their neighbor opened the door and called his name. He turned and made his way to her, the summons unusual for the reclusive woman.

  “How can I help you, Fionnuala?”

  “You’re a fool.”

  With that pronouncement, she shook her head, the loose skin under her chin wagging, and turned back for the door to her hearth home.

  “Wait.” He reached out and gently touched her shoulder. “I’ll grant you that this is most likely true, but what do you mean?”

  “If I have to tell you, it proves my point.”

  “Are you… Are you referring to my wife leaving?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Let me tell you something, young man. If it hadn’t been for her, Murdina wouldn’t have been carted up to safety while she was in labor. It was Ashley and her council who made sure all of us older women who lived alone had someone assigned to us to bring us to the keep. And she made a stretcher—a stretcher—out of thin air to help that woman with child up there.” She pointed a shaking finger at the keep. “And she resealed the south ravine pass.”

  Connall stood with his mouth open, for not only was that more than he’d ever heard the woman say at any given time, but because this was the first time he’d heard any of this. A surge of pride swelled in his chest, followed immediately by remorse. Of course, she’d do her utmost to protect these people. Then the rest of her words registered.

  “Her council?”

  But she was done enlightening him, apparently, for she yanked her shoulder away from his touch and shut herself back into her hearth home.

  Growling in frustration but unwilling to push his luck with the woman, Connall marched into his own home. He slung his fur mantle onto its hook, and his gaze unerringly tracked to where she’d normally be sitting if she were here.

  But she wasn’t, of course. Because he’d sent her away.

  He opened his fingers and looked at her pin, remembering when she’d first gifted it to him.

  The old woman’s words came to him again—her council?

  So, she’d formed her own council of all women. He smiled—that was something she would do.

  Then his smile faded. If the men’s council had given the women a voice, the women wouldn’t have felt the need to do things separately.

  If they’d given the women a voice they’d have been united in purpose and Aiden’s abduction might not have happened.

  He glanced over to the wall as if he could see the old woman in her hearth home.

  He closed his fingers over the pin. Yes, he’d been a fool.

  He thought that being united meant the women listened to the men and obeyed, but it just meant the tribe wasn’t working in concert. And before that, he’d believed he only needed to exercise patience to win her.

  It wasn’t patience he needed. It was a willingness to actually listen.

  Oh, he’d made a mess of things, all right. He grabbed his mantle and pushed out the door. The sun hadn’t yet set. He might still have time. Time to fix everything.

  The tribe needed her. He needed her. The tribe was stronger with her.

  And so was he.

  …

  Ashley shivered as the last rays of the sun illuminated the carved lines and indentations in the otherwise smooth shelf of rock. Next to her, Eithne and the other women on the council fidgeted, their feet occasionally stomping the ground to warm them up.

  Behind them the half moon rode the tip of a distant mountain, in an already darkened eastern sky. As the sun’s power dimin
ished and the moon cast its soft rays on her, the air thickened with potential. With energy.

  Perhaps it was from finally seeing the druid at work. Mungan had been fussing around the site ever since they’d arrived, setting everything up along the rocks. This felt very druid-y, seeing him mumble and pinch herbs into indentations in the rocks and place staffs in different spots. He kept squinting toward the setting sun and then to the moon over her shoulder and then back at the site where he was arranging everything just so.

  Her attention invariably strayed to the wooden walkway below at any perceived movement, and each time, she tamped down the disappointment that tried to work its way into her resolve.

  He’s not coming.

  Mungan strode up to her and waved toward the circle. “If you’ll stand over here and face the moon. When I motion, walk sunwise around the circle of staffs.”

  “Sunwise?”

  He pointed to her left. Oh—counter-clockwise. Ashley stumbled toward where he indicated. The druid placed his hands on her shoulders and adjusted her placement, a scent like ionized air mixed with the pleasant warmth of herbs wafting from his robes.

  “There ye are.” He stepped back, his piercing gaze latching onto hers, and began to mumble more words.

  Oh shit, it was happening. It was starting. That jolted her, lifting some kind of cloud from her mind. The cloud that had made her feel so listless and ineffective. And the more he mumbled his spell, the more Ashley was convinced—this was wrong.

  Eithne and the rest of the villagers who’d come to see her off shifted. Eithne shook her head, her eyes pleading. Earlier, each one had come up to her to tell her to stay. That they wanted her here.

  “Ashley,” Eithne admonished. “You’re making a grave mistake.” This was met with another round of requests for her to stay.

  The village needed her.

  She was important here.

  She was Epidii, one of The Horse People.

  Never in her life had she ever felt as if she belonged. Until she came here.

  She wanted to stay, dammit.

  If Connall didn’t want her, well tough.

  The idea was a heady one, fizzing through her like the first sip of Coca-Cola. She should stay. She should stay.

  The druid can’t send her back. Connall would just have to deal with her because they were married.

  As the thoughts circled round and round, pulling her more toward their truth, the druid stopped his mumbling and gave the signal for her to walk. She opened her mouth to tell him to call off the ceremony and announce her decision to him and the villagers, but a shout from behind startled her.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Connall pushed through the fern, his black hair streaming behind him, his face set in determined lines, his chest heaving in exertion.

  Her heart did a holy-shit lurch in her chest. He came. But…why?

  Chapter Twenty

  “Stop!” Heart in his throat, Connall bounded up the last stretch of the incline. Everyone in the village stared as he passed, but his attention was fixed solely on Ashley’s lovely face.

  By the ancestors, when he’d seen her already standing at the apex of the circle, he’d feared he was too late.

  She hadn’t started walking yet, so Connall forged ahead, hiking the few steep steps up onto the rock carving. He shouted, “I’ll make ye an equal!”

  Gasps sounded behind him. Her eyes grew round. But still she said nothing.

  She didn’t take a step to start her part of the magic, either.

  He stumbled to a stop before her, his chest heaving. “A true equal.” Anything. Anything as long as they were together. He pulled in another breath, winded from fear, not from the short dash here.

  Because working together, everyone was safer, and everyone was definitely happier.

  Most of all him.

  And, he hoped, her as well.

  Murmurs pummeled against his turned back, and he whipped around. He glared at all of them, stepping so that he was between Ashley and the others. “If the rest of you see how I treat my woman as a weakness, then you don’t deserve either one of us. I’ll go back to her land with her.”

  Eithne yelled, “You’re the only one with a hard head, not us.”

  Laughter burbled up at this pronouncement, and he stood a moment, taking that meaning in. None of the faces watching him held censure or looked at him with any less respect.

  He stared around Achnabreck, the site of where he’d lost his older brother. The site where he’d brought the woman he loved home.

  And as the ramifications of what she said registered, and the villagers’ reactions, he felt lighter. Lighter than he’d felt since…since the day his brother had been taken at this very location and Connall had cowered in fear.

  As he moved his shoulders in a slight shrug, as if sloughing off the last vestiges of that weight he’d carried since he was young, he realized a new truth—he’d been holding onto the shame of what happened. And it had clouded his ability to lead effectively. Aye, he’d forgiven himself when he’d rescued Aiden, but he hadn’t truly understood how it had affected his life. His decisions. Until now.

  He whirled back around, for there was only one person whose opinion mattered. Was he too late for her forgiveness? Too late to mend her broken spirit? “Stay.”

  Her eyes narrowed at his commanding tone. “Real men ask nicely,” she said, her voice strong but low so only he could hear.

  His knees buckled as a wash of relief swept through him. Instead of locking them tight, he allowed himself to lower to his knees in front of her. She gasped, her eyes getting rounder.

  “Ashley. Will ye have me? Your strength melds with mine and makes us both stronger. I cannot…” He swallowed and cleared his throat. “I cannot imagine living the rest of my days without your fiery spirit by my side. I love you.”

  Ashley caught her lower lip between her teeth, and her eyes filled with moisture. “I love you, too,” she whispered. “I’d decided to stay whether you wanted me or not.”

  His heart swelled with pride and love. “Because you’re as stubborn as me.”

  “And because someone needed to take this job of being your wife.”

  He laughed, his heart feeling full to bursting. He scooped her up and swung her around, the cheers of his tribe as accompaniment.

  The druid, however, cleared his throat. “You need to know, that since her season is up, her powers are gone. She’ll no longer have access to the skills the magic imparted to her.”

  Connall looked at him over Ashley’s head, and then down at her. “That’s not what made her special.”

  …

  After Connall’s declaration and her life-altering decision, they stared at each other for what seemed the longest time. They only became aware of their audience when conversational chatter and the accompanying shouts and rustling of a group departing finally penetrated. Mungan placed a hand on both of their shoulders. “We are leaving before the night becomes too long.”

  She still found it weird that he was not only a young druid, but a hot one for those who were into his kind of impish looks.

  Connall enfolded her into his chest, looking over at the spellcaster. “We will follow soon,” he said, the words rumbling from his chest pressed to her ear.

  His heart beat steady and strong.

  Ashley trembled as he held her tight and all the adrenaline of the past few moments worked its way through her. Together they turned and watched the last of the tribe walk down the incline back to Dunadd. The last in line, Mungan smiled at them over his shoulder before he followed the rest.

  Connall’s strong fingers brushed her cheek and angled her chin up. Love and acceptance shown from his eyes.

  I’m so lucky. So lucky to have this moment with him.

  “Ashley,” he whispered and lowered his face to hers.


  It was a gentle meeting of lips brushing lips as if he reveled in the ability to taste her again, and she closed her eyes.

  This. This man.

  When it came down to it, he was just a big marshmallow inside. His warm breath, his taste stirred a rush of feeling that welled, stronger and stronger as their mouths luxuriated in tasting each other.

  Tasting the promises so fresh from these lips.

  But soon the kiss grew in urgency, and Connall stepped into her, placing a leg between her thighs, a hand splaying against her lower back and tugging her closer to him. His other hand cradled her face, his tongue stroking inside her now. A hot flash of need rushed through her veins, and she sucked in a breath.

  “I missed you,” she whispered against his mouth.

  He groaned and gripped her hip, his mouth crashing into hers, and she undulated against his thigh, seeking pressure where she felt so empty for him. She broke the kiss and gasped, staring up at him. Then she placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back a step. “Did you mean all of that? What you said before?”

  “Every word.” His hand left her hip, and he smoothed both palms along her jaw, his gaze piercing. “I love you, and I promise that every day I will show you that I do. You shall not regret making your life here, with me.”

  …

  Connall had intended to only have a moment away from the tribe to kiss his wife, unable to wait any longer to taste her again. To seal their promise.

  That she chose to stay here, with him, humbled him.

  But when she’d pushed him backward, his back had grown…warmer. He’d stepped inside the magic circle. While he wanted to make love to her with every fiber of his being, he’d been conscious of the cold for he knew she was more sensitive to it than himself. The magical heat inside the circle sizzled up his spine, speaking to him, telling him that here was the moment. Here was the time. Here they’d be safe. Safe to seal their bond.