by Alisa Adams
With an exasperated sigh that sent little red corkscrews fluttering in the air, Aoide flopped back onto her rear and gave up. She was stuck here, at least until the nameless captain that had claimed her for his own found it in his heart to offer forgiveness and liberty.
The idea of “claiming” snagged on Aoide’s thoughts, as did the man himself—the leader of men whose name she didn't even know. She had picked up on calls and jeers and taunts over the days she had journeyed with these men. But they all just referred to the commander as “sir” or “the captain.” No one had dared speak his name aloud.
Not that she could blame them.
The man was a towering force of muscle and might. She wasn't sure that, were she to know his name, she would risk speaking it. As if it might summon him to her side like a vengeance-driven monster of myth.
And yet...
Aoide's conscience crept in. He had not been so monstrous to her. He had taken her from the presence of men who had wanted to assault and violate her, removing her from their gaze and reach and locking her away in the safety of his tent. True, it was still a prison, but here she had been given a chance to sleep, food to eat, and a sense of warmth away from the howling winds.
So, he wasn’t really a monster.
Lost in her thoughts of the terrifying man whose actions did not match his appearance, Aoide did not realize when the light faded outside into the hushed dim of nighttime. She jumped in surprise when the tent flap opened, and the figure of her thoughts moved inside.
Spinning around on her bottom and looking up at the captain, Aoide felt her mouth fall open and her face flame with color. With the vibrancy of her hair, she no doubt looked as if she had been dipped headfirst into a vat of raspberry juice, yet she could not help the flush, for the man was naked before her.
Well, mostly naked.
Aoide was forced to correct herself again as her gaze flew to the brief cloth that had been bound about his hips. Patches of it had darkened and clung to the tops of his thighs, while the rest of him glistened with dampness. With a second cloth in hand, the man was reaching up to rub at his hair, scrubbing away the remains of his bath.
With his head encased in cloth, Aoide was left the chance to watch him without shame.
The man was bent over a little, the curve of his spine an elegant shadow that ran from his neck to his waist. From this center, the muscles of his back spread outwards like eagle wings, shifting with every rub of his hair. The candles gilded the heavy rises of his shape, turning simple physical strength to an almost heroic might. As she watched, his shoulders bunched and released, his biceps curling into heavy, rounded muscle. A dusting of brown hair coated forearms made of tendons and veins. His hands were lost in the toweling cloth over his head, but Aoide already knew them to be big. Wide across the back with long and blunt fingers. Heavy hands, like the hands of a blacksmith.
Aoide was momentarily entranced by the way his body moved.
It was all connected.
She had seen males’ bare bodies before, but none had been in the shape that the captain's was. None were so free of fat and full of sinew that she could see the individual links between each piece of anatomy. With every move of his arms, his shoulders flared like a mountain lion prowling for a kill. But his chest also shifted, and the ridges of muscle along his belly tightened.
And there she was looking at that loincloth again...
Trying to ignore the shape of his buttocks beneath the cream covering, Aoide's gaze headed to the floor, stopping to witness the solid shape of his thighs, the definition in his lower legs, and the way that even his feet shifted and flexed to keep his balance as he dried his hair.
By the time the man revealed his face once more, his dark locks now stuck in awkward angles about his head, Aoide was hot, flustered, and ready to give the earth beneath her feet a stern examination.
Surprised at herself, Aoide worked her mouth to relieve the dryness and naturally drew her thighs in against a heat that had bloomed in her core. Despite the power in this man's shape, she should not be so transfixed by something as simple as a human body.
Unlike most girls her age, Aoide had been witness to many things that were perhaps unusual. With a herbal physician for a mother, Aoide had learned the mixing of poultices and tonics as well as what it was like to be run from your home with outcries of “witch!” But, occasionally, the need for a physician of any kind would become paramount in a town or village, and those with bloodied wounds had sought Fanny Hopley's help. Aoide had played as her assistant, holding bandages and bowls of water while the naked forms of men and women were tended to. She had seen nudity in all its forms.
She had even witnessed birth.
But nudity had never affected her like this before.
It was... like fire, Aoide.
That was what her mother had once said to her when she had been small and had asked why her mother had—
"What are you doing?"
The voice interrupted Aoide's thoughts and had her stare shooting to meet the captain's. His eyes were dark, piercing. He was looking at her hands. Aoide glanced down and found they entangled in the fabric of her trousers, pulling the legs up to bare her ankles. They were twisted in the fabric and white in the knuckles.
Quickly, she let them go and shook out her hands.
"Er...n-nothing," she stammered.
He watched her from the corner of his eye as if doubting her answer before he turned to his clothes. With the movement of someone used to the notion of military precision, the man yanked on a kilt, maintaining his dignity in the removal of the cloth, and then threw a large and billowing shirt over his head. He negated the need for his boots and ran a hand through his hair to stick it damp to his skull.
"What's your name?" she asked.
Aoide wasn't sure who was more shocked by the question—herself, freezing in place at her own boldness for asking it, or him, stilling quietly for a moment in surprise. He looked at her from where he had been checking over his weapons.
"I am Captain Lachlan Dunne of Mackenzie," he reported, as if he were introducing himself to another officer.
Lachlan.
It seemed to fit.
"I am Aoide," she offered, despite him not asking.
"You have a family name, Aoide?" he asked, and she felt shivers travel the length of her spine. His gravel tone made her name into a growl, trampling over the vowels in a way that turned it into a single, sinful moan.
She gave herself a mental shake.
Just what was wrong with her?
"Not one of any consequence," she answered, a soft and disparaging laugh in her nose.
He glanced at her again, as if surprised that she had cracked a joke while chained to a pole. As he sat down upon his cot, the captain—Lachlan—watched her with an air of assessment, a glint of curiosity in his eye. She wasn't sure what to make of it and so curled herself up tighter.
"Captain?" someone said from outside.
"Enter," Lachlan growled.
One of the lower-ranked soldiers adorned with armor of less import than the helmet she had seen Lachlan wear on occasion stepped inside. He carried two plates of food. Taking one, Lachlan indicated that the other be given to her, and the soldier was quick to obey. Aoide reached forward and, in taking it, muttered a thank you. The soldier seemed surprised but pleased. He blushed and left.
Aoide was slow to eat. It wasn't that she distrusted the food, for she had taken what had been left for her that morning. But her focus had returned to Lachlan, and her thoughts from earlier in the day had risen, distracting her from the plate in her hands. Just why had he brought her here? Why was she now encamped in his private tent, being served food on an actual plate instead of a few mouthfuls of broth in a shared cup? Why had such kindness been offered to her? She was, after all, just a thief to him...right?
Lachlan looked upon her stasis with an assessing eye, his jaw working over a hard piece of crust.
"Eat," he told her. "You'll need yo
ur strength."
Aoide felt her mouth go dry.
"For what?"
"We had to remain at camp today, but you'll not have any more rest. In two days’ time, we reach Scone. You'll be walking a lot."
"That's why I need strength?" The tips of her fingers rolled her piece of bread around on the plate. "Not for anything sooner than that?"
Why was she asking this? Why was she putting ideas into his head? She had thought earlier that day about his reasons for taking her in, had suspected last night that he would claim her for his own, and use her for his pleasure. He was a man away from home—away from any wife or lover that he might have—and unable to sate his male desires. She had expected his interest when she was taken from the others solely for the fact that she was the only woman within a hundred miles of him.
She had not seen it as a compliment but a foregone conclusion.
Then he had done nothing but let her sleep, feed her, and give her privacy.
Confused by such kindness, Aoide had begun to wonder if the man had just been tired the previous night; if the day's walk had seen him fatigued beyond interest.
They had gone nowhere today—encamped for whatever reason—and now he had bathed...
Her mind had gone to sordid purposes once more, and Aoide had not been able to stay them from her tongue. Just what was she hoping to achieve by even suggesting that he take her to his bed? That wasn't what she wanted!
The heat that had bloomed low in her belly flickered once more as if to prove her wrong, and Lachlan's fiery gaze was doing nothing to dim the burn.
"Are you offering yourself to me, Aoide?" he asked.
"No!" That use of her name was tightening her chest all over, and her hands were tangled in her clothes again, the fabric rough against her fingers. "No! I...I just expected—"
"You expected me to be animal enough to bury myself in the body of any available female?" He finished her sentence with words that she would have never chosen. While crude and undignified, the description flared her interest more than her disgust, and she rebuked her own being for such flames.
It was... like fire, Aoide.
Those words echoed in her head again.
Only once had Aoide ever asked her mother about her father. When her mother had warned her of the consequences of congress with men, of the way in which the female body could become with child, she had risked asking after her own sire. Why, if her mother had been so aware of the risks involved, had she taken a man to her bed and then fled into the night so as never to see him again?
Aoide remembered how Fanny had smiled at her, sadly and with open resignation.
It was... like fire, Aoide, she had said. It was a burning within me that I could not deny. Our bodies are animal, and sometimes, with the right pairing, they are driven to one another with a strength more powerful than any faith or logic. There may be men whom you desire, who you think to be beautiful. And that sweet interest is easy to ignore. But then, you'll find that one. A sole being that you cannot deny or renounce, who will set your soul alight and burn like fire in your belly. Like a hunger that cannot be assuaged until you surrender and give yourself unto the flame.
"I wish for no such thing from you," Lachlan told her, leaving Aoide curiously disquieted. "My interest is only that you obey my orders, answer me when I speak to you, and remain docile until you are delivered to Scone prison for your crimes."
Aoide swallowed.
Of course. She was only a heinous thief in his eyes.
"I would willingly do all of that," she said to him, shifting so he could not see the pole she had attacked earlier that day. Such violence could hardly be termed docile. "And yet you ne'er speak to me."
The captain, who had finished his food and taken a seat at his little table, looked around at her over his shoulder. He had taken up a quill, ink, and paper but, now, paused in thought.
"Why did you attack us?" The question was drawn from his lips as if under duress, like the need to ask had been a temptation in the back of his mind for too long.
"Why?" she asked.
Lachlan looked back at her again before continuing to write. His eyes were on his task, but his words were for her.
"You cannot be so stupid as to have thought you had the chance at besting an armed militia. What made you attack us in so foolish an attempt?"
"Food." Aoide saw no reason to lie. Who was she to him? Why should she hide what she had done and her motivations behind it?
The answer, however, seemed to surprise Lachlan. His quill paused in his hand.
"You thought we carried food?"
"No. Garrett wanted the gold he thought was in your chest."
"But, you didn't?"
"No. I wanted food. Old Gar would never have fed me that night if I'd refused to go with him." Aoide shrugged, the chain from her shackle tinkling against the ground.
There was quiet in the tent.
After a moment, Lachlan shifted, turned his chair, and then resettled himself so that he was facing her. He bent low over his knees, his elbows on his thighs and his hands resting loosely together. His eyes were so dark, Aoide noticed they were almost black.
"You ran into battle against a dozen soldiers, with a rock, so that you could eat that night?" While his face was fairly emotionless, he spoke the words as if he doubted her sanity, as if she were a moron for even risking such an effort.
Aoide felt herself bristle with affront.
"It might sound foolish to you with all your money and provisions, but I had not eaten in three days! A starving belly will make you do much that you, sir, might think is crazy!"
"I know."
Those two simple words were quiet, but they silenced the conversation like the roar of a bear. There was such certainty in them, such understanding, that Aoide instinctively knew that he had suffered such hardship himself. He didn’t doubt her. He wasn't criticizing. He genuinely knew what starvation felt like.
Aoide swallowed.
"I...I don't expect forgiveness, and I will take my punishment in Scone."
"You're not afraid of the prison?"
"Of course, I am! I know what they say about that place. And I don't think that I deserve to be there. But..." Aoide glanced down at her hands, fingering the shackle around one of her wrists. "But I knew the law when I followed Garrett into that fight, and I knew what I was risking." Her chin came up with determination. "It was my choice."
The captain’s face was clear of any real feeling or personal investment in the conversation. He was stoic, blank. But his eyes burned.
Aoide had the sudden and certain feeling that this man would hold up under any torture that Scone prison could offer. And then some.
Across from him, she felt monumentally small.
Her fear came rushing back and captured her tongue.
"I, er, I don't suppose that there's any chance of my not being turned over to the pri—"
"No." The word was a sharp and biting cut upon the conversation. Lachlan even spun upon his seat to return to his work, rejecting not only her request but her very presence.
When she had spoken with determination, with bravery, he had listened to her. The moment she showed weakness and requested a break with his duty, he was deaf. Somehow, despite the crushing sense of disappointment that leaked into her heart, Aoide could not find it in herself to hate the man. Honor was not something to be sniffed at even if his was going to send her into the pits of hell.
"Eat and then sleep, Aoide." He told her. His words were rougher than normal, barely more than a rumble in his chest. "Tomorrow, we walk again."
Taking the plate back into her hands, Aoide fiddled with the hunk of bread and then nibbled it slowly. Her eyes were on Lachlan's back, but the man didn't seem to notice. He kept his eyes down and focused upon his task. He ne'er deviated.
This man, Aoide thought, is a man of straight lines. From his angular face to his rigid sense of justice, there was no softness to him. He was hard and unyielding. And it struck h
er as monstrously unfair that such diligent inflexibility only served in making her respect the man that was paving her future towards torment.
7
Lachlan was not known for being irritable. While he was no stranger to the emotion, if one were to ask his brothers, they would say that Lachlan was impervious to something as simple as frustration. Tomas liked to joke that Lachlan was as immovable as a statue carved from the toughest granite, while Finn just seemed to think that Lachlan possessed some divine level of higher morality, one that would see him ignorant of such basic human emotions.
Neither of these assessments was true.
Lachlan was as aware of irritation as the next man. The only difference between him and his emotional brothers was that it wasn't in his nature to show it. His temperament was one of calm to begin with, and beyond that, he had been trained in the arts of stoicism and dogged severity.
From a young age, he had been forced to be more mature than his emotions might wish him to be. The death of his parents had made him his brother’s guardian and advocate and he had not been able to afford his own feelings of grief. Everything had been pushed down, hidden away, and reserved for times of ultimate privacy.
Over the years, repression had become a habit and then slowly crystallized into his very personality. Though Lachlan possessed sentiment just like everyone else, it was never able to drift towards the surface for all to see. And it had never been a difficulty to see it remain deep and buried.
Now, however, as they passed over the last rise that would then lead them on a descending path to Scone, Lachlan was forced to summon his formidable self-control. Instead of his frustration being swept from his mind instinctively, it was now strong enough to push towards that surface.
Throughout the day, Lachlan had been forced to calm his breathing, adjust his expression, and loosen his hands on the reins.
