Page 35 of In Bed with a Highland Beast

The man didn’t seem convinced, but he placed down the two mugs of ale in front of his customers and held out his hand. Lucia reached into her pocket, where she kept some of the coins, and pulled out what she figured would be just enough for what they were asking.

Humming, the man pocketed the coins, visibly surprised by their mere existence. Then, he gestured to them to follow him and handed Lucia a key, pointing to the wooden stairs at the far side of the room.

“Up there,” he said. “Naethin’ here but the stew an’ some bannocks.”

“That’ll dae,” said Lucia and then grabbed Alaric to drag him up the stairs. He was exhausted, perhaps even more so than she was, his injuries demanding too much of his body. He needed a good night of rest more than he needed food.

Once they made it to the room, Lucia realized it was just as she had imagined it; a small bed, a washbasin, and nothing else. Still, Alaric trudged over to the bed and fell down face-first without bothering to even take off his shoes or say a single word to her, though with some amusement, Lucia noticed he had limited himself to the very edge of the bed, leaving as much space next to him as he could for her.

Within moments, he was asleep, and Lucia sat gingerly on the bed next to him, watching his pinched expression slowly shift into a serene one. In the dark, with nothing but a few candles to illuminate the entire room, Lucia traced the contours of his forehead and nose, the curves of his cheekbones, the bow of his lips. Alaric was a handsome man, she had known that from the moment she laid eyes upon him, but it wasn’t until now that this factual knowledge transformed into something deeper, a yearning Lucia had never felt before for another man.

Gingerly, she rested her hand on his back, careful not to disturb him or touch the sore wound. Though she was ravenous, her stomach seemed to have tied itself into knots and her chest was so tight that she could hardly bear it. And with growing horror, she realized she had started to fall for him.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The process of waking up, eating, and bathing was a slow one, both for Lucia and for Alaric. Late at night, she had managed to fall asleep as well and it wasn’t until the inn keeper came up to their door, banging his fist on the wood and demanding more coin if they were going to stay that they woke. Now that Lucia had thrown some coins to his face and he had left them alone, she and Alaric were laying side by side on the bed, close but not quite touching.

It was how they had spent most of their nights while with the Ravencloaks and though nothing seemed out of the ordinary, the air around Lucia felt charged with something she couldn’t name. Never before had her heart beat so fast, so out of rhythm, and she was so aware of it that she could hardly focus on what Alaric was saying.

“Did ye hear me?”

Lucia hummed, turning her head to look at him. She had not, in fact, heard him at all, lost as she had been in her thoughts.

“Where did ye go?” Alaric asked, smiling softly, almost conspiratorially at her as he reached out and tapped his finger against her forehead. Lucia batted his hand away half-heartedly, frowning.

“Naewhere,” she said. “I was only thinkin’.”

“About?”

Lucia hesitated for a moment. She took a deep breath and decided to settle on something that was only a half-lie.

“Me braither.”

Ronan was always on her mind, after all. No matter what else occupied her thoughts, Ronan was always there, in the crevices of her mind, never too far from the forefront.

With a sigh, Alaric rolled onto his side to gaze at her, a small frown stitching his brows together. “We’ll find a way tae stop Callum,” he said. “An’ we will bring him tae justice, the right way. Yer braither will be avenged.”

Lucia nodded slowly, though she wasn’t so certain anymore. She didn’t want Callum to have the chance to escape punishment nor did she want to see him hang. She wanted to kill him with her own two hands, to watch as the life drained out of him and have him know why he was dying.

“Me braither, he… ye may nae believe it, but he was good,” Lucia said. “He was good.”

“I never said he wasnae.”

“But ye’re thinkin’ it,” Lucia said. “I ken ye are. Ye think that because he was one o’ them, he was a bad man.”

Alaric didn’t speak for a long time. He stared blankly at the wall over Lucia’s shoulder, and for the longest time, Lucia thought that was the end of the conversation. It wasn’t surprising, she thought. Everyone thought her brother was a bad man.

It was only when Alaric took a deep breath that she looked back up at him and found him troubled. “People can be good tae some an’ bad tae others,” he said. “I dinnae think yer braither was a good man, but I believe that he was good tae ye. An’ that matters.”

Lucia’s eyes began to sting with unshed tears and she quickly and furiously rubbed her eyes to stop them from ever falling. Much to her relief, Alaric said nothing about it. He only placed a comforting hand on her shoulder until she was calm enough to look at him again, swallowing around the knot in her throat.

“Nay one kens all the good he did in his life,” she said and a new wave of tears choked her for a moment before she managed to get herself under control. “Nae one kens that he saved me life. Nae one kens I was abducted an’ tortured an’ he was the one who saved me, all by himself. He was a good man. Hewas. An’ he didnae deserve tae die.”

It was then that Lucia couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. She let them spill silently, gritting her teeth so she would make no sound, but couldn’t help the shuddering breath she took when Alaric wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

“I understand,” he whispered softly, the words muffled by the strands of her hair. “I dae. I ken ye miss him.”

For a while, they stayed like that, with Alaric comforting her until she was composed once more. It didn’t take long; it never took Lucia long to get herself back under control, because she could never afford to appear weak. It was only in front of Alaric that she felt safe enough to do such a thing, to allow this vulnerable side of her to show, and now that she had, it was as though something had shifted inside her, as unexpected as it was powerful.

---