Page 9 of To Wed a Highlander
She noticed his growing arousal, her blush deepening, and knelt back, the sight not doing much to diminish his lust. “You should be able to speak now… Niall. That is your name, is it not?”
He liked his name on her lips. He wanted to make her moan it. He wanted her to use it while begging him in erotic supplication.
And he would, before they were through with each other.
The thought seemed to fill his muscles with a renewed energy, and he was able to lift his hands and push himself into a sitting position with her help.
“They whipped you, because you are a witch?” he asked carefully, testing the rasp of his voice.
“Aye,” she confirmed, sadness touching her eyes.
“How?” he queried, trying to make sense of madness. “With power such as yours, you could subjugate them. You could make them respect you. Fear you.Obeyyou. You could visit harsh and torturous vengeance on them, bend them to your will.”
She smiled as though he’d said something amusing, which irked him more than a little. “I could do that, I suppose,” she acknowledged. “But I choose to forgive them, instead.”
He turned and spit into the hearth, the sizzle hissing his disregard. “Forgiveness is a Christian concept. Are not our Gods more ancient and ruthless?”
“Yours certainly are,” she murmured diplomatically. “But my Gods prefer different ways. Ways in which you leave people their own will, and bend the elements to yours, instead. You see, respect is not fear. Respect grows from love and trust. As does power.”
Niall snorted, shaking the cobwebs from his head. “Woman’s logic,” he scoffed.
In a huff, the witch stood and pulled a shift from a small trunk at the foot of a bed that wouldn’t have held the weight of his armor, let alone him.
“That logic comes from a man. Apowerfulman. One whom I bothloveandrespect.”
Once Niall found the name of this man, he would slaughter him. But first, he’d have to regain the use of his legs. Once a shift hid the lovely nun’s perplexing breasts, Niall was able to think more clearly, or was it the effects of her siphoning magick wearing off?
“What did you do to me, woman?” he demanded, holding a hand to his head.
She glided to the fire in that graceful, regal way of hers, which made her tiny self seem much taller, though her copper brows drew together with sincere regret.
“The explanation is a little complicated, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll tell you I’m a fire Druid, and fire needs fuel. Fuel which youamplyprovided.” Her eyes drifted across the expanse of his body in a slow, appreciative caress before she reached to her small fireplace mantle for an earthenware bowl. Murmuring words he didn’t understand, she tossed a handful of what appeared to be dried herbs onto the fire, causing it to flare treacherously.
“Kenna,” a dominant voice crackled through the flames. The fire seemed to distort it, but couldn’t hide the thick brogue of the Highland people. “Do ye realize what ye’ve done? Do ye have any idea the danger ye’re in?”
“I have every idea, Malcolm,” the witch, Kenna, said patiently. “’Tis why I can risk contacting you now.”
“The Grimoire, is it safe?” the disembodied voice demanded.
“Of course,” the witch assured him. “It is hidden away.”
Niall couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He wasn’t a man prone to fits of panic, and he was also used to idea of magicks, but this was bordering on the fantastical. Before he could demand an explanation, the powerful shape of a man’s torso and head appeared in the flames, congealing into a shadow, and then an actual specter of flesh and blood. Where Niall was broad and bulging, this man was lean and raw-boned. Yet his druid robes hung from powerful shoulders, and a short russet beard accentuated an angular jaw clenched as though he’d worn his teeth down to nubs.
A crown encircled his brow, one shaped like the broken antlers of the sacred elk.
Every man from Nordland to Rome knew whothisman was.
Malcom de Moray, King of the Picts and Warden of the Highland peoples.
“What about ye?” Malcom’s green eyes, shrewd to the point of pitiless, traveled Kenna’s body with what might have been concern on features less cruel. “Are ye hurt?”
Niall had to suppress a growl. Was this the witch’s man? Was he going to have to hunt him down and kill him in order to claim his mate? Breath escaped him as the full extent of his situation nearly knocked him back flat. He’d gone into Berserkergang around this woman, lay with her, and not tried to kill her. Not even once. That could only mean one thing.
Mine.
“I was hurt,” she evaded. “But… someone helped me to heal.”
Niall actually bristled. He did a bit more than just fuckinghealher.
