Still she did not speak. Her whole body had now tensed.
“Is that what ye want?”
“Nay.” The word came as if torn from her. “Nor do I wish to see ye lose your life.”
“Some things, Bradana…some things are worth the risk.”
Her eyes widened, her lips parted, and a flush rose to her cheeks. “Ye would court death, for me?”
“For this thing I feel between us, aye, I would.”
“Adair.” She barely breathed his name. Much as the hound had done earlier, she shuffled closer till she reached the side of his bed. Reaching out, she captured his hands. “’Tis a powerful foolishness, that.”
“It is a powerful feeling.”
Slowly, he lifted her hands one by one and planted a kiss in each palm. Gently, he drew her to him, tenderly planted a kiss at each corner of her mouth, upon each cheek, and at the center of her forehead.
She melted. It took but an instant for her to ease down against him, to slide her hands up his chest and around his neck. Carefully, so as not to hurt him, she held him tight.
He felt no pain, likely because the other feelings came flooding so strong and bright. Not just desire, though aye, he felt a rush of that. But warmth also, and rightness. Belonging so deep that it eclipsed them all.
His lips hovered over hers. Aching to meet.
Madness, because the door of the chamber stood wide and anyone could look in. And he should not be found kissing his host’s daughter, step or otherwise. The consequences would be dire indeed. This kiss, ache for it as he might, could happen only in his imagination.
No impossibility, that, for he knew how she would taste…familiar. For they had done this before, though certainly they had not. A thousand images flickered through his mind—firelight and a tiny sleeping place, blue eyes embracing him with steady devotion. A young woman who both was and was not Bradana standing with a sword in her hands. A washing place out in the sun.
Bradana sighed into his mouth, and he took her breath, made it part of him, even though their lips did not actually meet. One person they should be, out of two. One life.
“By the gods, by the gods, by the gods,” she whispered as she pressed her forehead to his. Or mayhap it was he who said those words. Who could tell?
“Bradana, my beautiful lass.” He cradled her face and gazed into her eyes. They brimmed with tears.
“Do no’ leave me,” she begged. “Do no’ ever leave me.”
Were they her words or those of another? No matter, for they lay rooted in his heart.
“Bradana, darling, I will not.”
Chapter Fourteen
Once more, Bradanaranged far up the shore, this time early in the morning. She had remained with Adair all the night long, speaking little, feeling much. She had gone out to bring him food and drink, then watched him while he ate. They played at draughts to pass the time.
She had avoided touching him again, because touching him was too powerful. Too wondrous and devastating and—
Well, she had no fit words for any of it.
When Wen returned at dawn, she left the hound to once more stand guard while she escaped, an effort to discipline her emotions.
It took her only a short distance up the shore to discover these feelings could not be mastered.
Och, what had she done? Begged him to stay with her. The very opposite of what she’d intended when first she went in there.
A milky morning it was, the sky all white and the sea pale blue, dead calm. She stood staring out at the ocean and blinking furiously. Very seldom did she weep. A strong woman did not indulge in such weakness. Yet now tears burned her eyes.
Hopeless, it was. Even if he stayed—especiallyif he stayed. Her betrothed, Earrach, was due to arrive within the fortnight. Better, far better if her parting with Adair came ahead of that.
Yet she’d begged him to stay.
