Well, now she did. With the echoes of her shout still sounding around her, she twisted and slammed her palm against the anchor stone.
The effect was instantaneous.
Skye’s magic flared, blazing white hot like the inside of a star. Jenna felt it rip through her hand, through her body, through the very fabric of the universe. The earth, the air, the water, blazed into life and the ground beneath her feet suddenly thrummed as if with a subterranean heartbeat.
The tattooed man’s knife, which had been inching towards Arran’s chest, never reached its target. A shockwave burst through the cave, picked up the tattooed man and the rest of the invaders, and tossed them away like sticks in a breeze.
Arran and his men were left untouched, as if Skye’s magic recognized its own, but Njord’s people were sent arcing through the air, turned over and over like tumbleweeds, and deposited on the sand at the edge of the water.
A tempest sprang up, a howling wind that raced down the beach and whipped the water of the bay into a frenzy of white, frothing waves. The ships that the invaders had arrived in bobbed and hawed in the suddenly wild water.
The tattooed man picked himself up from where he’d been tossed. “No!” he bellowed. “This cannot be! Skye is ours!”
Gritting his teeth, he bent against the furious wind, fighting to take a step forward. The wind increased, sending his hair streaming back from his face and squeezing tears from his eyes. A moment longer he fought the tempest, the tattoos on his neck glowing bright blue, and Jenna felt a silent battle of wills taking place between the power of Skye and the power of Njord.
Then the man’s tattoo winked out, becoming nothing but black ink, and he and his men were pushed back, back, back by the wind, into the shallows that whipped and seethed around their legs. But stillthe wind did not abate. The waves tugged and pulled at them, sweeping their legs out from under them and carrying them out into deeper waters.
Jenna was reminded of when she and Arran were caught in the rip current as she watched all those screaming, struggling men, carried out to sea. Some managed to get to the boats and scramble aboard, quickly pulling anchor and fleeing from the bay. But most did not, and the last Jenna saw of them was a seething mass of bobbing heads and flailing arms being swept out into the roiling gray mass of the open ocean.
Just as quickly as it had come, the wind dissipated. All fell still. In its absence, the silence felt thick and cloying. Arran’s men looked around in bewilderment, scarcely daring to believe they’d seen what they just had.
Arran turned to look at her, a question on his lips, and Jenna cannoned into him. He grunted at the impact and then, as she buried her face in his chest and wrapped her arms around him, he kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” she murmured into his chest. “I couldn’t bear it. I just couldn’t.”
He felt so solid and reassuring. The rock she could tether herself to. As long as he was there, she would never get lost in the storm.
His heart beat beneath her ear, strong and steady. He pushed her back, hands on her shoulders, and looked down at her. For the first time, that shadow in his eyes, that weight that he always seemed to carry, was gone. A smile curled his lips.
“Ye did it,” he breathed. “God in Heaven, lass! Ye did it!”
Jenna shook her head. “No. It wasn’t me. It wasyou. You’re the one who saved Skye.”
His brow furrowed in puzzlement. “All I did was fight.”
“Don’t you see?” Jenna said, placing her palms flat against his muscled chest and staring up at him. “Lir knew all along. She tried to tellme, but I was too stubborn to listen. It wasyou,Arran. You made me whole again. You helped me to heal. You gave me something on Skye that I loved, and that’s what enabled me to fix the magic.”
“Something ye love?” he asked. “What’s that?”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “You, you idiot! I love you! Haven’t you realized that by now?”
Arran’s breath hitched. His grip on her shoulders tightened. “Ye… ye… do?”
Jenna nodded then reached up and cupped his cheek. “I didn’t want to, but you left me no choice. I fought against it but no matter how hard I tried, you still captured my heart. Now it’s yours if you want it.”
“Oh, I want it,” he breathed. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. “Am I dreaming? Or did that barbarian kill me and this is the afterlife? Jenna MacFinnan, ye have no idea how much I’ve longed to hear ye say that. Ye have no idea how much I’ve longed to tell ye that I love ye too. So much. Dear God, so much!”
As Arran spoke those words, it was like a knot inside her suddenly unraveled. It was like a thorn that had pricked and torn her insides for all these months suddenly worked itself loose. The tightness and pain evaporated. She felt like she was floating. Like she was invincible. Like she was a god.
“Ingrid was right,” she said in a whisper. “It really is simple. You’re my home, Arran.”
Arran pressed his forehead to hers. “Then stay,” he whispered. “I canna live without ye, Jenna. I dinna have the strength. Stay. Be my wife.”
Jenna had never thought to hear those words. Not from Arran. Not from anyone ever again. But as they fell from his lips, she felt a new future falling into place. Not the empty one filled with hollowness, but the bright, rich one full of light and laughter and warmth. It was right within her grasp. All she had to do was reach out and touchit…
“Yes,” she said, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
How had she ever thought she could resist this man? How had she ever thought she could stop herself from falling in love with him? She couldn’t. She never stood a chance.
