Torin chuckled.Damnaigh, but he loved the way her anger colored her skin.His fingers itched to follow that rosy flush disappearing beneath her neckline. An insistent throb nudging between his legs echoed a hearty amen.
A distant tremor of grumbling thunder pulled his attention away from the memory of Emma’s blushing breasts.Concentrate, man.He shook his head against the erotic daydreams.Later.Emma must master the power and the sooner he connected her with the magic—the better.
Shifting his gaze to the ground, he spotted a fresh pile of sheep dung steaming close to his right foot. Torin sniffed. The aromatic pile of green-black pellets had to be less than an hourold. A nearbybaafrom just beyond the hill came to him. He glanced beyond the rustling tips of the swaying grasses and just make out the dingy white source of the greasy pile of ovine beads. He stroked his thumb across his bottom lip. Perhaps the sheep dung was just the answer. Emma needed to react without thinking. Come to think of it, she wasn’t particularly fond of the sheep or their pasture presents. She had curled her nose and held her breath while giving the harmless fluffy beasts a particularly wide berth when she’d made her way to the middle of the field.
Torin glanced at her. She stood with her hands shoved deep in the back pockets of her jeans, scuffing the toe of her boot against a clump of dried grass. Swallowing hard, he made the choice. Emma would either find her magic in the next instant or she would wring his neck for what he was about to do.
In one smooth motion, he dropped to a crouching position, scooped up a handful of the sheep manure and lobbed it at her.
Emma’s eyes flared wide and her mouth flew open. She ripped her hands free of her back pockets. With her fingers spread wide, a pulsating light shot out from their tips and exploded the flying glob of sheep pellets into a cloud of greenish mist.
“Have you lost your mind?” She whirled on Torin with her hands still raised and her eyes flashing with righteous fire. “I can’t believe you just threw a pile of sheep shit at me.”
“How did it feel, Emma?” he countered, widening his stance as he forced himself not to smile. He best take care. As angry as she was right now, she might open fire at him.
“It felt…” She shuffled her feet and looked everywhere on the hillside except at his face. “It felt pretty freakin’ awesome.” The corner of her mouth twitched up and down as though she was fighting a prideful grin. “But that’s no excuse. You could’vefound some other way to show me. What if I hadn’t figured it out in time?”
“Then your lovely white top wouldha been splattered green with sheep shit.”
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
“Do you mind if I ask you something?”
Torin tensed at the ominous echo in her voice. He thought she had finally relaxed enough to sleep. The gentle rhythm of her breathing had been a steady whisper brushing across his skin. Staring up into the darkness, he tightened his arm around her and barely tickled his fingertips along her bare thigh. “What would ye ask me, Emma?”
“Your scars, the severe ones, was it a clan battle or something different—something from the other side?” She snuggled closer, making it increasingly difficult for him to think with her warm, firm breasts pressed against him.
Thank the gods.The lass was only curious about the eternal reminders of his battles. Releasing a relieved breath, he traced his fingers across the raised pattern of the widest scar running across the center of his chest. “A distant sister to the goddess needed my help destroying a deranged beast.” He flinched at the memory of the attack that had birthed the taut raised line of flesh marring his skin.
Her silence weighed heavily through the darkness. He sensed her mind whirring at lightning speed. Uneasiness writhedthrough his gut. By the holy goddess, what would the woman ask next?
“What kind of a deranged beast?”
As long as she concentrated on his battles as a guardian, her questions caused him no pain. A growing furor of dread clamored louder in his mind. What if she asked about his life as clan chieftain?
He hugged her closer, snuffing out the voices of doubt with the touch of her velvet skin. “’Twas a hybrid. An unholy mix of a sacred race and a mortal sorcerer from another world. The result was an amazingly powerful beast, but he was insane and intent on destruction. The abomination escaped its mother and made its way through the gateway into our reality. The goddess needed my help capturing the beast so the mother could strike the killing blow.”
“The mother killed it?” Emma propped herself up on one elbow and peered down into his face. A shocked expression glimmered across her pale skin set aglow by the bit of moonlight streaming in the window.
He brushed the backs of his fingers along the curve of her cheek, willing her to understand. “Aye, Emma. The mother had to kill the beast. The creature was part Draecna. They can only be slain by their own kind.”
“So, the goddess sent you after a monster she knew you couldn’t kill?” The dark outline of her brows against the whiteness of her skin arched to her hairline. Fire flashed in her eyes, betraying the chaos of emotions whirling through her mind.
Her protective indignation warmed through him like a sweet, welcomed tonic. His heart melted at the shadows of concern dancing across her face. She cared for him. If he had doubted she would ever be willing to accept him, he didn’t doubt it anymore.“When the goddess calls ye to save the world, ye dinna have much of a choice.”
Emma poked him in the chest. Her curls cascaded over one shoulder to tickle against his face. “But she pitted you against something she knew you couldn’t kill and from the looks of that scar, you almost lost your life.”
He laced his fingers through her hair while inhaling the glorious scent of her perfume.Damn.She smelled sweet as the freshest rain when it blew across a hillside overgrown with heather. Without thinking, he murmured into the silken tresses falling against his face, “I did die.”
“What?”
Perhaps he should have chosen better words. With a glance at her stricken gaze, he unwound his hand from her hair. Or perhaps he shouldha silenced her questions with a kiss. He swallowed hard with a stifled groan. Too late to silence her now.
Her stare burned into him with unwavering stubbornness. “Well? Are you going to explain that revelation or not?”
After a deep breath, he waved his hand at the magical torch on the nightstand and released its golden glow. Emma squinted against the sudden light but didn’t back down from her perch over him.
