She leaned forward and treated him to a kiss so tender it squeezed his heart. “In our next life, don’t be so hard for me to find, okay?”
He frowned a moment, trying to recall what her word okay meant. When it came to him, he gave her another of his rare smiles because he knew it pleased her. “Okay.”
She laughed. “It sounds strange when you say it—but I think you could tell me anything when you’re smiling, and I’d be so dazzled with your handsomeness that I’d go along with it.”
“Ye think me handsome, do ye?”
“Don’t fish for compliments.” Her stomach vibrated against his, growling like a wee beastie.
“Ye have not eaten today.”
She turned somber. “I thought it best to wait until I saw how today went.”
He rose from the chair, returned to the bed, and gently placed her among the pillows, immediately missing her warmth when he stepped away. “I shall ring for tea and food. I feel sure Nicnevin has already spread the word about us. They’ll nay be expecting us to come down for our supper.”
“I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or pleased.”
But she looked happy and well-sated, so he merely shook his head while crossing the room to the bell pull. “It eases the clan’s minds when their chieftain takes a wife out of love and not necessity, especially when I swore I would never settle for a political alliance. All knew I was waiting and searching for ye.” He yanked on the braided pull hanging beside the hearth. “Nicnevin will nettle us for a ceremony, I fear, even though we already spoke the binding oath.”
With a seductive, lazy stretch, Emily rolled over onto her belly, hugging the pillows and plumping them under her head. She grinned and wrinkled her nose at him. “Are you a momma’s boy?”
He snorted, then hurried to pour them both a generous glass of whisky, aching to be joined with her yet again. “Since I dinna ken what a momma’s boy is, I canna answer that.”
She laughed. “I was only teasing, since I doubt very much you do everything your mother wants and would move heaven and earth to keep her happy.”
With a whisky in each hand, he climbed into the bed and sat with his back against the headboard. “Come to me, my love.” He offered her one of the glasses. “Ye are the only one I would ever move heaven and earth for to keep happy.”
As she nestled against him, he allowed himself a contented sigh. “Much better. I ache when I am not touching ye.”
“Me too,” she whispered, before sipping her drink and snuggling even closer. “And apparently, this therapy healed my hip perfectly.”
He smoothed his hand up and down the warm silkiness of her back and kissed her forehead, knowing that they would soon set their glasses aside and return to drinking of one another. “I believe this therapy, as ye put it, has healed many things.”
A purring sigh left her as she stretched and set what was left of her drink on the table beside the bed, then slipped astraddle him once more. “Indeed—shall we heal ourselves some more?”
“Most definitely, my own. Most definitely.”
Everyone within the main hall, the entire Council of Master Weavers and their apprentices, went still. Each of them, one by one, turned and looked at Mairwen.
She had heard it plainly as well. The Knowing, the energy of the goddesses’ combined voices within the Weavers’ minds whenever information needed to be shared with one and all, was unmistakable. With a flick of her wrist, she removed her powers from the grand map floating in the center of the large gathering room and sank into a nearby chair. “It would seem Emily has found her mate. Thank the goddesses she is alive and well.”
“The goddesses knew,” Ishbel said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“It would seem so.” Mairwen eyed the others as they gathered around her. “Which of ye took it upon yerself to inform the goddesses about our Emily’s disappearance after we all agreed not to do so until we had exhausted all efforts to find her?”
“Really, Mairwen?” Malcolm, Master of the Conflict Weavers stepped forward. “’Tis unlike ye to toss about unfounded accusations like feed for birds.” He nodded at the other four Weavers who led the sects of the Dark. “Have ye forgotten that those of my ilk avoid direct contact with the goddesses whenever possible? If anyone did it, it had to be one of your side. Those of the Light always flock to the goddesses.”
Mairwen propped her elbow on the chair arm and rested her head in her hand. She was so weary. These past few days of searching for Emily had drained her. Perhaps it was time she stepped down from her position as master over all the Divine Weavers. “I was not accusing,” she said without lifting her head. “I was merely inquiring.”
“None of us look forward to answering to the goddesses.” Shona, Master of the Tranquility Weavers, softly blew into the air, sending a wave of calming energy across them all. “Perhaps Emily called out to them. They have answered a mortal’s cry for help before. Not often. But it has happened.”
“I noticed they failed to mention where she was,” said Taskill, Master of the Curse Weavers. “Think ye it is a challenge from them? One of their damnedable tests to redeem ourselves for losing a mortal in the first place?”
“I dinna ken.” All Mairwen knew for certain was that she was weary, and something about this entire disaster made her senses raw. She throbbed with unworthiness. In all their years of finding and uniting fated mates, no reunion had ever been like this one.
“Since our Emily has found her fated mate,” Keeva asked while tapping on the screen of her large glass and steel tablet powered more by magic than technology, “shall I tell everyone we are ready to resume joining fated mates? I could have all our matchmaking apps and websites back up and running by the end of the day, and could also remove the barriers from the Dreaming.”
“Emily is one of us,” Ishbel said in an uncharacteristically snappish way. “She is family, and I will have no part in our next endeavor until I see she is safe and happy. Many in the village feel the same.”
