He swallowed hard. “If ye thought I was dead, why did ye wait?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know…” she trailed off, covering her eyes with her hands. “I never saw a body, only blood. In the stables, so much blood.”
Noah flinched, remembering what she’d said earlier about the stables stinking of blood. He frowned, taking a step closer. “Yer father told ye I was dead then?”
She nodded, her face still covered. “Blood up the walls, pooling on the floor. Bits of flesh. There was a string of intestine in the corner, like a coil of rope. I wouldn’t let myself believe it, though. I have always known how my father likes to torture people. I told myself that he could have gotten a bucket of blood and offal, tossed it around, to make it look like…” She bit off the sentence, shaking her head. “I waited for ye, but ye never came. He told ye a lie too, didn’t he? Something about me.”
That ye betrayed me, aye,Noah thought, head spinning.
Senga let her hands drop, glancing up at him. Her eyes were heavy and tired, and he wondered when she’d last slept.
“He tricked us both, then,” she said flatly. “One last trick. My father, the God of Mischief. I didn’t leave ye behind, Noah. Ye left me. Ye believed the word of a man who’d beat ye over the lass who loved ye.”
The ground seemed to somehow be shifting underneath him. Noah swallowed thickly, shaking his head in denial.
“Ye would never have married me.”
Senga’s eyes widened at that. “What?”
He gave a harsh laugh, holding out his arms to the side. “Oh, come on, Senga. Ye and I were doomed from the start. I tried telling myself otherwise, but my heart wouldn’t listen. I imagine that ye were the same. I was a nobody. Iama nobody, I suppose. Ye and I would never have been anything.”
She stared at him for a long moment, eyes wide. He wasn’t sure what to expect from her next, but he had not thought that she would lunge forward and fist her hand in his shirt. He was too dumbfounded to struggle, letting her haul him forward until they were almost nose to nose.
“Ye listen to me, Noah,” Senga hissed, her breath warm against his skin. “I did not betray ye. I know ye think that I did, but I swear that I did not. I wish ye would stop accusing me of doing something terrible. I wish ye would just be honest with me. I never had to pry honesty out of ye before.”
“That was before,” Noah managed, lifting a hand to wrap around her wrist.
He could tear her hand away from his shirt easily, but somehow the effort wastoo much. Why was it too much?
This close, he could count the colors in her eyes. Well, he didn’t need to count the colors, did he? He knew them off by heart. It had once amazed him that a person could have so many colors in their eyes. The skin of her wrist was soft under his touch.
“We were never meant to last, Senga,” he whispered, after a moment of silence. His voice was softer than he’d expected. “I always prayed that we would, but the truth had been right there all along, hadn’t it?”
She swallowed thickly, and he tracked the movement of her throat.
“I dinnae care much for the truth these days,” she responded, barely louder than a breath.
He was not sure who moved first. Was it him? Or was Senga the one who closed the space between their lips?
Either way, between one eyeblink and the next, he found himself pressed against Senga, their lips fitting perfectly together as though they had been created that way.
She tasted of mint and salt, and her knuckles dug into his chest, her hand trapped between them. Her other arm was around his shoulders, and his hand, without his knowledge, had slid up her back, wrapping her long pale braid around his fist.
Heat fired up inside him, eating him alive. It was everything he’d wanted for so many years. It was every dream and every nightmare he’d had since they parted. It was…
No. I cannot do this.
Noah staggered back. Senga released him, drawing in a ragged, almost frightened breath. For a moment, they stared at each other, each one gasping for breath as though they’d been holding their breaths for minutes on end.
“This is a bad idea,” Noah said at last, his voice raspy. “We shouldn’t have…”
“Noah—”
“No,” he interrupted, more strongly than before. “Dinnae make me do this, Senga.”
She blinked, swallowing hard. “I am not making ye do anything.”
He smiled tiredly. “Ye never mean it.”
