“Your sister was fortunate then,” he said, his voice now as dark as his eyes. Heat and sensuality shimmered off him, warming and exciting her. “Perhaps the Old Ones do look after MacKenzie women.”
“Arabella doesn’t need their help. Nothing ever happens to her.” She heard the huskiness in her voice and shivered. “She could walk through a blizzard and emerge without a hair out of place.”
“And the bespelled stag?” The Raven cocked a brow again. “He left her be?”
“He just stood there, watching her.” She could scarce speak.
Hewaslooking at her.
She could feel the flames of his stare licking at her.
“Then he could no’ have been all that formidable.” His gaze grew even hotter, so intense she was beginning to sizzle.
For sure,that partof her was melting.
She moistened her lips again.
“Ah, but he was a fearsome beast,” she chattered on, the heat between her legs making her wriggle. “Like our bull, he had eyes of fire and blood-red ears. To be sure, he would have attacked her, but Arabella recognized him for what he was and threw a silver coin at him.”
“A silver coin?”
“Just that.” She nodded. “We’d been to the market fair earlier that morning and she still had a small cache of coins with her.”
“You weren’t with her?”
“I hid away when it was time to leave the fair.” She shifted on the bed, keenly aware of the dampness beginning to mist her inner thighs. “Some of the local chieftains were looking for young warriors of particular fighting strength. I wanted to watch their competitions.”
“And your sister did not?”
“She was tired and only wanted to return to Eilean Creag,” Gelis remembered, leaving out how Arabella had rolled her eyes when she’d suggested they stay longer to watch the strength trials. “She’d spent hours searching for colored thread and bone needles but couldn’t find any to please her. That’s why she still had coins later.”
The Raven stepped closer. Something in his gaze made her think he was scarce listening to her, only looking at her. He reached to smooth the hair from her cheek. His touch, when it came, was slow and deliberate, claiming.
It made her breath catch.
“I have heard of throwing silver coins at such beasts,” he said, still holding one of her curls, rubbing the strands between his thumb and his fingers. “But I have ne’er met anyone who had tried the like.”
“Such beasts always turn away from silver.” She could hardly hear her own voice above the thundering of her heart. “Be it a silver-barbed arrow, a silvered dagger, or even just a simple coin.”
She flicked a glance at hersgian dubh, still thrust beneath his sword-belt.
“See there” — she indicated the hilt — “silver inlays. That’s why I threw it even though I knew I could never pierce a bull’s hide, no matter how good my aim.”
“But if you struck him or —”
“Or,” she cut him off, “if my blade fell before him, I knew he’d turn and run. He would never have been able to cross it, not such a creature.”
“Perhaps you should have tossed the blade in my path.” He let go of her curl, stepping back as if it’d turned into a snake and bitten him. “You might have been better served.”
Ronan regretted the words as soon as they leaped off his tongue. But his ribs were flaming again, the pain worse than ever. And he was quite certain the toes of his left foot had swollen to such a degree that he might never get his boot off.
“Forgive me, lass,” he began, “ but —” he broke off, a glitter of green atop a strongbox catching his eye.
The siren bauble.
At once, all knightly restraint left him.
He sucked in a great breath, more aware of the ache in his loins than any other. In three great strides, he crossed to the strongbox and snatched up the golden chain, waving it so that its sparkling gemstone swung before him.
