“It isn’t nothing. Your mind is far away.” He sat up a little and held her eyes with his. “Do you think ofhim?”
Her eyes moved away, and he had his answer. She sighed. “Not just him.EverythingI’ve left behind.”
Bridei felt a white-hot surge of jealousy fill his veins. There was an enemy that he couldn’t reach, and this enemy held a piece of his woman’s heart. He wantedallof her.
“Please understand”, she said softly. “I had an entire life before I came here. I can’t just forget about it overnight and become someone else. This is hard, Bridei. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And this… this is so new, what’s between us.”
“I amcertainof what’s between us! I…” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I will try to be patient, if you will try not to think of him.”
She nodded. “Aye, I will try.”
Nessa leaned close and pressed her lips to his bare chest, sending warm shivers across his skin. “In the future, legend will say that the Picts went to battle completely naked.”
He smiled. “And why on earth would we do that? To die in battle is one thing, but to have your cock removed by a stray ax blow, quite another. I think I would choose death.”
“A good choice”, she agreed. She ran her fingers over the black ink on his chest, coming to a stop on one intricate design that was perhaps her favorite of all the tattoos marking his skin. “What does this one mean?”
“That is the sign of my mother’s line.” He moved her hand slowly to another. “And this is my father’s.”
She trailed her fingers higher, to a pattern just below his right nipple. “And this?”
“My birthplace.”
“They all have meaning?”
“Aye. They do.”
“Will you get more?”
“Of course. When I win an important battle. When I take a queen. When I father a child. When I lose someone dear to me. By the end of my life, I can only hope my skin is covered by the symbols of all that I have seen and done. Everything I have been and all that I’ve accomplished.”
“A life well lived”, she said thoughtfully.
He smiled. “Aye, a life well lived.”
He leaned down to take her lips in a kiss. Gentle and slow this time. He tried to imbue it with all that he felt but could not yet say. Not until he was certain Nessa’s heart belonged only to him.
He could hardly wait for the day when a new symbol would grace the bare flesh above his heart. It had been empty and waiting, all his life, but now he finally knew the woman who would claim it as her own.
“It’sperfect”, Bridei announced. “It’s all that I imagined.”
The goldsmith grinned, pleased that the King approved of his work. He’d never had a more important commission, and on such short notice, too. He’d been working with very little sleep for days.
Bridei held the amulet in his closed hand, and the gold quickly warmed to his touch. It was a perfect copy of his own, only smaller and more delicate. He could already imagine it draped around Nessa’s neck. It would be beautiful on her. And it would let every other man know she was his; at least until they were wed and she could wear a more permanent mark.
He would give the amulet to her later that night, when he asked her to be his forever. Fate had brought him a beautiful gift in the form of a woman that was his perfect match in every way. Who was he to deny what the gods would give him? He knew deep in his bones, that for him there was no going back. Nessa was already in his heart and under his skin as no one else had ever been.
He felt happier than he had ever been as he slipped the amulet into the leather pouch on his belt and went to find Namet. They were meeting to go over the latest accounts gathered by his spies that had recently infiltrated Ecgfrith’s inner circle. It looked like the Saxon king’s army was going to move north very soon, which meant he needed to be ready to meet them with his sword in hand and the strength of will to see his enemy destroyed forever. He could almost taste the final sweetness of victory after so many long years of struggle.
He still had a smile on his face when he almost ran into Meara, who crossed his path as she came around the corner of the kitchen building.
He laughed and she smiled at him as if his joy was contagious. Maybe it was.
As he helped Meara pick up the bundle of herbs she had dropped, his gaze landed on Nessa, his woman, walking with Veda, carrying a large basket between them. Now that she was free to be a part of the community, she was fitting in as if she’d always been among them. Everyone liked her, and all of the younger women vied for her friendship, while the older ones all wanted to counsel her on the ways and wisdom of the Picts. Nessa flashed him a smile over her shoulder, and he watched the sway of her behind as she walked away. He would have her all to himself later, when he would strip her naked and….
“Oh my”, said Meara, a wide smile lighting her softly lined face.
Bridei was still distracted by thoughts of what he would be doing to Nessa later that evening. “What?”
