A few more steps and she reached the cavern. “Oh my God…”
It was beautiful! If she had had the nerve to go just a little further when she was a child, she would have known… The passage opened up to a large room with a ceiling that soared thirty or forty feet overhead.A narrow fissure high above let in a dim glow of daylight. The floor was smooth and hard with packed dirt and gravel, with a few smallish boulders strewn around. And at the far end… she drew in a reverent breath… a clear, shimmering pool. And above it was a cascade of water flowing out of the stone, hugging the wall and slipping almost silently into the pool below. It was as if they were in another world.
They both stood there silently for a moment, looking around in wonderment. Then Eian carefully wedged the torch between two rocks and began exploring in earnest. Dipping his hand in the pool, he turned to Allia and grinned wickedly.
“What do ye say lass, we take off all of our clothes and go for a swim?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t think so. At least not withyouhere.”
He laughed. “I swear that one day, I’ll have ye in that pool naked with me, and I’ll…”
“In your dreams”, she interrupted.
“Oh Aye, there too. But in my experience it’s usually much better when I’m awake.” Though not recently, he thought… for the past two nights his dreams had been so much better than anything he’d ever known… how was he supposed to go back to ordinary tupping now?
Allia desperately needed to change the subject. “Didn’t you come here to collect some rocks? No wait, ‘rare stones’, you said.” She watched him carefully and caught the brief look of confusion crossing his face. He hid it so quickly that a less perceptive person would never have noticed. Just as she thought, he had lied about the rocks. But then why bring her into the cave? And why did he happen have a torch with him, if he didn’t intend to go in? It didn’t add up.
“Oh. Aye. The stones.” He crossed the length of the cavern and studiously knelt to gather a few stones, his long hair falling over his face. “I have them.” he said a bit too brightly as he stood up again.
“Let me see…” she reached him just as he was about to slip the stones into his sporran. She caught his hand, and a jolt of awareness ran through her at the contact, almost taking her breath. She knew he felt it too, because he flinched and stiffened ever so slightly. Ignoring it as best she could, she pried open his fingers, then looked up at him accusingly. “These are just ordinary limestone.”
Damn, the lass knew about rocks. What were the odds? Eian shook his head and gave her his best crooked smile. “No, they arena. Only look like it.” He closed his fist around the rocks and put them in his sporran anyway, then stepped away as if he were still looking around, annoyed to have been caught in a mistruth when he wanted the lass to trust him, at least until he had tupped her once or twice. She was too smart for her own good, but thankfully she didn’t argue further about the stones. The torch was burning low, and they needed to leave. He would have to come back here later to search more closely for the charm, because he couldn’t really do so with Allia here. And he couldn’t even try to kiss her before they left because he had said he wouldn’t touch her while they were in the cave. He hadn’t said anything about after they came back out.
“Are you ready to go lass?” Eian pulled the torch from between the rocks, and as he did so, he caught a glimpse of something shining in the flickering light. It was lying on the floor of the cave, half covered in a layer of dust. He kicked it loose with his boot, and saw that it was some sort of amulet…or charm. Glancing nonchalantly over his shoulder he saw that Allia had yet to turn away from the pool, so he leaned over and picked up the object. It was warm and heavy in his hand. And more than that, it felt almost alive with a soft hum of power. Magic. Someone, at some time, had cast magic into the small metal object. He slipped it into his sporran with the useless stones, his heart beating faster. Was itthecharm he had just found? Did it really exist, after all? If so, he could go home now. Home… the thought tore at him, and he turned to look at the lass, who was dipping her fingers into the water, looking for all the world like some otherworldly water nymph contemplating a swim. Or a Siren, by the way his cock swelled even further at the sight of her like that. Perhaps he could stay at Lochain just a little longer…
Back at the entrance of the cave, Allia stood and looked down the hill to the castle in the near distance. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at it with a weary sigh. She wished she could stay away longer, but she had probably already been missed and would be in enough trouble as it was. She wasn’t looking forward to going back. She looked to Eian, who had followed her out and was now watching her with that same hungry gaze. She had another crazy urge to throw herself into his arms and kiss him senseless.Now where did that come from? The impulse felt almost… instinctual. Maybe it was just her fertile time of the month. Hormones and a super-hot guy could definitely do that to a girl. And there was also the fact she was currently way out of her comfort zone. She shook herself, glad she was informed enough about biology and psychology to know what must be going on.
He reached up and wiped at her cheek with his thumb. “Ye have a smudge of dirt, just there.”
She took a backwards step away from him. “Thank you.”
No doubt that wasn’t the reaction he expected from her, because his lips pressed into a line as if he was trying to figure out her game, and the rules were unfamiliar. Well, her rules would be, wouldn’t they?
“You’ll have to wait for me to get all the way down before you follow”, she told him. “I don’t know what will happen if we’re seen together.”
Eian shrugged and gave her another one of those knee-weakening smiles. “Everyone will assume we were up here making love in the heather, of course.”
He was trying to fluster her, and damn if it wasn’t working. “I know that. What I don’t know is what my uncle will do about it, and I’m not sure you want to find out. Now do as I say and wait here. I mean it!” God, her nerves were making her much bolder than she would otherwise be, but she kind of liked it. Just as she liked the bewildered expression Eian couldn’t quite hide.
“Feisty lass”, he muttered. Just as he liked them. “Can ye no’ stay here with me just a few moments longer? I feel as if we’ve barely gotten to ken one another. I’d like to remedy that.” Eian took a careful half step closer, not wanting to spook her, but suddenly certain he would die if he didn’t taste her mouth. She was doing everything but falling into his arms as she was supposed to, and the challenge both intrigued him and made him feel a little bit desperate. This lass was different than any other he’d met. He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand, and she looked up at him, her lips parted sweetly in surprise. Eian was surprised as well, at the feeling of tingling pleasure that travelled from where his hand touched her face, spreading all over his body and making him feel restless with a physical need to bring even more of their bare skin together. He looked into her sea-green eyes, expecting to see maidenly shock and perhaps a little fear, which he was more than prepared to kiss away. Instead, what he saw in her eyes made his heart stutter and his cock even more achingly hard, if that was possible. Passion. Desire. Hunger. It was all there in those green depths, and for a moment he was too stunned to do anything but look at her. God, he had to have her, or he was going to die! He leaned closer, his heart pounding harder than he could ever remember, the promise of heaven only inches away. Her pupils dilated, her breath hitched, and his own body responded ten-fold again. He was on fire, from just one touch. He couldn’t understand it, but he really didn’t want to. It felt so very good, so veryright… And then, as if suddenly breaking free of a spell, she inhaled sharply and twisted away from him. He reached for her reflexively, but she had already started walking away, leaving him standing there on the hill, alone.
“Wait till I get to the bottom!” she called without looking back.
Grudgingly, Allia trudged back into the castle, her body on fire from nearly being kissed by a man who was far too sexy and dangerous for her own good. Even his damned touch was magic! She had read stories where a man’s touch set a woman on fire with passion, but she never thought it was literal, or that she’d actually experience it herself. Oh, she wanted to… she was passionate by nature and more than ready to express her every desire with the right man… at the right time. Which wasnotwhen her entire life had just been upended. But Eian was not the right man, and this was definitely a most inconvenient time to find mind-blowing sexual chemistry with someone, when she couldn’t even enjoy it.
It had taken far too much of her will power to keep walking and not turn around and let him kiss her after all. Never, never, had any man ever made her feel like that, and she had a sinking feeling that she would never find another one who could. She had wanted nothing more than to give in to her body’s desires and melt into his arms and give him anything he wanted, however he wanted it. Only the fact that she knew how much she was bound to regret it later made her turn away before it was too late.
Too soon, she had reached the big oaken doors to the keep, which stood open to catch the late morning breeze and air out the rooms beyond. As soon as Allia entered the hall, her uncle turned from where he had been talking to a group of men, all garbed in the finest of clothes and each trying to look more self-important than the last. Posers, she thought uncharitably. They all turned to stare at her too, and a few she thought she recognized as the members of the laird’s Close Council she had been introduced to the night before. She had been right; she couldn’t remember even one of their names. They were all looking at her with varying degrees of disapproval and doubt, and several with what she suspected was either speculative interest or just plain lust. Ick.
“Allia!” Her uncle’s angry voice rang out through the hall, echoing off the thick stone walls. “Where on God’s earth have ye been? I was about to send out the whole of the guard to find ye. Ye canna just wander off whenever ye have an urge to do so, lass! If I must, I will confine ye to yer chambers for yer own safe keeping. And I am no’ above a good sound beating if it comes to that, so be fairly warned!”
She felt her shoulders try to slump and made a concerted effort to push them back. She still had her pride, after all. And here lay the biggest problem in coming back to here, tonow, she thought. She had gone from having complete control of her own will to apparently having almost no independence at all. She had just tested the boundaries, and they lay far too close for comfort. She was no longer the same girl who had left Lochain all of those years ago, nor did she want to be that girl anymore. An increasingly familiar feeling of panic rose in her chest as the reality of her situation pushed again at the corners of her mind. She was here now, and there was no going back. Maybe she had made an awful mistake when she had responded to that letter and returned to her uncle. She had done so because she had been raised to believe it was her duty… that she would be cominghome. Maybe she should have run instead, hid herself away in some small town, and lived out her life as peacefully and normally as possible. But in reality, she was far from normal, and it didn’t seem that she was destined to have a normal life, either. She had always felt, even as a child, that there was something she was waiting for, someplace else she needed to be. She had never been able to settle down and justlive. She sighed, completely confused and desperately needing some time alone to think.
“I only went for a walk Uncle Leon”, she said as evenly as she could, then watched as his lips pressed together in a tight white line.
“Ye ken yer no’ to leave the castle alone. Ye’re too important to this clan.”
And that was the scariest part, because that’s all anyone would tell her about why she was here. Or why she had been sent away in the first place. She was important. That could mean anything at all! They could be planning to marry her off to some old laird for a political alliance, or they could even be preparing to use her in some arcane ritual sacrifice to provide protection of the clan, not that she’d ever heard of such a thing, but she wasn’t exactly high up in the ranks of magic, either. She just didn’t know. More and more, escape was looking like a passably good option. But when? How? It was something she needed to seriously think about. But first she could use some more basic information.
