He shook his head. “That, I dinna ken. I would hope my people would recognize me for who I truly am rather than continue to think me the Wraith.”
More uncertainties crept in, determined to pee on her contentment. “I don’t know anything about being a chieftain’s wife, and I sucked at history. I memorized the information long enough to pass the tests.”
“Ye dinna have to be anyone other than yerself, mo chridhe. That is and always will be enough.”
Mathison Shadowmist was too good to be true. If not for what she’d just experienced, she’d think him a con man of the first order. But he wasn’t. As she’d said, he was her home. Her one. He was contentment, trust, and safety rolled up in a sexy, alpha male package.
He hugged her close and kissed her forehead. “Sleep, my worried one. Together, we can conquer anything, ye ken?”
She forced herself to stop spiraling and ruining the perfect afterglow. “I ken.”
But she had one more question. Her mind was missing one particular participant that she’d known her entire life. “Intuition has gone quiet,” she whispered. “Is she okay?”
Mathison chuckled. “Aye, love. Her and Dubh’s spirits are probably still in the in-between, doing a bit of binding of their own.”
“Good.” She wouldn’t ask what the in-between was since she’d seen them playing in the haze of the light’s glow.
“Aye, lass. ’Tis verra good indeed.”
Chapter
Ten
Mathison tried not to stare at this wondrous woman who had finally come into his life, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d never felt love before, other than for his newborn sons, but surely this sense of completeness, this fierce protectiveness, and all-consuming desire to never leave Calia’s presence had to be close.
As fragile and guarded as she was because of her past, he prayed she felt the same. Not just because of the curse, but because he needed her to need him as much as he needed her.
Eyeing him over the rim of her teacup, she slowly set it back on the table. “What?”
A smile came easily to him. “I canna remember enjoying a morning this much in a verra long while.”
She blushed like a maiden. “We didn’t sleep very much.”
“’Twas a night well spent.”
She hid behind her teacup once more, taking her time and savoring every sip. “Indeed, it was.” She nodded at the fine breakfast laid out on the table beside the bedroom window. “Your people outdid themselves. I still can’t believe I slept through their bringing it all in here.”
“Mynlis and her maids nay wished to disturb ye. They know how to be quiet.” He lifted the lid off the kettle in the center of the round table that was the perfect size for two. “Parritch?”
Calia leaned forward and peered into the pot, then sniffed it. “Oatmeal?”
“Aye. Oats.”
“No, thank you. This nice breakfast roll will do me.” She split open the chunk of bread and breathed in the steam before slathering butter across it. “Carbs are my weakness.”
“Carbs?” He’d never heard bannocks called carbs before.
“Sorry. Twenty-first century insecurities. Too many carbs make me soft around the middle, but I love them.”
“And bannocks are carbs?”
“As are pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, and pretty much anything else that tastes good.”
With a shake of his head, Mathison filled his bowl with parritch. “Eat what ye wish. Ye are perfect in my eyes.”
She set down the butter knife and stared at him with something akin to awe. “Maybe we had to come to this time so I would believe you were real instead of somebody trying to scam me.”
He really didn’t believe that was the reason Mairwen had uprooted Calia so quickly, but who was he to argue? “What is a scam?”
