“Tell me something, Kalder. You are freed now… will you come with me back to Williamsburg?”
She saw the hesitation in his eyes, and that made her heart sink. Perhaps he was every bit as fickle toward her as Paden claimed.
“I would love nothing better than to be with you, Cameron. But I took a vow to the captain and this ship and crew.”
“And you’ve been freed of it.”
He shook his head. “It’s not so simple.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kalder sat down on the beach and pulled her to sit in his lap so that he could hold her. He tucked her in beneath his chin and held her close and yet she sensed his anguish. “I’ve done far more evil in me life than good, Cameron. And every person I save is another victory against the evil that festers in this world and inside me that I fight to restrain. I will not rest until I’ve made good some of what I’ve done.”
It was quite a goal her mermaid demon had set for himself. “So you will never lay down your quest? Never know marriage or family?
“Marriage.” He spat the word as if it were poison on his tongue. “That unholy union between two people? For what purpose? To make them both miserable? To take two people who might have fondness for each other and lock them in hell together until they learn to hate the very sound of the other’s breathing? It never gave me father a moment’s peace. You saw the bitch he married. She drove him to war and ultimately his death. Which he no doubt welcomed, as it finally bought an end to her whining, bitchtress tongue.”
Cameron was taken aback by his hostility. True, she’d often said similar things in anger about marriage herself, but deep down she didn’t mean them. Nay, marriage could and should be a wonderful thing.
“I don’t believe it has to be that way,” she said, confessing her true thoughts to him. “Imagine a marriage where two people respect each other. Where they are partners and allies against the world. Like me parents were. They loved one another, Kalder. To the day they died. And Paden loves Lettice. Despite his multitudinous flaws, I’ve seen the way he cares for her, and she for him. Even now, when she carries his child and is terrified of what the future means for her, she’s sworn that she’ll take no other to husband, even though it’s the shame of an unwed mother she’ll be enduring. She’d rather bear the brunt of that nightmare than marry any other when there’s less hope than the size of an eye of a needle that Paden will come home and make an honest woman of her. But so long as any hope whatsoever remains, she won’t give up on waiting for his return.”
He snorted at Cameron’s optimism. “You’re sober and speak more foolishness than I do whenever I’m drunk.” He pulled his shirt collar away from his chest, where a vicious scar lay near his heart. “You see this?”
“Aye.” Cameron traced the raised, whitened skin with her fingertip. She watched as chills spread over Kalder’s flesh, but they did nothing to dull the fury in his mismatched eyes.
“Me father gave me that when I tried to keep him from killing Bron. He turned on me and said I wasn’t his son for protecting the shrew.” His voice was hollow, as if he told her of someone else,and yet as she stared into his eyes, she saw the torment he concealed. The agonized grief. “I can still see the hatred on his face as he denounced me for a faithless, worthless bastard for saving a bitch who turns out now wasn’t even me mother and hated me for that very fact. What kind of fool am I?”
“Their sins are not on you.”
He scoffed as his tortured gaze locked with hers, and it burned her with its intense sincerity. “I think a part of me always suspected the truth. That it’s why me lands and title never meant anything to me. They’re not really mine.”
“Aye, they are. Inherited through your father. You heard what the captain said.”
“But I was never really part of their family, Cam. And I think some inner part of me always felt it. You don’t know what it’s like to be a stranger in your own home. To know you don’t belong there and wonder why you’re not quite welcome. To wonder what’s so wrong with you that no one can love you. Not even your own parents.”
Cameron sat in silence as she realized Kalder had just entrusted her with a secret that emotionally devastated him. That this man who trusted no one and stood strong against the entire world had just bared his very soul to her.
He’d made himself vulnerable to her alone.
She reached up and placed her hand against his stubbled cheek. “I will always welcome you, Kalder Dupree. Wherever I am, you will forever have a home and all the warmth there you could ever desire. And you are more entitled to your noble status than any man I know. For you are honest. Decent. And good.”
He grunted at that. “Perhaps you need to get out more.”
She smiled at his teasing. “I get out quite enough to know the truth.”
He dipped his head down and kissed her gently on her lips. The taste of him invaded her head and set it reeling. His kiss was fierce, demanding.
Scintillating.
Breathless from his touch, Cameron didn’t protest as he laid her back against the damp sand. Her body burned at the intimate contact of his body pressing against hers. It was the most wondrous thing she’d ever experienced. His chest to her breast, his legs to hers. A deep-seated fire started inside her, making her hot and aching.
Making her want more of him.
Again.
Kalder licked and teased her mouth, wanting to taste more of her. Nay, heneededto have her.
Her taste and scent were all he could think of. And the feel of her beneath him was more than a mere mortal demon could take.
