Alina pulled her otter-skin cloak closeraround her shoulders as they rode up the mountain's southern slope.The wind was raw and the air chilled, but they wouldn’t suffer fromlack of food or water as the high woods of birch and pine werefilled with small game and birdsong, and the hillsides crisscrossedwith rills and streams overflowing with rainwater.Etain, carryingthe lighter Alina, was having an easier time traversing theslogging wet, muddy terrain than the heavier Artur carrying Roark.But like his master, the stallion was strong, sturdy, andsure-footed.
They stopped by a small lake at noon, andRoark set a snare while Alina watered the horses and staked them tograze.They ate the last of the cooked field beans and Alinascoured the mountainside with the spyglass while Roark checked hissnare and came back with a hare.
“I’ll set another snare when we camp for thenight,” he said, tying the hare to his saddle.
“The roots your mother gave us will make agood rabbit stew,” Alina said.“And there’s plenty of fresh greensalong the waterways.”
They’d lost a day and a half of travel timebecause of the storm, and almost half of today because of theirlate start this morning, part of which was them waking up late andthe other part their argument, which had ended with Roark declaringhis love.
A declaration she would hold close and dearuntil her dying day, which hopefully would be many years from now.He’d said he regretted consummating their love, but he hadn’t saidit couldn’t happen again.She was determined to make sure it did.If she was going to have to spend the rest of her life without him,then she wanted to get as much of him as she could for as long asshe could.
She mounted Etain and resumed their trek upthe mountain, keeping an eye out for other riders and dreaming ofthe night to come.Memories of their lovemaking warming her fromthe inside out.
They topped the mountain pass as the sun wasdipping below the western horizon and rode on until dark, followinga stream and making camp in a copse of oak.Alina filled the potwith water, roots, and sorrel leaves she’d picked along the streamwhile Roark dressed the hare, and then she put the pot over thefire to cook and snuggled up against him on the bedrolls, staringup at the few stars peeking out amongst the clouds.
“If you could do or be anything in our worldof no consequences or repercussions,” she asked him as the Huntershowed in the southern sky, “what would you choose?”
“Hmmm.I’d like to own land with good, arableacreage to farm, grazing land for sheep, cattle, and horses, and tohave a glassmaking shop that would specialize in spyglass lensesand roof panes for greenhouses, and a trading ship or three totrade our wares all over the world.”
“Our wares?”
He tucked her into his shoulder and kissedthe top of her head.“Our wares.Our glass.Our land.Our keep.Ourstable full of horses, cats, and goats.Our bairns.”
Alina, who’d always assumed she’d marry andhave children someday without feeling the burning desire so manyother girls had, laid a hand over her belly where Roark’s seed mayhave already taken hold.“I like your dream,” she said.
“What would you choose?”
“You.”She ran her fingers through his beardand turned his face to hers.“I love you, Roark.I would choose tobe with you all of my days and nights.”
He smiled, slow and easy, and more than alittle sad.“I would choose the same, Ali love,” he said.“While wemay not have all our days and nights to be together, we havetonight, and we have now.”He nodded toward the pot of stewsimmering over the fire.“How much time do we have right now?”
She gave the stew a stir and grinned back athim.“Long enough,” she said.
Up to two nights ago, Alina would have saidthe spyglass was her favorite appendage of Roark’s.But that hadchanged when she’d touched his cock and felt it grow and pulse inher hand.When she’d held it as he shuddered and spilt his hotseed.When she’d licked and nipped, and sucked and swallowed hisyeasty essence.When she’d taken his engorged cock deep inside ofher and he’d filled her with a need she’d never known she had.
She ran a finger along the inside of hiswaistband, licking her lips with anticipation as her new favoriteappendage rose to meet her fingertip, her laughter low and sultryas he pulled her tunic up and over her head and then doffed hisown.They both stood and shucked their boots and breeches and thenfell onto the bedrolls together.
“What do you want, my lady owl?”he whisperedroughly as he lay on top of her, his thick erection pressingagainst her belly.
Alina spread her legs beneath him.“You, sirstag.All of you, inside me.”
After… They lay together on the bedrollsstaring up at the stars in the clearing sky, the stew eaten and thecampfire burned to embers.Roark pointed north and west to the Ladyin the Chair.“If anything happens to me before we find you aship,” he said, “I want you to go to the MacLeods’ at Silver WaterKeep.”
“Why?”
Roark chuckled at her why.“You’re Oona theSwan’s great-granddaughter.They’re kin.They’ll help you.”
Alina knew her great-grandmother had comefrom the Green Isles, but she’d never heard the name of her home,or where in the Green Isles it was.Other than knowing Oona’sstory, her family had never had any contact with their Green Isleskin from four generations back.
“What if they don't believe me?”she said.“Ihave no proof she’s my great-grandmother.”
“The tales all tell of her big, beautiful,emerald green eyes,” he said, holding her gaze.“One look intothose green eyes of yours and they’ll know.”
“I suppose.”The women in Alina’s family wereknown for the unusual color of their eyes, and though uncommon,green eyes weren’t unheard of here in the Green Isles.
“If your eyes don’t convince them, sing‘Somebody’ for them.There’s not a man in this world who could denyyou anything if you sang that song to them.”
“Perhaps.”Roark was the only man she’d eversung “Somebody” to, the only man she could ever imagine singing itto.“Perhaps I could sing ‘The Sailors Tale’ if it comes tothat.”
