Page 142 of Moon Craving

comments. For once, Abigail did not allow the fact she had been unaware of them bother

her. Nothing could diminish the pleasure she felt in this moment.

She loved her husband and had had the courage to tell him so. While he might

never repeat the words back to her, he clearly cared about and liked her. That was

miracle enough for Abigail.

She rode to the lake on Talorc's horse with him, feeling a sense of belonging unlike

anything she had ever known. They played in the water, not even pretending their primary

purpose was bathing. Afterward, they made love in the sweet green grass, surrounded by

the scent of heather.

As she climaxed she heard his voice saying something in what she recognized as

Chrechte. She pretended it was "I love you."

If she was going to hear a voice that existed only in her imagination, it might as well

say something she would never see spoken on her husband's lips.

Later Talorc sat on a rock and smiled at Abigail's efforts to do her own pleats.

Determined to prove that she could dress her pleats every bit as efficiently as her laird

husband, she was concentrating on getting each fold precisely the same when she heard

Talorc's voice inside her head for the first time outside of making love.

"Abigail, run!" The urgency was so strong, she obeyed without thought, only to trip

on her unpleated plaid and go crashing to the ground.

Air rushed over her and she looked up in time to see a huge gray wolf. Her mouth

opened in a silent scream, but the wolf did not attack. He sailed right over her.

She scrambled to her feet, yanking her plaid off as she went. She looked for

Talorc, but he was nowhere to be seen. She turned her head and saw a wild boar and the

wolf in a fight. Abigail ran to Talorc's horse, screaming her husband's name.

She scrambled onto the big black stallion's back and kneed him into movement.

She had to find her husband. Something must have happened to him.

Terrified but unwilling to leave the man she loved behind, she turned the horse

toward the forest from which the wild boar had come.

"Abigail! Go back to the keep," Talorc's voice demanded in her head.

"I won't leave you," she said in her own head, feeling more than a little crazy for