Page 28 of Trapped By the Exiled Bastard

“I used tae be afraid of the storms as a wee laddie,” he mused. “Terrified, really. Theon would tease me sometimes, and me father would tell me there was nothin’ tae be afraid of, but it was only me mam who could coax me out from hidin’.”

“How did she do that?” Elin asked. She moved closer to him, away from the bed and toward his reach, telling herself it was only so she could hear him better.

“She sang,” he told her. His eyes softened at the memory. “She’d hold me close and sing our song, and just for that wee moment, I’d ken the world couldnae touch us. I loved me father and Theon, but when it was just me and me mam, we were somethin’ special.”

Elin’s heart tugged at the image. She wanted to touch his cheek and reassure him, but though she now stood close enough, she held herself back. “I sometimes comforted the wee ones at the orphanage who took fright with the storms,” she said. “I’d tell them silly stories or mime puppets with the shadows. Whatever it took tae distract them and remind them that they were safe.”

Keir smiled. “But ye didnae sing? However will ye get me through the night, then?”

She snorted. “I can sing if ye like, but I doubt it’ll soothe anyone. Ye may regret askin’ when yer ears are bleedin’ from the horror of me singin’ voice.”

He blinked at her, then burst into laughter, and she soon joined him. Suddenly, the room was illuminated as lightning flashed through the cracks in the wooden walls, so bright that for a second it felt like the world was aflame. Elin jumped in surprise, and as she did, she stumbled forward into him.

His hands went out to catch her, and hers landed on his chest. He held her there, and his laughter faded as they met each other’s eyes. She could feel his heartbeat through the slightly damp skin of his chest, strong but no longer steady, and she could feel the intensity burning into her as he stared.

“Keir—” she whispered.

Her words were lost as his kiss claimed her, and she gasped into his mouth, pressing herself hard against him as she surrendered to her own desire.

One of her hands slid up the skin of his chest and moved behind his head, tangling in his hair to keep him close. He groaned, and the sound pulsed through her as he grabbed her around the waist. They stumbled, sinking together to the floor, their kiss all that remained of the world.

Thunder rumbled, but nobody noticed anymore.

13

The floor of the cabin was cold, but Keir had never experienced such fiery heat as that which Elin’s roaming hands left in their wake.

His breath came unsteadily and hers in little gasps, and when he moved his lips at last from her mouth to find her neck, she sighed out his name in a way that neatly undid him then and there. His hand trailed up her side, settling on the curve of her breast, feeling her heave with need and longing beneath him. She pulled her fingernails down his bare back, exquisitely painful, claiming, demanding, and Keir knew he couldn’t wait long before he had her.

But…

With more effort than he knew he possessed, he pulled back. Elin made a soft, uneven sound of question. He leaned down and pressed a feather-light kiss to her lips, then rolled off her, lying next to her with his back on the cold floor, trying to soothe his own racing heart.

Elin propped herself up on her elbow to look at him, and when he met her gaze, he saw that she had turned pink from embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry? For what?” he asked, genuinely perplexed.

“I… I ken ye like Briana. I’ve seen the way ye look at her. It must be hard, kennin’ yer brother and she are together while ye—”

Keir sat up. “Briana?” he asked, then laughed.

A defiant look of annoyance crossed her face. Elin stood and retreated to the bed, obviously offended by his laughter. The idea was so ludicrous that it took him a few moments to collect himself. He stood and turned toward the bed, sitting down at the other end, giving her plenty of space.

“Elin, I dinnae like Briana. Nae in the way ye mean. Honestly, I’m sorry for laughin’, I just—it was the last thing I ever expected ye tae say. Briana’s a sister, nothin’ more, nothin’ less. At least she is now.” The amusement in him ebbed at his own last words, lost in the tide of shame that his memories always brought when he allowed them to resurface. “Nae that I deserve even that honor after what I almost did.”

Elin frowned. She didn’t move closer from where she sat by the pillow, but she did lower her guard a little, relaxing the barrier she had built between them with her arms and legs. “What do ye mean?”

He allowed the shame to engulf him. This would be the first time he’d said it all outright. Theon knew most of it, of course, and the others had an idea, but none of them had ever made him say word for word what had happened that night. It was an understanding between them and a barrier with Briana that he had never been able to cross. Perhaps he had never wanted to. He didn’t want to say it—didn’t want to destroy forever the admiration he saw occasionally in Elin’s eyes—but he knew that she deserved the truth. And, perhaps, he deserved to speak it fully at long, long last.

“I almost let her get taken by the McFarlanes. Almost gave her up to the mercy of her father and brother in the Cameron clan or the rage of brutality that Malcolm McFarlane would have brought upon her. I kent how much Theon loved her, and I kent how much she meant tae Noah. I kent that Graeme had grown fond of her and that she’d come tae consider us her home. But I watched them take her, and if I hadnae changed me mind at the last second and sent Theon after her, she could well be dead by now. Or worse.” He shook his head. “Ye must think me a monster.”

Elin stared at him, her lip still swollen and full from their kiss, slightly parted in surprise. Her lovely brow furrowed. “I dinnae understand. What would the McFarlanes want with Briana? And why would Laird Cameron wish tae punish her?”

So Keir told her. He told her everything—how Briana had been betrothed to Malcolm, how Theon had captured her to try to secure the freedom of the Blades and their people, and how the two had fallen in love. “A blind man could have seen how they adored one another, but tae me it was like poison. When Theon refused tae let us ransom her off, it was the last straw for me. In my anger, all I could see was me brother betrayin’ me for the sake of a daughter of the clan who—”

He cut off and looked away, fighting off the images that flew through his mind. The bodies of his mother and father watched him, blank-eyed, across the decades, never even given the honor of their graves. Flames engulfed them, just as they had in life, and Keir squeezed his eyes shut as thunder roared.

A soft hand pulled him from the spiral. He opened his eyes to see Elin had moved closer and now knelt beside him on the bed, her hand placed reassuringly on his upper arm. “What happened between the clans?” she asked softly. “That night, the night the alliance fell apart. I’ve heard the tale of the traitors again and again from Eamon and from men of his ilk. But that’s not the full story, is it?”