Page 74

He positions himself as I brace for the pain I know will accompany this first time.

“Are you awake now, Reyne?”

His gruff voice is my undoing. I’ve waited for so long, I forget to be afraid. I squeeze my buttocks together in anticipation and lift my hips to meet him.

With a pained groan, Erik guides himself into me and stops when he reaches my barrier. I squeeze my eyes shut, anticipating the pain, and Erik thrusts forward. I buck from the bed, but the stinging is not so bad as I expected. When I open my eyes, the concern I see in his gaze has me reaching for him. When I pull my husband closer, he begins to move.

“Does it hurt still?” With one arm propping his body up, Erik waits for me to respond.

“Nay.” I push my hips toward him again.

As if releasing his own restraint, Erik moves with more purpose then. The fullness of him inside me, the knowledge that we are indeed, finally, man and wife . . .

“You watch me,” I manage just before he descends. His kiss is swift, and all-consuming. I kiss my husband back, our tongues swirling as our bodies move in the same rhythm.

When he circles his hips, I grip his shoulders. But they are too wide for me to hang on to them. His arms, not much better. I must grip something.

The coverlet will do.

He breaks away then and responds to a question I’d forgotten about.

“Aye, I watch you. Your eyes, so full of expression.”

Circling and thrusting, he is relentless.

“Your lips—” he reaches up, “—your hair, so like the fire inside you. All of it, Reyne. All of it, all of you, is now mine.”

I cannot hold on much longer.

“As I am yours,” he continues. “Let yourself go.”

And so I do. He captures the sound I’d have made with his mouth as my buttocks clench and my core throbs in pleasure. When he grunts against my mouth, the vibrations of it not unlike those between us, I know he has found pleasure in me as well.

Collapsing atop me and then rolling us over, still joined, Erik buries his head into my neck. I cannot hold him tightly enough. Knowing what I do now, I want to ask how he could have waited so long. And I want to ask when he will leave me. I want to ask so much, but instead, I say nothing, not willing to let this dream end just yet.

31

Erik

The battle was won too quickly to even be called a battle. We waited all night in the thicket across the bridge, on Merian soil, and the traitors arrived just before sunrise. Part of me was astonished the Elderman had not betrayed us. Another part of me was not surprised at all.

My instincts, on this at least, did not mislead me.

When they crossed the bridge, Lord Scott and I led two groups of men in opposite directions, waiting for all of the men to cross before we acted. The moment they did, we emerged from the trees and flanked the bastards on both sides. Not a single sword was raised. They had nowhere to run, for a third group of men already blocked the bridge from behind.

Unfortunately, as the men toss their weapons to the ground, I can see neither Rawlins nor Whitley were among them. While we went into this knowing Rawlins had already scurried home, Cettina and I had hoped Whitley might appear.

The highest-ranking man among them, and the only noble, now stands across from me with Scott and Gille as witnesses. Although Scott outranks me, he has deferred to me as the one who uncovered the plot.

“You have one chance here, MacKinnish,” I say. “Tell us who else planned the attack with you, and your family will retain their lands.”

The Highlander has a wife and four children, a fact I’d made sure to learn after I saw him at the meeting in Ledenhill.

“Either way, you die a traitor.” I don’t say anything the man doesn’t already know.

He remains silent.

My sword is out so quickly, pressing against the base of his chin, he doesn’t have an opportunity to stumble out of its way. His hands tied behind his back, MacKinnish stares defiantly down the tip of the sword.