Page 22 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

B radana rose from the bed unsteadily. She could barely see the man who lay upon the cot before her, but she had felt him. Long and lean was Adair MacMurtray. Well muscled and lithe, wearing naught more than the short leggings in which he’d lain down to sleep.

The man she loved. How could she go to her fate—her hard and desperately terrifying fate—without tasting him? Without having him inside her, a memory to take her through the years.

She began removing her clothing, untying the laces that secured the green overdress, which, without regard, she tossed aside. She wriggled from the simple sheath beneath. Her shoes came last.

The cool air brought up goosebumps on her naked skin and she hesitated. If they were caught, if she were found here, ’twould be a terrible scandal. They would be disgraced before the clan. The gods alone knew what would be done to Adair.

Was it worth taking such a chance?

Aye, och aye. Because tomorrow she went to the slaughter. Tomorrow she lost herself. And if one thing might help her hang on to the merest shreds of her sanity, it would be having the man she loved inside her, but once.

So she came back down upon him, naked as she was, and breathed his name. “Adair.”

His hands received her, and he began to tremble. She understood all too well what it was he felt. The rush of joy. The eagerness. All mixed up with a terrible weight of dread.

He did not speak, did not at once try to argue her out of this decision. Instead, his hands moved over her carefully, as if he could not believe the gift he’d been granted. They slid down her back. Across her buttocks. Up her sides to curve around her breasts.

Och, holy great light o’ the gods.

“Bradana.”

Ah, here would come the arguments. All those she knew full well already in her head.

But he said, “I love ye. More than I ever dreamed I could love anyone, I do.”

A sob rose to her throat even as she lit up with delight. Aye, they should speak it out plain now, if ever.

“I love ye, Adair. I gift ye my heart. My body, yours to do as ye will, this one night.”

“Bradana, this is a holy act in my sight, a sacred one.” He captured her hands, wove his fingers through hers. “Let us here vow to belong to one another, handfast like this—even if only we two know.”

“Aye. I am yours, only yours, till the day I die. No matter what else befalls me.”

They kissed on it, their hands still linked, until the kiss became something more and he moved from beneath her, laid her with care upon the bed. Backed off a very short distance.

She thought he looked at her before she realized he untied the laces on the leggings he wore, then cast the garment aside.

“Bradana, ye have never…?”

She breathed, “Nay.”

“I ha’ no wish to hurt ye.”

Better him, who loved her, than Earrach come tomorrow night.

She thrust that thought away from her. It had no place here. “In becoming yours, Adair, I ha’ no fear.”

Yet she did not know what to expect. Women talked, aye. Her friend, Maeve, had lain with her lover last summer and given a fairly detailed description. She’d also heard that, like childbirth, it was hard to describe.

She cared for none of that now. And even less when Adair came down upon the cot and began to touch her, ran his hands across her belly and down her thighs, stroking. Softly, softly beneath her breasts.

He was up hard for her, and she could feel the heat of him like the warmth of sunlight on the rocks of this place she loved. What was there to fear? She belonged to him even as she belonged to Alba. He would as soon harm her as himself.

All such thought shattered when he bent and fastened his mouth to her breast.

Never had she known such a sensation. Never guessed it might exist. He drew upon her emotions, called up her arousal from the depths of her being. She wrapped her arms around his head and urged him closer.

Remember every moment of this , she beseeched herself. Remember, so you may relive it all again.

The weight of him settled upon her knees. Gently she reached down and caressed him. Sacred, he had said, aye, but something even beyond that, for she felt a great rush of wonder. Tenderness. Love.

Was not such love sacred?

He groaned and raised his head to look into her face. “I take ye, Bradana, as my wife.”

He kissed his way downward from her breasts across her belly and lower still. He dropped hot, fervent kisses on her thighs and parted them gently, exposing her to his gaze, to his touch. His fingers brushed her there. Lingered. Pressed inside.

She lost the last threads of her sanity.

Remember , she ordered herself again, and yet the feelings came too fast and too bright. A great, raging flame lit inside her. She spread herself wide in offering to this man she loved.

When he feasted on her, she did not question it. He was hers, as she was his to do with as he pleased. She would deny him nothing this night.

And he made her sing. Every drop of blood in each vein, each facet of her spirit, came alive and glowed in the magic he wove.

“Bradana.” By the time he moved up her body and whispered her name, she was more than ready for him. He took her gently, moving with care until the spell of it engulfed him. Until the rhythm of the song embraced them both and they moved, moved together in effortless harmony.

So this, Bradana thought foggily as she lay with her legs still wound around him, his face in her neck, was the manifestation of love. The highest place two souls could reach together.

She did not want to let him go. She did not ever want to let him go.

She did not want tomorrow to come.

If only they could remain together so, flying on the airstreams of the night, far up among the stars, the two of them become one.

“Bradana, love.” He raised each of her hands to his lips in turn and dropped kisses into her palms. Planted two more kisses at either corner of her mouth, then upon her cheeks. Her forehead. And it felt familiar. Dear.

“Do not move.” She clung to him. “Do not leave go of me. Not yet.”

He did not say what he should—that were they discovered, the consequences would come swift and hard. That she would pay as well as he.

She already knew.

“Husband,” she whispered, and claimed him all over again.

“Most beloved wife.”

At his words, she felt her heart break, shatter into a thousand pieces. For she was that, aye, now more than ever. How, by all the gods, could she go to another man?

How had she ever imagined lying with him once would be enough?

Suddenly she was trembling with emotion. She clung to him and he held her tight, no words necessary because he understood what she felt, and anyway, there was no comfort he could give.

At length, he began to kiss her again, and the magic once more crept over them so they moved, moved together. Their loving, pure and hot as lightning, became the only available refuge.

Bradana shattered. She came apart as even her heart had, but this time she gloried in it. And the words came in a flood.

“I never knew… I never knew lying wi’ a man would be like this.”

“Like this?” he questioned softly, his voice a mere breath in her ear.

“Och, well”—she tried to think about it—“I imagined the sensations would be enjoyable—though naught to what I feel when ye lay hands to me. And the kisses. The act itself. I never figured on the emotions. How I’d feel for ye after.”

She felt him smile against her cheek, where his face pressed. He drew her hair aside onto the bolster. “Or how ye have claimed me, Bradana? Body and soul.”

“Aye.”

“The way ye gave yourself to me.”

“The way I belong to ye and ye to me.”

He raised himself onto his elbows in an effort to look into her face. “Naught can change that now.”

“Naught can ever change it,” she agreed soberly. “And yet…” Should she tell him what she now felt more certain than ever? She could not go to Earrach. Why bring trouble to this man she adored when they had so little time left together?

Terror and victorious bliss tangled together inside her. All her life, she’d looked square at realities, dealt with life as it came. This, though, was different. She had no idea how to navigate what lay before her.

“’Twill likely be dawn soon,” she whispered. “I maun leave ye.”

“Aye.”

“But not yet.” She ran her fingers down the crisp hair on his chest, across the muscles of his abdomen, until she captured him between her hands. “Not before I have had a chance to taste ye everywhere.”

“Bradana—”

“Do no’ tell me nay. I will have ye. And I will remember.”

Dawn came more swiftly than it should. The start of Bradana’s wedding day. They’d had no sleep, but Bradana thought it a good bargain, for sleep might be had anytime. This man she loved, but for one night.

When at last she rose to put on her clothes, she went cold, missing Adair’s arms around her. The world came rushing in on a breath of winter. But he helped her dress, pinning the brooch upon her shoulder with his own hands and slipping the shoes onto her feet.

Then he stood looking into her face. “Ye will go carefully? ’Tis lighter out than I like.”

“I stayed longer than I should.” Yet in reward, she carried the flavor of him on her tongue.

“Bradana.” She’d never seen him look so serious. “I will challenge him this day. I will no’ stand by and watch ye wed wi’ him.”

“Nay.” The fear that gripped her near blotted out everything they had shared, so terribly bright was it. “If ye should fall—”

“Ha’ ye still so little faith in me?”

“I ha’ need o’ ye, Adair, that outweighs aught else. If ye should fall…” It seemed an old fear, one that predated all she felt for him.

“What kind o’ man would I be if I did not fight for ye?”

“One who breathes,” she told him passionately. “One who continues to love me.”

“Always.”

Before he could reach for her mouth, she pulled away from him. If she did not go now, she would not go at all.

“Husband,” she whispered from the door, and went out into the gray morning.