Page 25

–Broderick–

I HAD NEVER experienced anything more excruciating than holding Aspen’s head in my lap and watching her fade away as death took her. Watched her leave me as she had in our last life. I didn’t think I was capable of such anguish until, miraculously, my mother and Flame brought her back, healing her almost entirely, and I realized I was capable of more pain.

After my dragon carried her home and I tucked her into our bed, I sat with the Viking sword beside me and watched the incoming storm, mourning and wondering how I would share the news with her. How I would watch my pain reflected in her beautiful eyes.

Now she was sitting in bed, staring at me with those lovely violet eyes that matched her dragon, urging me to tell her. Urging me to rip her heart out, whether she knew it yet or not.

“There was an unfortunate consequence to the injury you sustained when Dugal’s tail hit you,”

I said gently, wrapping my fingers with hers, my inner beast brushing hers in comfort.

“It seems the area that was wounded will prevent you from being able to conceive.”

She stared at me for a long, blank-eyed moment before she blinked and shook her head.

“You’re kidding me, right? After what happened to us in our last life, you’re seriously kidding me?”

“I wish I were,”

I said softly, gathering her close.

“But nay, ‘tis true. ‘Tis…”

When I broke off, unable to go on because it was too difficult, she held on to me tight and didn’t seem to cry at first until she loosened her grip, and I felt her silent sobs. Grieving with her for all the bairns we could never have, I held on tighter, then simply held her into the wee hours until we finally drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.

When I stirred awake, it was to find her standing outside in the rain with her hands on the railing she had climbed over days before. Flame sat nearby, watching her before he seemed to sense I was awake. He looked at me over his shoulder and then made his way out of the chamber, clearly wanting to give us privacy.

While tempted to bring her a cloak, I knew she preferred the feel of the icy rain and wind on her skin, so I wrapped my arms around her from behind and breathed in her sweet scent. Especially sweet now I was against her. Touching her.

“I’m still in heat, aren’t I?”

she said softly, leaning her head back against my chest.

“It doesn’t matter that I can’t conceive. I still go into heat.”

“Aye,”

I murmured.

“I’m sorry, lass.”

“Don’t be.”

She turned in my arms and cupped my cheek tenderly, her heart in her eyes.

“How are you? I was so consumed with my own grief earlier, I didn’t ask, and I should have because this has to be…”

She swallowed hard and shook her head.

“What I mean to say is I would understand if you have to be with someone else to provide heirs and—”

“Nay.”

I put a finger to her soft lips and shook my head, my brogue thickening with emotion as thunder cracked overhead.

“There will never be another for me, Aspen. Ye are my fated mate and the lass I love. We can find other ways to care for wee bairns without bearing our own if ‘tis yer wish, but ‘twill only ever be ye in my bed and in my heart.”

Understanding this was the right time with the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning all around us, I dropped to a knee, took her hand in mine, met her eyes, and made a spiral in her palm.

“Marry me, my fated mate and the only lass I will ever love. Now ye have returned to me not once but twice across God knows how many centuries, become my wife at last.”

“Now that is a proposal,”

she replied a little hoarsely, a small smile curling her mouth as she blinked back tears.

“And one I’ll answer once you do something for me.”

I arched my brows, curious.

“What would that be?”

“Fly with me.”

Her gaze rose to the turbulent, stormy skies.

“Right now, tonight, in this weather.”

I went to shake my head, worried she was too weak and too new to her dragon to handle how rocky the skies would be, but my mother spoke telepathically to me before I could.

“She’s strong enough, son,”

she said.

“And she needs this…needs to let go in a way her adventurous spirit demands. She needs to know she’s strong enough to go on and understand no matter how great the loss of not bearing offspring will be, she has more to offer to ye. All of us. To herself. So fly with her and love her. Let her go. As ye well know, she will always come back to ye because she is a MacLeod. Yer MacLeod. Our MacLeod and the future mistress of our castle.”

“Aye, then,”

I said softly, meeting Aspen’s smile as I rose.

“Let us fly so you might finally tell me what I long to hear and marry me, but take care, as these skies are far different than what you experienced at Sutherland Castle.”

Her smile grew.

“I’m counting on it.”

I had no chance to counsel her on wind shears or updrafts or what it felt like if she were struck by lightning before she leapt over the railing, raced toward the edge I had been fearful of her going over days before, and shifted effortlessly. I couldn’t help but laugh when she roared with delight and flapped her wings, gaining altitude, however choppily, in the shifting winds.

In pursuit, I shifted and raced after her, eager to fly by her side.

She said nothing at first but reveled in the experience of trying to climb through a relatively tall storm cloud, her dragon handling the extreme turbulence well. When thunder boomed all around us and a lightning bolt struck close, I shared her exhilaration, pulling up beside her the best I could in the bumpy wind.

“This is unbelievable,”

she exclaimed, leveling out in the cloud so she could experience the intense feeling of electricity sizzling over our beasts before she gained even more altitude and shot up over the storm into the icy moonlit night.

Right there with her, I enjoyed the freeing sensation of picking up speed and sailing over satiny black clouds and basking in glittering rays of lunar light. Aspen felt the same way, marveling at the sensation and reveling in the power of her new body. Strength not just found on the outside, but on the inside.

There was utter beauty in the moment and deep mourning as our beasts suffered the same sense of loss our human halves had. A bitter goodbye full of sadness, combined with great love and a new beginning that might not look how we wanted it to, but still, we would be together and start our grand adventure, regardless. I didn’t doubt it would be just that, too, as her dragon’s eyes met mine, and she whooped in delight before heading back down into the storm, ready for more of the exhilaration it offered.

“So what happens if lightning hits me?”

she wondered, not sounding frightened of the possibility as icy pellets whiplashed us and our beasts bounced about in the ever-shifting winds.

“’Tis hard to know,”

I replied, having never experienced it.

“Some dragons find it jarring, and others find it exhilarating.”

She offered no reply, but I swore she chased lightning after that so she could find out. Suffice it to say, she didn’t catch any but came close when a bolt cut down just before she got to it, sending sparks over her serpentine body.

Seeming to like the sensation, she roared in delight, surprising me when she stopped chasing lightning bolts and dropped altitude quickly. I raced after her, worried when she headed right for the entrance to our chamber. Was she in distress? Could she shift back?

It turned out she could and did so in the best way possible.

By the time I landed and returned to my human half, she had already shifted and sauntered my way without a stitch of clothing, her glistening, wet, beautiful body laid bare for me, and the look in her sultry eyes unmistakable. Whatever rush she just experienced in the storm had her craving a rush of another variety, and I couldn’t agree more.

Painfully aroused, I caught her when she leapt up and wrapped her legs around my waist. Our lips crashed together hungrily, and desperation took over. There would be no making it to the bed. I needed to be inside her now, so I brought her against the slick, cold wall where wind and rain still gusted against us and thrust deep inside her blazing hot sheath.

Crying out in pleasure, she dug her nails into my shoulders and held on tight as I rode her as fiercely as she had just ridden the dangerous skies. Loved her as intensely as the pleasure she had found so close to a lightning bolt.

Bracing one hand against the wall and clamping the other over her firm arse, I drove myself in her again and again until such brutal pleasure roared up that I had no choice but to lock up and let go inside her. Right there with me, she belted out another choppy cry of pleasure and released just as hard.

Despite the cold rain, I felt her warm tears when she buried her face in my neck and understood what we just shared was another means of releasing and letting go of what could never be ours.

And we continued to do so for two more days, never leaving our chamber as we made love, ate, and talked. Sometimes, there was laughter, other times tears, but by the third morning, as the sun crested over the sunlit waters and spread over us, I knew she had found some semblance of peace and was ready to join the others and find out what came next.

“But first,”

she said softly, wrapping her fingers with mine as we stood together on our ledge, minus its railing, enjoying the sunrise.

“I think I promised you an answer a few days ago.”

“You did,”

I said just as softly, meeting her smile.

“And it best be the right one, lass.”

“Now you're just getting pushy.”

Her smile widened as she traced a spiral on my palm, and her luminescent eyes stayed with mine.

“So, I suppose I'd better marry you as soon as possible.”

“’Twould be recommended,”

I said around a chuckle, pulling her into my arms and giving her the sort of kiss that said I would never let her go.

“I’ll hold you to that,”

she murmured against my lips before we finally headed downstairs.

Little did we expect the shocking revelation that would soon follow.