Page 17 of Taken by the Devilish Highlander (Taken by Highland Devils #7)

“ I cannae trust him,” Archer said from his desk. He glared at a nearly empty piece of paper, the entirety of a report one of his men wrote on Lennox’s movements yesterday. Elijah stood nearby, cleaning his nails with the small knife he carried on his belt.

“He’ll slip up,” Elijah insisted. “We need to stay on him. You saw what he tried to pull with that messenger from Scott.”

“Aye. I also saw ye did nothing to stop him.”

The man looked up in surprise, offended by the accusation.

“Ye want to catch him doin’ something wrong, aye?” Elijah asked. He stood from where he had been leaning on the arm of a chair. “I practically gave him to ye on a silver platter.”

“And how did ye ken I would be home?” Archer asked. He had been thinking about that night more and more. He was furious with Lennox, but Elijah had shown just as much poor judgment.

Something Malcolm never would have done.

“Ye did come home,” Elijah countered. “And if ye dinnae run off without telling anyone I could have kenned for sure.”

Archer sighed, forcing himself to remain in control. He couldn’t fault Elijah just because he wasn’t his brother. Archer had always known Elijah lacked the intelligence and strategic smarts of his younger sibling, and he had made Elijah his man-at-arms anyway.

It isnae Elijah’s fault Malcolm isn’t here…

“It’s alright,” Archer nodded. “We were lucky the messenger didnae have any important news. And lucky Feya was there to save the situation.”

His men had told him how Feya handled the situation, greeting the messenger and bringing him for a private meeting with her.

There, the man delivered his message: he had come to deliver news of Scott’s sister being married to a wealthy Lord.

Nothing of much consequence, and yet he was proud of Feya for understanding the delicacy of the situation.

She had handled herself well, which was more than he could say for the two men of his council who seemed intent on bumbling things.

“Ye can go,” Archer said, suddenly desperate to be alone.

He looked down at the correspondence in front of him, but he could feel Elijah’s annoyance across the room.

His man didn’t want to be dismissed like a child, but Archer didn’t have the patience for him right now.

Not when his face looked so much like his brother’s, reminding Archer of everything he could have had.

“And what would ye have me do?”

Archer closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

“Trail Lennox,” Archer suggested. “If ye are so sure we will catch him in an act of treason, we must keep our eyes on him.”

He could tell Elijah wanted to say something, but Archer didn’t give him the chance. He picked up a pen and began writing, barely aware of the letters he was scratching out on the page. Finally, his boots heavy on the stone floor, Elijah stormed out.

A gentle knock on the open door surprised him, and for a moment, he thought Elijah had returned.

He looked up to see Feya in the doorway, her deep blue dress complementing the storm he saw reflected in her eyes.

But her beauty couldn’t erase the ugliness of their argument last night.

When Feya had seen his weakness, had recognized what a broken, unfixable thing he truly was.

“Leave it on the table,” he said.

He was used to Feya’s morning visits, when he would gulp down whatever mixture she brought to him.

Though he was skeptical that anything would work after so many tries, he always found himself heartened by Feya’s hopeful expression.

She still believed she could find a cure, despite weeks of his episodes he was helpless to stop.

“No medicine today,” she said, and he looked up at her in the doorway. A flash of Feya against the villager’s house flooded his brain. He could still feel her thighs as he held her up, could still remember the glorious feeling of pressing his arousal against her.

Was that a blush in her cheeks? He caught himself smiling as he wondered if Feya was having the same thoughts he was.

“Then leave me, lass,” he said. He wouldn’t allow himself to be tempted by Feya today.

The dancing and the drinking in the village last night had made him lose his reason, but he couldn’t let it happen again.

He forced himself to remember the way Feya looked at him last night, the way she saw him as something broken that needed to be fixed.

Let me help ye, she had said. It’s why I’m here.

Another person to fix him. Another person trying to put together what had been irrevocably smashed.

“I have something new today,” she said. The hesitation in her voice was intriguing. She was trying to be brave, but Archer sensed the memory of last night was fresh in her mind. Was she worried he would yell again?

“I’m busy today,” he grumbled. “Perhaps ye can come back later.”

“Nay,” she said, and he was surprised by the defiant tone in her voice. It reminded Archer of the girl he had first met in the woods and the woman who had gone head-to-head with him in that village inn. He smiled despite himself and caught her eye across the room.

“Nay?” he asked, his voice playful. “Ye would say nay to your Laird?”

“Only when it’s for his own good,” she answered. He watched her squeeze her hands together, and he wanted to pull them apart, to slip his fingers in between hers.

“Me own good?” he asked, and she nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. It made Archer’s stomach flip, and he felt a flush of warmth through his chest and his stomach.

“Come with me,” she ordered, adding more of that commanding tone.

She turned around to leave, but then she glanced over her shoulder, clearly uncertain if he would follow.

But now Archer was too intrigued to deny her.

He stood up and left his work on the desk, setting his eyes on her swaying hips as she left the room.

“Where are ye takin’ me?” he asked, but she only looked back and pressed her lips together as she guided him down the hallway. They were alone through the pathways of the castle, and there were far too many shaded doorways and empty rooms that Archer dreamed about pulling Feya into.

But he kept his hands at his sides, reminding himself to stay under control. When they finally reached the final destination, he was confused to see the door to his own bed chamber in front of them, slightly ajar.

“What are we doin’ here, lass?”

He couldn’t stop the images that flooded his mind. He saw Feya on the bed, looking up at him from the oversized pillows. He saw his hand running up her leg, pressing those dark velvet skirts higher and higher until he could feel the soft skin of her inner thigh.

“Ye’ll see,” she answered, and her own voice was deep, as if she could read Archer’s mind.

When Feya pushed open the door, he saw that his bedchamber was neat and organized.

The only thing out of the ordinary was a large metal tub in the center, steam still rising from the water.

The smell of lavender and something more pungent reached his nose, and he saw flowers and herbs floating on the water’s surface.

“It’s a bath,” she said as they stepped into the room. She stared at the water as she said it, words suddenly tumbling out in her nervousness. “There’s lavender to calm your nerves and mugwort. It’s meant to help ye sleep and stop any bad dreams. Plus some camomile petals…”

She chattered on, staring at the flat surface of the water as she tried to convince him to accept this unorthodox healing method. Archer kept his eyes on Feya’s back, the long braid of her dark hair, the smooth skin of her neck. And then he reached down and pulled his tunic over his head.

“…oh, and some hops should calm ye, too. If drinking the mixtures isn’t working, I thought we should try aromatics. A twenty-minute soak once a day...”

She realized she was rambling. Archer was remarkably quiet beside her, which likely meant he would reject this idea. She still saw his angry scowl as he told her to leave this very room last night. She knew it was a risk that he could do the same thing now.

Feya ventured a look in Archer’s direction, only to see him standing shirtless, his tunic bunched in his hand.

She locked eyes on the solid muscles of his chest, scars crisscrossed in different colors.

He dropped the shirt to the ground as Feya forced her eyes up his body, past his angular collar bones, the sinewy muscles of his shoulders, and up his strong neck.

His beard was long today, a few days past his usual grooming routine.

She forced herself to speak, swallowing hard.

“I’ll wait outside,” she said, but as soon as she spoke, Archer’s hand dropped to the buttons of his breeches. Feya yelped and turned away, fixing her eyes on the open window and the gently blowing curtains of his room.

She heard Archer’s low chuckle at her response, and the sound brought lightness to her chest. It was so rare that she heard the man laughing about something.

She had heard it while they were dancing at the village yesterday, the music and the stars above bringing a carefree lightness that was so rare for the Laird.

And now Feya had brought him some joy of her own.

Her body was flush with the image of Archer shirtless, his hand dangerously close to revealing the rest of him.

She worked hard to breathe steadily as she heard the drop of Archer’s boots on the floor.

And then the rush of fabric against skin.

Her cheeks were on fire as she pictured him stepping out of his clothes, completely exposed as he stared at Feya’s back.

She glanced at the window and there, in the glass, she caught the briefest flash of his tall, strong form.

Heat flushed between her legs as she heard the splash of water and a comfortable sigh as Archer settled himself into the bath.

There was a splash of water onto the floor as his large frame disrupted the warm liquid.

“I’ll be going, then,” she said. Feya looked out of the corner of her eye toward the bedroom door, wondering if she could escape without her eyes betraying her. “Twenty minutes,” she told him. “I’ll come back when you’re done.”

“Stay.”

His commanding voice sent a shiver up her spine. It was simultaneously an order and a request, at once confident and vulnerable.

“Sing to me.”

She remembered their first night together, one that felt so far away.

They had been in the village inn, sleeping in the same bed.

It was the first time she saw Archer’s haunted visions, the nightmares that tormented him.

Then she had moved on instinct, running her fingers through his hair and singing to him because she could think of nothing else to do.

“As ye did at the inn,” he said, showing her that he was thinking of the very moment. She was touched that he thought of it fondly, but she felt shy all of a sudden. Back then, she had sung because she thought he couldn’t hear her.

“Nay, my Laird,” she laughed. “That is not part of your treatment.”

“Ye would deny me?” he teased. She heard the splash of water as he moved. “Even if it would heal me?”

“Aye,” Feya laughed. “Because I cannae stay by ye and sing whenever ye have an episode. What would ye have me do, stand by your bed every night waitin’ for a nightmare?”

She spoke without thinking, realizing all at once how dangerous it was to conjure the image of standing in his bedchamber, alone with Archer in the dead of night. He felt it too, and she heard a low growl from his place in the tub.

“Daenae tempt me, lass, or I will order it so. That is the sort of medicine I wouldnae mind taking.”

His voice was raw with longing, and Feya glanced over her shoulder, unable to stop herself.

She caught a flash of him in the bath, his substantial frame looking even larger in the small metal tub, and then she looked up to his eyes.

He stared at her with unabashed hunger, his fingers gripping the edge of the basin as his chest rose and fell.

She looked away, overcome with shock and a desire that might burn her up.

She had never felt such a powerful need, something stronger than hunger after a long ride or sleep after a day of healing.

She had to step away from him so she wouldn’t walk toward him.

Instead, she gripped the post of his bed, grounding herself in place. And then she started singing.

She hummed at first, low and tentative as she tried to get her voice and her emotions under control.

Without thinking, she had started a gentle lullaby her mother used to sing to her and Morgana.

It was the same song Feya still sang to her young sisters when they tossed and turned at night, troubled with childhood fears.

The song brought her back to her family, and she allowed herself to disappear into the memory.

Slowly, Feya started singing. She pictured her twin sisters in the bed, looking up at her with all the easy love of children.

She imagined their eyelids drooping as they tried to stay awake.

She could remember their defiant voices, telling her they weren’t tired or begging to stay up later with their older siblings.

Feya settled onto the bed, her back still facing Archer. She closed her eyes and dreamed of her family as she let her voice echo throughout the bedchamber.