Page 28 of The Highlander’s Fallen Angel (Brotherhood of Solway Moss #2)

“Human misery must somewhere have a stop; there is no wind that always blows a storm.”

Euripides – Greek Poet, 480 BC–406 BC

The next three days consisted of treating the crew of the Rosemary , writing letters to gain support for peace on the Isle of Skye to thwart a possible attack by Clan Matheson, and avoiding Kenan. He wants to marry me, even after I foiled his plan. ’Tis a trick, a cruel trick that will tear me apart when he walks away.

Tierney had longed to go to Kenan, find him among his men, pull him aside and… What? Entice him to bed? Say again that she will never marry anyone, tying herself to a man? Or would she play the fool and say she’d marry him? How could she be so foolish as to even consider that? Every man she’d known had hurt her. Except the man you drugged, chained, and coerced.

After all that, she didn’t deserve him. “So foolish,” she whispered.

“Not foolish,” Henry said. “Just hopeful.” Henry, who’d been silent for so long that Tierney had felt alone in the cottage, held out one of the missives she’d written to the new chief of Clan Macqueen on the northern end of Skye. “Ye think a tribunal of chiefs will work?” Henry asked. “And that Kenan Macdonald would be the first leader.” He shook the brittle paper toward her. “And ye want to resurrect the title Lord of the Isles.”

She looked down at the letter she was penning to Cyrus’s father, who was currently still alive. “I know what’s in it, Henry. I wrote it.”

“Ye can’t send this without yer father looking at it. And Kenan Macdonald and Rory MacLeod, too, probably Cyrus Mackinnon.”

“I have no intention of bribing a rider to carry these letters out in secret.” She’d had enough of executing rash plans in secret. “But someone needs to start this process.”

And she was bored. Bored of waiting for herself to decide what to say to Kenan. She’d gone over and over their discussion on the deck of the Sweet Elspet , yelling and then whispering over the actual tempest swirling around them and pelting them with rain. Every time she heard him in her head say that he wasn’t her father, she felt her chest tighten and the ache of tears form in her eyes. That had to mean he was somewhere close to the truth.

“What does yer father say about this?” Henry asked, nodding toward the field beyond the window where Douglas MacNicol trained with the other warriors. Tierney sat in a cottage where she was staying with her mother, Fannie, and Morag. Kenan had given the bedchamber in Dunscaith to Rory and Sara and was sleeping with the warriors, as was her father.

“I haven’t spoken with him about this since he doesn’t listen to anything I say anyway.” She dabbed her pen in the inkwell. “I assume he’ll support peace with Clan MacLeod and Clan Macdonald as allies.”

Henry’s face reddened. “Lady Tierney, ye need to speak with him about…what occurred.”

Tierney swung her face up to him. “Which part? The part where he ignored me as soon as he had a son? Or when he married me off to someone who assaulted me nightly and threatened his granddaughter? Or the part where he refused to help me and Maggie escape from Wallace even when I came to him with a swollen lip and blackened eyes? Or when he tried to give me away a second time to Ranulf Matheson?

“Or maybe I should ask him all about how he survived being naked for a month at Eilean Donan. Did he enjoy it as much as when Wallace did the same to me, locking me naked in a closet?”

Henry’s face went from red to white, his lips pinching tight. “I am sure he did not—”

“Know? He knew about Wallace’s abuse. Jacob told him.”

“I was going to say he did not intend for ye to be harmed.”

“He did not lock me and my daughter in a room to die, but he might as well have since he was told about it.”

“Only after the fact.” Her father’s voice made her quill freeze, hovering over the paper.

Tierney’s face snapped up to the open window. Morag stood next to Douglas MacNicol. Morag’s long finger extended to Henry. “You come out here so these two can discuss through the window in private.”

“Through the window?” Douglas asked, glancing at her.

“I can’t guarantee she’s unarmed,” Morag said. “You better stay out of reach.”

Henry left, shutting the door behind him, and Tierney turned her face back to the letters flattened on the table before her. Her gaze danced across the scrawl where she’d been copying the initial plan for the chiefs of Skye to meet at an assembly to discuss creating a strong isle.

After she picked back up where she was writing, her father’s words stalled her scratching. “I heard all ye said to Henry just now.”

“If you don’t want to hear the truth, don’t listen at open windows.”

“Kenan’s witch of an aunt didn’t give me much choice.”

Tierney responded without looking up. “That witch helped get you out of Eilean Donan.”

“As did ye.”

She glanced at him. “I was being a naughty lass, Father, something you won’t stand for.”

His face was red, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled. “I was trying to help ye be a respectable lass. Ye were too wild as a child, and I was teaching ye to be even more wild when I took ye hunting and shooting.”

“I will always be too wild for you, Father.” She looked back down at the paper but didn’t really see it. “And I don’t think I will be able to change at this point in my life.”

“That’s…all well, then.” Douglas began to pace outside the window. “When we go back to Scorrybreac…” He cleared his throat. “I would like to include ye in strategy discussions. Ye’ve been very clever in how—”

“I am not returning to Scorrybreac,” she said, raising her eyes to him. “Maggie and I will remain living with the MacLeods of Dunvegan. I’ve already asked Lady Sara. Then ye can have Gabriel all to yourself to mold into a chief.”

He curled his fingers over the edge of the window. “Tier,” he said, using her shortened name like he had when she was a child. It caused her face to bloom with heat. “I’ve…I’ve been…wrong in a number of ways, especially when it came to raising a daughter.”

She stared at him. “That’s part of it. You needed to raise a person, not a daughter. I will never be the daughter you want me to be, someone who flounces about in ribbons and does what she’s told to do.”

“My mistakes have been explained to me quite clearly by that wit— Mistress Morag.” He exhaled through his nose. “And Wallace was a mistake. Ye seemed agreeable at the beginning. Perhaps I wanted to convince myself you’d eventually be happy.”

Tierney’s chest felt tight, and her skin prickled. She blinked. I will not cry. “Wallace was a mistake, and so was using me to align with Clan Matheson by trying to give me to Ranulf.”

He nodded, his face drawn. “I see that.” He looked over his shoulder toward the fields where Kenan and Rory worked with the warriors. “And I see the need for working peacefully with the clans on Skye to make our isle strong. Kenan Macdonald makes some very good points, and he has a way about him that makes people agree with him.” He scratched his thinning hair. “He is a good man.”

Tierney stared at him. His endorsement meant nothing. Except that pride swelled in her. Kenan Macdonald was a good man. And he wants to marry me . Even though he’d seen firsthand that she wasn’t one to behave and follow orders without question. “He’s a natural leader,” she said. “People listen to him, and he’s wise and kind and brave.”

“Sounds like a perfect candidate for Lord of the Isles,” Douglas said.

He had heard about her suggestions, about bringing the position back to keep the Isle of Skye strong and eventually including the rest of the islands.

“Not sure if he believes that.”

Her father shrugged. “He needs a good advisor to make it work, someone clever and daring, someone who does things that people don’t expect with such commitment that they realize it was the only thing to do.” He nodded to her. “Like ye.” He smiled at her, and Tierney’s chest felt hot as he nodded. “I see the value in that now.”

She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t without tears breaching her eyes and embarrassing her. Her father thought she was clever, someone who could help in an important way. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“I will go back to helping organize the lads now,” Douglas said at the window. “Whatever ye may think, Tier, know that…I do love ye.” He turned then and marched back out toward the field.

Tierney wiped a quick finger under her eye, her hardened heart feeling cracked in a thousand pieces.

…

Kenan stood in the growing darkness on the newly slated roof of Dunscaith where his glider had been hauled. The wings were actually in good shape. Only a few leather straps had broken with the force of the impact into the sea. He laced a new one in place to tie tightly.

Tierney promised she’d help me with this. Should he go find her?

It had been four days since he’d held her on the deck of his ship in the rain, four days since he told her she should consider marrying him.

Four days since he sent Cyrus back to Dun Haakon with a letter for Grace explaining he could only ever marry one woman while kindly saying that it wasn’t her. Four days of preparing for war with Clan Mackinnon and awaiting retaliation from Clan Matheson. Four days of waiting because Sara said he should give Tierney space to sort her feelings.

“Mo chreach,” he murmured and ran a hand through his hair to cup the back of his head and stretch his shoulders. If he gave Tierney more time and space, she’d leave, take Maggie, and disappear into the mist. She could do it. Hunting for food. Sleeping in trees. Beating off wolves with her bare hands.

To hell with waiting for her to sort her feelings. He dropped the ties and turned to the stone steps that led down into the slowly resurrecting castle and froze.

“Tierney,” he said, and for a moment he wondered if he’d conjured her only in his mind. She stood in the glow of the torch set into the wall that he’d lit. Her hair was down around her shoulders, and the flamelight shined against the golden streaks in the waves. She wore a simple gown that laced in the front and slid against the hills and valleys of her body, skimming her where he wished to touch her.

He watched her chest rise and fall with her breath as if she’d charged up the three stories of steps. “You are up here,” she said.

He motioned behind him. “Working on my gli…der,” the word stretching out as she walked toward him. The breeze picked up the edges of her hair so that she looked like an angel lowering from the sky.

She didn’t say anything but walked right up to him until he could feel the softness of her form against him. She rested her forehead against his chest, her arms by her sides, and he breathed in the fresh scent of her hair.

I need her. The realization yelled through him.

Kenan’s arms came around her gently as if worried the pressure would make her disappear into mist. But she remained solid.

She tilted her face up, and his hand cupped the side of her face.

Don’t disappear. Don’t be a dream.

He’d had dreams about Tierney, dreams that had left him panting and depleted when he woke.

Tingles raised the small hairs along his arms as she lifted her hands to rest on his chest, sliding over to his shoulders.

“I will never be a meek lass,” she said, “a woman who will follow what she’s told to do, having bairns and keeping her opinions to herself. I cannot be that woman, that wife.”

“I don’t wa—”

She pressed a fingertip to his lips, stopping him.

“I need to tell you all this.” She waited until he nodded and lowered her finger. He wanted to hear her thoughts, too, and this was the first time she seemed to be opening up.

“My father wanted me to be…different than who I am. I was always told I was behaving too brash or I was talking too much or I had too many opinions. For a while I tried to stop being too much of…everything. I even thought I could be a proper wife to Wallace. That’s what I was focused on instead of seeing him for who he was before I trapped myself into marriage with him.”

She looked down at his throat. “I thought I could try to be…proper, but I can’t. Eilean Donan proved that.” She snorted softly. “I can be a partner, but I won’t be silent nor yielding when I don’t agree. I’m working on compromise.” She tilted her head side to side and then lifted her eyes to his. “But I will likely always be somewhat bad.”

“Bad?” he asked, his brows rising.

She moved her hand. “Fallen, naughty, probably even broken.”

Kenan watched the firelight flicker across her face, and his chest squeezed at the worry he saw dragging down her smile. He slid his thumb over those lips. “I don’t see bad, Tierney. I see clever, strong, brave, and someone who won’t sit by and let the wrong thing befall the people ye love.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “I am—”

He put a finger over her lips to stop her. “My turn.”

He waited until she nodded to drop his finger, although he had a feeling he’d have to stop her again. She looked like she was waiting to refute anything he said.

“And I like naughty,” he said, giving her a wicked grin. Her lips twitched like she fought a smile of her own.

“I think we make a good team. I’ve been called,” here he hesitated around the word he’d hated, “kind. And I’ve been told that being considerate of others makes me a brilliant negotiator.” He tapped his own chest. “And ye, Tierney MacNicol, are clever, stubborn, and someone who takes risks, which makes ye a brilliant warrior and protector.” He slid his hands up and down her arms. “We can work together on yer idea of bringing back Lord of the Isles. It could unite the clans, at least on Skye and the isles.”

She drew closer to him. “So you don’t mind that I’m not a proper woman?”

“First, I’d like to say I love that ye’re not whatever ye think is a proper woman.” The teasing leer was evident in his voice. Then his smile softened. “But I believe that most people aren’t good or bad. They are just who they are.”

She released a full breath and pressed against him. “So ’tis not improper if I…” She slid her hand lower between them, stroking down over his cock beneath his plaid.

He groaned, his hands climbing up to comb through her heavy locks of golden hair. “Mo Dhia, if that’s improper, I love improper.” He lowered his mouth to hers. She kissed him back with open passion as if she’d been hiding her wild nature before.

He lifted her against him, fitting the crux of her legs around his throbbing cock. He turned and walked them back toward the middle of the newly finished roof. He’d brought up a pile of blankets with which to cover his glider to protect it from rain. Setting Tierney down, he broke the kiss. “Don’t disappear.” He waited for her nod and then sprang to the folded pile of blankets and returned, snapping them open across the roof.

She pulled him down to the middle of them, her mouth finding his again. Lord, she was warm and soft and smelled of flowers and spice. He tried to roll over her, but she planted an open hand on his shoulder. “You watch the stars,” she said and pressed him back.

He shoved another blanket under his head and watched her lean over to blow through his lantern, extinguishing the light. “To better see the stars.”

The rooftop was swollen with darkness. Only a scant curve of moon had returned. Tierney leaned down over him, her hair tickling the sides of his face, shrouding them. Her lips pressed against his, and the coolness of her skin warmed. The kiss slid immediately into wild, hold-nothing-back merging of lips and tongues and tastes.

“God, lass, ye taste like heat and need and everything wanton,” he said against her.

“Not good or proper,” she whispered.

“Absolutely perfect.”

She sniffed a little laugh, and he heard joy and lightness in it, as if a burden had been lifted. But then he was awash in sensation as she straddled him, rucking up her skirts, and he couldn’t think anymore. Only the wool of his plaid separated his cock from the heat between her legs.

His eyes had adjusted enough to see her fingers pull the ties of her bodice, loosening them. There were no stays underneath, only a lace-edged smock. With a gentle back and forth of her shoulders, both fell down enough that the perfect moons of her breasts came out.

Kenan pulled her back to his mouth, his hand palming one warm orb while he tugged his belt open with the other. The belt loosened, the buckle thudding softly on the blanket next to his hip, and he pushed his plaid open.

A rustle of petticoat was the only sound above their lips moving against one another. He raised his knees and felt the fabric of her skirt go over them and her hot slit flatten against his cock, pressing it to his abdomen. He groaned, and his fingers dug their way past all the layers of dress until he reached her inner thigh.

Tierney slid up his bare body until his lips captured her nipple. She moaned as he sucked, and gasped softly as his fingers found her heat. Holy Lord, she was ready, slick and open, her body already moving in a rhythm that would milk him dry. He held his cock so that the tip touched her.

“Yesssss…”

Kenan rubbed himself along her and up to her sensitive nub. “Holy Joan,” she whispered. Her breathing was heavy, and he broke the seal over her nipple.

He looked up and saw her poised above him, her breasts out, nipples hard, and a petticoat billowed out around them. He pulled her forward again, kissing her as he held his cock, aiming true. He thrust upward as he pushed her hips down.

Her breath caught, the gasp turning into a long moan, and she sat up, completely impaling herself on him as she sought to catch her breath. His need for her surged up inside him, his need to slam into her over and over, his need to touch her very soul.

Reaching up to squeeze her breasts, Kenan’s thumb and forefinger pinched her nipples as she began to move up and down his length. She leaned forward, her hair again cascading around them, to hold onto his shoulders. With each rise and fall, her wet channel gripped him, and her sweet breasts bounced. He reached forward under the petticoats and rubbed his thumb briskly over her sensitive clitoris.

“Oh God, yes,” she crooned, her breaths shallow and fast. As she sat on top of him, she held her breasts, cupping and palming them herself as he worked her flesh below. Hair dancing in the night breeze, the sliver of moon highlighting her pale skin, unembarrassed to show him her passion, her want of him. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

She tried to find him through the layers of skirts. “Too many clothes.”

Kenan reached behind her and tugged open the strings of her petticoat. She slowly rose off him, breaking contact to yank the layers of fabric off her body. And then he watched as her naked form straddled him again.

Poising at the top of his cock, her body totally open and dripping with want, she looked down at him. “Catch me,” she said and dropped down over his shaft.

Kenan couldn’t breathe for a moment with the lust that rolled through him. She leaned forward across his chest, and he caught her hip bones in his hands. She was on top, but he was moving her back and forth over his body. She panted and moaned, propping herself again on his shoulders, her pale breasts moving before his face. Her clitoris was pressed against his pelvic bone as he met each thrust, rubbing her there until he felt her channel contract around him.

“Yessss,” she moaned, and he felt her climax from the tip of his cock to the root. And he exploded inside her.

He held her over him as their rhythm slowed, loving the feel of her against his skin, the feel of him still inside her.

Tierney shivered and rolled to her side, taking Kenan with her, their legs entwined. Her head nestled against his other shoulder as their bodies cooled in the chilled air, and he pulled another blanket over them.

He looked up at the stars, knowing all the constellations could have watched them writhing together, climaxing together. Would Orion be jealous or achy from watching?

“That wasn’t too improper,” she said, her breath against his chest.

“If ye plan to take the holy vows as a nun, then perhaps.”

She slapped his arm playfully and pushed up onto her elbow to look at him. “I am a wanton creature, Kenan Macdonald,” she said. “With you, anyway.”

He cradled her head as he rolled them over and looked down into her beautiful face. “I want ye exactly how ye are, Tierney MacNicol.”

She studied him, and her hand rose to his cheek. He leaned in and kissed her before falling back to lie beside her. He heard her sigh in what sounded like contentment. Perhaps they would stay up there together all night since Rory and Sara had his bed below.

“Look,” Tierney said, her fingertip rising to point. “A lucky star.”

Kenan caught the long tail that streaked across the night sky. “Morag says to make a wish when ye see one,” he said, his voice deep but quiet.

“Did you wish?”

“Aye.”

“What for?”

“One’s wish is one’s own.”

Tierney released her breath, and they lay together in silence, looking up at the millions of sparkling lights in the heavens.

“Kenan?” she said.

“Aye?”

“The answer is…yes.”

The finger that he’d been absently stroking her arm with stilled. “Yes?”

“Yes,” she repeated. “If your star wish was to marry me.”

Kenan’s head turned to hers on the makeshift pillow, and for a long moment he couldn’t seem to move. Then a smile slowly curved his lips. “Come here, ye perfectly imperfect woman, soon to be my wife.”

She laughed as he pulled her back across to drape over him. Hope burst inside Kenan. If she married him, she would eventually love him. And that was imperative because he realized he was completely in love with Tierney MacNicol.