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Chapter Twenty-One – Freya

My defenses crumbled when faced with the unbridled yearning in Colin’s eyes and the naked desire in his voice. I didn’t want to avoid him any longer than I already had. Every day apart had been its own sort of torture for me. I’d seen him watching me, shadowing my every step and move, and I had started to wonder if he would ever say something, anything to me at all. Wherever I went, he somehow seemed to find me, and that gave me hope that he might finally reach out, but at the same time, it left me irritated. Each day that passed was agony in its own way, and I hated that he could be so stubborn, so silent, so maddeningly patient.

And now here he was, filling the air around me with the warmth of his presence. He was not giving me exactly what I had hoped for—a small sign that he could one day let me into his heart, so I could fully open my own to him—and yet, this was something.

And beyond that, I burned for him from the time I woke up until sleep claimed me, and even in sleep the insatiable hunger he’d created in me appeared in all my dreams. So no, I would not deny him or me this joining. I would embrace it. Revel in it. And hope it led to something more. He closed the distance between us with shocking speed, but then as he reached for me, he hesitated, his hand suspended in midair halfway to my waist .

“Sorry, lass,” he said, dropping his hand, taking a deep breath, and stepping back. “I’ll gain control of my need before I touch ye. The hunger for ye is so great, I fear I’ll devour ye.”

I was shocked at the thrill his words sent through me. “Devour me then,” I replied, shocking myself yet again with my own words. “Touch me. Take me. Do with me what ye will as long as it brings us both pleasure.”

The instant his clothes were strewn about the floor in a reckless whirlwind, his hands were sliding over my stomach, eager and warm, burning with need. They moved up my body, rough and tender at the same time, cupping my breasts and teasing my nipples until they hardened as solid as granite. Desire pulsed and spiraled in my belly, pooling swiftly and wrapping around my core, setting everything in my chest straining and heaving with a wild, breathless yearning.

My fingers dug into his shoulders, the strength of them firm and unyielding, as he lifted me from the basin. He slid me, slippery and aching, down the length of his unrelenting body, pressing and thrilling, only to hoist me up again, holding me steady, with an arm beneath my legs and another under my backside. “Wrap yer legs around me,” he whispered in my ear, urgency and longing mingling in his voice.

Immediately, I did as commanded, finding his lips with my own and plunging my tongue into the hot recesses of his mouth. Our drugging kiss ripped a moan from me and elicited a guttural sound from him, and a moment later, the wall pressed firmly into my back as he broke the kiss. His mouth descended to my nipple, and his tongue caressed the sensitive swollen bud as his hand delved between us to part the flesh between my thighs as he’d done the first night .

Instantly, he found that secret throbbing spot, and he caressed his finger over it once, twice, a dozen more dizzying times. Each gentle massage sent a current of desire though me, built pressure within me, and coiled me so that I was certain at any moment I would unwind in a burst of need or pleasure. Our mouths met and retreated, met and retreated, each kiss becoming more urgent and demanding. We were two people starving for each other.

His lips continued to tease my nipple as his fingers teased my sex. My thighs trembled, and my insides coiled tighter and tighter. I grasped at his back, grinding my teeth, wanting to prolong the sweet torture, but I was being swept up in searing emotion that I could not control. He brought me right to the edge of fulfillment, then drew his hand away. I cried out and punished him with a hard demanding kiss. He returned my demands by sliding himself fully into me and beginning the ritual of consuming me body and soul.

As his tip came fully in, the need in me mounted until I could not take anymore. “Give me what I need,” I demanded. And he did. He pulled nearly all the way out then slid back in, increasing the pace with each retreat and return. His heat enveloped me. His body overpowered me. My own world slipped away, and he became my world just as before. The friction of every slide within me rippled pleasure through me, and his lips came back to mine with a savage intensity that pushed me over the precipice we’d been climbing together. I clenched around him, as he drove into me once, twice, two more times. Then he clenched my buttocks and filled me with himself before his head fell to my shoulder, and we stood heaving breaths and racing hearts.

Silence descended and time stretched and with it the roar in my ears dulled, my skin cooled, and my heart slowed. Colin drew his head up, and his gaze locked on me. “Ye are mine,” he said, his voice raw with need and unbendable with possession. I had been avoiding him so he would not take my heart in case he was never willing or able to give me his, but I understood in that moment, he’d already taken it. I was his. I loved him fully.

I could not turn back time. I could not undo what had been done. I could not take my love away to protect myself. There was no great love without vulnerability. No joy without sorrow. No pleasure without pain. You had to experience one part to recognize and appreciate the other. “I am yers,” I replied, pressing my lips to his, and praying that eventually he would be truly mine.

I was strong. I hadn’t realized just how stiff my spine was, until my other husbands had attempted to break me. Colin had given me back my confidence in myself and my hope for that love I’d always dreamed of. I could wait for his love for a time, but I did not think forever. There was a difference between being strong and being a fool. I kissed him again, and when I pulled back, I said, “I will wait.” I knew he understood me. “But nae forever. Eventually, yer coldness and yer walls will become mine.”

His answer was to kiss me. It was a stalling tactic, but one I quite enjoyed. He carried me to the bed, lay me gently upon it, and then retrieved a rag from the basin, which he used to clean me. Then he pulled the coverlet over me and brought me wine. I watched him do all of these things and a new understanding settled in me. He could not give me the words I wanted, but he was showing me with his actions what his mind was afraid to let him embrace.

He offered me caring, consideration, and tenderness at every turn. I had to believe love would follow. He settled on the bed beside me, but did not yet lay down. “Do ye need some supper? I’ll fetch it for ye if ye do.”

“Nay,” I replied. “I grabbed a hunk of bread from the kitchen.”

“Oh, aye,” he said. “Did ye grab it and rush up here with intentions of avoiding me?”

“Aye,” I replied, not holding back the truth.

He laid down beside me and brought me into the crook of his arm. I settled my cheek against his chest and listened to the steady solid beat of his heart. I loved this man. It was wondrous and frightening at once. His fingers traced back and forth over my shoulder. “I do nae like that ye were avoiding me.”

“Ye were doing the same to me,” I pointed out.

“’Tis different,” he replied, his words groggy with sleep.

I frowned at that ridiculous reasoning. “How?”

It took him a long moment to answer me. I suspected it was more sleep that was lulling him, by the way his breathing had already turned to slow, deep breaths, than his not wanting to discuss it.

“I’ve a plan,” he finally said, then released a long sigh before he began to snore.

I tried to imagine what sort of plan he’d come up with, as I listened to him sleep, but my own thoughts grew heavy, and soon I was lulled into darkness myself.

I jerked awake from the nightmare, but as the castle warning horn started to blow, I understood with sick dread that I had not had a harmless nightmare. I’d had a vision of the future, and that future was now here. Snippets from the dream flashed in my mind as Colin bolted upright in bed in one breath, and in the next he was on his feet, sword in hand. There was just enough moonlight that I could see the confusion on his face as sleep lifted, and then his mouth set in a grim, determined line. “That’s the horn for an attack,” he bit out, setting his sword down long enough to jerk on his braies and arm himself with all his weapons.

“I know what the horn means,” I said, rising and hurrying to don my gown. As I tugged on my laces to tighten them, Colin sheathed two daggers and a sword in the leather holder crisscrossing his bare torso.

He strode to me, swung me in the circle of his arms and his large hand took my face as he held it gently. “Bar the door from the inside,” he said, “and do nae open it for anyone but me, Katherine, or Connor.”

Before I could speak, he covered my mouth with his in an urgent, abrupt kiss. When he broke away, he turned as if to leave me, but I grabbed him by the forearm. “I had a vision,” I rushed out, marveling how he had not asked me to try to conjure the future to tell him how to win the battle. He had taken me for my visions, but I realized in this moment, he had never once used me for them. He loved me, the blasted man. He just hadn’t yet accepted it. And likely because he loved me, or simply because he was the most honorable man I’d ever met, the guilt he felt over how asking me to conjure a vision might make me feel would not allow him to ask it.

“When?” he asked, his gaze clinging to mine.

“In my dreams just now. I awoke a breath before horn began to sound, a breath before ye awoke. Bran attacks from the front today, but when the mist rises thick, my da will attack,” I said, my pulse racing.

“Did ye see anything more of today?”

I nodded, fear making me shiver. “I saw Bran aiming to shoot ye. Ye are in his line of sight, but I could nae see where ye stood or where he stood. Colin, I saw ye fall.” In truth, I’d seen a faceless blurry body fall, but I was certain it was him. “I’ll attempt to conjure another vision, and as soon as I do—”

“Nae,” he said. The one word shook, and he gripped me by the arms. “Do nae attempt to come to me. ’Tis too dangerous.”

“The reason ye took me was for my visions!” I bellowed. “I’ll nae sit in here if I conjure information that will keep ye safe.”

“I do nae care about the damned visions if it means risking ye,” he bellowed back. “Vow to me ye will nae endanger yerself,” he said, his tone hard.

I had to lie. If I didn’t, I could see by the wild look on his face that he’d lock me in here from outside. “I vow it,” I lied not feeling a twinge of guilt. I could not manipulate my own future, so I knew with certainty my vision would not show me if I was endangering myself or not.

“Freya, are ye lyi—”

The door slammed open, and Connor stood in the threshold “Ye must come now. MacLeod’s men are at the bridge.”

“Tell me it was nae down,” Colin said. My gut clenched. I knew the repairs on the bridge were almost done, but I also knew if Colin’s men had put the last of the stone on the broken bridge, it would have been down to allow the stone to set in place.

“I’m sorry, brother,” Connor said, shaking his head. “I had it down, so the bridge would be repaired by tomorrow. “The MacLeods are pushing forward. We need ye.”

“Stay here!” Colin bit out one last time to me, before striding out of the room with Connor .

I wasted no time. The weight of the moment hit me. I barred the door quickly, so if the trance overtook me, I wouldn’t be vulnerable. I’d be safe. Closing my eyes, I forced my thoughts to fall in line, to concentrate all my will on Colin. On the way I’d seen him fight. On the way he moved, the way he made me feel, like a fire catching. Everything dissolved under this urgent act of will. The edges of the room began to fade, and the swish of my blood filled my ears, moving through my veins up to my head. My pulse ticked up, and my breathing rose. A bright light threatened to blind me, and the room split itself in two. I saw nothing but white, and then, emerging, the bridge that led to Eilean Donnan.

There stood Colin at the head of a group of men, battling my clan back off the bridge.

Chaos reigned. Arrows flew and men shouted. Swords clanked and horses whinnied. Blood spurted from cuts and men fell from both sides onto the bridge. But Colin was winning. His men—our men—were winning. A scream from behind had me turning, and there stood Katherine, sword in hand, but she was not wielding it. She was facing the castle, pointing toward the rampart and screaming a warning. Sounds came at me from every direction, making it nearly impossible to make out her words. I strained to hear her, my heart thudding with fear that I would not, could not.

“Kill him!” she shouted, pointing. The man beside Katherine raised his bow, only to be struck in the chest by an arrow before he could release his own. And as I glanced around, I saw men lay at her feet all with arrows protruding out of their chest. My gut pitched to the ground, and I scanned the rampart.

There.

I narrowed my eyes trying to make out the figure and inhaled a sharp breath. Bran. He stood barely visible upon a high tower, well away from the guards. He was shooting arrows, killing men one by one. He raised his bow and aimed again. Panic rioted within me. I knew. I knew who he was aiming for. Katherine knew, too. She was running now toward Colin, screaming for him to take cover. My stomach clenched tight, as Colin swung his sword, cutting down MacLeod warriors, unaware that he would be the next to fall. I turned back toward Bran as he released the arrow, and it flew straight and true to lodge into the back of Colin’s neck. He pitched forward to his knees before falling to his stomach where he lay unmoving on the ground as the battle raged around him.

I blinked and the vision disappeared. Then I bent over and lost the little food in my stomach. When I quit retching, I jerked upright, wiped the back of my hand over my mouth, and unbarred the door, swinging it open to go save Colin.