Page 17 of The Unencumbered Warrior (Highland Wishes Trilogy #1)

R aff crouched beside the stream, watching the moonlight ripple across the water’s surface. Dusk brought the cold and it bit through his plaid, but he didn’t move. He didn’t come for comfort.

He’d come for answers.

He dragged a hand down his face, frustration biting deep, and mumbled, “Where are you, witch?”

The woods remained silent around him, but he sensed the tension in the stillness, the kind that came before trouble. The merchant’s visit had left the villagers uneasy. Fright filled nearly everyone’s eyes, whispers grew, and too many eyes cast a questioning look at neighbors and friends.

His concern for his wife had also grown, especially when the one mercenary made mention of a strange mark or disfigurement.

Ingrid bore a disfigurement. Her fused fingers that had never meant anything to him except that she was born different.

But now… in the wrong hands, that mark might mean something else and with fear mounting and glances that questioned…

he didn’t want to think of what it might mean for her.

He picked up a stone, stood, and tossed it into the stream. “Where are you?” he muttered into the night. “You show yourself when it pleases you, vanish when it suits. But this… this is your doing.”

His voice cracked with frustration, and shame followed quickly behind. He had asked for the wish. The peace he thought it would bring. But he’d been wrong.

And he worried what his foolishness would cost his wife.

A branch snapped behind him. He swerved around, heart pounding, hand instinctively going to the hilt of his dagger at his waist.

She stepped from the trees, her black cloak blending with the shadows, her presence as familiar as it was unnatural. “Stop crying your worries into my woods,” she said, voice sharp and cold. “Or it will soon be flooded.”

“You heard me?” he asked, with a mix of relief and anger.

“Would I be here if I didn’t?” she asked, not hiding her annoyance. “You wear your dread like a wet cloak. Leaving you heavily burdened.”

“They’re hunting witches now. Mercenaries. Bounties. Clan MacMunn stirs the pot and fools drink the brew. If they think Ingrid?—”

“Then what?” she snapped. “Will you offer your cursed life in exchange for hers? Would you beg? Bargain? Burn?”

Raff flinched at the word. “If they would burn me in exchange for her, I would do so in a heartbeat.” He looked away for a moment, realizing the depths of his love for Ingrid.

“But it would be foolish of me, for they would not dismiss her for me. They would take us both, then I would have no chance of saving her.”

“And you truly wish to save her? What of your wish to be free?”

His glare was so heated it could scorch the woods. “I am free. I am free to love Ingrid, to spend the rest of my life with her, to feel the love she has for me.” He shook his head. “Ingrid is too kind and loving to be a witch.”

“The accused never are,” she said, bitter and amused all at once. “No true witch ever suffers or burns for what she is. Only the innocent do.”

She turned to go, already melting into shadow.

“Help me protect her,” he called after her, willing to sacrifice anything for her help.

“I already did,” she said, fading back into the trees. “You just haven’t figured out how yet.”

And then she was gone.

Raff stood in the silence, his heart heavy and his mind spinning. She always left him with more questions than answers. What did he do now?

“We’ll pack the cart tomorrow evening and leave at first light the next morning,” Raff said as supper finished. “You will tell me what you need at market and I will get it while you tend the stall. Once you sell out, as you always do, we leave.”

“Aye,” Ingrid said, focusing on her bowl of food in front of her that she had barely touched.

He could feel her worry, her fear. They wrapped around him, squeezing him tightly until he thought they might rob him of his breath. He had been tossing around an idea in case it was necessary to flee, and he shared it with her.

“We can go away. Find an abandoned place and stay there until this madness passes.”

She raised her head. “Abandon friends? My home? Leave an innocent to be accused? I would never be able to show my cowardly face again.”

That she continued to think of others instead of herself should be witness enough that she was no witch. But he knew better. Fearful minds and hearts would not care.

“How do you know not all of them feel the same about you?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It is how I feel. How I would treat another. I cannot live with myself if I betray my nature.”

“Most people would do anything to save themselves?—”

“And I don’t blame them. But I could never accuse another of a falsehood, especially knowing what suffering such an accusation would bring,” she said and shuddered at the thought. She stood and began to clear the table. “I need to busy myself. Clear my head. Think on something else.”

Raff got to his feet and stepped around the table, coming up behind her. He slipped his arms around her waist to hug her tight against him, then rested his cheek next to hers. “I can think of something that would keep you very busy.” He nibbled along her ear.

“I don’t think I have the mind for that right now,” she said even though his nibbles sent a thrill through her.

Maybe it was because she shouldn’t feel such happiness, such pleasure in such a dire time that she believed it wasn’t the time to make love, even though she felt a spark of an urge.

“I can change your mind,” he whispered.

She turned around in his arms. “How can I allow myself pleasure during this difficult time?”

“How can you not?” he asked, stepping back but keeping his hands rested on her waist. “Tomorrow may be uncertain; danger may lie ahead. I want to embrace every moment I have with you, make endless memories to cherish forever, to think of better days ahead and the future we have together instead of dwelling on misery.” He yanked her against him.

“I want to make love with you fast and hard, burning the moment into your memory to recall when we get too old to get to the bed that fast, let alone have the strength for it.” He chuckled at the thought.

Ingrid laughed softly at the image he created in her mind, but her body responded to the present, her passion sparking and catching fire.

“Your desire flares,” he said and brushed his lips over hers.

“I see it in your eyes, feel in your taut body that fights not to press against me and feel the strength of my shaft aching to slip inside you. Don’t be foolish.

” His lips whispered across hers once again.

“Surrender. If not to me, then to yourself.”

She rested her brow to his. “I want the memory. I want it badly.”

Raff snatched her up into his arms and hurried them over to the bed. Knowing how badly she wanted him soared his own passion. There was no time to linger, his need was great and so was hers.

He dropped her down on the bed and shoved her garments aside, Ingrid helping him, yanking her garments up. She drew her legs up and spread them as he pushed his plaid aside and dropped down over her.

She cried out, he entered her so swiftly, not in pain but pure pleasure. She loved the feel of him inside her and the strength of his thrust that soared her passion with every plunge. She held tight to his arms and wrapped her legs around him to take him deeper inside her.

He released a growling groan of passion. “I can’t wait.”

“Either can I,” was her hurried response.

But still they lingered, letting the passion build, remaining part of each other, building in strength to a release that might shatter them both… and it did.

Ingrid didn’t hold back, she let out a scream that surely would be heard and Raff’s roar joined in. It thundered through the dwelling, slipping out the walls, and swirled upward to flow throughout the night sky to kiss the stars and seal their love in the heavens.

It took several moments for them both to catch their breath and for Raff to roll off her. They lay side by side, their fingertips touching, their chests heaving, both breathless.

“I love you, wife,” Raff said through heavy breaths.

Ingrid struggled to respond. “And… I you, husband.”

Sleep claimed Ingrid before Raff. He kept her wrapped snugly in his arms as he contemplated different things he could do to protect her.

But he wasn’t a fool. One man against many wouldn’t fare well.

So, he went over and over possibilities until he finally fell asleep knowing it would take more than just himself to save his wife.