A Storm of Passion (11 page)

The worst of it he’d felt and not seen, for the darkness covered the scars on her back and shoulders and legs from the beatings she’d received, but his hands could feel them as he touched her. He’d gotten a glimpse of them when she climbed naked from his bed the first day here, but not enough to tell the extent of them. Her leg was broken when she had been kicked by her captors after she would not answer their questions, as Ranald had reported to him. If he’d lain unconscious for one more day and had not intervened when he had, she would have been dead.

As he would have been if something had not stopped her from continuing her attack.

Another part of the puzzle he would have to find and sort. The other thing plaguing him this morn was that something was not the same between them during this bout of bed play and the last. Was it because she came to him under his influence and not her own as she had the first time? Was it because she seemed unaffected when he took his pleasure and entered her overwrought body? For whatever reason, the release he received was pleasant, but not the satisfying one from before. Would he never be able to enjoy a woman’s favors without using his power to bring her to him?

She mumbled something in her sleep. A name? A place? He leaned over to listen when she said it again.

Quinag?
Was that a place or someone’s name? He had access to Diarmid’s maps, so he could find out.

Seumas Mac Neacail
. Her father or brother? A Scot’s name to be sure. Not a Norse one like so many in the isles, but he knew not if it was from the mainland or another of the isles to the south.

Moira rolled to her side and curled next to him, not touching him but so close that she could. Connor noticed her thinness, now so apparent that the bones of her hips and ribs were prominent where womanly softness had once been. She’d lost much flesh after she’d been beaten.

He closed his eyes and realized that he could not allow her to be harmed again. He wanted her alive and well. He wanted her in his bed. He wanted her to forgive him for his part in her family’s deaths. He wanted to take the pain from her eyes and the sorrow from her soul.

Most of all, he wanted to give her her life back.

All of it was impossible or nigh to it, but before his end, he wanted to make certain that she would live. If it made reparations for a few of his sins, then it would give him some peace as he faced the uncertainty of his own survival.

When next he looked at her, she stared back at him. Not certain which Moira would greet him, he waited and watched as she became aware of her place in his bed.

Her throat burned and her neck stung from the collar tearing into her skin, but otherwise she felt uninjured. Physically at least, for she doubted if she could ever remove the stain from her soul now. Moira slid her arms under the clean linen sheets and enjoyed the warmth for a moment more before pushing back the blankets and furs and climbing out.

Her leg, now unsupported by the wooden slats, felt weak and ached, but she tested it under her weight and walked to the other side of his bed to find her clothing. The Seer said nothing; he simply watched her from his place in the bed, as she picked up the gown and tunic tossed on the floor next to him. Her skin tingled from the coolness in the chambers, for even in these summer months, the winds off the seas kept the stone keep cool. And this room was even colder, as there was no way for the sun to warm it.

“Wait,” he said quietly, as she shook out the shift Agnes had given her to wear next to her skin. “I have asked for a bath.”

The shift would be too wet to wear if she tended his bath in it, but she did not want him staring at the scars on her back. Putting it over her head, she tugged it on, hiding in some small way the damage wrought to her body when she failed to kill him.

“The water will arrive shortly. Why are you dressing?” he asked.

“I can wash you in my shift,” she replied. “Or do whatever else you wish while you have your bath.” She only just realized that he probably would want her to pleasure him while in his bath. Though after the disappointing joining she’d given him in his bed last night, she thought he would have called for that other girl to serve his needs.

“The bath is for you, Moira,” he said. Sitting up, he sorted through the pile of clothing on the floor for his trews. “Agnes did her best to clean up things yesterday, but I thought you might like one this morn.”

His eyes, now back to their full deep green color, were somber, and she did not see lust in his expression. This was such a different man than the one she’d watched for months here. ’Twould seem that the days between vision and the new moon allowed him some measure of peace and normalcy. His outbursts between new and full moon were legendary here, as was his appetite for women during that time—just as he’d explained last night, from what she remembered he’d told her about it.

“For me, Seer? Why?” she asked, damning herself for asking as soon as the word escaped her mouth. “Your care of prisoners who continue to try to take your life is not what I expected.”

“I have decided to keep you.”

“Keep me alive? But for how long?” she asked again.

“I said I am keeping you,” he repeated, climbing off the bed and walking toward her.

Naked in the light of day, his size and shape were formidable. His body began with broad, strong shoulders, ones more expected on a warrior, not a courtier as he was. His chest was hard and muscular, and those muscles continued down onto his belly and thighs. A light sprinkling of pale hair covered that chest and belly and narrowed and darkened as it reached below his waist. His prick and sac, hung low and relaxed between his legs for the first time since she’d encountered him, gave a thorough hint of his size when erect.

As men went, his body was better than most she’d seen. She looked away and glanced back once more. Truth be told, his body surpassed any she’d seen so far. The determination in his eyes scared her, and she backed up a pace or two, trying to keep some distance between them. She’d not pleasured him last night as surely he expected of her, and men, especially those not satisfied, could turn nasty in an instant. He reached out for her, and she put up her hand to stop him.

“But why? I am prepared to…” she began, but could not say the words.

Until yesterday she was prepared to die for her failed attempt on his life. Through the beatings and the rest, she prayed for death. She returned here knowing it would mean, either immediately or at some near time, her death. And discovering that Gillis died because of her certainly made her deserving of it. But when Breac held her over the wall and she faced death, not knowing at what moment the Seer or Diarmid would order her thrown to the ground, Moira had discovered that she wanted to live.

“Die?” he asked, as though reading her thoughts. “I think you were, but things have changed. You have changed.”

He lifted his hand and stroked the side of her face, and she tried to remain motionless beneath his touch. Such kindness was foreign to her. No one had shown her kindness without wanting something in return, and she knew he was no better or different from those in the past.

“Not as much as you might think, Seer,” she said, stepping away from his touch. “I still want your death.”

“Bold words from someone in your situation,” he said, following her step away with one of his own, closer. He used the back of his hand this time, and she fought the urge to close her eyes and enjoy it. “I think part of you still wants someone to pay for the deaths of your family, but I suspect the other part of you is beginning to wonder about my role in it.”

“Your words condemned them, Seer. That much I will never, can never forget!” She pushed his hand away and put the bed between them. “I will try again,” she promised, though the words did not strengthen her commitment the way she’d hoped.

The knock on the door interrupted any reply he would make, and he ordered her to stay with a motion of his hand. He walked to open it, and she heard the sounds of his bath arriving. While standing out of sight next to his bed, she spied his eating knife on the floor next to the bed. It must have fallen from his belt as he undressed the night before. Not as sharp or as long as she wished, still it could…kill a man if used well.

Grabbing it up, she waited for the noise to cover her actions and then tossed it onto the pallet in the corner, praying it would land in a spot out of sight so that she could hide it later. Praise the Almighty, it did! Then she stayed as he’d ordered until the bath was delivered. Just as the last buckets were brought in, she looked over to see two men peeking around the screen at her.

“I thought Erlend said he kept her naked and chained to his wall,” the taller one whispered.

“Look there, there are the chains!” the shorter one said. Then they both caught sight of her and looked to each other.

“You have duties to see to,” the Seer called from nearer to the door, and the men turned away and quickly left the room. The door was closed, and she heard him drop the latch. “Come now, Moira,” he said quietly.

She peeked around the screen to find him standing next to the largest wooden tub she’d ever seen. It stood filled halfway to the rim with steaming water, and several other buckets sat off to the side. A sheet was draped across and covered the bottom.

“Naked and chained,” she said, repeating the men’s words.

“It adds to my reputation here, you see,” he said, walking toward her. “When my needs grow uncontrollable, you will be there, naked and ready.”

She shuddered, damn her weakness, for they were close to Diarmid’s words, too. “That is why you will keep me alive then? To use when the madness strikes you?”

He was close enough to her now to grasp her wrist and draw her to the tub. Lifting the edge of the shift she’d placed back on, he tugged it up until she raised her arms for him to remove it. “Get in,” he ordered.

The Seer watched her every movement, and she noticed that his prick responded as she stepped into the steaming water and the sigh of pleasure echoed across the chambers. He grew thick and hard, and she waited for his next demand. Pleasuring him was a fair exchange for the comfort of a real bath.

“Sit down.” His voice was throaty with desire, but he did not approach. Instead he walked to his chair and sat in it.

She bent over and used the sides of the tub to support herself as she sat down in the water. She’d not felt the comfort of this kind of hot water in…years, usually being the second or third one in if a tub was available to the servants at all. When she finally rested on the bottom, she slid under the water because the tub was so large! It took her a couple of minutes to find somewhere to place her feet to keep from going under the water’s surface, though it did feel lovely.

“I am keeping you because I need you.”

His words, spoken softly, carried the tone of need mixed with desire. “I am willing to tend to your needs, Seer. A bath like this is more than fair payment for pleasuring you.” She shook her head then. “Though I do not understand why you would agree since I could not please you last night.”

He leaned forward as though to stand and shook his head at her. “Last night was for you. You needed…”

She interrupted him. “It will not happen again,” she insisted. It had been an aberration. Unable to confront the guilt and the hatred at herself for wanting what she could not have and for becoming no different than him, she lost the battle to keep her emotions under the tight rein she had for so many years. “I know what you like. I can please you.”

“You cannot accept kindness, can you? Too many years of fighting your own battles and plotting your own course in the world,” he said as though he knew the truth about her. It was too close, very close to the truth, and she did not want to deal with it now. Too many emotions still lay too close to the surface, and she needed to pull them back in before they destroyed her or got in the way of her purpose.

He stood then, and she realized she’d not washed herself yet. Leaning over the side, she saw the small crock of soap and reached for it. She’d spent too long in the water, and he must want his turn before the water cooled. Moira lifted herself over the side and grabbed at the soap and the cloth, but missed both and fell back into the water.

“You do not want me to probe too deeply into your life, do you, Moira? That is one way we are not the same.”

He reached over and took the washing cloth and dipped it into the soap and held it out to her. Moira accepted it without meeting his gaze and began scrubbing her arms and then her shoulders, neck and face. Her bad leg was loosening up in the hot water, and she bent it up and back until it moved smoothly.

“This,” she nodded at the bath, “means nothing. That,” she nodded at the bed behind the screen, “means nothing, Seer. I will kill you for what you’ve done.”

H
e took the cloth from her and, ignoring her threat, lifted one leg from the water. She had to grab the sides of the tub to keep her head out of the water. “It may mean nothing to you, but it means something to me. You see,” he said, letting her leg slide back into the warmth, “I’ve slid down so far into letting the visions, and the powers and the needs they bring, rule my life, that satisfaction has eluded me for some time. Oh, I love to fuck,” he said with a wicked laugh, one that made her body throb, “and the release is pleasurable, but…”

He washed the other leg and placed it back in the water, motioning for her lean up. Caught up in his explanation, she did so, baring her back to him. Moira waited for his reaction, but he did not hesitate. Scooping more soap onto the cloth, he began to move in swirling motions across her shoulders and down her back. The movements were so soothing she could have fallen asleep at that moment.

“Until I found this green-eyed woman standing outside my chambers and learned her body and spent a day and most of a night pleasuring her and being pleasured by her, I did not realize how much I had been missing with my mindless swiving of any woman I could bring to me.”

She found breathing difficult as he described what had happened between them. And waiting for his hand to move lower across her back and lower yet caused her body to ache as she remembered that day. It had been about passion and more. That spark between them. His endurance and the heights of pleasure reached. The way her body begged her to stay in his bed in spite of everything that could not be. He stopped then, and she almost leaned into his hand to make it move again.

“I am keeping you until I discover why it was different with you.” He moved the cloth again now, and she took in a hitching breath, shaking her head.

“I am keeping you because you know more about me than I do myself, and I want you to trust me enough to tell me.” The warmth spread at his declaration, even while she tried to keep his words from sinking in too deeply. It could not work. There could be nothing between them other than hatred.

“I am keeping you until I find a way to make you forgive me for what I have done to you.”

She shook her head harder then and began to pull away from his touch and from his words. “It cannot happen. There can be nothing between us.” She would repeat it as many times as it took for him to realize the truth…and as many times as it took to convince her wayward heart and soul, for they wavered now under his assault.

“Lean back,” he ordered, softly, but she understood he would be obeyed in this.

She leaned back, lounging almost against the end of the tub, and waited for his next touch. He moved an empty bucket behind her and crouched there. After pouring some water over her hair from another bucket, he rubbed soap through her hair and massaged her head with the fingers of one hand while cushioning her head on the other.

Moira felt the water lapping against her breast with each stroke of his hand through her hair, teasing the tips of them as surely as if he used his mouth there. Even the thought made them tighten and ache with each kiss of the water against them. She shifted, trying to hold herself either higher or lower to avoid such a feeling, but his hands held her in place.

He rinsed the soap from her hair and helped her to stand, the warm water sluicing over her skin and trickling back into the tub. His care did not end there, for he tucked her into a warm drying cloth and lifted her out of the tub and onto her feet. “Go, stand by the hearth as you dry, or you will catch a chill.”

Certain that he wove another kind of spell around her, she followed his instructions, watching over her shoulder as he climbed into the tub and washed himself. She realized that the tub was long enough and wide enough to fit his large body and that it must have been made for him.

Anything for the Seer.

Moira dried her hair, taking only seconds to squeeze the water from the curls and rub it quickly with the cloth. Turning around, she watched as he spread soap up and down his arms, his legs, and his torso before rinsing it off. When she expected that he would stand and show her his erect prick, he instead leaned his head back against the side of the tub and closed his eyes.

He lay there quietly, not moving in the water, which must be cooling by now. Strange that he did not take the first bath in it. Moira dried off her arms and legs, and drew the drying cloth across her back and bottom before finding the shift she’d worn and pulling it back on. Unsure of what to do next, she caught sight of his eating dagger on her pallet.

Keeping a watch on the Seer for any quick movements, she eased her way over and picked it and her gown up together. Sliding the dagger under her palm and covering it partially with the sleeve of her shift, she knew this was her chance. She was looking for a reason to approach him, when he called out to her.

“Could you wash my hair, Moira?” he asked.

Her hands began to shake as she took one step and then the next and the next toward the tub. She tried to smooth out her breathing, saying the calming words in her mind as she positioned the dagger so that her thrust would be the strongest. With his head leaning back, his neck was the perfect target, and it would not take much effort to slice open his throat.

Only a few feet stood between Moira and the one thing she needed to do, but her body refused to take that last step. He deserved to die for what he’d done, she reminded herself, but the words were hollow now that she was learning about the man. She did not know how it had happened, but the words that had always worked to shore up her resolve failed to do so now, and she could not convince herself that he did indeed deserve to die.

“Strike hard and deep,” he said softly. “Do not hesitate as you did the first time.”

He knew!

Yet he did not move or try to stop her. She took the last step and stood over him, stretching out her hands, putting all her strength behind the hilt, preparing to strike him.

The door to the chamber crashed open, but she stayed where she was—holding the dagger just above his head. Breac came running but stopped as he realized that she could kill the Seer with one stroke now. Moira tried to steady her hands when he began to give Breac instructions.

“If she does this, Breac, kill her cleanly and quickly. Do not let Diarmid get her again.” She gasped at his words and stared into his eyes. “Breac? Do you understand?”

“Aye, my lord,” the big man responded.

Then the Seer said nothing more, just stared back at her waiting, waiting for his death. The shaking in her hands became trembling throughout her body as the thought of killing him became real.

“Damn you to hell, Seer!” she cried out, flinging the dagger aside and collapsing to her knees. “Damn you.”

Breac moved first, picking her up in his strong arms and dragging her back to the corner. With one arm around her, he lifted the collar and began to place it on her neck.

“Breac, let her be.”

“My lord?” Breac continued to restrain her against the wall. “She was going to kill you.”

“Breac.”

“You need to stop thinking with your cock and begin using your head, Connor. Else you’ll be dead before you even hear them coming at you.”

She did not fight him as he locked the iron collar on her neck or when he attached the chain once more. She huddled there against the wall, holding the gown she never put on, and watched as the Seer climbed from the tub and approached her. Holding his hand out to Breac, he waited for the key. Then he unlocked the chain and collar as Breac complained about the decision.

Confusion ruled her thoughts then, for she’d had the perfect and probably last chance to strike at him—and she’d even had a weapon in her hand—yet she could not kill him. Worse, instead of regretting her inability to carry through, her heart felt glad of it. The heart she’d hardened against everything in life and especially against him. The heart that was torn apart as she watched her family die and that now betrayed her and them.

She could not listen as Breac and the Seer argued and finally Breac left them alone again. How had the Seer known she would try to kill him? And more, how had he known that she could not carry it through? Had it been a trap he placed, leaving his dagger for her to find? He sat down on the pallet next to her, leaning his naked body, wrapped in only a drying cloth, against the wall and pulling her closer.

“I would tell you a tale I am certain you have not heard before, Moira. Mayhap it will help you accept your change of heart.”

“I…” she began, stuttering and uncertain of what she wanted to say. He took her hand in his and entwined their fingers. It felt so strange to be this close to a man and not be readying him for sex. Did he know that?

“When I had twenty and one years, the visions came. Diarmid already had me here, tutoring me in writing and reading and numbers, for if not his seer, I could be his clerk. He would get some use out of me, either way. Before they left me with him, my parents, the couple that raised me, told me that my birth happened on Samhain Day, and it was approaching.”

She did not know this part, for all her information was about before or after his visions happened, not about his first ones. “Samhain? An auspicious day for the Sith and the others who inhabit their lands outside of time,” she said.

“Now that I think back on all of this, I should have known or suspected the origin of the visions, but I did not. The first one struck me by surprise, for a man visiting Diarmid grasped my hand in greeting and it began.” He laughed then, remembering it.

“Diarmid thought at first that I was having a fit, and he tried to pull the man free. But when I spoke in that voice”—he looked at her, and she nodded—“he knew it was something more.

“I did not recognize the tie to the faces of the moon until months later. I did not know how to control it at all then. Diarmid brought people around me, and it would happen the same as the first. Nearly a year later, I felt as though I could decide who received a vision, and began to concentrate on those in the chambers who needed the truth shown to them or needed help in some way.” He paused and let out a breath. “Diarmid still brought those he wanted under his influence, but I could feel my way then.”

“Why tell me this?” she asked.

“Because, I think that if my vision led to your family…” he skipped over saying it then. “If your family died about six years ago, it happened during those first few horrible, uncontrolled visions. ’Tis not an excuse, Moira—I cannot excuse what has happened—but I offer it in explanation. Your family did not perish because I wanted them to. I just did not know enough about controlling this power within me to keep it from happening.”

Her throat tightened and burned then, as tears threatened to spill. The reaction came so quickly she could not stop it. All these years, her belief that this man had set out to destroy her family had been a lie. She’d built her hatred on lies, on ignorance of the truth about a young man with a powerful talent he could not control.

Still, many years had been spent nursing her hatred, and it was difficult to simply let it go on his word. What better way to destroy her than to make her lose her purpose? Now her heart and mind warred over his words.

“I wanted to tell you that, so you can consider whether it was through ignorance or intent that your family died. And I want you to consider if living and living well would be the better revenge than losing your life as they did.”

The Seer stood up and walked over to his trunk and took out clean trews and a tunic and put them on. “I am expected at table for a morning meal. Agnes will bring you food. I want you to eat all of it.”

Startled yet again, she could only watch as he prepared to leave. Then she remembered that the chain hung loosely on the wall, not attached to the collar or to her.

“If anyone enters, stay over in the corner as though you wear it. The guard will not allow anyone entrance except Breac and Agnes.”

“Does Ranald not question that you keep him out?” she asked. Everyone knew that Ranald was his…keeper, reporting back to Diarmid anything he thought the lord should know and anything that would result in a reward.

“I pay him well enough to ignore certain things, Moira. He enjoys the importance and attention he gets by attending me during the days of the vision and in the aftermath. He knows his place.”

‘Twas not her business to contradict him about the manservant, whom everyone in the keep knew provided diversions of another kind to Diarmid’s half brother. And who gained what he wanted by using the Seer’s name when he made his demands. How had this man survived in the dangers of Diarmid’s world without knowing what he was or who truly stood at his side?

“God protects the fools and the innocents,” she mumbled under her breath as he left the room.

With her world tilting and changing moment by moment before her eyes, she did not know which one he was…and was not certain she wanted to know.

Connor walked down the stairs, smiling then, for his body was in a condition that was not usual for him. Only in these days, before the new moon began, could he imagine what sex was like for other men.

Connor wanted Moira—his body could ready itself in an instant if she’d give a signal of her willingness—but he could ignore the desire, too, and focus on things other than fucking until he or the woman in his bed could not walk. So unlike the two weeks that followed the new moon as it grew to fullness. During those weeks, his desire would burn uncontrolled and ever-present in his blood, until the visions emptied him of lust and sight.

For now, he would enjoy it and try to understand why it was different with her and what part her consent and willingness played in it. Connor arrived in the hall after everyone was seated and after Diarmid and his guests were served. Striding through the crowd, he climbed the dais and found his chair waiting for him. Anakol was nowhere to be seen, but another stranger sat next to him.

It had begun.

For the next several weeks, Diarmid would bring in visitors to meet him, men who had questions and matters for the Seer’s talent. Connor would indicate to Diarmid which men should be included in the gathering in his chambers before the day arrived, and Diarmid would invite them. He could never tell which man would be “gifted” until he grasped his hand that day, but certain men caused a reaction in him that he knew was an indication of someone of true purpose.