By the Light of the Moon (14 page)

There was light inside her eyes, even in the darkness of the night, utterly open, afraid, aroused and perfectly in the moment. And then he could smell it, too, the intoxicating scent of her; the sudden heat of blood pumped into her face and neck, nerves, sweat, tears — and sweetest of all, the dewy note that rose from between her legs and through the thin cotton dress.

He still couldn’t make sense of the entire picture but for the moment, none of that mattered. Her part, the Moira part with her eyes and her scent and the way each breath she exhaled seemed to ask a question, beg for a relief only he knew how to give her; all of it filled his entire vision. He had stepped too close; only the one compartment mattered anymore. So much so, that Owain even tried to ignore and shut out his wolf. He wanted that moment all for himself without the beast thrashing in his chest trying to get out and jump her himself. The wolf had known before him, he was almost painfully aware of this; but now, that he was, he wanted to feel every second, every inch, every drop he could get and he didn’t want to share.

“I kissed you,” he stated quietly. He kept the uncertainty and the future and everything else out of his voice. In that moment, just one stolen moment at the drafty top of the battlements, he wanted it to be them alone. One moment to understand what they had just done.

“You did,” she whispered back. Her lips were still so shiny, just like her eyes and he took a hard, aching breath as his fingers reached into her hair. It was wild and had been blown about all night. His fingers snagged almost immediately and his groin ached at the way her head moved back into the direction of the gentle tug. It exposed her long neck, the muscles and veins, the milky, almost translucent skin.

“I want to do it again.” The truth, simple, nothing more.

She blushed. The coppery smell of blood grew stronger just under the skin of her cheeks and it made her freckles stand out even more. He had to smile. “May I kiss you, Moira?”

There was the sound of her heart, a frightened and excited pitter-patter as though she’d been running but better, more heated. She nodded finally and a smile washed over his face before he bent down over her and kissed the corner of her lips, then the other side, her upper lip and then her lower one. Her taste made him a little breathless; the wolf inside of him was excited and brimming for more — her taste, her scent. His hand tightened in her hair, pulling her face right in the perfect angle before he crushed his lips onto hers, teasing, begging, demanding her to meet his intensity.

Moira had never been kissed before. The truth was, that she had never desired to feel anyone that close. Now, though, she couldn’t even remember why in the world she would ever have felt that way. Owain’s lips were warm — like the rest of his body, he ran hotter than humans — and they made her own tingle. But not just her lips, or even just her face. Somehow, by some mysterious force, some touch of magic, she could feel it deep in her stomach and between her legs. There was a powerful tingle and a pulling ache that made her push her body closer against his breastplate as her lips opened like a little flower to his caresses.

Their tongues met for a fraction of a second, two warm tips, meeting in the dark, shooting fireworks and symphonies down her spine and all the way into her toes.

She gasped when he pulled away. How was this possible? It was sorcery, witchcraft; it was unnatural, it had to be. There was no other explanation why, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she wanted another person
closer
, so much closer instead of as far away as possible.

“You … ” she whispered and her eyes filled with tears she didn’t dare to shed.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked and the silvery heat in his eyes melted away for a concerned, gentler expression. But Moira shook her head. He hadn’t. Of course not.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

Again, she shook her head, but the deep sensation of worry gave way to a flutter when he smiled and his hand moved back to her face. He ran his fingers over her cheek-bones, letting his eyes roam, then down to her lips, full and just a little swollen until he reached her nose in an almost playful gesture.

“Your freckles are like constellations,” he murmured and his fingertip started to trace cryptic runes on her cheek, over her temple and to her forehead, always from freckle to freckle.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.” It wasn’t a question; it sounded nothing like one. Moira wasn’t used to being ordered anything, much less by anyone in her father’s employ. But his voice went low and it made her chest burn with a desire for something she couldn’t quite place. The very idea to deny him sounded outlandish and insane; nothing in the world could have convinced her in that moment to deny him anything he asked.

And yet when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. What was she thinking? She genuinely didn’t know. Her mind was a vast expanse of snowy landscape, nothing in sight but fog, clouding the distant view.

“I don’t … know.”

A smile crossed his eyes even though his lips hardly changed and she could feel his hand cupping the entire side of her face easily. She leaned against it as her eyes fluttered shut.

“That’s all right. But you’re not afraid?”

This was easier to answer and Moira quickly shook her head. It wasn’t really true; she was afraid, terribly afraid that he’d step back and then he’d grow stiff and distant again and she was horrified of seeing Deagan in the morning and having to pretend she liked him at all. She was afraid of her feelings and afraid of what would happen if someone caught them. But she wasn’t afraid of Owain.

“I know I should apologize for this, and let you go … ”

“No,” she exhaled before he could continue. Her voice sounded hoarse as though she hadn’t used it for a long time.

“No?”

“No … don’t apologize.” And don’t let go, but she wasn’t quite sure that was something a woman was allowed to say. Moira had spent her life trying to carve out little spaces of freedom, of air to breathe but this particular area had never been the focus of her interest. Associated as it was with touch and proximity, the dazzling mysteries of the opposite sex had never seemed like freedom to her, like something worth exploring.

But here she stood, knowing that she was doing something wrong and it felt good. She could feel his warm breath on her face and for once, the sound did not make her skin scrawl. It made her want to lean in closer. Made her want to know everything about him, from his childhood to his favorite song, his greatest loss and the dream he’d had the night before.

“Anyone can see us here,” Owain finally said and he pushed himself off. Even from the outside, it looked like it had taken an effort to do so. And he heaved a sigh as he regarded her pale face in the moonlight, hair waving around in the breeze. “My lady … ”

“No.” The interruption was quick and quiet and she shook her head. “Moira.”

“Moira,” he repeated, another sigh crackling his chest. He took another step backward. He looked around and Moira followed his gaze.

The towers had rooms and the battlements over the drawbridge upon which they stood weren’t nearly as high as other parts of the Keep. She didn’t see light burning in any of the rooms but there were torches spluttering flames on the battlements, bathing them in enough light to be seen from almost anywhere. She frowned and looked down at the gray stone, wrapping her arms around her body. It felt so cold now without his warmth pressed up against it.

He opened his mouth but then hesitated. Finally he gestured her to follow him back into the archway toward the staircase. It was dark there, and she could hardly make out his face, even when he came close again. His tall body blocked out the light from the torches, hid her from view completely.

“I don’t want to make this harder for you, Moira. I don’t know what came over me today. You are beautiful, and
good
. But you should tell me to leave you alone.” He looked down between them and finally picked up his hands again, smoothing her fly-away hair around her head, cupping her face completely and holding her, warming her. There was sadness in his eyes.

“I know … ” she exhaled. She closed her eyes then, trying to relish the last moments of his hands on her, imagining the way his lips had felt on hers. She was basking in the way his smell and his presence were more calming than anything she knew, so much so, that even now she wasn’t afraid; sad, and aching, but not afraid. “I don’t want to put you in danger,” she added after a long moment and then pressed her lips together.

“We could blame the moon and the beauty of the night,” he answered. “And by morning we will look upon each other and you will wear a gown and your hair will be smoothed and shiny and in braids. You will wear his necklace and you won’t be the same. And I will have polished my shoes and built up a wall around my face and I won’t be the same.” His thumbs were brushing over her cheekbones, his voice quiet and stifled against the pain in his chest. “And tonight will seem like a dream, something out of a different world in which the you and I of tomorrow will have no place.”

He stilled and Moira inhaled a breath that caught against the back of her throat in a pitiful sound. The Moira of tomorrow, she knew her well.

“But in the here and the now, I am still the me of today and so are you.” Moira inhaled deeply. It made her more aware of the heat in her cheeks when she breathed against it. She didn’t feel brave but she wanted to be, as brave as she could be, as brave as she prided herself on.

“I want you to say it,” he replied. His voice just then shot another shiver through her body, focusing in her lower core in a way that made her want to utter a small whimper. How just the timbre and low vibration of sound could do this to her was a mystery. One hand remained on her face but he slid the other one down her side to linger on the curve of her hip, where he found a good grasp. “I need you to say it, Moira. The you of today, what do you need to feel like the you of today?”

“You … ” It wasn’t enough; she knew that. Of course she needed him but her tongue sneaked out to moisten her lips and she cleared her throat. “This,” she whispered and brought her middle and index finger to her lips, and then lightly all the way up to his. She could feel them shifting into a deep smile under her fingertips. Then he kissed them, and she brushed her thumb over the stubble on his chin.

“What a strange and beautiful creature you are … ” he exhaled, shaking his head. When Moira’s face started to fall, he quickly brought his knuckles under her chin and made her look up.

“Strange is good,” he whispered, “in a world full of humans I don’t understand; believe me, strange is wonderful.”

“Everybody always says I’m strange,” she whispered, letting her hand sink to his chest. It rested on his breastplate, her fingertips hooked into the neckline. He was so warm, she could feel the heat of his body even through the hardened leather.

“There is only one way to see other people, Moira; through the filter of our own experiences, beliefs, expectations. What they see, isn’t you. It’s their fears, their experiences, their prejudice.”

“And what do you see?” she asked, a pained smile tugging at the corners of her lips and he had to smile, too.

“I have spent weeks not seeing the real you, Moira.”

“The me of today?” she asked quietly, her brows drawing together in a subtle expression of pain.

“Yes,” Owain admitted. “And the you at the full moon.”

“What about the me of tomorrow?”

“The you of tomorrow is your face of duty, Moira. Not many have the privilege of living their life as their own self.” His voice was darker than before and ever so carefully, she dislodged one finger from the neckline of his breastplate and ran it over the little hollow in his neck underneath his Adam’s apple.

“Like you?”

“Like me.”

Moira could feel his neck and chest expand and contract with each breath under her fingers. This one was harder and longer until he gave her a small smile. Their eyes were locked; it was almost completely dark in the dark corner in which they stood, but what little light there was it seemed enough to make their eyes glint enough to focus on.

Finally, he lifted his fingers to her lips, brushed them over the bottom one and sighed.

“I should take you back to your chambers … ” he stopped her when opened her lips to speak, gently patting them with his index finger. “I know. You asked for something. And then we spoke instead. Are you still of the same mind?”

Moira nodded, almost eagerly. Owain smiled. Maybe, just maybe, he could kiss her until the morning dawned, could forget that after dawn, there was a new day in which he and her would act as if all of this had been nothing but a dream.

It was dark in Moira’s room.

To the far side, a few last embers were glowing dimly in the fireplace, not quite bright enough to add much light to the room. Most of that was still supplied by the moon, hardly enough to make out the edges of the furniture now that it wasn’t directly shining into her window.

Moira shivered, wrapped her arms around herself and listened to the gurgling sound her stomach made. A whole night without food; she was thirsty more than anything but the water that was standing in a jug by her bed would wash away the taste of Owain’s lips and his tongue. She only had to close her eyes now and there it was … his smell and the way his lips had felt pressed onto hers. Hunger didn’t quite matter enough to risk chasing that clear and ardent memory away.

She picked up a woolen blanket, threw it over her shoulders and then walked over to the little fireplace. She put a piece of wood on the dying embers, then another, smaller one. Her dress spread in an uneven circle around her when she knelt down to warm her hands. She felt the familiar and quite pleasant sting of heat in her eyes. There was that smell, too, and Moira had always liked it; spicy and strong, the crackle of fire, its color and its all-consuming hunger.

It had almost burned down before she had entered the room, starved for fuel and dying away, but already little flames were licking at the wood, spluttering and then exalting in strength when they came across a small tree sap deposit. The flames were leaving their black marks already, eating their way into the wooden meal.