Highland Healer (21 page)

Toran had talked to Senga about her? Why? Yesterday at Angus’s camp, he seemed to accept her answers, even though his expression had been fierce. What had gone wrong now?

“Aye. But she lied to ye and even if she has now told ye the truth, it concerns me.” Aileana recognized Donal gruff voice and understood the frustration in Toran’s. Donal didn’t trust her, and made no secret of it. Why had he told Donal about their conversation?

“It concerned me, too,” she heard Toran reply, and her heart sank as Toran acknowledged Donal’s suspicions. “But we’ve seen no sign of her doin’ anything unseemly save lying to protect herself.”

Donal’s voice was louder when he replied, “At least ye’ve seen that there are limits to her power. She canna raise the dead. But I still say it doesna mean she’s safe to have within our walls, no matter what Senga told ye.”

She realized the two were ascending the stairs. She quickly moved away from the tower, into the wind. With her back to them as they exited the tower, they would not know she’d overheard.

She clutched her shawl tighter around her and leaned over the wall to better see outside. A large hand gripped her shoulder and pulled her roughly aside, behind a merlon.

“Aileana! Stay back! Colbridge’s men can see ye here,” Toran growled. “A lucky shot by their archers, a following wind, and well—” He paused and gripped both her shoulders more gently, entreaty and…was it fear for her on his face? “Be careful, lass.”

“Aye,” Donal added, doing exactly what Aileana had done moments before, peering out at Colbridge’s camp. Then he swore. “That son of a cattle thief! Toran, take a look at this.”

Toran released his hold on Aileana, reluctantly, it seemed. Without his touch, the wind blew colder and she was bereft of support. She gathered her shawl again and joined the men.

“Damn, what’s he doing?” Toran muttered.

Donal cut a frown in her direction, but Toran kept his eye on the approaching riders.

“It’s taken him long enough to decide on a parley,” Toran muttered, “if that’s what this is.”

Aileana peered carefully over the wall. Colbridge led two other riders at an easy canter across the glen. Finally the riders stopped just out of range of the Aerie’s archers. Colbridge kicked his mount a pace forward.

“Laird Lathan!” he called out. Aileana ducked down, out of sight from the glen, afraid to be seen by that man.

“Aye,” Toran replied, mildly. “Have ye come to surrender?”

“Surrender?” Aileana could not mistake the fury in Colbridge’s voice. Toran’s taunt had hit home. “Never. I’m here to accept your surrender. And to retrieve something of mine that you took. I want it back—undamaged.” Almost she stood to peek out at her former captor, but common sense held her back, since she was the only thing within the walls of the Aerie that had once “belonged” to Colbridge.

“Something of yers?” Toran’s voice held nothing but innocent bemusement. “I can’t imagine what that might be. Since…guesting…with ye,” Toran continued, more forcefully, “I’ve received nothing from yer camp save insults and feeble attempts to scale my walls.”

“You can’t sit behind those walls forever,” Colbridge challenged angrily. “You’ll come out, and when you do, it’ll be on my terms. Send Aileana out, and I’ll spare your lives.”

Aileana blanched. He was after her. Of course he was. “No,” she whispered. “I won’t go back.” But she could not imagine Toran giving her back to Colbridge. She stared up at Toran, looking for reassurance. Surely he wouldn’t.

“Aileana is spoils of war,” Donal spoke up, his voice pitched to carry into the glen. Then he leaned over the wall, and smirked. “She is our property now. To do with as we wish. Later, we may toss her back to ye. But for now, we’ll keep her.”

“Harm her at your peril,” Colbridge shouted.

“Why is she so valuable to ye?” Toran finally asked after a glare at Donal meant to silence him.

“That’s my business and none of yours. But if you or any of your men violate her, then she will be useless to me and to you.”

“Surely ye can’t mean to ransom her? Or marry her off for an alliance? That’s no’ yer way, is it?” Toran said, deliberately misunderstanding Colbridge’s concern.

“My way is to offer you one chance to save the lives of your clan. Open your gates. Send out the Healer and surrender, or die.”

“Nay, I dinna think we’ll be taking ye up on yer offer. But perhaps I’ll consider a ransom. If ye want her back, pack up yer camp and return to where ye came from. Dinna trouble us again, and I’ll see her returned to ye.”

Aileana could not contain her gasp of dismay, but Toran either did not hear her, or chose to ignore the reaction of his “property.” She stared up and him in shock, waiting for some signal, some sign, for him to step aside and quietly tell her it wasn’t true. Could he truly be bargaining with Colbridge to send her back? Hadn’t he spoken of a special bond between them? Of handfasting together?

He continued to favor Colbridge with the mildest of regard and ignored her completely. She would not let him see her cry. She would not! All his words had been lies. She’d been right, and Senga was wrong. She was nothing to Toran but curiosity and a challenge. She turned and ran for the stairs, intent on getting as far away from her “master” as she could within the walls of the Aerie. He didn’t trust her. He’d told Colbridge as much. He knew the truth about her Talent; that she would not lose it with her maidenhead. And before he sent her back, he’d do the one thing that Colbridge believed would ruin her forever.

A laird could do whatever he wished with female property. There was nothing she could do to protect herself now.

Chapter Twelve

Toran heard Aileana’s gasp when Donal called her their property. He became painfully aware of her distress when she ran from them, and deeply regretted that she’d been hurt by the taunt, but he could not leave a confrontation with Colbridge. It was bad enough that Donal had spoken up and interrupted the conversation between his laird and the invader, much worse that his words had wounded Aileana. But it would be worse still for the laird to appear weak before their besieger by leaving the confrontation in the hands of one of his underlings to go after her.

He censured Donal with a hard look and received one in return that was equal parts anger and embarrassment. Aye, Donal kenned just how he’d overstepped. Toran gestured him away and turned back to Colbridge.

Thankfully, after they traded only a few more threats and insults, Colbridge abruptly jerked his mount around and rode back to his camp. Toran quit the rampart on the run, determined to find Aileana and clear up the misunderstanding. Damn it, she’d just begun to trust him!

He found her in the empty hallway outside her chamber, crying, as she tried to open the door. Thank God, it was stuck. If she’d locked herself inside, she might never come out after what she’d just heard.

“Aileana, wait,” he called after her. She glanced around and redoubled her efforts to force the door open. Her flushed, tear-streaked face nearly broke his heart. “Aileana, I was goading Colbridge. Ye’re no’ a prisoner. Ye ken that.”

She paused, then apparently gave up on opening the door and ran to the far side of a large table set against the wall, as if she needed protection from him and that barrier could keep her safe, which finished breaking his heart in two.

“Not a prisoner? Then let me leave. Not in a year and a day. Now.”

Toran’s breath caught in his throat at her appeal. He began to move around the table to her.

“Don’t,” she commanded, putting her hands up to ward him off. “You lied to me. I’m no guest here, nor do I belong here. I’m as much a prisoner as I was in Colbridge’s camp, allowed the freedom of the keep only because I can do something you need. You care nothing for me. I heard you say it.”

Toran stood still, assessing. Her back pressed against the wall, tears streamed down her face, but then she leaned forward and splayed her hands on the tabletop, challenging him. He admired her spirit, even as he damned himself for hurting her.

“No, Aileana. I didn’t lie to ye. I lied to Colbridge. Ye’re no’ a prisoner. Never that.”

Her hesitation heartened him even as her words betrayed her fear. “I don’t believe you.”

He fought to keep his voice calm and quiet as he continued. “I willna negotiate with Colbridge over ye. I willna give ye back to him.”

“Perhaps not, but you’ll still hold me against my will.”

“Where would ye go, lass?”

“’Tis none of your concern.”

Toran sighed, reaching for something, anything, to tell her that would convince her. The only thing he could think of was a promise he did not want to make, but it was all he had.

“When this is over”—he paused, grimaced at what he was about to offer to regain her trust, and continued—“when he is gone, if it is what ye truly want, ye may leave.”

At his words, she straightened, still poised to flee, but listening to him.

“But that is not what I want,” he continued. “I want ye to stay in the Aerie, make yer home here, with us.”

“As your healer,” she stated, flatly, not moving.

“Aye, of course.” Toran said, but before he could go on, she interrupted.

“Why is that any different than the life I had with Colbridge’s army? I had a purpose there, too. But I’ve spent the last two years learning that having a purpose is not the same as belonging.”

Aileana fisted her hands on her hips, and marched around the corner of the table, coming to stand toe-to-toe with Toran. “He’s a tyrant. What makes you any different than him? Because you have the Aerie? I’m told he has a keep in the south. Because you inherited a clan? He has one, too—misfits and lost men, all, but he’s made them his. Why do you think you’re so different?”

“Because,” Toran finally interrupted her tirade, angered at being compared to her former captor, “because ye ken I’m no’ like him. Yer anger is speaking for ye. Ye dinna really mean that.”

“Don’t tell me what I mean or don’t mean.”

Toran sighed. “Have ye no’ seen enough by now to ken the kind of man I am? Have ye no’ seen better from me than that?”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Then believe this.” He touched a finger to her damp cheek, and felt the warmth spread between them, melting his ire. “I dinna take what doesna belong to me, lass. If ye dinna belong to me, if ye truly do no’ wish to stay with me, then I’ll let ye go when it’s safe to do so. But ye feel how I want ye. And ye want me, the same. I feel it, too. We have something together, ye and I. I dinna claim to understand it, but ’tis there.”

She pulled back from his touch, stared up at him as if he’d lost his mind, but didn’t step away. Emboldened, he stroked the side of her face, wiped a tear stain softly with his thumb. “Ye feel it, too. I can see it on yer face, and feel it in the way yer heart beats faster when we touch.”

She continued to stare at him, a deer frozen in the hunter’s sights, ready to bolt.

“I am sorry,” Toran whispered against her hair. “I’ve ne’er wanted ye to run from me, to make ye cry over something I’ve said or done.”

“It wasn’t just you who said those awful things,” she said, softening a bit, he hoped. “It was Donal, too. But you didn’t deny them.”

“Ye ken why I couldna, no’ then. But ye understand how I feel about ye.”

She tensed under his hand, then exhaled slowly and he watched her shoulders drop slightly as her fear and anger turned to something else. Ever more gently, he captured her breath with his own, caressed her lips with his, slowly. She stood still as Toran continued to drop light kisses over her face, tasting the salt of her tears. He wanted to soothe her, but he also wanted her passion. As he continued to coax her, Toran’s need rose within him like the tide. He took her in his arms, held her. She hesitated, as if stunned, then wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.

“Oh, Toran. What are we to do?”

He answered her between kisses. “What we want…what we need…what we must.”

He lifted her, crossed to her chamber and freed one hand to turn the latch, then kicked the door open. When Aileana did not protest as he carried her inside, he closed and locked the door behind them. Setting her on her feet, he stroked her back, lost in the way she fit against him, her head tucked onto his shoulder, breasts to his chest, hips to his hardness. As if she belonged there. As if she had been made just for him.

He kissed her again, pulled her up on her toes and nibbled her earlobe, her throat. He slid his hands along her sides, caressing her, then he set her away from him. He smiled as she watched him, her uncertainty reflected in her wide eyes as he untied the shawl she still wore. “I willna hurt ye, Aileana,” he promised. “I willna make ye cry, no’ again, never again. But I willna let ye leave me. Ye are mine.”

Her chin lifted, and he feared he’d said the wrong thing, but she reached for his face, and pulled him down to kiss her again. “Aileana,” he murmured, moving his mouth over hers, tasting her. She responded with her lips, and her pulse beat faster under his fingers as he slipped his hands down along her throat to untie the bodice of her dress.

****

Aileana burned. The moment Toran touched her, she was lost. His remorse doused the flames of her anger, and his kisses ignited needs she had never known to be within her. Fire ran under his fingertips and trailed across her skin. Yet her core was molten liquid, seeping down her belly to scald her thighs with heat and longing, leaving behind a void that must be filled. She barely knew what was happening between them. She could only feel. Toran’s hands, Toran’s breath, his hot, demanding mouth, his steely muscles moving under satiny skin as he caressed her, coaxed her, enticed her. Won her.

Her hands moved over him almost without her direction, unlacing his shirt, unpinning the plaid from his shoulder and pulling it down to his waist. Those were all things she had done as he lay unconscious on her surgery table, movements she knew and did not have to think about. She ran her fingertips across his chest, and it was broader and stronger and more heated than she had ever imagined in her deepest longings. His breath hitched as she slid her palm down to his waist. His belt fell next, and the plaid slipped to the floor. She slid her hands up under his shirt, memorizing each ripple of muscle along his tight belly, the silky slip of his chest hair between her fingers, and the tiny knots of his nipples. Toran’s groans.