Ronan's Bride (18 page)

He followed swiftly, spilling hot, deep. Lost—far away, in a beautiful ecstasy, weightless and dizzying. Ronan lay back and carried her with him, holding her heart to thudding heart, to prolong the joining that was ever still amazing.

* * * *

When Ronan knew she slept, he carefully rose and carried her to bed. Cleaning her did not stir her more than a soft moan. He finished swift and took himself to bathe, to don his mask and dress in trousers. Instead of joining her though, he sat in the window seat, holding the jasmine scented veils and watching her sleep.

The candles long sputtered out. The incense burned. It was the waft of dawn’s fog that drifted in.

He sighed, shuddered with the power of his emotions, and at last lay the veils aside, climbing into the bed, holding her. She was soft as clouds, small and yet alive with energy and life. She smelled like heaven.

Sefare reached back to pull his arm around her tighter, covering his hand and holding it to her breast. “I love you, Ronan.”

He swallowed and closed his eyes. His throat seeming too tight, he managed low, “Sefare, my bride…My heart and soul are yours. Forever.”

She sighed and snuggled back, tighter against him, her body surrounded by his, Sefare sleepily. “…My beautiful, beautiful love...My knight of passion, smoke and night wind…”

His lips pressed against her hair, Ronan let the tears burn his throat and nose, without escape. However, in his dreams, moments after sleep came, he saw himself as he had been before the tragedy, without blemish, with no need to cover himself. He saw himself, through her heart and eyes, and he knew for the first time, he knew—he was healed.

* * * *

Ualtar sat on the wall near the sea, his exotic face during the night oft turning toward the castle at the sound of their twain laughter floating down.

He smiled and shook his head. He had watched another’s joy as Isola received her message from the king. He realized ‘twas more than making swords she was called to do. He also grasped that Mshai had influenced it. Though he admired the redhead, found her intriguing, he knew better than to hope where fate had other ideas.

Considering both Pagan and now Ronan had ended up with the perfect mates. He had time yet to see where it led for himself. He would travel to Dunnewicke to see the birthing of Illara and Pagan’s first child. It was a wondrous thing for a man who had been through what the brother’s had. Absently touching the markings on his face, he wondered would he frighten the babe? He hoped not.

* * * *

In the Smith shop, Isola held the scroll with the King’s seal to her chest, looking down at the velvet-lined box that cradled the elaborate daggers with their lion heads.

Night wind teased long strands of her wine hair, blowing it across her lips. She was looking back, to the evening when she had followed the mysterious Mshai out of the castle, to the stable, where he had left his horse with the Celt.

When Ualtar left them, she had laid her hand on the pitch stallion’s forehead and made her offer, and it had unfolded the way she told Sefare. Except—that she had given away more apparently as he had looked into her eyes, reading them.

“I would not expect a nobleman’s heir, even were he outlawed, to choose a Smith.”

He had rasped, “It would be one or the other for you, Isola. Either the oath to the Prince, to live this secret and duel life, or be some man’s mate. For you will discover that the two cannot exist together. ‘Tis not just detaching your heart to do what you must and kill—’tis that you will always be in peril of that yourself.”

He had reached out and touched her hair. “I saw you in that village; have seen you with my sister when spying here. What man with blood in his veins would not want you? However, I have chosen my path, long ago. I know I am master at what I do.”

“I understand. Well…I do not really. At least not why I am being so blunt, nor why I feel so drawn to you. There was…something in the past that has kept me from encouraging men…”

“We all have our demons. I am hated by many and as much for my foreign blood as for what they suspect me to be. I have been at war and been at what I do, since I was a boy.”

He had met her gaze and uttered softer, “Those things—they do not weaken us, but strengthen and drive us. I would rather give you half of what you ask, were it in my power—than even promise what I cannot. Men such as I, do not have forever to give, Isola.”

“I will take working with you…however you need me to. I can use my skill. I can be trusted—and you need that.”

“It is out of my hands. If fate changes that…”

When he made as if to climb in the saddle, she stood behind him, almost as tall as his six-foot and three. She smelled his heady scent of wind and forest, some illusive mix, too, of tropical sun and manly flesh.

He turned slowly at her touch, their bodies close and her full breasts against his cloak, his dark exotic eyes holding her tawny ones. Sblood, but she had never seen a face such as his; high aristocratic bones mingled with some untamable sensuality. He reminded her of a black cat in the dark, a watchful raven, an elusive and yet alluring half-phantom, half-human.

Isola whispered, “I am stronger than you assume, Mshai. Are you as resigned to pass on this chance as you claim?”

“I have women. You are not meant for that. You—”

She smiled. “Not me, Mshai. You have never had a woman like me.” She raised her ungloved hand and touched his sensual mouth, her gaze going from that lovely mouth, to his eyes again. “They don’t know you. They cannot touch you as I can. When I first saw you, I felt something of your soul, deep in my bones… I could almost taste you with every dark breath.”

She turned then and left him. However, not a night went by that he was not in her dreams.

Particularly when she thought of him passing by her and halting that horse to say—in Farsi—, which he assumed she could not understand, “The shadow and the flame… I felt you too, Isola—that is what cautions me. I dreamed of you—long, long, ago.”

Shivering she stood and put the scroll and box away. Standing at the entry later, Isola regarded the sky. She may never have forever, likely would not, considering the dangerous role she was agreeing to undertake. Nevertheless, she wanted, just once, to feel and taste the dark fires that she saw in Mshai’s eyes. If only—for one time—no matter what the cost, she would lie in that man’s arms and drown in passion with him. She could protect her heart if that was what it would take, but never in her life had she felt a soul that called out of the dark to her like that. It was as if his shadow passed over her, and she was never going to be the same.

The End

Look for Book 3, Shadow and Fire… coming soon.

Book One, Illara’s Champion, available now.