The Irish Warrior (7 page)

Senna couldn't help it; she pushed off, too.

That may have been what threw her slightly off course, offset the trajectory of Finian's mighty toss. Whatever it was, she landed with a sickening thud chest-first, almost to the flat, top surface of the boulder, but not quite. Instead, she clung to its slanting side, like a fly on a wall.

Her cheek was planted into the rock. She clung to the hard, impermeable surface of the stone, her good fingers clutching desperately for any small crags. She found them aplenty, all jagged, knife-sharp things. Her benumbed, wounded fingers weren't necessary for gripping, but their incapacity seemed to sap the strength from the others.

But her blood, that was hot and ferocious. It pounded through her body. Everything coming out of her—breath, effort, curse—was hot, panting fury as she lifted her legs and arms, scrabbling up the side of the stone face.

She gained the summit and flung herself over the lip, sprawled out like a dead thing. Her arms and legs were on fire, her knees bruised and torn, arm muscles screaming, her lungs burning. She lay for a moment, feeling the cool face of the stone under her feverish cheek. Then she pushed up to her elbows and peeked over her shoulder.

Finian was crouched, fingertips on the stone between his knees, his body rocked forward, staring at her, his mouth moving silently.

“Bonny toss,” she called softly, lifting her voice just above the rush of river currents.

His head dropped and for a moment, she couldn't see his face. One broad hand lifted to wipe across the features she could not see, then he pushed to his feet, shaking his head.

“If ye hadn't pushed off when I told ye not to—”

“Oh, indeed. 'Tis my fault.”

They stared at each other. A corner of Finian's mouth lifted into a grin. “Get off the damned rock, Senna.”

She stepped to the side.

“Off.”

“But—”

“I want ye on the ground,” he said sharply. She looked at him in surprise. This was the first hint of harshness from him. “On the ground. I want ye on the ground. Where ye're safe.”

The ground, where she'd be safe, was about fifteen feet below. In truth, it wasn't even ground; it was water, and, while shallow, still churning. “It's an awful far way—”

“It'll be longer if I push ye. I cannot jump with ye standing there. There's no room. There are handholds on the far side, and cut-outs. Use them. Go.”

She did. As she slithered down the angled rock face—the rock widened at its base—using the copious number of footholds Finian had predicted, wiggly tendrils of weeds and roots scratched at her cheeks, but all she was attuned to was whether she heard Finian's boots hit the boulder or the water.

At the hard clatter of bootheels on stone, her feet felt more solid in their footholds. She looked up just as Finian's face appeared over the edge, peering down, long dark hair swinging beside his face. She smiled.

“Go,” was all he said.

As if she needed him to tell her to ‘go.' The giddy truth of it hit her—the admission—and swirled in her belly like a miniature cyclone: all she'd wanted to do her whole life was
go.
Go somewhere, anywhere—anywhere other than home, watching the world sweep by through expensive leaded windows, alone but for servants and account ledgers, dying inside.

But should she require a reminder of the importance of taking care in her prayers, Senna thought as she scrabbled down the boulder, placing a foot just so, using her good hand wherever possible—here was her giddy life on the go: fleeing for her life with an Irish rebel, out on the wildside, beyond the Pale, past rescue, past safety, past any future she'd ever dreamed of.

In the end, the footholds gave out, and she was forced to hop into shallow water. Quickly she sloshed to dry land. Finian landed a moment later, splashing to the shore.

He stopped, the heel of one palm pressed against his ribs, his brow furrowed, his jaw tight. She waited silently, quelling a moment of panic. He'd obviously been beaten, and might be seriously injured. How would they make it if…? How did he find the strength—

He straightened, and any thoughts of physical vulnerability were swept away beneath her awareness of his total maleness. A chest firm with plated muscle, arms cut and carved in that defined musculature, legs thickly corded with sinew and strength, he was a specimen of raw masculinity. But her attention lingered longest on the sculpted features of his face, how they looked more haunting in the moonlight. Dangerous.

His gaze swept the land around them, plotting their next move. His eyes swept over hers once, unseeing, then came back again. He smiled faintly, but she could see the unrelenting steel behind the gentle gesture.

“Ye did fine, Senna.”

Some ridiculous pleasure rose up in her. Bubbly, like the small creek behind her manor house. “You weren't so bad yourself, Irishman.”

No, not so, indeed. Dark hair fell back alongside his face to frame the easy, damaging smile he sent her way. The steel in his gaze was sheathed deeper for a moment, behind a roughish, seductive glint. “Ye've seen nothing of what I'm good at yet, Senna.”

Heat raced to her cheeks. “Well,” she retorted, “I know 'tisn't tossing women across rivers.”

He grinned as he shifted his pack, the muscles of his body rippling even under that slight movement. “Senna, if ye can't guess what I do well by now, I haven't a hope for ye.”

That started the shivery ribbons through her belly. The look in his eye before he turned away started the heat in her groin.

“All we have to do tonight is make it across the king's highway,” he explained, “and far enough into the hills on the other side.”

“Cross the king's highway? That doesn't sound prudent.”

“'Tisn't,” he said as they headed into the woods.

“It sounds dangerous.”

“'Tis.”

She kept imagining Rardove's rage when he discovered she was gone. Could Balffe have realized it already? And if so, wouldn't they gallop directly to the highway, run like mad for Dublin, just as she was doing? Straight down the king's highway.

“Isn't there some other way?”

Finian skirted a tree trunk. “No other way now, Senna. Forward or back. Nothing in between.”

They came to the edge of the king's highway and ducked low. A breeze rustled the reeds, a low, seething sound, like a hiss through teeth. They stretched on their bellies side by side, peering out at the puddle-strewn, rock-encrusted, narrow, muddy path that marked the main passageway from the north to Dublin.

“‘King's highway' has a rather overstated magnificence,” Senna murmured.

“So does most of what the English say and do.” He pushed forward on his elbows. “The way is clear. We're off.”

They hurried across, staying low. The highway might only be wide enough for two wagons to pass, but it ran straight as an arrow-shot in either direction. It would be easy for them to see anyone coming. And easy for anyone to see them. There was also a ridge a few yards back that lined the far side. Anyone could be up there waiting with arrows. But apparently they had no choice. They had to cross the highway.

“Why is that?” she asked when they were safely across and striding up a steep, narrow, almost imperceptible path that Finian had found on the hill beyond. “Why did we have to cross the highway? Could we not have kept to the east side and headed south for Dublin? This
is
the way to Dublin, is it not?” she added after a long moment of silence ensued.

He still didn't reply. The hill was long and steep, and as climbing was beginning to take all Senna's strength, she was just as glad to have the conversation halt momentarily.

They climbed swiftly, ducking under sloping tree branches that dripped with moss maybe a hundred years old. Silvery light slanted through their feathery veined fingers, making the world glow with greenish gray light. It smelled fresh.

They finally crested the ridge. The path, while still only wide enough for one at a time, at least leveled out. Senna stopped and bent over, breathing hard. Behind her, Finian was breathing slightly heavier than usual. Very slightly.

She looked back. He was mostly a silhouette of power, standing upright, looking down to the road below. With the moonlight washing over him, his body was cut clear, like something hewn from rock. Dark hair spilled down to his shoulders. Impatiently, he raked it behind his ear, revealing the dark outline of a square, stubbly jaw and chin. She could see the thick hilt of his sword rising up above his left shoulder.

“Ready, Senna?”

She straightened and nodded, although another hour of rest would not have been misplaced. Keeping account ledgers at a copyist's desk did not tend one toward physical exertion. Still, she rode and fished at times, and of course had to practice every day with—

“Senna?”

But being a merchant did not quite prepare one for rabid barons, or raging rivers, or nighttime flights across a foreign frontier.

It was not often she was faced with a situation she did not have a ready reply for, an answer that could be written in ink, tallied in rows, stamped and scrolled and signed by witnesses who could prove and ensure no one could ever take away—

Warm fingers crooked under her chin. “Senna?” He angled her face to his, his eyes searching. “Are ye with us?”

The feel of his fingers, strong and thick, solid and real, funneled some measure of calm back into her. She nodded. He nodded along with her and dropped his hand. Her chin felt cold where his fingers had been.

“Forward, then, angel. We've a far way to go.”

She started walking. “To Dublin? A long way to go to Dublin? I may be off in my reckoning, Finian, but we seem to be headed west, not east and south.”

“
Baile Átha Cliath.”

She paused. “West.”

“
Baile Átha Cliath.
Keep walking.”

“Is that intended to mean something?” she asked after a moment of trying to ascertain his meaning. Which she could never do, because firstly, she was being baited—growing up with a brother provided sufficient experience to know when she was being toyed with—and secondly, Finian was speaking Irish. The low-spoken syllables were strange and evocative, as if he were chanting an incantation, murmuring spells.

“It means Dublin,” he said shortly.

“Bally cle, cle—” She sailed an irritated glance over her shoulder, even though she knew better than to expose a weakness such as irritation—again, the experience born of being a sister, even if she was the elder. “Why not just call it by its name?”

“'Tis its name. Dublin is what the Northmen used to call it. And now the Saxons
gall
call it that as well. But her name is Baile Átha Cliath.”

Not Vikings, not English foreigners. Irish.

She glanced over her shoulder again. He didn't appear angry, or any less imperturbable than he had thus far. He was walking as steadily as ever, obviously adjusting himself to her pace, because again, he barely appeared to be exerting effort. His eyes caught hers.

She faced forward. “Oh.”

The trees to their left opened slightly. She could see the road below them, winding its silvery outline under treetops, hugging the hillside. From out of the silence came his rough-edged murmur, “And, nay.”

The trail had narrowed to a rather alarming degree, so Senna didn't bother to look around this time. “Nay, what?” she asked, as calmly as possible.

“Yer query, Senna. Nay, this isn't the way to Dublin.”

She stopped so short he walked up the back of her heels. “What?” she whisper-shouted, trying to turn around on the sinuous path. “You promised to take me to Dublin.”

“I ne'er promised such a thing, lass.”

She glared over her shoulder. His chest was barely inches from hers, and she contemplated elbowing him over the side of the ridge. “You did!”

“I did not. Becalm yerself,” he added quietly.

She glared. She was practically crackling with fury. She was also being quiet. Angrily quiet.
Vehemently
quiet.

“I will be calm when you—”

His hand snaked out and closed over her mouth, silencing her.

“Riders.” His gruff voice was a notch above silence.

And like that, Senna's orientation shifted. No longer was she aware of her leaden, weary limbs, nor her desperate situation, nor the fear that had been marking its way up the back of her neck like the tip of a knife. She wasn't even terribly aware of the riders on the highway, some forty feet below. She was aware, only, of
him.

His fingers gently held over her lips. The touch of his wide wrist against the side of her neck. His thighs just behind hers, pressing heat onto the back of her legs.

She drew a steadying breath and inhaled the scent of him, the river and the wild, stones and pine.

“Fimiam?” she puffed against his hand.

“Can ye not hush for a single second?” he whispered back, but his words were made of breath, his jaw an outline of heat beside her ear. Her back and buttocks were warm from him. She could hear the men on the road far below, muffled voices and shuffling hooves.

Riders? What of it? What did this man taste like?

She trembled, from fear, surely, but more, from the power of this new, reckless desire. The root of her mother's evil. Reined in for years, bound by books and ledgers,
now
being released? While she was on the run from a madman? The onrushing strength of it shocked her.

He must have felt her trembling. The hand covering her mouth slid to her cheek, and his thumb stroked gently by her jaw. His other hand skimmed up her back and rested warmly between her shoulder blades. She shivered, not whatsoever from fear.

“Nothing to fear, lass,” he murmured. “'Tis but a messenger and his man. They are not seeking us. All we have to do is let them pass.”

All I have to do is taste you.

Senna jerked at the thought. No, not a thought, an
urge,
rising out of something so deep inside her it pulsed with each heartbeat.

He put his mouth by her ear. “Easy, now, Senna.” His thumb stroked her jaw as if he were gentling a wild thing. His sculpted body was hot behind hers. “Be easy.”

“Stop touching me,” she pleaded in a whisper.

His thumb stopped moving. “What?”

“Kiss me.”

The rest of him went completely still.

Oh, please, Lord, deliver me from this.
But it was too late. His body was too hot. She was too far beyond the Pale.

“What did ye say?” he asked in a low, masculine rumble.

Her heart started a strange thudding. Their voices were so quiet that the breeze blowing over them nearly drowned them out. Both were held paralyzed by the riders on the highway below. No one was going anywhere. In fact, it might all be over in a matter of minutes. And all she wanted was his touch.

If I am going to die,
she suddenly decided,
it will not be absent the touch of this Irishman.

She touched his hand and slid it across the mere inch back to her lips. Shutting her eyes, she trailed the tip of her tongue over his warm flesh.

His body rippled slightly, like wind over waves. She felt every muscle in his body shift, very minutely, very definitely. He brushed his thumb once over her parted lips. Her breath shuddered out.

“Did ye tell me to kiss ye, Senna?”

“I did.” Her whisper trembled.

“Why?”

“Because,” she whispered, “if I'm going to die, it will not be lacking all the things I am lacking at present.”

A pause. “Ye're lacking a kiss, then?”

She nodded.

For a moment, everything held suspended. Then he cupped the back of her head and turned her to him. His eyes were unreadable, with no hint of a smile, but something else was there. Something dark and masculine.

Each inhalation she attempted was short, chopped. Each exhalation came out long and slow and hot. It made her head spin. He bent to her.

She felt warm breath on her cheek. Soft, teasing kisses danced across her cheeks, her eyelids. She sighed and he tightened his hold ever so slightly on the back of her head, as if holding her still. He cupped her cheek with his other hand and his lips finally settled over her own, whisper light, coaxing her:
Remember you are a woman.

He bent lower and nibbled her lower lip until, as if he'd uttered a password, she parted for him. He slid his tongue between her lips, a single hot swipe. Ribbons of desire uncorded between her thighs.

He pulled back and whispered through her hair, “Is that what ye were thinking of?”

In the distance, the riders passed down the highway. Finian said nothing. She heard nothing. Leaning forward the barest inch, she grazed his full, warm lips with hers. He exhaled lightly. She liked that.

Her tongue slipped out and glided across his lips and another deep, masculine groan rumbled out. Her body quivered. Repositioning herself on her feet, she tasted him until she felt the tip of his questing tongue. Pushing boldly, she slipped her tongue inside his hot mouth.

A flash of touching, a swipe of tongues, then she withdrew, barely capable of drawing breath. Panting and enflamed, she whispered in his ear, “Oh.”

Her word came on a hush. Indeed, a squirrel in the tree above would not have heard it. But Finian did. Finian felt her warm, sweet breath against his cheek, drifting into his ear. He shifted, as the hardness between his legs stiffened further.

He was not on a mission of seduction, but there was nothing to be done about this moment. It was happening. And he was suddenly powerless to be the one to end it.

They stood together without touch; there was only the exchange of heat and breath between their bodies. Such closeness was highly erotic.

“The riders have gone,” he said reluctantly, waiting for her to step away.

But she didn't. She stayed, her breasts barely skimming his chest. One heartbeat, then another. “Have they?” she whispered.

With deliberate slowness, he splayed his fingers around her ribs, then slid them down, to the curve of her waist.

“Have ye had yer kiss, Senna?”

“Have you?” she murmured against his ear.

The breath shot out of Finian's lungs as if chased by a demon. No, he had not had his kiss.

Gently, he ran his fingers up her back, breathing steadily in her ear, the tip of his tongue teasing the skin just below. She shivered and clasped her hands hesitantly behind his head. Heaven, these sweet womanly curves, this arching spine, this feminine breath grown ragged.

He entangled his fingers in the braided knot at the base of her skull and with a few swift tugs, pulled it loose. Her hair tumbled over his hands and wrists. He groaned at the softness sliding between his fingertips and buried his face in it, murmuring sweet, approving words. He slid his other hand ever downward, to the dip in her spine, pulling her closer, until her breasts pressed against him, and he bent to her mouth.

When her lips parted, her tongue met his, and the sigh she surrendered shot another bolt of desire through his groin.

His kiss intensified, his tongue no longer slow and dancing, merely coaxing her to flirt with danger. Now he demanded, laid claim. He pushed her for more, hotter, deeper kisses, using his carnal knowledge against her innocence, until she gave him his response; she whimpered and pressed up to him, offering her curving body, her mouth open wide, her tongue wet and hot in his mouth. And he took. His hands roamed her back, her ribs, coming close but never touching the soft rounded breasts so close to his thumbs. She shifted and shimmied, wanting the touch.

Lust churned through him, dark and purposeful. He slid his hands down in a bold move and cupped her bottom, his hands spread wide, almost lifting her.

“
Oh,
” she whispered into his mouth, moving with reckless, wanton little pushes. He molded a hand down the back of one thigh and exerted a small pressure, urging her to lift her leg for him. She did, bending her knee into his hand, shifting so his erection pushed against her, long and thick.

She threw her head back and bit off a cry.