A Storm of Passion (15 page)

It had plagued him for months: She’d forced him to the floor and disabled him with the first strike and her kicks. She had stabbed him once, but not a fatal blow. Then she had hesitated.

“Killing you was not as easy as I thought it would be when I planned it,” she admitted. “I was ready, but I hesitated in that lost moment. Then you opened your eyes…” She could not control the shudder at the memory of what she had seen in his eyes when the visions burned through them.

“Did you scream? I think I remember hearing a scream,” he asked.

“Aye.”

She trembled again. No one should ever see the power that flowed out of him when he was controlled by the visions. She shook her head to rid herself of the terrible things she had seen deep in his eyes. She’d wanted to make certain he recognized the identity of the one who inflicted the death blow, to make his last thoughts of the vengeance she sought, and instead she’d found herself being pulled down into the depths of hell.

“Can you feel the fires burning there?” She had her own questions that she’d not dared to ask, until now.

“Yes.” He turned away then and walked to the hearth. “It burns without destroying. The pain is like holding your hand over an open flame, but it just goes on and on.” He began to reach his hand out toward the banked fire and stopped. “But that is not all of it.”

Moira followed him across the chamber. “The other? The lust that fills your blood? It causes pain?” she asked. Lust unfulfilled was like skin that itched without relief. It was not comfortable, but it could not kill you. But what she’d witnessed and heard him suffer was more than that.

He faced her then, his expression grim as he explained the visions to her.

“Once the moon passes through its darkest phase, the lust begins, flowing and pulsing in my blood, something that cannot be denied or ignored. I have tried to, but the pain increases until I feel as though my head is in a vice, ever tightening, without relief. I feel as though my skin and cock are burning from the inside out, and I cannot think about anything but finding a woman and fucking until the lust is satisfied.”

“Does it help? Do you need to tup a certain number of times or different women to gain relief?” Though she’d heard some tales about his sexual prowess, stories of this part of it had never been told.

Connor looked at her as though she’d spoken in a strange tongue and then shook his head. “At first…” he began.

“Has it not always been so?” she asked. “From the beginning?”

“Nay, at the beginning I could have women when I wanted them. If I did or did not, it mattered not to the power that controls me. The visions grew stronger, and my appeal to women grew.”

She laughed then; it surprised both of them. “Those touched by the Sith share in their extraordinary beauty,” she said. “Everyone knows that.” His body and face were blessed by the Sith: the light coloring of his hair, the strange coloring of his eyes, and the glow of his skin all bespoke the magic and vitality of the otherworldly beings.

“Well, women came to me or I called them as I learned the way, but my bed was never empty.”

That much, she’d heard…over and over as the tale of his male beauty and virility and body spread throughout the Highlands and isles. A man who could make a woman weep in pleasure, he was called. No woman could refuse, nor would she want to, for to be taken to his bed and loved by him was too much pleasure to bear. Stories spun from a figment of truth into the thing of legends, but she knew the truth from the fancy.

Passion? Pleasure? Desire? Surely there was plenty of those in his bed, but love, she knew, did not enter into this matter at all. Thinking on it distracted her from her purpose now. She needed to know why he thought he would die soon. From his words, he did not think Steinar’s plot would bring it about. Nay, he was convinced that the gift would end it.

“The pain? It has been there since the beginning then?”

She wanted to understand what made him the Seer and all that meant. Some part of her looked for a reason to explain his responsibility in the events caused by his gift.

He turned and rubbed his face. He did that when he was tired, spreading his large hands out to cover his face and then sliding them back through his hair. Then he stared at her as though searching for something on her face or in her eyes. The Seer walked closer until she could feel his breath on her face and the heat of his skin. Was talking over then, in favor of tupping?

He took her by the arms and pulled her to him, still staring at her as though trying to decide whether to tell her something or take her to his bed another time. The lightning and thunder crashed outside, shaking the walls of the keep, and he yet held her so.

“No one knows what has been happening to me. Diarmid suspects something but cannot catch me in a lie or prove it. Ranald sees part, but I pay him well for his silence in this. You know the most, having seen it twice,” he revealed in a voice so low she struggled to hear his words.

“Not even Breac or Agnes know it all. But I need to tell someone, and I think it must be you,” he whispered in a voice filled with need and desperation.

“What is it, Seer? What does no one know?”

“I believe that my final vision will be on Samhain, the end of seven years of visions, and that I will not survive the price the visions demand.”

C
onnor released her and moved away. Though not the burning edge of desire, a restlessness filled his mind, and he tried to calm himself from it. He had so many things to tell her and explain and discuss that he did not know where to begin. He only knew that he could trust her.

Moira had saved him twice now: once on the beach when she warned him—nay knocked him aside from the boulder’s path—and then again tonight on the wall when he’d lost his desire to live and was tempted to put an end to it all. She’d caught him just in time before the despair and pain overwhelmed him.

Though if what he suspected to be coming, a quick fall or the strike by a bolt of lightning might be the easier way.

Nay, there were things he must accomplish before he let the gift burn him out. Planning to be done and reparations to be made for his sins, both those intentional and the ones not of his choice. Most of those involved the woman standing before him—one who had started out his enemy, but whom he believed was now much more than that.

Connor lifted her and carried her to the bed, climbing onto it and placing her across his lap. Her body brought warmth to his; the thoughts of his impending death chilled his flesh. The thought of dying unforgiven chilled his very soul.

“How do you know this?” she whispered to him. Even if she denied it, there was concern in her voice, not just the curiosity he’d recognized before.

“For almost the last year, the visions have become a curse. The first six years, I had no pain, no burning, no uncontrollable urges, and especially no blindness after the visions. Then the month after Samhain was observed, the other things came in tandem with the visions.”

He shifted her to sit next to him and pulled the blankets over their legs. The storm’s coldness permeated even the stone walls now.

“At first, they were mild, and I even wondered if I’d experienced them at all. I mean, ’tis not unusual for a man in his prime, one unmarried and not having access to the constancy of a wife in his bed, to want more sex one time or another.”

Her left eyebrow arched, and he smiled. She was becoming playful and had smiled at least twice tonight and then this. Did she notice it as he did? The urge to touch his mouth there grew.

“Then the blindness began, and as each vision grew in strength and clarity, my own vision suffered. At first, it felt as though I was looking out at night—the shadows covered my sight. Then month after month, the damage has been worse—the blindness lasted twice as long this time as it had the time before. If it increases like that this month and then again next, I will spend every hour of every day blind.”

“Blind is not dead,” she said. “Even if you lose your sight, you may still have the visions. Do not despair yet,” she advised.

“But what if the visions disappear with my sight? What if the gift burns out when my eyes do and I am left with neither?”

That was his biggest fear now: to become a blind, worthless man in Diarmid’s keep was a death sentence. Anyone who held no value to him was discarded, exiled, even killed, and no one would stand in his defense.

“Again,” his practical Moira said, “blind is not dead.”

“You lived here. Think of anyone here in Diarmid’s keep, from sheepherder to the highest in his command, and tell me of one who is impaired. One who is less than able to carry out his duties. Blindness is a death sentence.”

Connor leaned his back against the headboard and closed his eyes. There was something more, but he was not certain he could explain it to her. More a feeling, an effect of the visions, that foretold him of death after the final vision. Would she believe him foolish for being convinced by only a feeling, rather than facts he could see or hear?

“Moira, my heart stops when the visions cease. And I believe that when the final vision ceases, there will be no power within me to start it anew.”

She could not help herself; she reached out and touched his chest and laid her hand over his heart. It beat strong under her palm, and she felt it for a few moments before meeting his gaze again.

“Have you heard of such a thing, or do I worry for naught?” he asked.

She’d not lied to him yet—not through their time together, in good or bad circumstances, even when she hated him and would have liked to. She’d spoken the truth to him. Now, for the first time she wanted with all her damaged and torn heart to lie.

So deep in thought, she never saw his hand move, so his touch surprised her. He gently slid his finger across her cheek and held it for her to see. Tears. Closing her eyes, she fought them, but her throat burned and her eyes filled with them until they spilled over onto her cheeks and could not be hidden from him.

“You cry for me?” he asked. “After everything you have suffered because of me, you can find tears to shed for me?”

Moira tried to wipe them away, to keep him from realizing what she had that day on the beach. No matter how much she wanted to hate him, she could not. No matter that his words caused events to happen that killed her family. No matter that she sought vengeance against him for most of her life.

He was not to blame.

She shook her head, denying the thought to herself so she could deny it to him. Her heart had searched for too long for the one responsible for her loss. She’d given up everything—her life, her chance to live, her future—to hunt him down, to find his weaknesses, and to kill him. Could she banish all the hatred that had colored her world, her existence, for these last six years now?

From the tears, it would seem that part of her already had.

“So, ’tis true then? What I suspect?”

She inhaled, but her chest trembled and her breath hitched in spite of trying to appear calm. “I do not know this to be true…”

“But you have heard? Come now, be the fearless Moira who pummeled me to the floor, but not this Moira with fear written in her eyes. ’Tis not your fate we discuss, but that of your captor, the man who destroyed your family.”

If he’d said those words hours or days ago, they may have worked, but now, now that she had faced losing him twice and knew that her empty heart felt fear of such a loss, Moira knew there was no turning away.

“So, Moira the fearless, Moira the avenger, tell me what you know,” he said softly. “I would be prepared if I know I face my death on Samhain.”

“’Tis said,” she began and paused, trying to form her words. “’Tis said that when the Sith leave behind a changeling, be it in the shape of a mortal babe, or dog, or cow, or even a plant resembling one in the mortal world, there is only so much Sith magic in such a thing.” The tears flowed now, as she gave him his death sentence. “And that when the magic has left, the changeling, be it person or animal or plant, shrivels and dies without it.”

She watched his eyes as he accepted the truth, but she could tell it did not surprise him. They darkened in color then, and he nodded at her. Moira could not come up with a word more to ease his fears or convince him there was another possibility, for she’d heard enough stories about Sith magic to know it for the truth it was.

“I may be wrong,” she said, trying, it seemed, to convince herself more than him. “You said Diarmid has an extensive collection of books. Mayhap you could search it for more information or other stories that are right?”

“Sshhhh,” he whispered, tucking her head under his chin and entwining his fingers with hers.

“What will you do?”

“For now, there is nothing that can be done. I imagine Diarmid would not be happy to learn that he will lose his prized Seer, so I will keep it from him. If you are right about the other matter, mayhap I should alert Steinar of my impending death to save him his efforts and the lives of more of his pawns in the attempts?”

She covered his mouth with her hand. “Do not say that,” she warned.

“At least I will not be the pawn in their game as they play for control of Mull and the position of chieftain here.” He met her gaze now, and his was clear, with no sign of fear of what was coming to him. “And neither will you,” he promised.

“What do you mean?”

“Fear not that I would leave you in Diarmid’s control, nor that of Steinar. And I will not allow you to watch my death, in spite of knowing that is what drew you to me.” He lifted her face to his and kissed her mouth gently. “I told you that I was keeping you, but what you need to know is that, more importantly, I will let you go,” he said. “Now that we have all that spoken of between us, I would think on more pleasant things.”

Overwhelmed that he was concerned about her at such a time as this, she understood what he was asking of her now. If she could ease his pain and give him some clarity in his thoughts as he faced his death, it was the least she could do. When she had been distraught and begged him to help her, he had, and there was pleasure for both of them. Now, she would do it for him without him needing to ask her. When she reached over to touch him, he shook his head and stopped her hand before she could.

“I would hold you, Moira. That is all I need now,” he whispered.

For a man who liked and needed sex to calm the boiling lust in his blood, his refusal was not what she expected. “I would ease your pain,” she said.

“Lie next to me, Moira,” he whispered again.

So, she tugged the shift off, tossed it off the bed and slid down next to him. He opened his arms to her and held her close, draping her across his body. Moira reached up and put her hand on his chest again, feeling a strong heart beating there. And although she did not want to believe it, she knew that the story she’d shared with him was true and he would die when the power left him.

And though she had pursued and craved his death for years, she would not be able to bear to watch it now. Her heart, the one that had been empty for so long, now hurt as it opened just a bit to let something stronger than fear or hatred or the need for vengeance in. It had been so long since she’d felt it there, that she could not understand how it came to be.

“’Twas your kindness, Seer,” she whispered. “Your kindness made me think about a good life once more.”

As she fell asleep in his arms, she dreamed good dreams for the first time in those long six years. Her family happy and alive around her. Her sister and brothers all grown with bairns of their own. She could see her husband’s hand on her shoulder as she nursed her wee babe under his watchful eye. She dreamt of things now impossible, but for those hours she allowed the life that could have been to play out in her thoughts.

The days passed quickly then, too quickly now that she understood what was to be. He spoke of Samhain only a little, and only when Diarmid mentioned it as the anniversary of his birth and announced a celebration for the Seer. Try as he might to dissuade Diarmid, the plans moved forward, with Diarmid already choosing those whose favor he wanted most. Obviously, Diarmid had not heard or considered the stories she had and never seemed to doubt that his Seer would continue on with even stronger visions in his service for years to come.

Connor spent more and more time in Diarmid’s company as the visions came closer, but he had been right about one thing: his bed play with Moira kept his pain away. Oh, there was still an edge to him, and if he pushed her hard when they joined, harder and deeper with each passing night, she let him take his ease on her.

The one thing she did not ask him about was his plan to let her go. Moira understood that she was truly Diarmid’s prisoner, and, even if Connor willed her to be free, the lord would ignore him and hold her for his own use. If anything convinced her of the futility of thinking she would ever leave here alive or free, Diarmid’s visit two nights before the full moon made it clear.

Connor urged her faster, and she moved over him, like a rider on her mount, sliding her hips and the slick place between her legs forward and back, forward and back. Faster.

He teased the nipples of her breasts all the while. She felt each stroke or pull on them deep into her core, and it made her move against his hardened prick. He squeezed the tips more, and she gasped, feeling it in her blood and over her skin. When he reached down and brought her to the fullness of desire with his hand between her legs, her body shook and shuddered and contracted around him as her release began.

With his hands on her hips, he thrust a time or two more, and the seed began to spill deep inside her. He slid his hands into her hair then, gathering her curls and pulling her face down on his so that he could take her mouth as he took her body. She felt his release finish and would have climbed off his hips but for the voice behind them.

“I can think of a better use for the bitch’s mouth than that, Connor,” Diarmid said with a laugh.

She heard his heavy steps as he approached, but Connor held her in place as the lord of Mull walked around the bed. He touched her back near the place where the globes of her arse separated, and she pulled herself under control to avoid slapping his hand away. When he plunged his finger into the puckered opening there, she shuddered. Connor’s body stilled beneath hers, and his glance told of the need for inaction just then.

“Too tight to have been well used. A place you have been neglecting, Seer,” Diarmid said, sliding his finger out of her, but drawing it along the skin of her back, tracing her spine up to her neck. He stepped up next to the bed, bringing himself close enough to face her as she yet held Connor deep inside her.

“I told you, Diarmid,” Connor said, “I will not share her.”

“Why not? She must be a sturdy bitch, or, with the way you wear out women during this time before your visions, she should have been fucked to death by now and you should have moved on to another and another.” Diarmid canted his head and looked at them as they sat in the bed. “Anakol’s daughters arrived and were sent here. You refused them. Why do you keep only to this one? Is she so different from the others?” He reached for her breast.

“Send them to my farm to provide me pleasure when I visit there, my lord. And Dara would welcome the help.”

She could tell from the tone of his voice that it was a distraction—he’d told her of Diarmid’s way of finding women, some of whom he never laid eyes on and of whose fates he had no knowledge in his name. He said this to get these newest ones out of Diarmid’s clutches. “I will send word to expect their arrival, two days after the vision?”