A Storm of Passion (7 page)

She said nothing, though more likely from shock and terror than from the wisdom of understanding her precarious position in the drama that played out around them. Connor poured another cup, this one for himself, and sipped it slowly.

Knowing his weakness did not for one moment lessen the desire pulsing through him or his need to seek satisfaction for the growing need within, but he fought to ignore it for now. But the power within grew and pushed out that scent again, drawing women to answer its call and fill his needs. He watched as she fought it, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes, even while he watched her nipples harden under her gown and tunic and her breathing grow labored and heated. Her head fell back against the wall, and she arched as though he touched her.

As she had when he’d touched her. He knew she would be wet and hot and would open for him—the scent at its strongest would allay any of her objections. His cock was ready, too, long and hard and eager to find her heat and sate its hunger for female flesh. Connor’s head ached, and his body throbbed as he took a step toward her. Chained or not, willing or not, the power surged and would make it happen between them. Only the soft knock on the door stopped him on his path to take her.

“My lord?” a woman said through the barrier. “May I serve you?”

It was the young one, the one Ranald had thought was Moira, who stood there offering herself to his hunger. She seemed the most affected by his scent, and she always responded the quickest of any woman in the keep who felt the urge to couple with him. Connor knew that she would be naked under a cloak, her eyes filled with a dreamy vagueness and her body ready and willing for him to use as he pleased, as he needed.

He raised his gaze to the woman chained to his wall and met her eyes then. Clear and bright, they were, and filled with control and a bit of hatred. She’d thrown off whatever effects the scent caused again, as no other woman had ever done. Her expression told him she would fight him, and a pleasurable taking would become something violent and ugly between them.

He had never done that and never would.

Connor walked to the door and pulled it open, only a bit, but enough for the girl to gain entrance before he could refuse her offer. By the time he could say anything, she dropped her cloak as he had known she would and knelt in front of him. Her quick, skillful hands had his belt and his trews loosened and his cock in them in only moments. The loud gasp startled him back to the woman standing chained to his wall.

The woman he craved more than any other. The one who could control her own desires even when his powers surged, demanding her surrender. The one who could offer him an easing of the punishing torment after his visions left him blind and empty.

Connor peeled the girl’s hands from his cock and tugged her to stand. Leaning down, he grabbed her cloak and covered her with it. Tugging the door open, he gently pushed her out with a nod to the ever-present guard to show her away. By the time he closed the door, Moira had slid down to sit on the floor and would not meet his gaze.

Having several women in his bed was not a usual way for him, but he had done it before and enjoyed it. Having Moira watch while another woman pleasured him, though, was something he did not want to do. The times he’d thought about her while someone else tended his needs left him feeling unsatisfied and never brought the level of satiation he needed to ease the urges within.

Connor leaned against the door and spoke to her, all the while slipping his hand inside his trews to gain some measure of relief.

“’Tis you I want, Moira,” he whispered to her. “I searched for you after you left my bed, and none has been able to do what you did for me.”

She stared at him as he continued stroking himself, seeking not pleasure as much as relief from the constant urgings in his blood. Closing his eyes then, he sought an end to the excruciating need that plagued him relentlessly, even while knowing that it would return to plague him again and again until his visions struck and drained him of everything good, leaving only pain behind. He exploded into his own hand, the act not bringing him anything but some moments of respite.

He cleaned himself quickly, knowing he must get out of there without seeing the disgust that would surely color her expression now after she saw how low he sank into depravity. Luckily, the bell for the noon meal rang, and he could answer its call and escape. Tying his trews and belt, he asked only one question of her.

“Was Gillis involved in this?”

She paused for a moment only. “Nay, he is innocent of my actions.” Her voice shook then. “Can you help him?”

He did turn then to see if feelings for this other man were written on her face, but he found only worry there. “You are his woman?” he asked.

“Nay, Seer, I am no man’s.” She must have understood he was trying to find out what lay between them for she shook her head and spoke again. “If you could help him, I would…I would do what you need.”

The offer was an empty one, Connor knew, for Diarmid most likely had found him already. “You bargain so easily for his life; will you offer me the same bargain if I spare yours?”

She did hesitate then, and he took her answer as no. Disappointment filled him, for he knew it would be no easy thing to get her in his bed without her consent, and now, having heard too much and seen too much, she would never give it.

Connor turned and walked out. He would learn what he could about the fate of Gillis, but Diarmid’s mercy would never extend to a man who aided a murderess in gaining a place in the keep. Gillis’s only hope was if he were well away from Mull by now.

He turned in the corner stairway on his way to the noon meal and waited for the man to catch up. As this man was one of few he would allow to see his face and know his plans, he could trust no other with the task at hand.

“Young Gillis has become a liability to us,” he said quietly. “Do you still have him hidden away?”

“Aye, my lord,” the man replied. “As you ordered.”

He’d known Gillis’s identity and link to the woman Ceanna would be revealed to Diarmid. Diarmid had a network of spies and informants among his people and throughout Mull and the isles that was unsurpassed by any other lord, be they earl or king. Men who strove for higher than their place could always be counted on for such excellence in knowledge gathering and strategy. And his brother strove for much higher than his birth should allow him to climb.

Now, it was too much of a risk to allow Gillis to remain with his knowledge of their plot. Diarmid’s torturers would get information from him, and he could not allow it to be their plans that were revealed.

“I think Gillis must leave the keep now,” he said, ordering the man’s death as easily as he asked for a cup of ale with his meal. “Diarmid’s men cannot be allowed to capture him alive. Do you understand, Ivar?”

“Aye, my lord. And the woman?” he asked.

Their plan to have the crowds do their work for them had failed, for Connor’s men had expected such trouble and were prepared for it. They’d managed to get her to the keep with only some superficial wounds and nothing that would take care of her. Still, he thought she might be useful later, so he did not need to follow through with any other action against her…for now.

“Leave her to me, Ivar.”

Ivar bowed, and their paths diverged as they reached the lower floor. He fought the urge to rub his hands together in unseemly glee at the turn of things; he would give in to such childish satisfactions only when everything was accomplished. Then, he would shout it from the battlements.

Diarmid is dead.

Long live Steinar, true lord of this isle.

T
he next several days passed quickly for her. Although he slept there in his chambers each night, she saw little of him during the days. Where he went and what he did, no one said, but he would arrive back well after dark and leave at first light.

The Seer also grew more and more agitated as the days passed and the visions grew closer, though he never asked to take her to his bed. She would spy him staring at her, lust filling his dark green eyes, and notice the heat in the chamber rise, along with that strange scent, but as long as she put her mind to it, it did not affect her as it had that first time.

Some items had appeared in her prison corner, a stool on which to sit, a comb and a woolen shawl, even another gown and stockings and a pair of shoes to replace the ones lost when she arrived here. Fairly strange, yet kind, treatment of a prisoner, but she accepted it.

Only Breac and Agnes were permitted in his chambers alone with her. For some reason, the Seer never allowed Ranald to be alone there. Moira knew he was Diarmid’s man, but sensed some loyalty within him for the man he served.

They all called her Ceanna, and for now no one suspected that she was the one sought out by the Seer as Moira. She wanted to ask him about that, but did not, fearing the answer she would get.

No word had made it into her seclusion about Gillis, so she could only pray he’d escaped Diarmid’s rough justice and made it back to the mainland. His only sin had been to fall for her sad story and to give her a place to live and sleep. Her favors, such as they were, were not a good exchange for his life, which she knew he would forfeit on her account if caught.

The day of the Seer’s visions arrived, with the fullness of the moon, and his chambers were transformed in a receiving room. The bed and the screen that separated it from the rest of the chambers were pushed closer to the wall to allow more observers to see the proceedings. Her few belongings were shoved under the bed and her stool taken away, forcing her to stand against the wall to watch. A guard had been ordered to stand at her side, and she recognized Ennis as he took his place there, forbidden by the Seer to leave until the chambers were cleared after his vision.

He’d eaten only at midday, she noticed, and had spent hours pacing around the chamber since then. Last month, she’d not seen this part of it, as she had been hiding beneath his bed until all was clear. The Seer spoke to no one as the crowd entered, first standing in the far corner, staring off at nothing, and then sitting on his chair.

Lord Diarmid arrived and escorted several men she knew not. He directed them to places close to the Seer’s chair, so she suspected one of them would be the recipients of the vision today. He left them, walking in her direction, and not even Ennis would be able to stop him if he chose to approach her.

Which he did.

Moira tried to remain calm, but Diarmid played on her fears as only an expert could.

“Obviously, Connor has not followed my methods after all. You can still stand up straight.”

She fought not to tremble before him.

“I told him how much you like the whip and cane while being fucked,” he said in a low and ominous voice so only she could hear it. “I offered to show him how to make you scream and weep.”

She turned her face away, but he moved nearer. Standing closer now and blocking his movements with his height and bulk, he pushed his hand between her legs and rubbed hard against her.

“See, over there,” he nodded toward the door with his head, never taking his hand away. “They are so ready for you that they drool at the mention of your name, Ceanna.”

She knew whom he meant and would not give him the satisfaction of turning to look. He pushed his fist in harder until she gave in and turned her head. One of the men made an obscene gesture with his hand, and the other laughed at it.

“I am told you are not pleasuring my Seer. Once he tires of your refusals, you belong to me.”

“My lord?” Ranald called out then, surprising both of them with his interruption. “He is ready.”

Diarmid dropped his hand and straightened his shoulders back, gaining his full height and looking every bit the warlord and master of the lands that he was.

“Seer, who would you speak to first?” he asked as he walked to the center of the room.

Moira let out the breath she was holding and fought to stay upright. Sweat poured down the edges of her face and down her neck and back from the reminder of what had been stopped that day. No matter how calmly she’d brushed off Dara’s concerns about her condition after Connor’s intervention, she would never survive what Diarmid’s men planned to do to her next.

Rubbing the sweat from her brow with the back of her sleeve, she noticed the terrible shaking in her hands and clasped them together in front of her. She was such a fool!

If all it took to keep her in the safety, such that it was, of the Seer’s chambers was for her to pleasure him, then that was what she must do. It would be no different than that time months before and no different than the dozens before him. That day in his bed had been nothing to fear and one she could repeat, once her leg healed more. Right now, she could not move with the ease she needed to repeat what gave him such pleasure before. Soon though…

Everyone grew quiet as, one by one, the men chosen by Diarmid walked up to the Seer and held out their hands to him. After hearing about this, Moira watched now to see how the visions would come. ’Twas the fourth man introduced to him that caused the change to happen. Luckily, she was tall for a woman and could see over most of their observers’ heads to the raised chair where he sat.

His body grew rigid and then shook for several seconds before calming. The Seer’s head fell back, and he mumbled something she could not understand, tossing his head side to side until he sat straight in the chair once more. Now he seemed to fill with an unexplained strength and vitality; his face radiated some force from deep within. But it was his eyes that changed the most.

Moira had seen the final step of this, when the fires of hell would engulf his eyes and they would burn without extinguishing for hours, but this was different and seemed to cause him no pain. The darkest part of his eyes changed and whitened, while the green circles resembled the strange green curtains of light that sometimes lit the night sky, flickering and moving as though alive. He grasped the man’s hand tighter and pulled him close.

“What truth do you seek from me?” he asked in a voice not his own.

Moira shivered at the spectacle—some power not of this world was using him now, and she tried not to watch. But her eyes remained locked on him as he transformed yet again. This time, his face smoothed and appeared younger, without any sign of the torment or despair she’d witnessed there this last sennight. If she could believe what she was seeing, he began to resemble someone else, someone less physical and more…something other than human. She shook her head, not ready to accept what her eyes could see.

Ranald approached from his other side and placed a slate tablet on the flat arm of the chair and a piece of chalk into his hand. The man chosen now shook visibly as he tried to speak his request. It took him three times to get the words out.

“My lands are plagued by outlaws. They kill my cattle, steal my slaves, and destroy my crops. Tell me where to find them so that my lands will once again be safe.”

The Seer raised his head and stared in her direction, though she could tell his human eyes saw nothing at all, for they were gone. The glowing ones looked far past her and even past this chamber now and the walls surrounding them, seeing with a power only bards spoke of in their stories of those touched by the Sith. Something otherworldly had touched the Seer and given him the ability to see the truth, wherever it lay.

The man came not from Mull, but from one of the smaller isles to the north. The Seer began to describe the lands and the coastlines, and then he told of caves hidden from view on the southern shore of the man’s lands. His left hand moved over the slate, drawing a map as he explained the route the man must take to stay out of view and attack unseen. His right hand never moved from the man’s grasp as he spoke of places the man, but no one else, recognized. It went on for some minutes, until the Seer released his grip and freed the man.

Moira waited for the next change, for by the time she’d crept from her hiding place he’d lost this otherworldly appearance completely. As she watched now, his face and body became his own, bit by bit, until the power slid away, leaving an exhausted man behind. When she squinted to get a better view of his eyes, she could not, for he closed them tightly and nodded to the man who thanked him for the information he’d been given.

Ranald stepped forward, at his side, and managed to clear the chambers within a mere minute or two, leaving only the Seer and her alone there. Even hating him as she did, knowing what would come now was not easy. He slid from his chair to his knees and crumpled over in pain as the terrible price of his visions hit him.

It seemed to last an eternity, pain tearing through his body and his eyes. She watched as he fought against it, not allowing himself to scream out the anguish so obvious to her. Moira bit her own tongue, trying not to cry out for help. Wave after wave, it struck him over and over. When she thought it finished, it began anew, longer this time than the one she’d heard here last month.

He rolled now on the floor, the expensive rugs softening some of the hardness beneath him, every part of him spasming, as he clutched his head and then pressed his palms against his eyes as though it helped. Once he opened them as he struggled, and the strange green light filled the room. Moira threw her arms up around her head to block the sounds and sight of his suffering and slid down along the wall until she sat with her good leg bent, leaning against it to protect her face from the scene before her.

His struggles lessened, and the sound of him fighting the pain ceased, leaving only his body on the floor in the middle of the room. She raised her head and watched as he took in one hitching breath after another. Minutes passed before his breathing eased into something less strained. Still, he kept his eyes shut tightly and his hands pressed against them.

Finally, he quieted and lay unmoving on the floor.

Now it was her time to force a breath or two into her own body, for the tenseness of watching him suffer was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, and she hoped to never experience it again. This was not the way she pictured the vision happening or the aftermath of it. It wasn’t until she lifted her face that she realized tears poured down her cheeks.

She cried for the Seer.

Nay! She could allow herself no sympathy for the man who caused the massacre of her family and countless others.

Moira dashed away the tears and tried to find her anger and her hatred. Instead, all she could draw from within was pity. Pity for a man cursed, not blessed as she first thought. Cursed by something he could not control and tortured as its price.

Damn him for making her feel anything for him! She’d lived for too long without those other feelings clouding her thoughts and distracting her from her one purpose, and she’d be damned if she would soften now because he suffered. He deserved to suffer this and more for what he’d done.

Rubbing her face with her sleeve to remove any sign of her tears, she watched as he pushed himself onto his knees and then onto his feet. Wobbling and staggering, she thought he would fall more than once before he gained some sense of balance.

“Ceanna?” he whispered, turning toward one side of the room and then the other.

She shook her head, unable to say a word in reply.

“Moira?” he asked again, tilting his head to one side and waiting for her to speak. “Can you hear me?”

“Aye,” she finally answered. He lifted his head and looked around the chambers as though he could not tell where she was.

“Speak again, Moira,” he pled in a low voice. “I cannot find you.”

Her head shook on its own as she realized the reason for it. Denying it did not make it a lie, and when he opened his eyes then and she saw the terrible burning there, she knew the darkest secret of all.

The Seer was blinded by the visions he conjured!

She must have gasped for he began to walk toward her, hands spread as he tried to get his bearings. He did not know how close she was or what lay in his path, for he tripped on the edge of a table and landed hard into the wall. When he would have walked into the screen, she called out to him.

“Seer,” she said. “The screen lies in front of you.”

He nodded then, seemed to know where he stood, and then eased his way along the screen until he found the end and stumbled to the bed. Guiding himself along the edge, he climbed on it and lifted a piece of wool left there by Ranald.

Stunned by all of it, she could only watch now as he tied the strip around his head, hiding the truth of his burning, blind eyes from anyone who might enter. He did not lie down as much as he collapsed on the bed, and she feared, nay thought, he might have fainted from the pain. It was only his hoarse voice that told her he was yet awake.

“Moira…”

He said it once and then made no more sounds at all.

Connor could sense her terror rather than see it or hear it. No one, not even Ranald, had seen the full aftermath of the visions since it had become this bad. He did not know if she’d realized the extent of the punishment his body took, but she’d heard it last time. This time, she witnessed the entire process.

First she was witness to his weakness of the flesh and now to the weakness in his body and soul.

His strength seeped away, and he could do nothing but lie silently and try to let sleep take him now. He would have laughed at the irony that struck him about this situation: he finally had her in his grasp and could not raise a finger. The visions burned the sight from his eyes and the desire from his blood, and it was the only time his body was at peace.

Except when he was deep within her.

Had it been just a dream? Had he only imagined that the pain and burning had lessened after he’d worn himself out on her body, or had it truly been different three months ago? What was her part in this, and did she hold the truth of it even now?