Dragon's Moon (16 page)

“Nay.”

“You want to take off all of my clothes?” she asked in a small voice.

“They beat you all over.”

“Yes.”

He let her draw her own conclusions.

After a few moments of silence, she finally nodded, looking away. “Very well.”

“I do not do this to embarrass you, little one.”

“I believe you.” But she still kept her gaze averted.

His eagle wanted to comfort her. “Perhaps I should bring Abigail in after all.”

After all she had been through, Mairi deserved every consideration he could give to her.

That got Mairi looking at him, the panic in her face a kick to his gut. “No. Please. I would rather no one else witnessed my nudity.”

“But she is our lady, a healer as well.”

“And she will see my shame.”

“Your shame?” Being nude before him caused her to feel shame?

Tears filled Mairi's eyes. “The cuts, the bruises—the evidence my father and the man who was to take me to wed thought so little of me, they beat me with no care if I lived or died.”

“Oh, sweet one, the injuries to your person are their shame, not yours.” He brushed his hand over her shoulder, the need to comfort greater than any other craving in that moment.

The moisture in her eyes overfilled and slid down her temples. “It does not feel like it.”

“Mairi, you are beautiful, kind and sweet. You deserve to be protected, not hurt.” And he would protect her.

“I ran away. I embarrassed my father; I should have kept his promise on my behalf.”

“No.” Lais cupped her face, forcing her wet eyes to meet his. “You cannot honor the promises of a man who has no honor.”

“He said I was an unnatural daughter, that I was no use to him. He hates me.”

“He is an evil bastard that I would gladly eviscerate with my eagle's claws.”

Her drowning eyes widened.

And he could not stand it any longer. She was his, though he could never fully claim her. But he could let her see that she was valuable.

He lowered his mouth and kissed her softly; he would not hurt her. “My eagle wants to mate with you. You are not useless.”

He pulled back and she looked up at him sadly. “You don't want to mate me though, do you?”

“I cannot.”

She nodded. “I understand.” Though clearly she did not.

Lais took hold of her belt, intent on removing it. “Let me show you your value. Let me heal you.”

“All right.”

Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.

—H
ORACE

E
irik lifted Ciara down from Niall's hold and carried her into the cave, leaving the care of the horses to the warrior and his seneschal mate.

Her eyes were hazy and barely open, so he did not set her on her feet lest she fall right over.

“Why have you done this to yourself?” he asked her.

Some of her spirit ignited in her green gaze at that. “I do nothing to myself. I did not ask for these dreams that prevent my sleep, for visions that besiege me until my mind can no longer even think.”

“You fight them.”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“They only bring pain.”

“Because you fight them.”

“The last time I gave in to them, I lost a brother.” The sadness that filled the space between them squeezed at his own heart.

“You cannot—”

“Please, you said you can help me sleep. You can make the constant edge of worry leave me. Do it.
Please
.”

It would take a heart of stone to ignore the femwolf's pleas. She was desperate for rest of both her spirit and her body. He could give that to her.

“Hush. I will help.”

“Thank you.”

Niall came in then, carrying a pile of furs.

“Place them over there, in the center of the cave,” Eirik instructed the big, scarred warrior.

The cavern was large enough for Eirik to release his dragon in comfort and would provide space for the other warriors to rest in relative comfort as well. Not that their comfort was a priority for him, but Eirik was used to considering the needs of his people. This Faol and human had become his people upon his joining the Sinclair clan.

Niall laid out the furs. “You can really help her sleep?”

“I would not claim so if it were not true.”

The warrior grunted. “I will help Guaire settle the horses.”

Eirik nodded, his focus on laying the already dozing Ciara down among the furs.

She opened her eyes and met his gaze as he leaned over her. “My sleep does not go deep enough. I always wake.”

“You will not this night.”

“You promise?” she asked with a pain-filled hope.

“I do.”

He laid his hands on both sides of her head and concentrated on letting calming thoughts flow between them. She closed her eyes again, but remained tense.

She'd gone so long without real sleep, her beleaguered body had forgotten how to rest. He began to croon with the sounds of his dragon and a small smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

The temptation to press their lips together was too great to resist and he pressed a gentle kiss on her. She sighed against his lips, her body going lax.

And just like that, she'd fallen asleep.

Eirik wasted no time shifting into his dragon form, pulling the small human into his arms while his tail came
around to wrap over her legs. He ignored the sounds of Niall and Guaire preparing their own campsite behind his back.

His dragon knew them to be friend, not foe, so it was not bothered by the men's choice of camp spot. His raven had settled into sleep with the woman he considered his mate, already seeking out her dreams.

Eirik had not told the Sinclair that his gift was twofold and both the raven and dragon could influence Ciara's dreams. It was not necessary to share that information and he had not been sure it would be relevant regardless. In the past, his raven had only been able to enter the dreams of his family.

But as his dragon slipped into sleep as well, his power going out to shield Ciara from the
Faolchú Chridhe
that would call to her, his raven sought out Ciara's thoughts in sleep.

They were in a cottage, the bedchamber they entered not much larger than the bed a woman with gray hair slept upon. But she was not asleep. She was dead, the stench of dried and congealed blood too strong to mean anything else.

Eirik could feel Ciara's distress, the deep wound to her heart as she realized her mother had taken her own life.

This was not where Ciara's mind needed to go. Eirik's raven dug deeper into the dreamscape, seeking images of the woman on the bed in happier times. He found them, pulling them to the forefront, taking the dreaming Ciara to an afternoon learning to sew, her mother's hands guiding hers with gentle touches.

Suddenly the dream Ciara looked up and met Eirik's eyes. She knew he was there. She smiled and said, “Thank you.”

The cottage fell away and they were now in Ciara's bedchamber. She was in her bed, wearing nothing but her sleeveless shift to sleep in.

Once again she looked at him, this time her eyes not so grateful as wary. “I don't want to have another dream about you.”

“Do you dream about me?” he asked, thinking that probably he shouldn't.

“Yes. Dreams that make me ache.”

Another night he might give in to the temptation to share such a dream, but right now, this woman needed true rest.

“You will not ache, but will rest.” He crossed the room to her bed and knelt beside it. “Relax,
faolán
. I will let nothing harm you here and no dream will bedevil you, either.”

“Can I trust you?”

“Aye.”

“You killed my brother.”

“Aye.”

“Another Éan might have later, if he'd kept hunting them.”

God willing. Yes. Though this, Eirik's dream self did not say aloud.

Ciara sighed. “I loved him. So much. He told me he was glad I was a little sister, even when father was sad I was not a son.”

“He had some wisdom then.”

She smiled, her eyes closing slowly. “Yes, some wisdom. And a warm heart…when we were younger.”

Peace stole over her countenance and then she was asleep. Truly asleep.

Knowing it could do no harm and would probably help, Eirik's dream self climbed onto her narrow bed beside her and took Ciara into his arms. She sighed, turned over and nuzzled into him as if seeking shelter in his arms.

Clearly she found it, because she did not waken again.

L
ais was careful as he removed first Mairi's plaid and then the blouse and shift beneath it.

She whimpered when he had to lift her arm to remove the blouse, but bit her lip and kept the sound inside as he gently tugged her shift up her body and off. She was a tiny thing, but her curves were generous. He had to swallow back a moan as first the golden curls between her thighs came into sight and then the pretty pink tips of her breasts.

They tightened in the air, but his libido could not compete with his horror at the sight of so much damage done to
her fragile body. The fist-sized bruises marring her beautiful pale skin made bile rise in his throat even as fury rose to match it.

The MacLeod would pay.

This…this horrific evidence of abuse was
after
their healing session the night before.

She turned her head away. “I know they are ugly.”

“Aye.”

She flinched.

“But you? Mairi, lass, you are beautiful.”

She gasped and met his gaze. He let the heat he felt at the sight of her nudity, despite all, fill his.

“You find me attractive, even though you do not want me for a mate?”

“'Tis not a matter of want, it is what I can and cannot have. I cannot have you.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps one day I will tell you.” But not this day, not when he needed her open to him and his touch to effect her recovery.

“Do you have to lay your hands on me to heal me?”

“You know I do.”

“I am afraid.”

“Of being healed?” That made no sense.

“Of how I will respond to your touch.” She looked away again, her body tensing. “I do not know if I can control my reactions.”

Her artless desire and honesty about it would be his undoing.

“I have enough self-control for both of us,” he claimed with confidence he did not feel.

Not with the way his sex was trying to rise under his plaid. The pleated tartan hid more than the leather hunter's kilt common among the Éan, but it couldn't hide a full erection.

And he was afraid that was exactly where he was headed.

Innocently unaware of his body's desire, Mairi looked at him with absolute trust. “Thank you.”

He nodded and then laid one hand over a particularly
nasty bruise on her arm. He'd thought the bone might be broken the night before and had sent healing energy to it, but the injury still looked bad. He took up his amber crystal and pressed it very lightly against the center of the purple bruise.

He released his Chrechte spirit into her, the skin below his growing warm and he could see the wound without even focusing on his inner eye now. There was a crack in the bone and he concentrated on mending it.

She whimpered.

He looked up from the wound to her face. “It hurts?”

No one had ever complained of such before. Patients had remarked on the heat and even a tingling sensation, but never complained of pain.

She shook her head, an expression of desperation in her eyes. And then he smelled it. Her arousal. She was reacting to the spirit of his eagle even as Lais attended to her wounds.

“It is all right,” he promised.

“Is it?”

“Aye.”

“But I want things I should not. You are helping me and my mind is taking me to a different place a virtuous woman would not go.”

“Nay, you have little choice,” he assured her. “You are reacting to my eagle.”

She breathed out a small laugh, though it clearly pained her. “I'm fairly certain it is not your bird that I want to touch me in unmentionable places.”

Unable to stifle the desire to touch, he brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek. “You are truly unique, Mairi.” Her humor in what had to be a very uncomfortable situation made him like her all the more. “Remember, my spirit is entering your body through my Chrechte gift.” And his eagle wanted her for a mate. “You are merely responding to it.”

“Do all your patients react thusly? That cannot be comfortable for you.”

“No.”

“No, they do not, or no, it is not comfortable?”

“They do not.”

“Have any?” she pressed.

“No.”

“So, this attraction is unique.” She gave a small nod, though he could tell she was careful not to strain muscles that did not want to stretch.

“Yes.”