A Warrior's Heart Read online

  “Oi,” she said, turning her head and spitting it out. “Who has been doing the cooking then?”

  All faces turned to Ian, who looked rather red about the face. She glared at him for a moment, then snatched up a bow and glided toward the woods.

  The boys watched her go.

  “Do ye ken what this means?” Cameron whispered excitedly. “We have our squire back!”

  Wide grins transformed their tired faces.

  *

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sean asked as he looked down toward the others. Bellies now full, Brighid was heating water to tend to their injuries. The lads who had done everything to torment her were now lined up like lovesick pups for her care.

  Roran grunted.

  “Right,” Sean mumbled, hearing a complete and long-winded response instead. “It does not make sense to backtrack several days to the last village, and there really is not another for some distance. She would probably just follow us anyway. I suppose this is the safest and most logical place for her.”

  He watched as Lachlan carried more firewood toward the fire and Rhys gathered the dishes to take down to the creek. Brighid was smoothing some sort of salve on Kieran’s forearm and wrapping strips of rag around it.

  “And I daresay ‘twas good to eat a decent meal again,” Sean rambled on. “Jesu, but the woman has a way with seasoning.”

  Kieran thanked Brighid, then got up to help the others. At that moment she turned and looked at the knights, or really, one knight in particular. There was no denying the way her features softened when she looked at Roran.

  Sean sighed heavily. “You are keeping her, then?”

  “Aye,” Roran answered roughly.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brighid was waiting quietly in the corner of the tent when Roran entered, freshly washed from the stream. She raised her eyes to him, but said nothing. Her eyes revealed nothing. Had she seriously considered his offer? Would she agree to share his bed?

  His heart pounded against the inner walls of his chest as he stood there, silently asking those questions. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do if she chose not to, besides endeavor to change her mind on the matter.

  When she stood and began to unbutton her shirt, he held his breath. And when she dropped it to the ground, revealing those lush, full breasts and the tiny triangle of dark curls to him, he stopped breathing entirely.

  “Come,” he said roughly, as he began to undress. His cock was already as hard as the drought-parched soil in Donatirim.

  Brighid made her way slowly across the tent, her eyes drinking in every inch of flesh as he revealed it. When he dropped his trews and she saw his manhood jutting out proud and glistening at the tip, she inhaled sharply.

  He saw the fear in her eyes, but he saw hunger, too. “Come,” he repeated, holding out his hand to her, silently breathing a sigh of relief when she took it.

  He led her over to the nest of blankets, guiding her to lay down upon them. He took his time looking at her, drinking his fill, committing each luscious curve and swell to memory. Going to his knees beside her, he reached out to touch her gently, calloused hands against soft, creamy skin.

  He took his time, learning every inch with his hands.

  Then he used his mouth.

  His lips were firm and demanding, his tongue wicked as he tasted her flesh. He began with her mouth, worked his way along her jaw, down her neck. He licked at her collarbone, groaning in delight with each breathy moan he coaxed from her.

  She arched upward with a near silent whimper as he greedily sucked a hardened nipple into his mouth, caressing the other with his palm. The other hand slid down to the V of tiny curls guarding the very core of her, groaning again when he felt the slick wetness upon his fingertips.

  He palmed her mound, extending one long tapered finger down until it found her entrance and pushed inside. It took only a few seconds to find that which he had been searching for.

  Her maidenhead was still intact; his pixie was yet a virgin. The discovery made him both ecstatic and disappointed. Ecstatic, because he would be the first man she would ever know. Disappointed, because he had no wish to hurt her.

  But he didn’t have to hurt her tonight, he reminded himself. He could pleasure her without stealing her innocence, and at that moment, that was more important to him than finding his own release at such a great cost to her.

  She whimpered beneath him as his long skilled fingers caressed that most intimate part of her. He stroked, he teased, he penetrated repeatedly, ever changing his onslaught, his eyes never leaving her face. He knew she was close when her thighs squeezed together over his hand and he saw the fear in her eyes. His heart ached.

  “’Tis alright, Brighid. Fall into it, sweetling, and I will catch you.”

  His finger curved up inside her and stroked her with quick, pulsating taps even as his thumb rhythmically pulled at her swollen nub. Her entire body tightened, her eyes grew huge, and her lips parted as she gasped. Roran leaned over her and took her mouth, capturing the screams meant for him and him alone as her small, lithe body seized in climax.

  “That’s it, sweetling,” he breathed, his strokes gentler now. “I’ve got you.”

  She looked at him again, and it was nearly his undoing. He could not look into those eyes and face what was there, not yet.

  “I am going to taste you, my Brighid, drink of the honey your body has spilled for me.”

  Roran kissed and licked his way down her body, pausing to suckle her luscious breasts, small but lush, the perfect size for his palms. She arched beneath him as he tugged at her nipples with his teeth, then licked over the sting and blew a cool breath over them. His eyes glittered as he watched them pucker and strain for his attention.

  She was so responsive to his touch, his every kiss. Never had he been so attuned to a woman’s pleasure as he was to hers.

  Never had he needed a woman’s pleasure so desperately.

  By the time his mouth kissed her netherlips, his cock was throbbing with need and weeping with the desire to seed the most womanly part of her, but he forced the reins on his control even tighter.

  She tasted like fine honey, the sweetest nectar. Her lips were pink and swollen, glistening with the cream her body spilled for him, preparing her for his possession. He wasn’t nearly satisfied when she tensed again and climaxed on his tongue.

  Roran growled, abandoning his plan to spare her. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t wait any longer. This woman, with her keening whimpers of need, had driven him farther than he thought possible. Before she had even finished shuddering from her latest orgasm he drew his body over hers.

  Poised at her entrance, Roran took both of her small hands in one of his and held them above her head. “You are mine,” he whispered huskily. Then he covered her mouth and plunged deep inside her.

  She cried out as her sheath protested the sudden invasion, but he caught it with his mouth, muffling it greatly. Roran held himself still, and looked into her eyes.

  “Ssshhh,” he soothed, wiping away the tears with the thumb of his free hand. The horror of causing her pain was only surpassed by the knowledge that she was now fully his, and he was never letting her go.

  “The pain will not last, sweetling, I vow it. Look into my eyes and know that I am inside you. My body is joined with yours, and together we will know more pleasure than you have ever dreamed of.”

  The trust in her eyes was exactly what he needed to see. Slowly, carefully, he began to move. After several small, gentle strokes, her body began to soften again.

  “That’s it, sweetling. Feel me inside you. I have claimed your innocence for my own, and you belong to me. Only me. ”

  Roran released her hands; she immediately wrapped them around him, her tiny claws digging into his back as she struggled to hang on. Her legs wrapped around his lean hips in an attempt to make him go deeper, harder, a request he was only too willing to oblige. Sweat poured off his chest onto her as he struggled t
o hold himself back for just a little longer.

  Brighid’s eyes rolled back in her head even as her mouth opened in a silent scream. Her sheath flexed and rippled around his cock, working him like a tight, pumping fist. He clenched his jaw as his balls constricted and shot the first powerful jets of seed into her. He continued to pump into her perfect body, marking her, branding her. And still he came.

  An eternity later, he nearly collapsed beside her. His cock remained inside her, holding his seed deep. “Mine,” he growled possessively, but Brighid didn’t hear him. She had already succumbed to the fatigue of her pleasure. Roran pulled the blankets over them before following her into the darkness.

  ––––––––

  “You know nothing about her,” Sean pointed out the next morning as he watched Brighid move tenderly about the fire. Roran grunted. His eyes were like that of a hawk’s as he followed her every movement, the look on his face one of pure male possession.

  “I know more about her than you do about the women you take to your bed.”

  Sean looked at the intensity of Roran’s expression. “But she is not just a one-time fuck, is she?”

  This time Roran growled his answer. “No. She is mine.”

  “Will you listen to yourself?” Sean said, disturbed. “You speak as if you plan to wed her.”

  Roran turned glowing eyes on his long-time friend.

  “Jesu! You do!”

  “In all the ways that matter, she is already my wife,” Roran told him, his eyes once again seeking her out. “I have pledged myself to her. I have given her my seed. Repeatedly. Even now it may be quickening deep in her womb.”

  “Roran,” Sean groaned, shaking his head in disbelief. “You cannot make that kind of decision so quickly, and especially not when you are feeling overly stressed.”

  Stressed? Roran had never felt less stressed in his life. He felt more like a great cat, languidly stretched out on his rocky perch, lazily watching everything below while the sun warmed him.

  “I can and I have.”

  “And her? Does she share your conviction?”

  Roran remained silent. Did she? It didn’t matter. Brighid was his. Bound to him by blood, she wore his mark upon her arm and her womb. If it had not reached her heart yet, it would.

  *

  The lads once shunned her because they thought she was a boy that they hated. Now they shunned her because Roran was always there, watching, waiting.

  “They willnae even speak to me,” she complained one night in bed. She had taken his full measure yet again, curling her fingers in his hair lovingly. “They fear ye will gut them if they do.”

  Roran grunted and suckled her breasts. “You are mine,” he said, his words muffled by her flesh.

  “Aye. And they ken it.”

  Roran looked up. “You agree that you are mine?”

  “Weel, of course. I am here, am I not?”

  He took a breath. “But do you want to be?”

  Brighid looked into his eyes, and for the first time she saw the fear, the uncertainty in them. It seemed impossible to believe that this incredibly brave, strong man could be afraid of anything. It touched her heart more than any words, any gift could have.

  She cupped his face with her hands. “Aye, Roran. God help me, but I do.”

  *

  He kissed her long and passionately, but he could feel the undercurrent there. “What is it you hold back from me, sweetling?” even as he slid back into her warm, welcoming depths. As wonderful as joining was with her, he could never get enough. And, he rationalized, if he was inside her, perhaps he could battle her demons more effectively.

  Brighid moaned softly, greeting his cock with a squeeze that had him ready to spill after a single stroke like an untried youngling. “How can ye ask me this now?”

  It made him chuckle, but he understood the truth of it all too well. When joined with her, it was impossible to see past the scorching bliss. He rolled his hips in a blinding rhythm, a straightforward and simple loving, but no less powerful for its lack of creativity. As she tightened around him and he emptied inside her, he rained the softest of kisses upon her face.

  “Tell me what still stands between us, sweetling, and I will smite it.”

  She smiled at that, the smile of a very tired but well-loved woman before her brows creased again. “I doona ken what I will find when we reach Scamallhaven, Roran. I ken nothing of my origins.” She caressed his face. “’Tis likely I will discover I am far below such a grand knight of the king’s service, and then what shall I do?”

  Power, wealth, prestige – those things meant little to Roran – but he understood her concern. The King’s Court was built upon intricate layers of protocol. Men had significantly more options than women. Orphaned rats like him could make something of themselves, as he had.

  It was different for women. A female’s bloodline defined nearly every aspect of her life – where she lived, what she ate, what job she could perform (if any), who she could marry. Being a knight and a warrior, Roran was away from the palace more often than he was in it, so he counted himself among the fortunate few able to ignore such things. Training, travelling, and fighting were the same for any man, regardless of his lineage. ‘Twas the heart of a man that mattered more than his purse. Roran had no patience for those who considered themselves better than others because of whose loins from which they had sprung.

  But if he had gotten Brighid with child – his heart swelled at the thought – it might become an issue. Offering false hope that it might be otherwise would not change the truth.

  “Tell me what you do know.”

  “’Tis very little, I’m afraid. My first memories are of a convent, an order of strict Sisters avowed to silence and poverty. From what I have gleaned, someone had left me upon their doorstep, verra wee and ill.”

  “How old were you?”

  “About three summers, I think, though I cannae be sure.”

  He nodded. Brighid had told him that she thought she was around nineteen, so that would put her arrival at the convent around sixteen years prior. A timeline might help him assemble some of the pieces together.

  “I didnae like the Sisters. They healed me weel enough, but they were cold and cruel, and from dawn te nightfall I was forced te either work or pray. By the time I was around ten or so I couldnae take it any longer. So I hid in the woods and caught a ride with a passing caravan of merchants.”

  “Ten?” It hurt to think of her so young, so small, on her own.

  She nodded. “Along the way I met Coinin. He was alone, just like me, but younger, so we began to travel together. We picked up a few more. As I came into womanhood, it became harder to remain unnoticed, and the attention I was getting was not welcome. It was Coinin who first came up with the idea of pretending te be a lad, and it worked. Over the years we made our way out te Donatirim.”

  “So what made you think you would find the answers you sought in Scamallhaven?”

  “Ye,” she answered honestly. “When I saw the symbols upon yer cloaks, they were familiar te me, ye see. When I was found by the Sisters, I was wearing this.” Brighid reached up to her neck and pulled forth a pendant from the back of her neck. Roran looked at it intently. He had vaguely noticed the small leather cord around her slim neck, but had never paid much attention to it before. The symbol he saw now had him drawing in breath. It was a fine piece, but simple.

  And very familiar.

  “That is the personal crest of King Aedan.” It was slightly different than the royal crest that all warriors wore, however. Clutched within the talons of one claw, the dragon held a harp. Only those closest to the king were permitted the privilege of wearing it.

  “So I have reasoned. I learned a long time ago te keep it hidden, for though I knew not its meaning, its value became known quite earlier on.” When people saw it, their eyes tended to go wide and they’d get a greedy look about them that did not bode well. “The trick became te try te learn what it was about it tha
t riled folk so without revealing it. Not an easy task.”

  “So when you saw it on Sean and me...”

  “I kenned ye might have the answers I sought.”

  “Why did you not approach us?”

  “And what? Pull it from about my neck and show it to ye?” She looked at him as if he should have known better. “Ye would have taken me for a thief.”

  Roran frowned. Unfortunately, she was right. Recalling his initial impressions, he would not have believed the pendant was rightfully hers.

  “I doona ken how I came te have this,” she said, “but it is a key te my past, I am sure of it.”

  *

  “It is genuine?” Sean asked, sharing Roran’s concern. He knew as well as Roran that very few were afforded the privilege of wearing the king’s personal crest. It was generally reserved for knights of the highest order (like Roran and Sean), and family.

  “Aye.” Roran rubbed at his eyes. He had examined it closely. Jewelry fashioned for the royal family was crafted exclusively from a unique and particular black tourmaline and set in silver. There was little chance Brighid’s pendant was a forgery. That thought, he knew, haunted Sean as well.

  “Could it have once belonged to Aibhilin?” Sean asked quietly, speaking the name as a whisper, a sign of just how rarely spoken the name was. Aibhilin. Little Eve. The much beloved daughter of the king who had disappeared without a trace nearly two decades earlier. Roran had been just a beardless lad then, but they all knew the story of how the princess had vanished from the castle on the eve of her wedding, never to be seen or heard from again.

  “Aye,” Roran breathed heavily. It was the only plausible explanation; the pendant Brighid wore would never have been given to an outsider. He shared Brighid’s story with Sean as succinctly as possible, though there were few details with which to embellish.

  “Do you realize what this means?” Sean asked quietly. “If Brighid is telling the truth, then we might have the first lead into the princess’s mysterious disappearance in nearly two decades.” He looked pointedly at Roran. “Do you believe her? Her presence here was founded on falsehoods, and not wee fibs, either. Why trust her now?”