The Fae Ring (20 page)

Xander was trapped in the Human Realm.

“Alana—”

“Give me a moment, Duncan. Please.”

The large man uttered what sounded like a growl, but soon Xander heard the door to his quarters shut.

“Xander, I never thought I’d have to call you a fool, but you are
worse
than that, cousin.” Alana whirled on him, hands on her hips. Gone was the false calm she’d offered Duncan. Her violet eyes flashed, and a scowl marred her pretty face. “You march down that hall, tell that lass you’re sorry and assure her you’ll be at your wedding on the morrow.”

“Wedding?” Mixed emotions hit him in the chest and he fought the urge to crush his eyes shut.

That explains the presence of the priest.

“Aye. Did you not see Father Bartholomew in the hall? Mairi and I have it all planned. As a surprise for you both, as well as to appease Duncan and Alex, because I know damn well Janet is no longer a maid.” Her un-princess-like curse should’ve jarred him, but it didn’t.

Xander mustered a smirk. “How are you so sure?”

Alana gave him a long look. “She told me. Besides, I sense the completed bond. But shutting out magic is not good. It feels wrong, Xander.”

He waved his hand. “All is well.”

“All is
not
well. My sister-by-marriage is sobbing. My cousin, her
fated
mate has rejected her. What if she carries your child?”

Xander startled. “Does she? Your magic can sense it.”

Alana frowned. “I have not tried to sense it. It does not matter, cousin. You’re crushing her heart.”

“Her heart?” Xander closed his eyes. If his cousin’s empathic magic had sensed something, he didn’t want to know.

“
Your
heart,” Alana whispered. “You love her.” His cousin’s voice was breathless.

Xander was grateful she said nothing of his wife’s feelings. Of his own, there was no use denying. “Aye.”

Empathy glowed from her violet gaze as she took a seat beside him on the bed. “Then why are you doing this?”

“I don’t deserve her.” His voice broke, so Xander cleared his throat. “I failed to protect her.”

“Foolish man.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Everything, Xander. She’s fine. She doesn’t hold any concerns of what happened. Janet just wants to marry you.”

“I…”

“You cannot live forever with a rejected bond.”

“We solidified it.”

“Aye, but you can still get weak. Sick.”

Xander shook his head.

Alana squeezed his forearm. “Go. Tell her you love her if she doesn’t know. Marry her. Set the bond—and your marriage—right, cousin.”

He averted his eyes, studying the stone floor around his boots.

“I wish you weren’t a soldier.”

“What?”

“You have stupid notions of pride that do not matter. I understand it’s who you are. And your sense of duty is one of the many reasons I love you, but it also makes you a
fool
. Because you cannot move past your own failures—or what
you
see as a failure—”

“Alana—”

“Let me finish.”

Xander frowned, but nodded.

His cousin took a breath. “You found your fated mate. The lass you’re supposed to be with for the rest of your life. You fell in love with her. That is all that matters.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

“I failed my duty as her mate to protect her.”

“She is home safely, is she not?” Alana’s stare was pointed.

He clenched his jaw. “No thanks to myself. My mother rescued us both. It was my father’s plan.
I
could not save us.”

“Is that what’s bothering you? That you couldn’t manage alone?”

“Nay.”

Was
that it?

Xander was afraid to answer the question.

Alana shook her head. “I will not sit here and argue with you, cousin. I suggest you meet your bride in the chapel at the appointed time. If not, I shall tell my husband to allow his brother to beat you to a pulp for taking her innocence.” She arched a delicate eyebrow that dared him to call her bluff.

The longer he remained in his room, the more the walls closed in on Xander. He needed out, needed some air. He mourned his wings, longing to launch into the air, to have the ability to stretch his arms and legs and float, or ride thermals that mussed his hair and cleared his head.

He settled for a long run—he’d been lucky to sneak out of Dunvegan and avoid contact with Duncan or the laird.

Xander had gone far down the beach, stopping when he neared the cave that contained the Faery Stones. He’d reveled in the tingle Alana’s
Keep Out
spell shot down his spine. He’d run until his lungs and legs burned, then jumped into the frigid salt water to bathe. The cold ocean had cleansed him more than the run, but his chest—his heart—was still heavy.

He stared hard at the door to his room. If he went back inside, he’d feel just as trapped as he had earlier. Glancing over his shoulder, he thought of Janet in her room, down at the other end of the wide corridor.

Is she crying?

She hadn’t even looked at him at supper.

He’d allowed Alana to block everyone’s thoughts from him magically, because he couldn’t cope with
that
as well as his anguish over the woman he loved.

I could go to her.

Xander shook his head. He placed a shaking hand on the door handle and pushed it open. Shock rolled over him and he forced one foot in front of the other so he could enter the room and close the door.

Janet was sitting on his bed. But her diaphanous chemise wasn’t what made his heart skip. He’d seen—and tasted—every inch of her gorgeous body before, after all.

She looked up, a small smile on her beautiful face.

Xander’s heart skipped. How could she smile at him after he’d rejected her?

Was she a vision?

A dream?

He blinked, but when he opened his eyes, she was still sitting there, as if she belonged in his rooms.

She does belong here.

Hair brush in hand, she made long strokes of her dark locks, spreading them out into a long curtain as she moved her hands. As if she’d sat on his bed every night to brush out tangles as a part of her routine.

Xander stood about five feet from the end of the bed. Had to swallow hard. He should order her to leave.

Our…wedding is supposed to be in the morning.

If Duncan caught Janet in his rooms, a grave would be more necessary than the priest who was currently in a Dunvegan guestroom.

“Hi,” Janet whispered, using the shortened greeting Claire often uttered.

“Hello,” he returned, but his voice cracked. Xander wanted to throw the bond open so he could sense what she was feeling.

“We need to speak.”

“As you wish.”

Janet put the brush on the table next to his bed and stood, but Xander didn’t—couldn’t—move.

She came closer, but didn’t reach for him.

“I want bairns,” she blurted. Janet’s cheeks went pink, and she broke eye contact. The sincerity in her expression made his heart skip.

Maybe Alana was right.

He’d vowed he wouldn’t fight the bond, but truth be told, Xander had never
wanted
to fight it. He’d wanted Janet from the start.

The only human mind he couldn’t read.

She
calmed him. She always had.

And he’d crushed her.

Rejected her.

Xander had let his pride push away the woman he loved. He’d been the wounded one—in his own mind. He’d made decisions for her, not allowing Janet to tell him what she was feeling. Afterwards, he’d committed the ultimate wrong by rejecting the bond when she’d tried to reopen it.

Alana was right.

I’m a fool.

And Janet had come to his rooms, proving yet again she was stronger than he’d thought.

She’s reaching out to me.

She’s stronger than me.

The earthy scent of peat burning in the large fireplace mixed with the appeal that was just his wife. The aromas tickled Xander’s nose and made him want to snatch her to his chest and kiss her. But he owed her an apology first. “I’m sorry.”

Those sapphire eyes were wide as saucers as they collided with his gaze. Janet said nothing.

“I was a fool.”

“Go on.”

“When we got captured, I failed to protect you. When I saw—” Xander’s voice cracked and he had to clear his throat, “I thought I’d failed you in the worst way a man could fail his wife.”

Janet took a step toward him.

He could feel the heat coming off her body and he tried not to stare; he could see her creamy flesh through the thin fabric of her chemise.

“They didna hurt me. Your father stopped it. You didna fail me. They took your magic, Xander. They were hurting you.
You
were as helpless as I. Blame doesna’ lie with you.”

Xander nodded, because he couldn’t speak.

“Both your parents helped us get home, Xander.
That
is all tha’ matters.”

Again he nodded. His tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth.

“I want ta be with you,” she whispered. Her voice was wrapped in honesty, hurt, and hope. “I care abou’ nothin’ else.”

His stomach somersaulted as he stared into her beautiful eyes. He couldn’t—
wouldn’t
—reject her again. Xander didn’t
want
to. “As you wish.”

A ghost of a smile played at her delectable mouth. “I do wish it. But do you?”

“Aye,” he whispered.

“As I said, I wish for children, too.”

He smiled, weight lifting off his chest. “Anything in my power, for you. I’m yours.”

Her eyebrows knitted together. “I need you to wan’ them, too.”

Xander had to touch her. He contented himself by caressing her cheek, and tucking some flyaway strands of her hair behind her ear. His heart stuttered when his wife leaned into his fingertips. “I do.”

Her gaze searched his face. “Truly?”

“Only if they’re yours.”

Janet’s cheeks went crimson, but she nodded. Her lips parted and air rushed from her mouth. When her breasts heaved in her see-through sleeping garment, it took all Xander was made of not to crush her to him and take her mouth, then take her.

He needed her in his arms—in his bed—every night.

He loved her.

“Janie—”

“I need you to love me.” They spoke at the same time.

Her embarrassment was palpable even though the bond was still only an echo in the back of his mind. She shifted on her feet and broke their eye contact again. Janet stood close, but not close enough.

Xander tamped down his elation and cupped her face. Forced her to meet his eyes. “Done.”

She shook her head but didn’t pull away from him. “How can you promise such things?”

“Because.” He tried to sound serious, but couldn’t hold back his grin.

“Because?”

“I already love you.”

A whimper fell from her lips even as the first tear rolled down her cheek.

Xander thumbed it away and brushed a kiss to her mouth.

“I love you, too,” Janet whispered.

His pulse pounded in his ears.

They stared at each other. Neither said a word.

All he could smell was her. The appeal of the peat faded. He didn’t think of the saccharine scent of the colored woods Fae burned in their hearths or miss them.

Janet was all he could see.

Sense.

Need.

Love.

Heat shot down his spine, spreading slowly over his limbs to settle deep. His cock stirred and tingled as it went from
interested
to
overwhelmed
.

Xander tugged her to him and took her mouth. She kissed him back until they wobbled against each other. Her perfect breasts were flat against his chest, her lovely hips flush against his. He ran his hands down her back, the soft linen giving him pause as his palm followed the curve of her bottom.

They had too many clothes on.

“Wait,” Janet breathed into his lips.

“What’s wrong?” he panted, his arousal already throbbing in his trews for her.

“The mating bond. I want it open. I wan’ to feel you completely.” The words—as well as the desire in her eyes—shot a tremor down his spine as good as a caress.

Xander nodded. “Take my hands,
m
ò
aingeal.
Call the magic to you, like you did before. I shall do the same and the bond will open. You will feel me, and I shall feel you. Always.”

“As it should be.” She smiled, and closed her eyes.

Her beauty stunned him. Xander watched her; the magic made her skin glow. Warmth spread up his arms and across his chest, then continued on, down his legs and up his back. Tingling was next, and his cock jerked.

The mating bond solidified and appeared as the golden rope, disappearing into her chest and his.

Janet sighed and opened her eyes, a dreamy smile curving her kiss-swollen lips. “I feel your heart echoing mine.”

“I feel yours, as well.”

She nestled close and stood tiptoe to kiss him. Xander claimed her mouth gently, cupping the back of her neck.

Janet yelped a protest when he pulled back. “What’s wrong?”

“You should go to your room.”

“Why?” She frowned.

“We are not yet wed.”

She smirked, and it was adorable. “Wha’ is but
one
night? And besides, we are a Fae mated pair, are we no’?”

Xander chuckled. “Aye, but as your brother said, we are not joined by
MacLeod
standards. If we’re to have those bairns you want, I need to keep my bollocks.”

Janet giggled and slipped her arms around his neck. “I shall stay here with you. Duncan, Alex, and my da willna find ou’.” She spread little kisses along his jaw line that sent desire straight to his cock.

The bond’s magic hit him with a force that almost knocked Xander off his feet. He’d grown used to it being muted. Janet’s love and passion for him enveloped him and he trembled against her. “One condition,” he forced out.