A Storm of Passion (14 page)

“What did it say? How do you know it is my family?” she asked. She’d told him nothing other than her name, so she could not understand what link there could be in these papers to her family?

She closed her eyes as she remembered telling Agnes her name and that of her parents and their village. Had Agnes told the Seer? Glancing now at the parchments he held, she knew the servant must have reported her words to her master.

“You talk in your sleep, Moira. You yell and you laugh and you cry out about your family when you dream of them,” he said softly. “I but listened and searched for what I’d heard in the dark of the nights we’ve shared.”

“Agnes knew,” she whispered.

“Did she?” he asked. She wondered if her words would cause trouble for the woman who’d comforted her when she needed it most. “I am glad you confided in her, though I wish it had been me.” His gaze softened as she turned to look at him. He sounded wounded in some way by her choice to tell Agnes and not him. “She will keep your counsel well if you have need of her.”

Moira wanted to explain how it had happened that day. How the past had poured out of her and how Agnes had shared something about her own past. But something kept her from doing that.

“Do you want me to read the part about that vision?”

She nodded and tried to steady herself for whatever terrible thing this parchment said about her family. He moved it over so he could see it in front of them and began.

“It is the spring of the year 1092,” he read. “The visions grow stronger, and Connor cannot yet understand or control them. Today he gifted Skurli from Caithness, who was betrayed by an enemy in Quinag in the north of Scotland. In exchange for his support, Diarmid sent his men north to aid Skurli and help to settle his affairs.”

She could not breathe. His words stopped, but the echoes filled her head and the pain of it burned through her. Could that be how it happened?

“Shhh, now,” he whispered from behind her, wrapping both arms around her and rocking her gently.

“Then it is true?” she asked, when she could speak. “You gave this Skurli the directions on how to wipe out my family?”

“’Twas not like that, Moira. I do not remember the vision or the words or the person the power decides to gift. I could not control it then; I cannot control it now the way I would like to.”

She pushed out of his embrace then and climbed to her feet. “And that absolves you of their deaths? If you had not…if you had…”

She shook her head in confusion and walked away. Too many words, too many thoughts and feelings filled her head now, and she would regret or pay for anything she said right now, so she walked. When she reached the end of the inlet and the water crashed up against the thin edge of cliff that sat out farther toward the sea, she stood there and stared out at the dark blue waters and the painfully bright sky.

How much time had passed she knew not, but then he stood next to her, staring out at the same sea and sky without saying a word. She knew what he wanted. She knew what he’d hoped she would say when he explained the terrible thing to her, but her heart did not have it in it to offer to him. Her hatred of him had fled in these last weeks, along with her need to kill him to avenge their deaths, but there was no place in her heart for forgiveness.

He needed her to say it. Before these visions brought about his end, he needed forgiveness for the terrible cost paid by others for his gift. ’Twas as though her word could give him the peace he sought, not of body, but of soul and mind. But he could read on her face that she could not forgive him for his misguided acts of the past. At least not until one or both of them was dead.

Connor stood there, praying for a word he would not hear, until he could not wait any longer. Turning away, he watched the birds landing on the highest part of the cliff face and then flying off over the sea in search of food.

He’d been wrong again and misjudged her. Thinking that she would accept the explanation offered in the notes and understand he had no choice in the matter, he’d shared what he had found with her. With her, he would pay for the sins of his past forever.

Connor walked back to the place where his cloak lay spread on the sand and sat down once more. She remained unmoving at the water’s edge, staring out at the sea as though she would discover something there she needed. An hour passed before she came back into herself and turned to see where he was. The tide, which had remained low, now changed directions, and the shallow pool filled with water more quickly.

When she reached him, he stood and held out a small meat pie the cook had packed for him. At first she began to refuse it, but she finally accepted it and his help to sit on the cloak. The painful silence grew, and he saw that she struggled to chew and swallow the food, so he got to his feet and walked toward the cliffs to give her some peace. Leaning against the rocky wall, he watched as she finished the pie and drank some of the wine. Some minutes later, she turned and faced him as though to speak to him, but instead she began screaming.

“Connor!” she shrieked, as she climbed to her feet and began to run toward him. “Get back!”

Not understanding her warning, he began to walk to her, but she reached him first and pushed him into the wall. The boulder crashed down in the spot where he’d been standing before she screamed out his name. He heard the sounds of a struggle above, and he searched for the origin of it on the top of the cliff. Godrod’s voice rang out in warning, calling out to his men and then the body of one of the soldiers fell from the edge and crashed onto the beach in front of them.

Moira stifled the scream that threatened before it escaped, covering her mouth with her hands while trying to catch her breath. “Come,” he said, taking her and holding her under the cover and the protection of the sheer cliff wall. If he could not see over the edge of it, someone could not see them tucked in at its base. They waited in silence for some sign of what had happened above to the other soldiers.

The advantage to having but one way onto this stretch of beach was its coveted privacy. The disadvantage, he now discovered, was that, if under attack, there was no other way out. And, in a few hours, the sea would cover the entire inlet as the tide reached its full height trapping and drowning anyone caught here too long.

He kept her in his embrace during those dark minutes as they waited, but he could feel a widening expanse opening between them with each passing minute. Then, Godrod rode onto the beach and ordered them to mount and ride back to the keep.

Connor picked up the leather sack, putting away the parchments and scroll, something he’d not shown her yet, and tossed the uneaten food to the seabirds careening between cliff and sea as he gathered the reins of the horse in his hand. Grabbing the horse’s mane, he heaved himself onto its back and held out his hand to Moira.

The sadness in her gaze tore his heart in two as she glanced up at him in taking his hand. With her foot resting on his, he pulled her up behind him and, once she settled and grabbed hold of him, he urged the horse up the path. Godrod followed, leaving the body of the dead soldier there.

“Another attempt on your life, Seer,” Godrod explained. “I had two new soldiers in my company who asked to attend you. They stood watch on the edge, but one managed to loosen the boulder and send it over the edge while the other covered his actions.”

“The one on the beach?” he asked.

“He pushed the boulder over. Thank God, you were warned before it hit you,” the soldier said. The good wishes did not ring true in his voice, and his eyes told another tale. “The other fled, but my men are pursuing him now. Worry not, we will catch him.”

He felt her shudder behind him, and he tugged her arms tighter around him as he touched the horse’s sides and urged him to gallop. Godrod had been lying, Connor was certain of it. The soldier who fled would be killed when caught to cover up Godrod’s own attempts to assassinate them on the beach. Until the other man was caught—and he must be caught before he could spread the news to Diarmid that his brother’s men tried to kill the Seer—there was a small measure of safety for him and Moira.

Accepting no attempts to slow them down, Connor gave the horse his head and raced back to the keep.

T
hat night took years to pass.

Or so it seemed to him.

The edginess returned in his mind, and he felt the fire begin to burn in his blood. ’Twas five days past the new moon, and any soothing effects from coupling with her wore off quickly in the face of their estrangement the previous day. By the time Diarmid released him from attendance in the hall, a performance commanded at each evening meal now, he felt as though his skin were on fire from the inside out.

Breac and Agnes retired for the night, and Moira lay on her pallet, again not climbing into his bed as she had those other nights. They’d spoken very little since their return from the debacle on the beach, for he saw her to his chambers and faced Diarmid’s wrath alone. Unsure of how she would react to Diarmid now that she knew his soldiers had come to Quinag to help Skurli destroy his enemy—apparently her father—he thought it best to keep them apart.

Steinar gave some excuses about the attack, which Diarmid seemed suspicious of until Godrod appeared with the second man’s head on his sword and appeased Diarmid. But when Diarmid pointed out that he had been against the idea of his Seer leaving the safety of the keep with his slut, Connor wondered who was truly behind the attack and if it was simply a message to him to obey his lord. Two nights later, he was no closer to finding out the truth.

He lay on his bed, pulling the blankets up and then kicking them down. He turned on his stomach, but that made him remember the way she’d stroked him with her hands covered in warm, fragrant oil, which had become something else between them. He flung himself on his back, but he could still see her face as she’d climbed over his hips and seated him full and deep within her.

A cup of wine did nothing to soothe him. A second cup did not help. Tempted to search for the healer’s concoction in his trunk, he cursed and went back to bed. Whatever was between them had held this at bay for four days, but now that it crashed into him from all sides, it felt worse than he’d ever remembered it to be. Ten days remained until the vision, and he knew he could not make it.

At first, while thinking coherently, he understood why she did not come to him. He had brought back the horror of her family’s death to her by showing her those parchments and by reading the report of that vision six years ago to her. Only a madwoman would willingly give herself to the man guilty of his sin.

Though she was many things, mad was not one of them.

Later, as the pain pulsed inside and the crazy lust filled his blood, he did not care what her reasons were. He knew she was awake and could hear his torment.

Connor tossed for another hour or two before giving up. He pulled on his trews and threw on his cloak and sought refuge or relief on the walls above. He walked the perimeter of the battlements several times without stopping. A storm brewed in the night’s sky, loosening the winds and torrents of rain, but it did not stop him. The guards took shelter in the corner towers, but he stood in the middle of it and faced the angry sky. Lightning crashed through the sky, lighting up the stone wall and sending the guards running.

He dared it to strike him. Standing in the rain, he tossed his cloak to the ground and opened his arms up wide, calling down the lightning. It struck a small building in the yard, sending showers of sparks into the storm. He waited, turning his face up to the sky and trying to draw it to him.

It would be a quicker end than the one facing him. Instead of burning out, blind and insane from the pain over these next several months, his end would come in a flash. The lightning crashed again and lit the battlements again and revealed her presence to him.

She walked to him and stood in front of him, with no cloak to keep the rain from her skin or her hair or the thin shift she wore. The rain soaked through it in only moments and plastered it to her skin with so tight a hold that not even the wild winds tearing around them could loosen it. She took his hand and tried to make him follow her, but he shook free of her grasp and stayed in the storm.

“Seer,” she called out to him over the thunder and the pounding of the rain. “You must come inside.”

“Leave me be!” he yelled back. He prayed again that the lightning would do its worst, but it touched him not.

“Let me ease your pain,” she offered, reaching out to touch his cheek. The rain poured down on both of them as he watched her gesture.

“I do not want your kindness,” he spat. Right now he wanted only his death.

“’Tis all I can offer you, Seer.”

Even that hurt him. Yesterday she screamed out his name, but now she called him that damned title once more. “My name is Connor.”

“I offer you only what I have to give, Seer.”

He fell to his knees before her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Forgive me, Moira. I need your forgiveness.” He leaned his head against her chest and felt the burning of tears though they were lost among the raindrops.

She leaned her cheek against his hair, stroking it and pushing it out of his face. “I have none to give, Connor,” she said sadly.

He held her like that for minutes while the storm raged around them. Neither one moved; each was lost in their own pain. Then, he climbed to his feet, gathered her in his arms, and carried her down the stairs and back to his chambers. He closed the door and put her on her feet in the middle of the room. He pulled the top sheet from his bed, stripped the soaked shift from her, and used the sheet to dry her skin before she took a chill. He dropped his trews and dragged them over his skin to do the same.

Then he kissed her. He tilted his head down and touched his lips to hers gently, softly, completely. She opened to him, and he slipped his tongue inside, searching for hers. When she touched hers to his, he suckled on the tip of it and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. He walked her across the chambers, taking a step forward for every step she took back, until they reached the wall. Lifting her once more, he placed her on his bed and followed her down until he covered her with his body.

This time was different. This time they needed something other than hard and deep and fast. This time, their souls searched for something in the joining of their bodies. Connor lifted up and began to kiss every inch of her, gliding down over her breasts and stomach and hips and mons and thighs. He touched her and brought her to release, but neither made a sound.

It was quiet. It was gentle. It was about giving and not simply taking.

And when his body pushed hers over the edge and she fell, she took him with her. Moira opened her body to him, and he emptied himself into her and accepted what she could give him. She offered kindness, and he took it, praying that there would be space in her new heart for forgiveness before it was too late for him.

“I wanted to die.”

Her voice was almost a whisper in his ear as they lay together in his bed. The storm raged outside with a growing violence, but it no longer held power over him. Nor did the rampant need for her, for her gentle touch had soothed his body and soul.

“When?”

“When Diarmid’s men…” Her voice dropped off, but he needed no more words to explain. Then he felt her shake her head. “I accepted that I would die when I tried to kill you,” she explained. “I wanted to die after…”

“By the time I brought you back here, something had changed,” he said. He’d felt some difference in her, and even Dara remarked on it in her messages to him.

Moira turned to face him now. “I still only wanted to live long enough to kill you.”

Connor laughed then. Only Moira would have the boldness or lack of fear to say such a thing. Every other woman bowed and scraped or begged to be in his bed or to share in his wealth and position, but not her. He thought on her words and realized when her change of heart happened.

“On the battlements,” he said. “When Breac held you over the side.” He met her gaze then. “When faced with it, you knew you wanted to live.”

She lay silent for a few minutes, and he thought her asleep, when she spoke again.

“How did Breac come to be in your service? And Agnes?”

“You have won them over, Moira. They regularly reprimand me for various or imagined slights to you. Agnes suggested that I take you outside,” he paused and shook his head, “well-intended, though the result was not what I’d planned for us.” He thought about his true hope for the morning at the inlet and shook his head.

“About Breac and Agnes?” she reminded him. Her curiosity was a good sign to him. She was beginning to care about things…and people.

“About five years or so ago, I met Breac in the village. They’d just arrived from An t-Oban Latharnach across the firth, and some of the villagers were harassing him for having brought such an old woman with him. Breac took down the two largest of them, and the rest gave him a wider berth. I offered him employment.”

“Why? ’Twould seem to most that a man who fights simply over a woman is hot tempered and unreliable,” she said.

“Ah, but you saw neither the look in his eyes when she comforted him over his bruises, nor hers when he called the villagers out for their words. It nearly broke my heart at seeing such a love.”

It sounded so love struck when he said it, but having never seen such a thing, he’d been intrigued by it. A man and woman who loved so strongly it shone from their eyes. Maybe he simply sensed that he needed them to tether him to a real world while he lived in his made-up one. His world was filled with power and visions, but nothing and no one there could be trusted.

“And Dara and Pol?” she asked.

“Something similar.” He’d saved them from exile when they had incurred Diarmid’s anger over a small incident that did not deserve such treatment. Connor had never realized that he’d surrounded himself, when he could, with people who understood the importance of love. Ironic, when he considered that he’d never found it for himself. Again, there was another few minutes of silence, and he listened to her breathing grow slower and deeper.

“Do you have sons?” she asked.

“Why do you ask that?” He shifted so he could see her face in the light of the lone candle left burning in the room.

“When a man beds women in the numbers that you do, Seer, bairns usually would follow.” Aye, indeed bairns would follow, he thought, if he was a normal man.

“I have no sons, nor daughters either, to my knowledge,” he said. “Mayhap another part of the Sith’s contrariness for those humans they touch with their power? Give them the drive and the opportunities to create bairns but not the ability? This is less like a gift and more like a curse with the passing of every day.” He reached out and caressed her cheek. “And you? No bairns of your own?”

“That I would leave behind while searching for you?” she asked. “Fate has been kind not to grant me bairns, for I will not live to see them grow.” He winced at her words. Such hopelessness, but it was a hopelessness he was beginning to understand himself when now facing his own demise.

“I suspect that your wish to see me dead for my sins is not long in coming, Moira.” He’d not confided his fears to anyone, and yet he handed the worst one to his enemy.

She sat up then, surprised by his words, and turned to face him.

“Do you plan to throw yourself off the walls then?”

He frowned at her words. “Do you wish to be free of me that much?”

“No. For your death simply brings mine sooner, Seer.”

“You called me Connor on the wall,” he said, reminding her of her slip.

“A moment of weakness. Why do you think your death is at hand?” Of all the things he could say, that was not the one she expected. “Or do you think that Steinar’s assassins will complete their task?” He was out of the bed within moments, standing and staring at her as though she was mad. She shook her head at his lack of knowledge.

“How have you managed to stay alive this long, Seer?” Moira slid to the side of the bed and pulled her shift on. “You have not seen the patterns surrounding your visions. You have not seen the patterns surrounding the attacks on you.”

His expression showed he agreed with her. From what she’d seen of his life this last month when close enough to see it clearly, his only concern was surviving the pain and lust the visions brought on…and the blindness. They were crucial things to worry on, and she was certain that Steinar counted on those distractions to hide his attempts even better.

The Seer walked around the screen and came back a few minutes later with two cups, wine by the smell of it. He handed one to her and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Tell me of the patterns you see, Moira.” His voice was calm and his gaze intent on her.

“Ask yourself this question: who will benefit the most from your death? Not Diarmid, for he sells your services to those willing to pay and keeping you alive keeps him strong and held in high esteem by those who pledge to him. Not those who receive the gift, for they have come to you with a need and you fill it. So, that leaves Steinar, who is so filled with hatred at growing to manhood in Diarmid’s shadow, yet is not strong enough to unseat him.”

He stared at her in silence so long she thought he was asleep on his feet. Then he shook his head in denial. “You see this?” He laughed a bitter one. “And yet they call me the Seer.”

“But I have been seeking to learn everything about you since almost the beginning,” she said, drawing her legs up under her. “And I learned to listen.”

“And not talk,” he finished her words.

“I have stayed alive by watching and listening and being ready to act when the moment comes.”

A mischievous glint crept into his dark green eyes then. “So why was I not dead those months ago when I discovered you at my door?”

She shrugged. “I was not ready.” The narrowing of his gaze spoke of his disbelief in her words. “I came hoping to get a look at your chambers before the next vision and never expected to find you here alone. My dagger,” she paused as he touched his chest where a small puckered scar marked the spot, “was still in my sack.”

He drank from his cup and watched her over the rim. “And the next time? Why did you not strike the killing blow?” His face went blank as he asked. “You had me at your mercy then. Why did you not finish your quest?”