Binding Vows (6 page)

“Do you think she has a gift?”

“Oh yeah, she has one! When Gwen looks at you, it’s like she is looking through you.” Just talking about Gwen turned Tara’s hands to ice. “You don’t believe in those kinds of things, do you?”

When he didn’t answer, Tara looked and found him staring. His eyes told her he felt the same way.

“I guess maybe you do. Which makes us both a little crazy.”

“It isn’t crazy to see beyond your own thoughts.

You called it a gift a moment ago, why change your view now?” Duncan watched her lips as she spoke.

“It sounds crazy, believing in a psychic ability to read someone else’s mind.”

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“Do you think ’tis mind reading?” The wind blew Tara’s hair across her face. He reached out and pushed it back. Duncan let his fingers linger on the side of her cheek. Heat rose to her face with his gentle caress.

Duncan’s touch distracted her train of thought.

She had to force herself to answer his question. “It might be.” Her tongue moistened her drying lips.

He moved in closer, focused on her lips. His gaze drifted back to hers.

She should back away, but like two magnets, Tara sensed the pull and the unavoidable joining she knew would happen.

Duncan was going to kiss her. She was powerless to stop him and, in fact, didn't even want to stop him.

“What am I thinking, Tara?” He hovered inches away. His eyes shifted between her lips and her smoky eyes.

Tara caught her trembling lip in her teeth. “You want to kiss me.” Her words were only a whisper, as unsteady as her pulse.

He moved closer, only a breath away. “Will you let me?”

Her breath came in short gasps.
Please,
her mind screamed, when her heart and lips said, “Yes.”

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Catherine Bybee

Chapter 4

Duncan’s lips swallowed her answer. His gentle tasting liquefied her insides more than his words could. Shock registered in her brain, not because he was kissing her. That, Tara expected. But, the completeness of their connection staggered her.

He changed his angle, probed her lips with his tongue, requesting entry. She returned his kiss with a timid caress of her tongue. Her arms slid around his neck, drawing him closer with a moan of compliance.

Slowly he lowered her off her elbows until she felt the grass on her back. His glorious weight held her in place. Not that she was planning to go anywhere. His lips held her hostage in a wicked kind of way.

This weekend vacation was heading in a completely new direction.

His fingers traveled the length of her waist and burned a path of fire to the pit of her stomach. Little flutters of desire peeled away at her resolve.

Her world spun out of control. She had been kissed before, but never like this, leaving her desperately wanting to find what came next.

She should stop him. Tara was well practiced in the art of refusal. Any twenty-five year old virgin would have to be. But instead of halting his actions, she followed his lead. Her head tilted back when his mouth left hers and moved to her neck. Her body quaked, a new sensation, and she expected more if she let him continue.

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God help her. She wanted him to continue.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Duncan’s lips sent tremors over the lobes of her ear. An ache deep in her stomach started to grow.

She dug her nails in to his back and arched toward him. Wanting. Needing. “Oh God,” she gasped, giving in to each new sensation. “This isn’t happening.”

“Aye, love. It is.” His mouth fused again with hers, giving no time to think and only time to feel.

His movements grew bolder.

She encouraged him with eager cries.

Smoke whirled around in her head with each new touch and taste. His hand captured her breast...

Instinctively she pushed it away.

“Let me, Tara. Let me show you how it can be.”

His words were so tender and tempting.

Her brain engaged. “Wait.” What was she doing?

Duncan told her he brought her here for seduction and here she was letting him. “No.”

Although he stopped with her first request, Duncan left his body where it was, glued to hers. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and gasped for breath.

Embarrassed, Tara felt like a tease. She had always prided herself on keeping a man at arm’s length. Men weren’t switches who could be turned off and on at a woman’s whim. “I’m sorry.”

“No, lass, I’m sorry. You told me you weren’t ready for this. Here, I am pushing you.” Duncan looked at her and brushed the hair from her eyes. “I couldn’t seem to stop myself.”

“I suppose that’s a compliment.” She attempted a laugh to change the mood, but it came out as a soft moan.

“The best kind of compliment.” He brushed a brief kiss over her lips before he moved away. “We should head back. We don’t want Gra...Gwen’s men 45

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to send a search party to look for you.”

Nerves rapidly replaced passion. Duncan stood up and gave her a hand, bringing her to her feet.

“It’s getting late.” Tara fidgeted with her dress, smoothing invisible lines in an effort to act natural.

Tara admired his muscular body from lowered lashes while he packed their things. His broad shoulders narrowed to great hips and an even nicer ass. She rolled her eyes and looked away. She shouldn’t be thinking about his ass.

Duncan’s horse snorted when Tara approached him. She spoke calmly and stroked his cheek. “He’s a beautiful animal. Is he yours?”

Duncan secured his bag before rounding the animal to catch the bridle. “Aye, I’ve owned Durk for many years now.”

“So, you live close by?” She hoped.

“I wouldn’t say close.”

He was being evasive. Why? “Where is your home?” Best way to get a direct answer was to ask a direct question.

He paused. “I told you I was from Scotland.”

“Oh, right. You brought your horse on vacation?”

Her heart sank in her chest. Scotland. Too far for any chance of a relationship. But he hadn’t asked for a relationship, had he?

He said nothing.

Disappointed, Tara looked up to see him watching her. “So, you and I...” She waved a finger between the two of them. “…would have ended up being a weekend affair, if we didn’t stop?”

Duncan hesitated. Before he could answer, she held up a hand. “No, please don’t lie. I’d like to believe there is honor amongst
some
men.” She swallowed hard trying to remove the dryness, which crept into her throat. “When are you planning to go home?”

He searched her eyes, then said, “My brother 46

Binding Vows

and I will leave after the fair ends.”

“I thought so. Since you’ve been so honest to me, I’ll be perfectly honest with you.” She took a calming breath and looked away. “If I were into casual sex, I wouldn’t have remained a virgin for twenty-five years. I’m not sure if the man I marry will be my first. But, it needs to mean more, to me and the man I’m with, than just a fling. I hope you can respect that.”

Tara scratched Durk’s nose to look more confident than she felt. She had said similar words to other men in the past. Some would outright lie in an attempt to get her in bed. Others would say they understood, but never called again. Either way, Tara was glad she didn’t sleep with any of them, even if it meant she spent her Saturday nights alone.

Duncan took her trembling hand, the one stroking the horse, and brought her fingers to his lips. “Tara, you are more a
Lady
than any I have met.”

She sighed. “We should get back.”

Tara rode in front of him, but kept her body stiff, fearful of getting too close after refusing him.

This proved impossible. Duncan pulled her frame to rest against his and told her quietly, “I didn’t take you back there. I won’t do so while riding a horse.”

Tara relaxed and enjoyed the strength of his body holding hers. The burnt orange and gold of the sun was low on the horizon. Tara couldn’t stop from thinking they were riding off in the sunset.

Get a grip,
she scolded herself.
He’s going back
to Scotland in a few days. Romantic imagery won’t
change that.

****

Now what was he going to do? He failed at seducing her, and didn’t imagine he would have another chance before the solstice. He considered deceit in an effort for making her angry enough to 47

Catherine Bybee

leave the fair. Yet there was no guarantee Grainna wouldn’t follow her and take her against her will.

Nay, he thought. I’ll stay close to her side, for her safety. To keep Grainna from breaking her spell.

Maybe if Grainna could be fooled into believing Tara was no longer chaste, she would look elsewhere. He didn’t think it was possible, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t come right out and tell Tara the danger she was in.

She wouldn’t believe him.

Duncan’s thoughts turned to Grainna’s curse and the purpose for his visit to this time.

She had been born, like he and his family, from Druid descent. Magic permeated their blood. With magic however, came responsibility, honor and respect for the gifts they had been given.

Grainna followed the sacred ways until she met a man whose beauty mystified her, and she fell in love. She thought Elic a perfect match for her as a husband. His blood was also Druid, not as untainted as hers. Nor as powerful.

But Elic’s intentions were anything but pure. He looked at her as a conquest. An innocent no man had taken before. During the course of one summer, she gave him her virginity. He fell in lust and took it. As the summer wore on and his attention waned, Elic set up a meeting where Grainna would find him in the arms of another woman.

Grainna heard their cries of passion. All she could do was stand by and watch. Trembling with tears of pain streaming down her face, she pleaded with him to stop. On bended knee, she begged him to go away with her.

Elic laughed and scorned her for thinking she was the only woman in his life.

Bitterness and pain fueled the revenge she took on the man she loved and the woman he flaunted.

Grainna used her gift, the one she used to speak 48

Binding Vows

to animals. She cast the bats and rodents from every corner of the barn to feast upon Elic and his lover.

With wicked delight, she watched their slow and painful death. Their cries for mercy went unheeded.

Her heart, the one he had so carelessly shattered, had completely closed off.

With Elic’s death, Grainna felt a Druid’s power sliding into her for the first time. It was a drug more powerful than seduction.

Using her gifts for revenge was forbidden by the Ancients. To avoid persecution from her own people, she fled the country of her birth.

For years, she practiced the dark arts and searched the land for people with powers. Druid or witches she didn’t care. Those souls she could turn to her evil ways she let live. Those who refused, met with untimely deaths.

Her quest for blood and revenge on anyone who loved was insatiable. Her power grew as the years went on. In a final act of defiance, Grainna used the blood of her dead in a potion of immortality.

The Ancients who had watched and waited, gathered to stop her evil. They cursed Grainna to an eternity in an aging and powerless body. They bound her Druid powers and those she had gathered, making it almost impossible for her to return to her former self.

They pushed her five centuries into the future.

Into a time and land she had little knowledge of.

Now, in order to break the curse, she had to find a woman of Druid descent, a virgin. Only the virgin’s blood would set her free.

For seventy years, Grainna had lived in the new world with all its technology and ways. Even without her Druid gifts, she practiced the dark arts and perfected the ability of sight and mind control.

Grainna’s plan for luring a virgin into her web was brilliant. Posing as a palm reading Gypsy, 49

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running a Renaissance fair, and exploiting virgins, was a perfect way to draw in her prey.

Duncan and Fin were sent by their parents to prevent Grainna from finding all the requirements in a woman she needed. Up until now, Duncan found his missions pleasurable.

If there are no virgins, there is no threat. It was that simple.

Duncan watched the makeshift village come into view. His arm circled Tara’s tiny waist. Her sweet scent permeated his senses.

His mission wasn’t as simple, however, when the virgin in question was Tara McAllister.

****

The people of the village watched them ride past. Duncan led Durk to the doorway of her tent.

The man standing guard watched in astonishment, eyes darting between Tara and Duncan.

Tara untied Duncan’s cape with a shaking hand and gave it back. Ignoring the stares of those who passed by. “Thank you so much for today.”

Grainna’s man took a step closer to them.

Duncan tilted Tara’s chin and placed his lips to hers. He left them there long enough to feel her relax, then broke away. “Thank you, lass,” he said against her parted lips. “I’ll see you at supper tonight.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

Duncan laughed when her body swayed toward him instead of away. He turned her around and gave a gentle nudge.

She glided passed the guard. “Nice night, don’t you think, Bruno?”

****

“She did what?” Grainna’s voice could be heard well beyond her tent. Fury sparked from her eyes.

She stormed past her guard, barely giving him the time to move out of the way.

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Binding Vows

Grainna stormed into their tent and found Tara sitting on her bed, wearing nothing but her underclothes, and talking to her friend.

She pushed her way into their minds.

Tara resisted her intrusion with a coveted power.

Don’t you look cozy gossiping about your
adventure with a stranger?
Grainna could hardly contain herself at the sight of the laughing women.

They didn’t appear to have a care in the world.

Cassy’s thoughts however, were wide open. They sizzled with excitement and sparks of love generated by Tara’s romantic interlude.