Rescued by the Celtic Warrior (Roman Love ~ Pict Desire Series Book 1) (10 page)

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They rode all day with no rest. Exhausted, Valeria feared her head would fall off her neck if they pushed on. “When do we stop?”

Taran pointed up the trail. “There’s a glade ahead. We’ll pull up there for the night.”

After they rounded a bend, Taran led the group into a clearing, surrounded by a canopy of rustling trees.

When she dismounted, her bare toes sank into moist moss. She sighed, relieved to stand on solid ground. Her thighs ached from riding astride. Stag brushed up against her and she scratched him behind the ears. “You are just a big sop, are you not?”

“He’s a traitor, that’s what he is. He’ll fall for a pretty face every time.” Taran strode past with an arm full of wood and dumped it into a circle of stones that bore the charred remnants of an old fire. Clearly, this camp had been used before.

Valeria covered her mouth and hid her smile. Taran had called her pretty? Heat crept up her cheeks while tingling butterflies swarmed in her stomach.

Drust took Greum and Seumas hunting. Taran lifted Fionn down from his mount and propped him against a fallen tree. “How are you doing, friend?”

Some color had returned to Fionn’s cheeks. “I’ll be right in a few days. It doesn’t hurt near as much now the healer set it.”

“Good. Load yer slingshot and kill any rabbits that wander past. They may be all we eat this night.”

Fionn lined up some pebbles and pulled his weapon from his belt. Pia knelt beside him to check his wound.

Valeria followed Taran to help gather more wood. They’d ventured a distance into the forest when she felt confident the others were out of earshot. “After you’ve settled, do you think you would be able to organize an escort to take me back to my father?”

Taran stopped and faced her, his eyes suddenly dark, his brows knit.

Valeria shook her head. “What is it?”

“I cannot take ye back to him.”

“Yes, I know. You are wanted in the Empire, but could someone else escort me?”

He dropped his bundle of wood and grasped her shoulders. “Ye do not understand, and I don’t want to be the one to tell ye.”

Valeria’s voice caught in the back of her throat. Taran knew something. Her mind darted to the last time she’d seen her father. The general fought against the Attacotti, but there were countless numbers of them and only one of him. She eyed Taran and stepped back. Something in his expression took her breath away. She shook her head. “No. No. No.”

Taran cupped her face with his palms. “I do not know how to say it gently, but he’s dead. When we escaped from the gaol, I caught sight of the Attacotti. They took his life and then I saw they had you.”

Valeria couldn’t breathe. Father was alive when she’d last seen him. He was a general, a powerful man. Her body trembled out of control. “Noooooooo!”

Her stomach heaved. She couldn’t think. She fell to her knees and wailed. Clenching her fists, she pounded the ground. Her father dead? It couldn’t be.

Taran tugged her shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry, lass. I couldn’t save him.”

Valeria’s legs weakened beneath her. Taran’s scent enveloped her—the power in his arms was the only thing holding her upright. The tragedy from the recent death of her mother renewed, bursting open her simmering grief. Her entire world was shattered. What would she do? Where could she go?

Sobbing, she buried her face in Taran’s chest, desperate for home, desperate for the familiar life that would never again be hers.

Pia crashed through the wood, wielding Fionn’s sword. “Release her or I will cut you down, you redheaded brute.”

Taran tensed, cradling Valeria’s head to his chest. “Put yer sword down, woman. She’s just received word her father’s been killed.”

Pia’s jaw dropped with the blade. “My God.”

****

Taran lifted Valeria into his arms and carried her back to the glade. He turned to Pia. “Can ye use the flint to light the fire?”

Nodding, Pia did as he asked. He sat and held Valeria upon his lap. Slowly he rocked her, held her as if his life depended on it. Something inside his gut needed to protect her from all ills. He never wanted to see her this upset again.

When her sobs subsided, she fell asleep in Taran’s arms. As if in a daze, he stared into the fire. Pia crouched beside him, wringing her hands and rocking gently. Clearly, she also mourned the loss of her master.

Taran kept his voice low. “I’ll see no harm comes to ye while you and Valeria remain under the protection of the Picts.”

The old woman cleared her throat and glanced up at him. “Thank you.”

“We may have a reputation of being a ferocious people.” He met her gaze. “Our enemies ensure we train our sons to be warriors. We protect our land and protect our own. We live and die by the four corners of the Pict creed—honor, loyalty, duty and freedom.”

Pia nodded and leaned in to observe Valeria’s sleeping face. “I’m a slave—born into it and sold to Valeria’s grandfather when I was two and ten. I have nothing, no husband. My children were all taken from me and sold. But that little girl in your arms has been the only ray of sunshine in this old woman’s life. I’ve cared for her since birth. She’s always treated me as a second mother.”

Taran nodded.

“You harm her, you harm me.”

“Understood.” He patted her shoulder with his free hand. “Picts own no slaves.”

Pia’s careworn face and mottled eyes met his with silent hope.

Drust crashed into the glade and tossed a deer carcass to the ground. “We’re going to eat well tonight.” His eyes drifted to Valeria with a frown.

Taran shrugged. “I told her about her father. Cook the beast and I’ll wake her.”

She needed no rousing when the smell of spit roasted venison wafted across the clearing. Taran smiled down at her angelic face. “Ye feeling better?”

She scooted off his lap. “I’m starving.”

He passed her the waterskin. “Drink. The meat will be ready soon.”

She took a long swig and dabbed her mouth with the hem of her cloak. “I cannot wait to have a bath. The dust of the trail is thick in my hair.”

“Romans bathe frequently,” Greum said.

“Every day.”

Drust stood and motioned to Taran. “Come, Cousin. Let’s walk before the evening meal.”

Grumbling, Taran stood and followed Drust toward the rush of a babbling stream.

Once out of earshot, Drust stopped. “What are ye doing?”

Taran held up his hands. “Ye’d best state yer business, else my fist might find a home in yer face.”

“That lassie could have ridden with her nurse, but no, ye fondled her in front of you all day.”

“I do not have to listen to the likes of you.” Taran started away.

Drust grabbed his arm and yanked him around. “I’ve watched Leda pine for ye for near on two years, holding me own feelings inside, and I won’t have ye breaking her heart.”

Taran shoved his shoulder. “Yer feelings? And what of yer feelings?”

Drust took a step backward, splaying his fingers. “I do not want to fight ye. Pay no mind to me and think of Leda. That’s all I ask.” He pushed past Taran and headed toward the clearing.

Taran watched him leave, his fists finding a home upon his hips.
Leda? How I wish things had stayed the same—defending Dunpelder, running the king’s errands. I do not ken how I’ll feel when I see her bonny face again. But I’ll find out soon enough.

When Taran returned to the clearing, Seumas was cutting off chunks of fat-dripping meat with his dirk. Drust was right. Taran had grown too familiar with the Roman lass. He had a duty to the Picts—honor to uphold. He sat beside Drust, across from Valeria. Stag lazed with his head on her lap while she fed him strips of meat.

Watching the flames dance across her face made his mouth grow dry. He couldn’t decide if the stirring in his loins was more painful sitting a stone’s throw away, or having her cradled in his arms. Closing his eyes, he inhaled. He could still smell her honeyed scent. Hog’s breath, why couldn’t she be portly like Pia?

Seumas handed him a serving of meat. Taran salivated and tore off a bite with his teeth, but he could not pull his gaze away from her. Sitting across from the temptress was definitely more difficult than sitting beside her, though not quite as confounding as having her exquisite bottom bounce against his thighs whilst riding a horse.

The fire continued to flicker across her creamy skin. Her feline eyes glanced up at him in regular intervals. She raised her chin when again her gaze met his. She held it there, as if challenging him to be the first to look away. His heart thudded against his chest until Drust jabbed him with an elbow.

Taran swallowed and scanned the other’s faces. “Greum, tell us a story.” He desperately needed a diversion.

Always good for a yarn, Greum scratched his chin. “We-ell, I was just thinking ʼbout the origins of the Picts. I’ll bet Lady Valeria has no reckoning of our ancestry.”

“Yes.” She clapped her hands. “I’d love to hear your story.”

Taran grinned and wondered how his friend would twist the old tale this time.

Looking skyward to gather his thoughts, Greum cleared his throat. “Scythia had suffered through many years of bitter cold. The summer months were so short, the growing season did not yield stores needed to carry all the people through winter. Game was scarce and our people were half-starved. The young men of Scythia got together and agreed they could not watch their kin die and the tribe’s children starve. So they built a seaworthy vessel as big as a Roman long ship. Only bachelors boarded the boat in search of a new land abundant with food. The married men stayed behind to protect their wives and children.”

Greum picked up a stick of wood and tossed it on the fire.

Taran watched Valeria’s expression, attentive. She was unusual for a Roman, caring, curious. With her command of Celtic, she seemed open and interested to learn about cultures other than her own. He wondered about her education and what had opened her eyes.

“The ship was battered by terrible storms. A giant bolt of lightning struck down the mast. The men tried to fix it, but they were adrift for weeks, at the mercy of the sea and the nasty beasts that swam beneath. With their food and water running dry, they washed up on the shore of Éire, met by a redheaded chieftain.”

“Must have been Taran’s ancestor,” Fionn interrupted.

“Aye.” Greum chuckled. “The chieftain said there was no free land on his island, but to sail across to Britannia. In the north he’d heard there was plenty of land for the taking.”

“So how long ago was this sea voyage?” Valeria asked, her eyes wide.

“ʼTwas near a thousand year’ ago,” Greum said. “But the bloody bachelors had a yen for some companionship. They asked if they could take some of the bonny maids for their wives. The king agreed on one condition—if their lines of succession would follow the female royal line. The men approved and when they landed in Britannia, each one staked a claim of his own and thus was born the Pictish Nation—and the strongest tribe of them all became the Votadini of Gododdin, our tribe.”

Valeria smiled, her teeth glowing white in the firelight. “Interesting, Votadini almost sounds Latin. Your men follow the female royal line?”

“Aye.”

She giggled. “That means you’re related to the Gaels who also migrated from Éire.”

“Not hardly,” Drust said. “We’ve been our own nation for near a thousand year’. Picts are Picts and Gaels…well, they’re plaid-wearing simpletons.”

Everyone chuckled and inched down on their saddle blankets to sleep. Taran picked up his saddle and walked around the fire to Valeria. “Ye look cold, m’lady.”

She rubbed her outer arms. “There is a chill in the air tonight.”

Pia patted her hand. “You rest under the cloak with me. I’ve got enough heat for the both of us.”

Taran had no business bedding beside the lady. But then, she’d be safer next to him. With a grunt, he tossed his saddle down. “I’ll sleep here on the other side. Me sword will protect ye both.”

The mist had formed just before dawn and shrouded the clearing. To Valeria, it seemed surreal, like a dream. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up. She reached to her left, but found a vacant spot where Taran had slept with his welcome heat radiating against her backside. All others were fast asleep.

A splash echoed through the trees. Gathering her cloak around her shoulders, she tiptoed toward the sound. Slippery moss squished cold water between her toes with each step. Even more than her wardrobe of satin gowns, she missed her sandals. Every rock and twig beneath her feet tore at her tender flesh, and though she had been mostly riding since she was ripped away from Vindolanda, her feet were as sore as her thighs—both in need of a few days’ rest.

Stag met her on the trail. His nose pushing into her palm, he welcomed her with a wag of his tail. The silver glimmer of water sparkled through the trees. She pulled a branch aside and gasped. Frozen where she stood, she beheld the most beautiful sight she had ever imagined. Taran, dripping wet, completely naked, sat beside the pond, scraping a thick growth of whiskers from his face with the dagger she’d given him in the gaol. The reflection of the sunrise against the pool cast a glow around him, accentuating the rippling of his lean muscles and the sheer alabaster of his skin.