Seduction of a Highland Lass(100)

“Be at peace,” Caelen whispered.

Then he backed up and strode away, his jaw clenched tight.

The entire clan gathered as Alaric bore Keeley through the courtyard and around to where the loch spread out to the east. He walked through the trees where he’d waited for her just a week earlier. He stopped at the water’s edge and lowered himself to sit on one of the boulders.

“We’re here, Keeley. Can you feel the breeze on your face? Can you smell the fresh air?”

Her eyelids fluttered weakly and she took in a deep breath. The action caused her immediate pain and a wicked spasm crossed her face. For several long moments she lay in his arms, her chest working up and down with exertion.

“Aye,” she said finally. “ ’Tis wondrous to feel the sun on my skin. I’m tired, Alaric. I’ve tried so hard to fight.”

He could hear the ache in her voice, the grief over the knowledge that she was dying.

“I want you to know that I’ll die happy. All … all I ever wanted … was to be yours. Your … wife. Even if for a while. You are mine and I am yours.”

Alaric stared up at the sky, sorrow crushing down on him with the weight of a boulder. “You’ve always been mine, Keeley. From the moment you took me into your cottage. There’s never been another woman who captured me, body and soul, the way you did. There’ll never be another. I should have been willing to give you what was rightly yours before now. I tried to do what was right and in the end, none of it matters if I lose you.”

“Hold me,” she whispered. “Stay here with me and hold me until the time has come for me to go away. I can feel myself growing weaker. I don’t think ’tis a long time.”

A raw, gut-wrenching sound of agony ripped from Alaric’s throat. His chest burned as if he’d swallowed fire. His hands shook so badly that he worried he’d let her fall.

“Aye, I’ll hold you, Keeley. I won’t let you go alone. We’ll stay here together and watch the sun go down over the loch and I’ll tell you every dream I ever had of our life together.”

She smiled and shivered against him. She went completely limp in his arms as if she’d expended all her remaining strength to say what she needed. For a long moment she lay there until she roused herself, seeming to have one last thing that she needed him to hear.

“You’re my dream, Alaric McCabe. And I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment your horse dumped you at my cottage. I spent so much time being resentful and lamenting the circumstances of my life, but ’tis true that I wouldn’t change a single thing because then I would have never known your love.”

He cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. Their tears mingled and the salt slipped onto their tongues as Alaric tenderly kissed her lips.

He closed his eyes and rocked her back and forth in his arms. The day faded to dusk and the evening grew colder. Gannon came out with furs and quietly wrapped them around Alaric and Keeley before leaving the two alone again.

The keep was already preparing to mourn. No one expected Keeley to live through the night.

Alaric settled into the furs and made himself as comfortable as possible on the face of the rock where he sat. He began to tell Keeley of all the things he loved most about her. How she made him laugh with her temper and her sharp wit. How she didn’t back down from either of his brothers.

He told her of his dreams of their children and how he wanted girls as beautiful and as fierce as she was and boys with her fire and courage.

Night settled in and the stars popped overhead. The moon splashed onto the loch, illuminating the pair as Alaric hung on tightly, willing Keeley not to slip away from him.

She grew quieter. He could literally feel the change in her as she grew weaker. The pain was too much for him to bear.

He laid his head atop hers and closed his eyes, wanting a brief moment of peace. When next he opened his eyes, the sky had paled with dawn’s imminent approach.

Panic stabbed through his chest. How long had he slept? He was afraid to look down. He was afraid to focus in on Keeley. What if she’d died in his arms while he slept? How could he ever forgive himself?

“Keeley?” he whispered as he shifted on the rock.

To his amazement, she moaned and moved fretfully against him. Her forehead gleamed with … sweat. With shaking fingers he touched her clammy skin and felt the sticky moisture that signaled the end of her fever.

Oh, God, he couldn’t function. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t process. He should get her back to the keep so that Ewan could look at her, but ’Twas God’s truth if he tried to stand now, he’d fall flat on his face.