Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

N ay… nay, nay, nay.

Enya’s hands hovered uselessly over Cillian’s wound. Her first instinct, of course, was to heal him, but with all those people around them, she couldn’t risk it. Someone was bound to notice and then Enya would have to come clean about her secret, telling the truth to everyone.

She could never do such a thing. Not only would she be damning herself but her entire family, as well.

Looking around helplessly, Enya realized her only option was to drag Cillian somewhere away from everyone else and the battle. Naturally, that was easier said than done. Even as she grabbed his ankles and began to pull him away, between bushes and trees, his weight was too much for her to move with any efficiency or ease. By the time she had managed to drag him just a little farther into the woods, her forehead was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and her arms and back ached with the effort it had taken her. In the end, she decided that was as good as it was going to get and she glanced over her shoulder to ensure no one was watching before she placed one hand firmly on the wound and grasped the knife with the other.

Cillian didn’t even move. The only thing that kept Enya going was the knowledge that he was still breathing, even if he was unconscious.

With a decisive flick of her wrist, Enya pulled the blade out of Cillian’s stomach and tossed it aside onto the ground. Even as she applied all the pressure she could to the wound, blood fountained past her fingers, painting her hands a bright red that sickened her. Never before had she been so affected by healing a wound. None of her family members had ever been on the verge of death like this—only her mother, whom she failed to save.

But Cillian would not die that day. Enya wouldn’t allow it. The wound was deep and he had already lost a lot of blood, but she would do anything in her power to keep him alive.

After healing the rabbit, Enya had already tired herself out, but she focused all her attention on Cillian, that familiar tingle spreading over her fingers and up her arms as she poured her energy into him. Deep as the wound was, it took a lot out of her to stitch the flesh back together bit by bit, her fingers glowing brighter than any other time she had attempted to fix such extensive damage. The mere fact that Cillian was even alive long enough for her to heal him was nothing short of a miracle and Enya was lucky that she had had the time to drag him away, even the short distance she had managed.

She didn’t want to think what could have happened if Cillian had been stabbed in plain sight of everyone else. With just a little more luck, Cillian would be the only one to know what had happened to him.

There was no avoiding telling him the truth at this point, that much Enya knew. She had to explain everything to him and hope that he wouldn’t be afraid of her once he knew the truth, but also that he wouldn’t try to expose her secret. From what she knew of him, she doubted he would do anything to put her in danger. After all, he hadn’t hesitated to throw himself in harm’s way to save her.

By the time she had managed to heal the wound, Enya was exhausted, the events of the day finally catching up to her. She slumped back against the nearest tree, curling into herself just as Cillian sat up with a gasp, eyes snapping open and hand reaching for a weapon he did not have.

Enya reached for him, placing a gentle hand on his knee, but that did nothing to calm him. He still looked around with wide eyes, then down at himself where the wound should have been; where the blood had seeped into his clothes, now a red so dark it appeared black under the sunlight.

“It’s alright,” Enya said. “Ye’re alright.”

It’s alright. I’m here.

The more Cillian stared at Enya in silence, the more she feared he would never speak. Several minutes had passed since she had explained her powers to him in her room, admitting she could heal wounds with a simple touch, and ever since, Cillian had only stared at her with such intensity that she couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Say somethin’,” she said. Anything would do. She just needed to know the shock was not so terrible that he was on the verge of a breakdown.

“I kent it,” he said, and it wasn’t what Enya had expected to hear. “I kent it! I kent ye were doin’ somethin’. Ye did it tae me an’ ye did it tae Samuel… an’ that rabbit.”

“I did,” Enya admitted. “But I can assure ye, that is all I can dae. I cannae harm anyone. I cannae take life. An’ even if I could, I wouldnae.”

That was what people usually feared: that she could somehow kill them with a simple touch, that she could take as much as she could give. But Enya had never been capable of such a thing and she wouldn’t want to be capable of it either.

Frowning, Cillian stood from his bed and took Enya’s hands in his, holding them tightly. “This is incredible, ye are incredible.”

This was another thing she hadn’t expected to hear, but she didn’t have the time to say anything before Cillian swooped in and kissed her, taking her breath away. In the time it had taken them to get back to the castle, she had regained some of her physical strength, but it was her mental strength which failed her now, as she wrapped her arms around Cillian and held him close, returning the kiss with fervor. She knew she should be keeping herself away from him. She knew she should be thinking about her sister and working towards her original plan, but she was tired and she needed the comfort, so she pushed all other thoughts aside and focused only on Cillian.

When she parted her lips for him, Cillian deepened the kiss, his arms wrapping around her waist like a vice. After healing him, he had regained all his strength, feeling no discomfort or pain, but Enya still felt a dull pain in her stomach. Thankfully, however, enough hours had passed since the healing and now the kiss was enough of a distraction to keep the lingering pain away.

Cillian pulled back with a soft gasp, his grey eyes lidded and hazy with desire. “Tell me tae stop.”

Enya shook her head. “Dinnae stop.”

Letting out a shuddering breath, Cillian kissed Enya once more, before he began to scatter kisses over her jaw and neck. Enya tilted her head to the side with a sigh, the hot trail of his kisses driving her delirious with need, and for once ever since she had stepped foot in the castle, she could finally let everything go and simply focus on herself, on something that felt good.

When Cillian’s hands began to roam lower and lower on her body, heat pooled deep in Enya’s core. Her heart raced, the unfamiliarity of the situation worrying her, but she never wanted to stop. Even if she wasn’t supposed to be with Cillian, even if what she was doing was a sin, she craved him like she had never craved anything in her life.

“I want ye,” Cillian mumbled against her neck. When he tilted his head up to look at her, Enya ran her fingers through his dark hair, drawing a soft moan out of him as his eyes fell shut. “Please, Thora. Please.”

The sound of her sister’s name gave Enya pause and she swallowed in a dry throat, hesitating. She had to tell Cillian the truth. He had to know who she truly was, especially after what had happened at the camp.

She had found out who had attacked them. He was Laird Malcolm MacNeil, or so he had told her. He had also revealed to her that he knew precisely who she was. Just moments before Cillian had reached them, he had told her he had seen the sisters switch places right before the trip to Jura and were she to reveal his identity, he would reveal hers.

But this wasn’t the right moment to tell Cillian the truth. She would tell him, she decided, soon but another time. Nodding, she tugged gently at his hair, pulling him up a little to press a kiss to his lips.

“Aye,” she said. “Ye have me.”

As she spoke, she pushed Cillian towards the bed for a few steps, until he took the hint and grabbed her, lifting her up in his arms and carrying her to the bed. When her back hit the mattress, Enya pulled him on top of her, her legs falling open as he pushed her dress up and out of the way to settle between them.

Cillian was a solid weight on top of her, warm and comforting, and Enya wished she could live in that moment forever, away from reality. Impossible as that was, she was simply going to enjoy it for as long as it could last, her body responding to every touch of Cillian’s hands, every brush of his lips, every soft sound that escaped him. As he kissed down her neck once more, moving down to her chest, Enya arched her back, pushing up into the kisses, her desire only growing stronger with each of them.

With his fingers on the laces of her dress, Cillian paused, giving her a questioning look. Enya simply nodded, sitting up a little to allow him to undress her, and soon enough, Cillian had all but torn her clothes off her body, tossing them carelessly on the floor.

Eager as she was, she couldn’t stop herself from trying to cover her body with her arms, embarrassment flooding through her. Cillian took her hands in his, though, and moved them gently away, taking a moment to simply stare at her nude body.

“Ye’re so bonnie,” he said in a quiet, almost reverend voice, his lips moving over her skin as he dragged them over the swell of her breast. When they wrapped around her nipple, sucking gently at the pebbled flesh, Enya couldn’t help but moan and writhe against him, the sensation so foreign but at the same time so pleasurable that she had no control over her reaction. “I wish I could stare at ye forever.”

Enya trembled with need, Cillian’s touches and his words affecting her more than she could ever think possible. When he pulled away to peel off his own clothes, she couldn’t help but miss the heat of his body, her hands reaching for him to pull him back into her arms the moment he had shed off his last layer, fingers brushing softly over the grooves and valleys of his chest and stomach, admiring the shifting muscles under his soft skin.

Scars littered his torso, some small and others larger, some smooth and others with jagged edges. None of it retracted from his beauty, though. If anything, they only added to it, his body serving as a canvas for the story of everything he had been through so far. Enya only wished she could have known him sooner so that she could have spared him some of the pain, carrying it as her own.

As her hands moved lower and lower, so did her gaze, until it finally reached his manhood and her cheeks flushed a bright red. It was the first time in her life that she had seen a man nude and the sight aroused her as much as it flustered her and gave her pause.

While Cillian certainly had experience in such things, Enya didn’t know what to do and she despised the fact that compared to him, she was so inexperienced. Was she supposed to touch him? How could she give him pleasure, she wondered, when she didn’t even know what pleasure meant?

Perhaps sensing her turmoil, Cillian gave her a soft smile as he moved lower and lower down her body, settling between her legs. His lips pressed soft kiss after soft kiss to her thigh, teeth grazing gently over the sensitive skin there until Enya couldn’t help but squirm and writhe, her body asking for something she could not even identify.

She soon found out what it was, when Cillian dragged the flat of his tongue over her folds, forcing a broken moan out of her. In that moment, Enya didn’t know how she could have spent so many years of her life unaware of this kind of pleasure, which was unlike anything she had ever felt before. Wave after wave of it coursed through her body as Cillian teased her sensitive flesh, the wet heat of his tongue pulling moan after moan out of her and forcing her to clamp her hand over her mouth, fearful that someone could hear them. Pleasure coiled in her core, building higher and higher and radiating out to the rest of her body until she was a trembling mess, her fingers tangled in Cillian’s hair and her hips working ceaselessly on their own accord as her body sought out her release.

Suddenly, though, the heat of Cillian’s tongue was gone and Enya couldn’t help but let out a soft whine in protest. Cillian chuckled as he climbed up the length of her body, pressing his forehead against hers as he spoke softly.

“I willnae take ye if ye dinnae ask me,” he said. “I can bring ye more pleasure with me mouth if ye so wish an’ we can stop there.”

Enya considered it for a moment. The wise thing to do would be to choose the latter, to put an end to it before it got too far, but she wanted to be claimed by Cillian entirely. She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to know what it felt like to be completely his, to belong to him even if it couldn’t last.

“Take me,” she said. “I’m yers.”

A rumbling groan reverberated through Cillian at her words and he wasted no time before he took himself in his hand and pressed the tip of his manhood against Enya’s folds. She gasped at the first contact, freezing for a moment, but Cillian—ever attentive—distracted her with a kiss, helping her relax as he finally pushed slowly inside her.

That sensation, too, was entirely unfamiliar, Enya’s walls stretching wide around his girth. A jolt of pain, then replaced by pure pleasure shook her entire body as Cillian pushed himself inside her to the hilt, filling her up completely. For a moment, Enya struggled to breathe, the sensation so overwhelming that she could only hold onto his shoulders, nails digging into the skin.

It felt right; it felt like they belonged together, and Enya pulled him impossibly close, the fingers of one hand brushing through his hair as the other wrapped around his, the two of them holding onto each other while their bodies rocked slowly together, finding their natural rhythm. Each groan from Cillian’s lips, each thrust of his hips, each ragged breath brought her more joy than she could have imagined.

For all she had tried to keep herself away from him and even hate him, Cillian had managed to worm his way into her heart and there was nothing left to do but admit her true feelings for him—if not to Cillian, then at least to herself.

I love him. I cannae help but love him.

The slick slide of their bodies, the way Cillian stared at her, his gaze so tender and adoring, had that pressure growing inside her once more. Every thrust felt more pleasurable, more urgent, all of them building up to the moment when her body seized, her climax crashing over her suddenly. Her core throbbed, her inner walls clenching tightly around Cillian’s length as her body went taut like a bowstring, back arching off the mattress.

Distantly, she heard Cillian curse and she looked down to see him pull out of her and spill over her thighs, reaching his own peak with a moan. Even then, her pleasure continued, wave after wave rolling slowly until it finally began to fade.

With a breathless laugh, Cillian collapsed next to her, rolling over to face her. The smile on his face was warm—loving, even.

It frightened Enya more than anything else.

“Are ye alright?” Cillian asked, a hand coming up to brush a stray strand of her hair away from her face.

This isnae the time tae tell him.

“Aye,” Enya said, returning Cillian’s smile, even though it pained her. “I’m alright.”