Chapter 17

Afew days after the break-up Caroline sat down on the islet's dock to watch the moonlight on the water. She'd gone to the stronghold every day to try and talk to Nyall, but Shaw hadn't yet returned since the night of the confrontation between them. Fletcher told her that the captain went out every day with a patrol to search for him. Everything about the situation made her heart hurt, because she knew she had been the cause of the confrontation between her lover and the chieftain. She also suspected her lover hadn't wanted to end things with her. If anything he wanted everything she did.

Something stood between them, however, and it wasn't Shaw. This was something no one knew, except maybe for Jamaran.

Her mother would have scolded her for being greedy enough to want love along with the passion, but she didn't care. Nyall was the one man who saw her for what she was, and had been generous enough to accept that. He didn't flinch away from her desires or her personality. Why was he so afraid of her love? She had thought of every possibility, but kept coming back to the same one.

Someone burned him before me.

Seeing Jamaran surface a few yards away didn't surprise her. The commander had been coming over late at night to keep her company for a few hours. She suspected without Nyall around he was just as miserable as she was, too.

"Checking up on me?" she asked as he cleared his gills and hoisted himself up beside her on the dock's edge.

"When I saw your pretty feet in the water, I couldnae resist." He took hold of her hand. "You're sad again tonight."

How he always read her mood so easily should have been a comfort; she'd never known anyone so much in tune with her. Yet that made her a burden on him, something she didn't want.

"Don't worry, I'm a big girl. I can handle my Nyall withdrawal." She bumped her shoulder against his. "Aren't you going to get into trouble by hanging out with me every night? Shouldn't you be keeping an eye on Merrick?"

"The king's avoiding me of late." He smiled a little. "I reckon he wishes pair the two of us as Nyall would. Then if I should transform you, 'twould solve his own dilemma."

"Do I want to know any details about Merrick's problem?" When he shook his head she sighed. "Good. I'm depressed enough. Nyall's still out searching the island for Shaw, or maybe he's using it as an excuse to dodge us." She glanced over at Dun Ard. "The three of us are so good together. I don't want just you or him, I want you both. Why can't we be together if that's what we want?"

"He sees that you love him. I ken thus, for we share a connection that permits us share our thoughts as if speaking." He looked all over her face. "'Tisnae wrong to give your heart to him, Caroline."

"I'm not giving that stubborn jackass anything yet." Of course she wanted to, but falling in love with a man who kept kicking her to the curb was beyond ridiculous. "I wish I could read your mind, but I can't. I never said anything to you because I thought you'd get jealous."

"'Twas clear the night he rejected you." His lips curved. "I ken I still hold a place in your heart as well. Yet you and I, we cannae share the kind of love you possess for my friend. I may never again live on land, and my duties much occupy me. Whatever time we share together, 'twill ever be brief."

It made her even more depressed to know he'd thought about that. "Don't you resent my choosing him over you?"

"You've never truly loved before Nyall, nor he before you came. My love, 'twas a lady named Marie-Celeste," Jamaran said. "From the time we played together as bairns I adored her. As a young man I couldnae keep from her, and she from me. In that time, my name wasnae Jamaran."

"It was Jean Maran, wasn't it? Merrick must have mangled it into Jamaran." As he chuckled and nodded Caroline grew a little smug for figuring it out. "I never thought I'd use that semester of French I took in high school for anything. What happened with your girl?"

"When her belly swelled our families decided we should marry, and I'd never been happier." His smile faded. "Just before our wedding the Norse came, and killed my lady, our bairn, and everyone in the village. I alone survived, wishing for naught more than an end. When they captured Merrick, I saw my chance for a clean death. Only he took that from me by transformation. My life, 'twas saved, but no' my heart."

That explained so much about him that Caroline hadn't understood.

"I'm so sorry." She put her arm around him. "Next time, tell me to mind my own business."

"'Twas a long time past, and I wished you ken why you're no' first in my heart," he said, and kissed her brow. "Nor do I mind, for you and I, we understand each other. The pleasure we share with Nyall, 'tis the happiness that completes me now. Ever I reckoned 'tis all you may offer me, and I may give you in return. Beyond such, we're but loving friends."

"There's something else I want," she said. "If you can read his mind, then you know why he's shoving me away so he can push us together. It's not just the lightning thing." The way he reacted to that confirmed her suspicions. "I can't fight what I don't know, so tell me."

"'Tisnae a story I may tell." He drew her to her feet. "Now, slap me."

"What?" She recoiled. "Why would I hit you?"

"Nyall's here, watching us." He glanced at the cottage. "Give him reason, and he shall come."

She didn't want to hurt him, so she reached up and kissed him before she whispered, "I have a better idea. Come back to the house with me."

Once inside the cottage Caroline pulled down the window shades, and then lit all the lamps so they would show their silhouettes against the coverings. She then drew the commander over to the hearth, and leaned against him, twining her arms around his neck.

"I know you want me even when Nyall's not here," Caroline said, speaking as if they were alone. "Since he's made it obvious that he doesn't want to be involved any longer, it's just you and me now. We'll get by if we love each other."

"Aye, if 'tis your desire, I shall pleasure you, and keep you company when I may," Jamaran said, glancing at the window. "Only ken I shouldnae take you as the captain does. I mustnae risk siring a bairn with you."

"It's fine. I'll be sure to watch my cycle for the safe days. If I get pregnant, you'll just have to change me and the baby." She turned her back toward the window and rolled her eyes before she said, "I'll have to join your people, and live out the rest of my life in the sea with you and a kid I don't want, but that's the way it goes. So, do you want to try baby-making sex tonight? It's safe, I think."

The door to the cottage flung open, and Nyall stalked inside.

"Go you mad?" he demanded, glaring at them. "You've said time and again you never wished wed him or join his people. Now you love him? Now you'd bear his bairn?"

"Of course I would. He's my lover and my best friend." She kept her arms around Jamaran as she looked over at him. "Why do you care? You don't want me anymore, remember? You might hurt me." She made a rude sound. "You just don't see that you already have, you dumbass."

For a moment the captain looked as if he might lunge at them and tear them apart. His shoulders sagged, and then his knees gave out, and he ended up hunched over on the floor.

"Go gently with him," Jamaran said, kissing her cheek before he slipped away and left the cottage.

Caroline went to stand over the miserable mess she'd made out of the man she loved. His pride had taken a fall, emotionally and physically, but he'd fought himself and lost. She couldn't force him to let her into his heart, but it was high time she let him into hers. She knelt down and took his hands in hers.

"I can't make you do anything," she told him. "But if you're really done with me, I'm not going to give up and kill myself. I'll make another life for myself with Jamaran, or one of the villagers. Maybe I'll just live here alone in the cottage and take dozens of lovers until I'm too old to do anything but knit. The point is, I'll survive, Nyall."

He made a low, wounded sound.

"If you're not done, then you should know that I'll never be like Lark or Valerie." She gestured in the direction of Dun Ard. "I've been alone too long to ever get comfortable living with your clan. I'm going to be independent and obnoxious, probably until the day I die, which I hope will be in eighty years or so. I'm mortal, so that could happen tomorrow, too. My patience has hard limits. So does my ability to be polite. You know all this, but there is one thing I've never told you. One thing that is never going to change." She waited until he looked at her. "I love you, with all my heart."

Instead of responding with pleasure, pain flared in his eyes. "Caroline, 'tisnae you. 'Tis me, and the tainted love that created me."

"Then help me understand," she said. "Do that much for me."

She listened as Nyall told her about his mother, Tiree, and the obsession with and jealousy over Prince Mar that had slowly driven her insane. It tore at her when he described how his mother had isolated and abused him, and then made him watch as she finally committed suicide. It also explained so much that she hadn't understood about Nyall. No wonder the prospect of loving anyone had scared him so much that he only bonded with Jamaran, whose thoughts he could hear at all times. The commander, she realized, was the only person he had ever completely trusted.

"Tiree's blood, 'tis running in my veins along with Prince Mar's," Nyall finally said. "I've never dared love a woman, for fear I should do the same to her—even more so since I acquired the lightning boon. I couldnae bear such when I might spare you."

"Your mother couldn't stand another woman even looking at your father, right?" As he nodded she touched his cheek. "My darling captain, if you were the same, then how could you have shared me with our Selseus friend? Why would you tell me to love him instead of you? Did your mother ever do anything like that with the prince?"

He took in a sharp breath. "No. She couldnae."

"You care more about not hurting me than having me all to yourself," she said gently. "When you're willing to sacrifice so much for someone, that's when you know it's real, true love. Their happiness becomes more important than your own."

As he grabbed and embraced her, tears spilled down Caroline's face, some his, some hers. Then Nyall kissed her, so tenderly and reverently she thought she would start sobbing. He picked her up, keeping his mouth on hers as he carried her over to the bed. There he undressed her, and stripped off his own clothes before he lay down with her.

He simply held her naked body against his and looked into her eyes, as if he were really seeing her for the first time. She stretched and settled against him, happy to have this much when she thought he'd never touch her again.

"Once as a lad I spied on a shepherd and a dairy maid in the glen," he said, stroking his hand along her arm. "I'd never seen two people fack before that day, and watching them made my cock swell. I used my hand to rub my shaft, imagining me the shepherd and my fingers the maid's quim, and 'twas so good. I spilled on the ground, my first time doing so. Then Tiree found me."

Caroline grimaced. "Oh, no."

"She took me back to our chamber and beat me bloody." He closed his eyes for a moment. "All the while she named me a monster, and called me the same near every day after, until she died. 'Twasnae until years later that I learned from Duncan what I did, 'twas an act of innocence."

"Just for that? God, why didn't your father ever take you away from your mother?" she asked, angry now. "He had to know what was going on with her."

"I didnae spend as much time with the prince as my brothers," Nyall admitted. "I only recall that when he did visit us, and my màthair had one of her tirades, my sire would leave at once. He didnae care enough to listen, or he wished me suffer her punishments in his place. I could never tell if 'twas his lack of affection for her or me. Mayhap he disliked us both."

She made a disgusted sound. "Your father might have been an all-powerful Fae, but as a dad he was a complete loser."

"I reckon he didnae understand mortal emotions, nor how he might nurture his halfling sons. Fae, they're very different in mind and heart." He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. "You and Jamaran helped me see that my desires, unnatural or no', dinnae make me a monster. 'Tis but my nature."

"I wish your mother could have been more like mine. She had the sex talk with me the first time I asked where babies came from," Caroline said. "When I got interested in boys she offered to put me on contraceptives so I wouldn't get pregnant. She also talked to me about what was okay for boys to do, and what wasn't. She was very down-to-earth about everything."

"'Twas a precious gift, that honesty." He kissed her brow before he looked into her eyes. "'Tis selfish, yet I want the night alone with you."

"You know that Jamaran understands. He'll always be there for us, too. But you and I, we're the ones in love here." She tilted her head. "You don't have to say it if you're not ready. I've got, what, fifty or sixty years left before I–"

"I love you." Nyall pulled her against him. "With all my heart, my spirit, my body and my will. I want no other, ever again."

Caroline blinked back her tears. "Then you've got me, Captain."

Shaw watchedfrom the trees for a patrol before he climbed down and surveyed the farmland around him. Dozens of dairy cows grazed peacefully on the other side of an old stone wall, watched over by a pair of black and white herding dogs. Beyond the pastures smoke rose from the chimney of a farmhouse, and flickering light made the windows glow a warm amber. Somewhere inside a family of mortals would be gathered before the hearth, enjoying an hour of chatter before they sought their beds. For a moment he longed for the great hall at Dun Ard, and the evenings he'd spent doing the same with his brothers.

His inked arm twitched violently, reminding him of why he could never again return to the clan.

Shaw walked along the wall toward the sea, wondering if he'd gather enough courage to do as he should have after the tussle with Nyall. The captain's ability to summon lightning at will meant he might be the only MacMar powerful enough to face him in a fight. Yet he could not force his brother to use such a thing to slay him. After failing to save his màthair Nyall still blamed himself for that madwoman's selfish end. If he burned Shaw to ash he would never forgive himself. What he had planned all along, that seemed to be the only sane answer again.

He would have to end it as it had begun, with a bon fire.

Relishing his end was something Shaw could not do, but at least his torment would finally cease. He would never again look on his brothers with his heart filled with love while his arm itched to tear them apart. He thought for a moment of the beautiful lady merrow who had been steadily haunting his nights, and wished he'd had a chance to dream of her one last time.

Forgive me, my lovely lady, but if you wish save me, you'll need swim in the waters of oblivion.

That thought made the beast well up inside him with a roar. As the hand of his marked arm curled into a tight fist, he turned and slammed it into the stones, knocking a hole in the wall and sending the cows trundling to the far side of their pasture.

"You'll need repair that," a familiar voice said from behind him. "The lads here, they're too busy planting to mend fences."

He closed his eyes and drew what calm he could before he turned to face Meg, smiling at her. "Lass, I'd hoped I'd meet you."

"You did no such thing. I saw your eyes before you picked your fight with the pasture fence," the clan's former chambermaid said, shifting so that the full moon gleamed on the long dagger she held ready. "If you've come so you may take out your anger on my new family, I'll end you where you stand."

If only she could. "I but wished sleep the night in an empty barn."

Meg sighed. "No man ever tells me the truth. I should get a dog, for then I could teach it bite the next bastart that offers me lies." She sheathed the dagger at her hip and walked past him, waving for him to follow her.

Shaw followed her to a short dock where a number of small skiffs had been tied off. "I dinnae wish sail back to Dun Ard."

"In the state you're in, you shouldnae." She gestured to the sturdiest-looking boat. "Leave Caladh before that thing in you drives you mad and you make us all your pasture fences."

She had seen him almost at his worst, and yet showed not even a flicker of fear. "'Tis the reason I darenae go. Too many dwell on the mainland."

"Then choose an empty island. You ken that one where MacLeir takes sheep for grazing before he takes them to market; 'tis too cold for anyone settle there. You may take shelter in the caves there, and none shall plague you." She nodded toward the inside of the boat. "I put some food there in that sack. 'Twill keep you from starving."

"You've watched me since I came," he muttered, startled. "I never saw you."

"Too wrapped up in your ink, I'll wager." Meg's grim expression softened a little. "Dinnae return until after the full moon. Lady Joana told me the light ever affects those with Fae blood; 'tis when the laird ever grows restless and tetchy. Mayhap 'twill go easier on you once it begins waning."

"You're wiser than I ever reckoned, lass." He would have hugged her, had part of him not wished to snap her spine and tear her limbs from her body. "Dinnae tell anyone where I've gone."

She watched him climb into the skiff, and handed him an oar before she cast off his mooring line. Only then did she drop the dagger into the boat. "For hunting. Dinnae kill anything with a smile."