Chapter 32

ALBHAINN POND - SEPTEMBER 25, 1385

T hree hours after compline Léo managed to slip through the keep and to the tunnel. His heart pumped in his chest, knowing he would need to order Moira to leave, knowing she would resist it at all costs. He must convince her to go.

As he pushed himself out of the tunnel opening, he saw her sitting on a wide rock, her icy blue gown shimmering against the bright moonlight. When she saw him, her face softened with relief, and she sprinted through the clearing, straight into his arms. He caught her and held her tight.

"I'm here, mon petit oiselle ."

Her face nestled against his neck, and he touched the soft curls gathered on top of her head. Her lungs filled with a deep breath and released, and he put her down on her feet.

He took her hand and pulled her toward the forest path. "Let's go, Angus and Eoghan are waiting at Breacais to take us to Dunvegan."

Her feet planted and she wouldn't move forward. Frustration filled him. He must not lose his temper. Keeping his voice steady, he squeezed her hand. "Moira. This is an order. This mission is done."

She pulled her hand out of his and shook her head furiously. No. We can't go. We must stay until the attack. We can't abandon the mission now. We're so close.

He took her hand again. "I don't care a thing about this mission. It's done, it's over. We're leaving now."

She pushed him away. No. We can't be done.

Looking at her bruised face, battered lips, and the desperation in her eyes, he felt as if she were speaking about what they shared. Trying a different tack, praying he could find a way to keep his little bird, he came close to her and took her face in his palms. His thumbs traced the purple shadows under her eyes, the cut at the top of her cheek, her swollen bottom lip.

"Look at you, mon amour. You have done so much, have given so much. How can I ask you to give more? Please, I'm begging you, understand that I only want you to follow Hector's wishes, and my own, that you not risk your life. Not over this."

He ran the curl at her temple through his fingers and kissed her nose. "Don't you know how much I love you?" He pulled her ear beside his mouth so he could whisper into it as he had their last day together in Cràdh. Bumps rose along her neck. "I loved Théa, I will always love her. But you are the fire in my heart, the blood in my veins. You consume me. Please, mon amour , my love—I cannot let you risk yourself over this."

A shiver passed over him. He'd meant to undo her, but her nearness, her scent, was affecting him like good wine. He pulled the leather from her hair and ran his hands into the satin curls, loving their wildness. Spirited aquamarine eyes pinned his own—searching him, challenging him, and his soul burned for her. His heart skipped as her breath came in and out near his mouth, igniting his lips.

" Embrasse-moi ." His voice was rough.

She searched his expression. His fingers came to her jaw and her hands caressed the muscles in his chest, traveling over his racing heart. He angled his mouth over hers and begged. "Kiss me. Please, I've waited so long."

Stepping onto her toes, she hovered her lips over his own, her eyes holding his. He nodded. And then, at long last, Moira Allen kissed him.

Flint struck and the kiss he'd yearned for since Cràdh started the incendiary of his heart, shooting him toward the heavens like a flaming arrow. His hands moved through her hair. Her mouth opened his, deepening the kiss, angling away and into the deepest places of his heart. His hands cradled the silky angles of her face, and her arms came around his neck, pulling him closer.

Remembering the pain she'd endured, his lips moved over her bruises, and to the cut on her cheek. His mouth found the scented place beneath her ear, breathing her in, brushing over the satin skin of her neck.

Her hands came to his chest and for a moment he thought she would push him away as she'd done in the prison, but instead she tightened her hands in his doublet, pulling him back into her lips, her hands moving to his hair. Her mouth plunged over his, again and again like swift moving rapids. After long minutes, he pulled himself away in between her kisses, begging her in short bursts.

"Please, Moira… follow me… come with me… I need you… Gabriel needs you…marry me."

Resting her forehead on his, she broke their kisses, a tear trickling down her cheek. She took a step back. What about the king? About the Isles? Our clan? Our team? What about God?

Running his hands through his hair, he wanted to scream in frustration. "God needs you to give your life for this?"

Hurt pricked at her eyes. I know you don't want me to put myself at risk, but Léo, I know what I'm doing and what I'm risking. I must stay.

His heart cleaved in two. "There's nothing left to be gleaned. We need to go now."

The catapult on Scalpay and the century of soldiers. We should go tonight and make sure it is taken care of. It will need to be disabled before the attack.

He growled in frustration. She could think only of the wretched mission and not his heart. "You and I aren't taking on one hundred soldiers by ourselves. Especially when Niall is on high alert.""

You said Eoghan and Angus were in Breacais. We can get them if it will make you feel better.

Truly terrified at the way she was talking, he gripped her shoulders. "If we had the whole team I wouldn't feel better. One hundred caterans. Do you understand?"

I've done it before. By myself. With three times that many caterans.

"Iain and Calum had to get you out. And you burned down the Aird of Sleat in the process."

She took a deep breath and made a sharp whistle. Finally, she looked back to him. This won't work, will it?

Knees weak, he shook his head. "What do you mean?"

You are always going to tell me not to go, and I cannot give it up.

Her eyes searched his and his throat burned with emotion, not wanting to lose her. "I'll never want you to be in danger. No. I love you, Moira."

Her eyes closed, and she shook her head. Another tear escaped over her cheek. You didn't find my letter?

"What letter?"

She shook her head again. It doesn't matter. Perhaps it's best it's gone.

He thought of her father's dying words and the secret he was keeping from her, and nodded. Sometimes, it was a greater mercy to leave things alone.

The words would cost him, and he blinked against the tears forming in his eyes. "I think you're right. This won't work. We want different things. We need different things. It's time to put away what we had."

Hurt washed over her features but she kissed his cheek. He held her close and looked into her eyes one last time. "Promise me, Moira. Don't risk your life."

Wiping away her tears, she nodded. Something swam in her eyes.

"What is it?"

It's truly over?

He nodded and looked away, unable to say the words out loud.

Léo held onto his composure as the door to Moira's chamber clicked shut, but the sound of it echoed in his ears, filling him with a sense of loss. They were done. It was over. Legs heavy, he climbed the stairs to the garret and pushed the door open. Picking up the candle on the table, he crouched beside the hearth and lit it within the dimming embers.

Fatigue weighed on his body and heart as he went through the motions of preparing for bed. All he wanted to do was sleep. To get through the next four days and the uprising. He needed his son. He needed France. He needed to get out of here.

Anger and grief wound him into knots, and he threw his estoc across the room. It collided with the wall and a shower of moldering plaster followed it to the floor. Ripping the pillow off the bed, he screamed into it, releasing his grief and rage. He'd wanted to save his little bird, but instead she'd mounted upon her wings and flown away from him, leaving him all alone.

Throwing the pillow at the broken plaster, he released a growl and ran his hands over his face, helpless to stop the tears of grief that formed in his eyes.

Sleep. He needed sleep. Unsure what to do next, he collapsed on the bed. Something crinkled beneath his cheek. Wiping his eyes, he noticed crushed Michaelmas daisies and a folded square of paper half-tucked beneath the folds of his mother's ivory quilt, almost invisible to the naked eye. He turned the square note over in his hands and recognized Moira's handwriting. Chief Léonid Cormac MacKinnon.

He crumpled the paper in his fist and moved toward the fire. Crouching beside the hearth, he blew into the embers and stacked a new brick of peat inside. When it sprang to life, he chucked the paper into it. It hit the stone and bounced across the room.

Read it.

The voice he'd come to depend on in prison suddenly made itself known in his heart.

"She doesn't want me, Lord."

Read it.

"She said it is for the best if I don't."

Read it.

"She's leaving me. Just like Maman. Just like Théa."

Read it, Léo.

Growling in frustration, he got to his feet and walked to the side of his bed. Picking up the note, he smoothed the crumples out of it and stared at his name and title for long minutes, moving it around and around in his fingers until the urge to read it overcame his weariness. Unfolding it, he looked at the feral slant of her handwriting and began to read.

Her story unfurled before him, her earliest memory, the dolphin, the raised voices, the fall into the water. Pictures of the small four-year-old girl being sucked through the waves, by the grace of God saved by driftwood, colliding with the boat of Father Allen.

Léo froze. She called him Father, not Da. Father. For Father Allen. The first day in prison crystallized in his fevered memory. ‘Came down ill after a spell in the sea when she weren't but four years old. Took her voice away.' She knew he wasn't her natural father.

He got to his feet, knowledge crashing over him.

She could remember the day she fell in the water, could remember her Christian name, and that she'd had a family, but didn't know anything else. But he did.

The argument. On Staffa. Léo remembered the story of Hector's lost sister. A story Hector had drunkenly shared after a particularly brutal skirmish with the English. Hector and Lachlan had sailed to Staffa to try and steal some MacKinnon treasure and discovered a stowaway onboard. Hector wanted to turn around and go home at once, already overcome by guilt at the thought of stealing. Lachlan had accused him of using their sister as an excuse and called him a bairn. Hector jumped on his brother, four years younger, but already bigger than he. They fought—until Hector saw their sister go under the water. They went in after her and nearly drowned themselves.

Things fell rapidly into place. The spirals of her hair…Hector's curls, and Lachlan's coloring and refined features. The aqua eyes that the brothers, and their sister, shared. Her height—all of them six feet tall or taller. Their expressions, their battle movement, the high angles of their faces that made Hector look like a sinister, otherworldly monster, and made her a stunning, otherworldly beauty.

Their care of others, the heart they shared for the team, and their selflessness. When he'd thought in his prison cell they'd met earlier in his life, it was Hector and Lachlan his mind recognized.

The night at the clearing, when she'd said in the heat of her anger… stop calling me Moira . She'd been ready to tell him but hadn't when he botched giving her the message from her father.

Reading her closing words of love, Léo finally understood what she was asking of him. She needed to be herself. It was woven into the very fabric of the soul God gave her, since she was four years old and stowed away on her brother's skiff, wanting to be a part of their mission. She was asking him to accept her as the woman God made her to be, and to keep her safe.

Dear God, he wasn't in love with Moira Allen, he was in love with Aileen MacLean .

Scrambling to his feet, he shoved the note inside his doublet and crashed back down the stairs. Reaching her door, he tried it, finding it bolted. He dared not knock and risk waking his brothers. Rushing down to the entresol, he ripped opened the shutter, squeezing through the lancet window and holding onto the side of the keep.

Finding finger holds and toe holds, he moved sideways until he reached her window. Pulling himself up, he found the shutter open and swung inside, falling over the top of a table.

"Aileen?"

In the darkness of the room, he squinted, the fire casting soft orange light over every surface. On the bed he saw it. Her sky-blue gown thrown haphazardly across the coverlet. She was gone.