King's Warrior (Renegade Lords)

“What are they?”

“Etchings. Sketches.” He blew out a breath. “Stories.”

“Stories?” She looked over her shoulder at him. “Of what?”

He shrugged. “Journeys. Trials and tribulations. Failure and triumph. Lives lived and lost.”

“Who drew them?” Her voice was soft, almost reverent.

He followed the line of her fingertips as she began a slow circuit of the walls. “Everyone who’s ever passed through here.”

Her eyes swung to his, her hand paused on the wall. “And who has passed through here?”

“This is Renegades Cove, lass. ‘Tis a refuge for all the stark naughts of the world.”

Her eyes held his. She was all deep contrasts, some vivid color—her hair, her complicated eyes, the curving line of her body inside her green gown–and pale, ethereal beauty, her fingertips, her face, the tips of her toes, poking out from under the damp hem.

“You are not a stark naught, Tadhg. You are worth a thousand others who have been called ‘great.’” She turned back to the walls. “Where is yours? Your drawing?”

He laughed once, softly, and shook his head, then pointed by memory, not needing to look.

“Over there.”

She followed his finger to where he and his brothers had scratched their drawings into the wall, all those years ago. It depicted four figures, in a circle, their hands thrust into the center. One for all… they’d said. And all for naught. They’d vowed vengeance on the world that day, their fury depicted by jabbing lines rising up out of their circle. Their fury, rising up, flying over the world like crows of war.

But as he looked at it now, it looked more like light coming off them.

But perhaps that was because Maggie’s fingers were on it, touching the old wound of a drawing. All he knew now was any light that came from him now, came because of Maggie. From being loved by her.

Fifteen years ago he could not have imagined such a moment, coming to this place he’d vowed never to return to, with a woman like Maggie. Beautiful in mind and body and spirit, brave, bold, loyal, and good to her core. He felt as if just looking at her was like drinking a clear liquid, the elixir of some invisible god. Taking her inside him, filling him up with her goodness.

“If I recall,” he said lazily, “I promised you a bath.”

She turned to him. “I account you gave me half a bath,” she mused. “There was soap, and hot water, but then we moved very quickly to a bed, and how can one bathe in a bed?”

He held out his hand. “Let’s have the other half, then.”

“Half a bath in a sea cave?”

“Come with me.”

“That is no hardship,” she said, floating barefoot toward him. “I have been do

ing that since you kissed me on a quay.”

“You’re an obedient woman.”

She took the hand he’d held up for her. “I would not say obedient,” she demurred as he guided her toward the back tunnel, torch in hand. “Perhaps wise. Intelligent. Remarkably sensible…. Oh, Tadhg.”

Her voice had gone reverent around the exclamation, and she dropped his hand to step deeper into the little stone chamber. “’Tis a spring.” She whipped her head around and looked at him in amazement. “A hot spring.”

“Very hot,” he said, smiling proudly.

“Do you think I shall be scalded?”

He nodded to the dark little pool of water, edged by small, smooth pebbles and banked by flat stones. “Go see,” he said.

She was already shedding her clothes. Hot springs were good for that.