The Irish Warrior

She nodded. No semblance of a braid anymore, she was a sea of wild red-brown curls he could dive into. “All night, if we must. But, the moon has set,” she pointed out. “It will be ever dark.”

“I can see us through. Yer hand?” he asked, gesturing.

She looked at it as if surprised, then grinned. “I do not feel a thing.”

They were very quiet as they shouldered their packs and started off. They h

iked until the sun rose, when russet light fell like rain through the emerald tree branches. Scented with pine needles and forest resin, the triangulated rays of gold and dusty red drifted between the branches, humming faint light.

They passed through this furred illumination, their bodies alternately light and shadow, chilled to the bone and alive. It would be another glorious day.

They stopped twice—once to rest for a deep, hard sleep at midday, and one other time for a quick scrub in a stream.

But mostly they walked. And talked, although not of the nights before. Finian told her about his extended foster family and his love of music, and she might have mentioned something about a few be-knighted daydreams of her youth.

And he watched her. Endlessly.

Every time she bent her body, he followed the curve. When she laughed, he watched her mouth stretch up into that bewitching grin. When she looked up to ask him a question, he was already watching her with a slow regard that brought a blush to her cheeks.

At which point he would jerk his gaze away. The feeling was indescribable, akin to being stoked by fires that had been long banked. Something like coming home.

When evening finally turned honest eyes unreadable, she brought up their brush with the soldiers.

“Have you ever felt that way before, so alive when you are so close to dying?” Her voice was so low it barely disturbed the air. She could have been talking to herself.

He nodded silently, a bit alarmed by the feelings coursing through him. It brought life to her blood, did it? That pleased him. He knew the feeling well: the waterfalling sensation, the tumbling exhilaration of facing death alongside the inner certainty, ‘This moment is mine.’

There were few enough people who had such a response, with hearts who liked to live near the edge of unseen cliffs and fling themselves over the side, knowing they could fly.

Maybe pleased wasn’t the right word.

He’d stood within inches of her body when it had come alive, when he’d told her their lives might be about to be shortened. Peered into her eyes when they’d sparked with fire. He’d known exactly how excitement pounded through her body, made her shimmer like a warrior-sprite. It left him breathless.

She was like some creature from a mythical land, and she did not even realize it, how uncommon she was.

No, he corrected himself. She seemed to know quite well she did not belong anywhere. What she had no idea of, was how perfectly she fit into the echoing, empty spaces of his heart.

Chapter 29

Senna stayed awake long after Finian had fallen asleep. Too much excitement, excitement that ought to be scaring her witless. Instead, she felt…excited. Alive. Reckless.

She rummaged about in her pack and came out with one of the flasks. She took a great draught and glanced at Finian. He was dead to the world. She regarded such peaceful repose glumly, then took another swig. His dark head was resting on the pack, his fingers interlaced over his broad chest. A steady, low rhythm lifted and lowered his hands. One knee was bent and resting against a small sapling.

She took another swallow, then corked it, still looking at Finian.

Devouring him, she admitted, since no one was inside her head to witness the admission.

She did like this whisky.

She was contemplating some rash, risky things just now, but for what reason urge herself to caution? She’d been dying inside for half her life, and Finian was the only thing that had ever made her even want to be renewed. Did one just toss that aside? She’d gone beyond the Pale in every way since coming to Ireland. She was hungry in a way she’d never been before. Sore in a way she’d never been before.

Alive in a way she’d never been before.

She set the flask down and crawled closer. All she wanted was to touch him. Not even to have him touch her. Just to feel his body. Touch. Be touching.

Not be alone.

She knelt beside him, her feet tucked beneath her. Planting a palm on each side of his chest, she leaned low and inhaled.