Page 46 of Highlander’s Bride

Bryanna stopped breathing, everything sinking within her. “You ran?”

“Aye, lass, I ran like a bloody coward. I just left her, nae a word. The truth is…I left her before she could break my heart. I felt like a shite. I’d been alone and outcast from the clan since I was a lad of fourteen, lass. I had no clan. I had no one, and I had thought I didna need anyone. For most of my life, I’ve been caring for myself.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Three days later, I came back. I changed my mind. I kent I was being a coward. I kent she deserved better. And I realized just how much I loved her. A goldsmith made a ring… A simple one, but still. I went back to the farm…”

His voice broke, and his face crumpled in a tearless grimace of grief. Bryanna laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Looking at the lightening horizon, he breathed for a moment.

“Daidh raided the farm again, lass. He came for revenge. He murdered her because of me!”

Bryanna gasped and blinked. She reached her hand out to him but stopped herself.

Raghnall swallowed, his throat working. “She lay in the dirt, in a pool of her own blood…dying. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. I promised my dying betrothed that I’d always take care of Seoc. But truth is, lass, I’ll never be able to relieve my guilt. She died because I didn’t have courage enough to be a man and marry her like she’d asked me to. Had I not run, I’d have been able to protect her against the man who wanted me. There’s something so wrong about me, lass. I should never have a family, never marry. I should never have children.”

“But why, Raghnall?” Bryanna asked carefully, her voice coming out deep.

He looked at her, and at that moment, she knew all his walls were down. His defenses had crumbled, and she was looking right into the very core of his soul.

And she saw no darkness there.

There was only light. Light, dimmed for years and years by pain.

“Because ’tis better to be alone than to hurt anyone again, lass. Loving means hurting people, losing people. How can any relationship in my life be any different?”

She couldn’t stand the raw, blistering pain saturating his raspy voice. She closed the remaining distance between them and cupped his jaw, the touch of his rough stubble burning her fingers.

“You’re so wrong, Raghnall,” she said. “You don’t hurt people. You protect them. And there are people who wouldn’t hurt you…”

His eyes softened. “Aye, I’ve seen that from ye, lass. Why have ye been so loyal to me, when I kidnapped ye and held ye in my house against yer will?”

The vision of him blurred as tears welled in her eyes. “Because, my fierce Highlander, we may be separated by centuries, but we’re not so different, you and me. I have secrets of my own, and I know what it is to feel alone. And no one has ever made me feel so alive as you do…”

Chapter 22

He kissed her then, sealing his mouth to hers. His lips were tender and hard at the same time. He wrapped his arms around her, crushing her against his chest, locking her in the steely, hot embrace of his arms.

There was salty wetness on her lips—tears, she realized, though if they were his or hers, she didn’t know. There was an ache, as well, the desperation of two wounded souls that sought refuge in each other.

And found it.

They were connecting, coming together and falling apart, and aching for each other as their tongues glided and moved, loving. Soon, pained groans were coming out of his mouth, and kitten-like whimpers out of hers. She was hot and needy, every cell in her body alive and vibrant with him…her Highland warrior with a broken soul of gold and demons that begged to be released.

And suddenly, she knew without a shadow of a doubt why Sìneag had sent her here. Maybe it was the psychic in her; maybe it was just that her heart had finally been tuned to the right tone.

But she knew.

She had come for him. He was her soul mate, even though they’d never be together. Even though he’d never love her like he loved Mòrag. Her time would come to an end here, but they were still soul mates.

And as his soul mate, she would heal him.

She stopped the kiss and leaned back and took his head in both her hands, her eyes searching his. His were wild, as dark and as shiny as wet obsidian, and so full of desire she shuddered.

“I’m yours, Raghnall,” she whispered. “Whatever happens, no matter how much time we have together—and I may go back to my time tomorrow—no matter for how long destiny has brought us together, I’m your wife now, and I’m yours, and I won’t abandon you.”

He blinked, and the desire mixed with another emotion—ache…gratitude…wonder.

Bryanna swallowed the ache in her own throat and said, “You wanted me to ask you to make love to me. Here I am. Asking.”

He exhaled, his eyes bottomless. “Are ye certain, lass? After everything I told ye?”