Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Prisoners of the Wind (21 page)

“After everything he put you through, you still honored
him,” she said.

“He was my father,” Taegin said, and
that was all the explanation he would ever be able to give her.

Chapter Eleven

Taegin lay with his head in Marin’s lap, her fingers
threaded through his hair as she stroked his scalp. The two of them were
drenched as the rain and wind lashed against them, though neither seemed to
notice. Staring straight ahead of him—his eyelashes bejeweled with
raindrops—his tears were gone but he held onto his wife as though she was an
anchor to keep him affixed to his world.

On the high cliffs that overlooked the pristine beach, a
watcher stood surveying the lovers. The wind howled and pressed against the
sentinel—the fierce rain peppering a face set as hard as stone—and briskly
billowed the hooded robe that concealed the observer from head to ankle. A
white-knuckled hand clasped the robe to a throat constricted with hurt and
fury. Violet-colored eyes narrowed in hatred never left the couple.

Kali Reid had never known rage as she was experiencing it at
that moment. Not even when the village folk had driven her from their fold six
months earlier had she felt the anger that engulfed her at that moment.
Condemning her as a whore, a harlot—even a witch—she had been threatened with
tarring and feathering if she stayed, so she had fled in the middle of the
night, taking to the high bluffs and making a cold, barren warren of caves her
new abode. Now she understood why the elders of Comhcheol had ordered her from
her birthplace, the home of her clan for seven generations.

“Taegin,” she said, and the word was whipped from her mouth
by the vigorous wind.

To her, he was her husband, marked as such by his own words
to share his life with her when he returned to Contúirtia. Once—long ago—they
had fed one another a drop of their own blood on a piece of bread. It had been
a part of the
Pósadh
, the handfasting ritual of her mother’s people that
had bound Taegin and her together for all time. Though Taegin had been so drunk
he could barely ingest the offering and had no idea what he was actually doing,
the deed had been done, the bargain sealed.

Her furious glare went to the woman in whose lap Taegin had
laid his head and Kali growled low in her throat—a warning, a threat, a
promise.

For over a week now, she had watched the man she had claimed
for her own working shirtless on the stilted hut he was building for the slut
he had taken to legal wife. Stripped down to the black denim jeans, which fit
his long legs like a second skin, Taegin was unaware he was being watched. He
had eyes only for the blonde bitch who sat upon the glistening white sand under
a date palm instead of being of help to her man.

“Lazy cunt,” Kali whispered.

Her fingernails digging into her palm as she kept the
closure of her sopping wet cape together, the flame-haired beauty cursed the
woman Taegin had dared to use to usurp Kali’s rightful place at his side. “May
all that springs from your womb be diseased and insane! Crippled and hideous of
face!” she flung at the blonde’s head.

Despite the wrath building within her, Kali’s heart was
breaking. For years she had waited for Taegin’s return. Though she had not kept
her body only for him, she knew he had not kept his loverless for her. He
was—after all—a man, a warrior who needed the comforts of a woman’s touch and
the relief her body could provide. She had had no illusions about him being
faithful to her as he raced across the cosmos, but she had expected him to
return to Contúirtia and make good his promise to take her as his common-law
wife when he retired from service. The last thing she had expected was for him
to return legally Joined to another.

“You will regret the day you ever laid eyes on her, Taegin
Drae,” Kali swore. “Her days are numbered, my love.”

She turned her fierce look upon the hut Taegin was building.
The land upon which the hut would stand was a prime building site, coveted by many,
but the McGregors had reserved it for their adopted son, the man who was their
son Kale’s best friend. An acre of beachfront swept back nearly five hundred
feet, sweeping up against the forest on three sides to create a glorious tract
Taegin had long ago christened Suaimhneach Cove, the Contúirtian word for
peaceful. Thirty feet to the south of the cove was a waterfall that cascaded in
a steady, freshwater stream from a crevice in the lush, green mountain. It was
a beautiful piece of land and Kali had been proud to think it would one day be
her home.

Set back from the beach a hundred feet or so, the teakwood
structure’s first floor had been laid, the walls to be raised within the week
with the help of Silus McGregor’s sons. The tall stilts upon which the hut
perched had been driven deep into the sparkling white sand so that when high
tide came into the sheltered cove, the water would flow beneath the structure
to help cool it during Contúirtia’s sweltering summers. Piles of tin roofing
were stacked near the lush tree line that formed a crescent around the
structure—much of the thick vegetation having been cleared to build the hut—to
break the wind and salt spray.

“It’ll be two stories high with wide decks and staggered
staircases,” Kali repeated what she had heard Burl McGregor telling one of his
brothers when she had dared to sneak as close to the building site as she could
get without being caught.

Already the trusses and four gables had been built and were
waiting for the tin panels that would cover them.

Lightning streaked across the cinereous sky to the south and
lit the dark gray clouds in a spider-scrawl of electrical current. Thunder
boomed in the distance but the storm was wearing itself out, trekking slowly
away to the east. The rain was falling gently now and the wind was not so
strong.

Kali jerked her eyes from the loathsome hut for there had
been movement on the beach. She stiffened—Taegin was sitting up, raking a hand
through his wet hair. Even though she could not hear what he was saying to the
slutty blonde, she remembered his thick brogue and the soft way in which he
used it to melt a woman’s heart and set her loins to throbbing.

Brutal stabs of jealousy drove through Kali’s very soul when
she saw Taegin lift a hand to cup the blonde’s cheek. Hissing like a cat, she
watched the woman tilt her head into the Tiogar’s palm.

“Bitch!” Kali spat beneath her breath. “Daughter of a
jackal!” Mindless of the blood that was trickling down her wrist from the
half-moons her fingernails had made in her palm, she took a step or two closer
to the edge of the cliff, quivering with rage as she put her hands to her head,
smearing blood on the headband that held her red hair in place.

Taegin was on his knees facing his wife, his palms
bracketing her face. The woman who had taken him from Kali was on her knees as
well, her hands on Taegin’s knees as he pulled her face toward him, his lips
settling on hers.

“You will live to rue the day you ever put your thieving
hands to my man,” Kali snarled, and her eyes flared wide, her breath choked off
as she saw Taegin begin to slip the blouse from the woman’s wet shoulders.

Unable to bear the sight of the man she loved more than life
itself fornicating with the usurper, Kali turned, her cape billowing out behind
her, and headed down the cliff, the air around her blue from the vulgar curses
she was heaping on Marin’s head.

* * * * *

Taegin stared at his wife’s ivory breasts as he peeled the
blouse from Marin’s shoulders. Her flesh was dewed with raindrops, her ash
blonde hair hanging in strands that stuck to her shoulders and arms. He bent
his head to catch a drop of water that was running down her cleavage with the
tip of his tongue.

Marin threaded her fingers through his wet hair and held his
head to her as his tongue traveled the breadth of her chest. She let her head
fall back as his cool lips closed around first one then the other nipple,
enclosing her in the warmth of his mouth.

There was no need for words. Each knew what the other
wanted. Each knew what the other needed. As one, they eased down upon the sand,
Marin turning to her back as her lover bent over her and worked his way from
her throat to her belly with tingling little kisses that made her melt inside.
She slipped her hands through his hair—unable to keep herself from touching the
thick curls—as he swirled his tongue across and dipped into her navel.

The rain had not stopped, but it was now a gentle misting
that fell sweetly upon her face as she looked up into the scudding clouds. Her
lover was working the button of her jeans, his fingers sliding across her waist
as he tugged the garment down her legs. She laid there like a sacrificial
victim to his desire, her hands leaving his hair as he moved further down her
body to pull the britches from her. She smiled for he kissed the top of each of
her feet before he slid up and over her once more.

“Have I told you how much I love you?” he asked, his heart
in his amber eyes.

“Not nearly enough, I don’t believe,” she replied, lifting
her arms to wrap around his neck. “And you are clothed entirely too much for my
needs, milord Tiogar.”

He cocked a brow at her and put his hands on the buttons of
his jeans, flipped open the top one then rolled off her, turning his head to
look at her.

“I’ve got to undress you?” she queried.

The shadows were leaving his tawny eyes, a xanthic flame
beginning to catch in those sensual orbs. “If you want what’s in my pants,
you’ll have to, wench,” he replied.

Sighing again—this time as though the weight of the world
was on her slender shoulders—Marin sat up and finished unbuttoning his jeans.
The wet fabric was stiff and clung to his lean hips as she tugged them down,
Taegin lifting his rump to accommodate her. She eyed him as he lay there—hands
crossed beneath his head—and worked the wet fabric down his long legs, giggling
at the staff that sprang instantly to attention as soon as it was free of the
britches.

“He’s ready for you, wench,” the Tiogar said needlessly.

“Aye, he’s always ready,” she countered.

“I can’t help that he has a mind of his own.”

“Makes me wonder what kind of father you’re gonna be if you
can’t control the little imp,” she stated, and quickly looked up at him,
wanting to kick herself for bringing up the subject of fatherhood, but Taegin
was leering at her.

“He isn’t little, wench, or haven’t you noticed that?”

Tugging the jeans from his bare feet, she tossed them aside.
The garment landed on the sand with a heavy thud as she came to straddle his
hips, his staff riding along the crease of her ass. “Aye, Tiogar, I’ve
noticed.” She wriggled against his lower abdomen.

“Do me, wench,” he instructed, closing his eyes, a smile on
his face.

Marin would do anything for the man she had come to love
more than her own life—now more than ever. She had known there was something
painful lurking in his past and now she knew what it was. She intended to push
the sad memory from his mind.

Pushing up to her knees, she reached back and took hold of
his thick erection, positioning it at the entrance to her vagina. Slowly, with
care, she lowered herself upon the steely shaft, impaling her body on his.

“Umm,” he said, and shifted his upper body more comfortably
on the blanket upon which they had been sitting for most of the morning.
Despite the blanket’s wetness, his body heat had warmed it.

Marin leaned forward and put her palms on his chest,
massaging him as she lifted her buttocks then settled them down upon him,
driving his manhood deeper into her cunt.

“I like that,” he said, his eyes still closed, the smile in
place.

“You do, do you?” she questioned. Her fingers moved over his
nipples and she tweaked them, making him squirm.

“I’ll give you an hour to stop that, wench,” he said.

Her fingers still gripping his paps, she leaned down further
and claimed his lips, thrusting her tongue past his smiling lips.

Never breaking the kiss, Taegin yanked his hands out from
beneath his head and enveloped his wife in a brawny grasp, easily flipping them
over until she lay beneath him, his cock buried in her wet heat, his lower body
wedged between her thighs. He grunted as she lifted her legs and imprisoned his
hips between them, locking her ankles behind his back.

He was buried to the hilt within her, unable to begin the
thrusting his cock demanded of him. Their mouths were fused, tongues dueling
and her fingers—her hands wedged between their two bodies—were lightly twisting
his nipples, eliciting a tingling sensation all the way to his belly. He ground
against her and tried pulling up so he could push into her, but her
constrictive hold on his hips was like a steel vise keeping him in place. He
groaned—she chuckled low in her throat. He growled—she purred and relaxed her
grip.

The thrusting that began could have been heard by anyone
close by, for Taegin’s balls slapped against Marin’s butt cheeks as he pistoned
into her, his hands jammed beneath her, lifting her for his invasion.

Marin managed to extricate her hands from between them and
slid her arms around his back, her fingers digging into his hard muscles as he
rode her. When she came, her cry of release was lost in the folds of his mouth
for their kiss still went on. His grunt of satiation tore their lips apart and
he buried his face against her shoulder, thrusting hard one last time and
holding himself steady in her so that the last of his cum shot deep into her
body.

It was not until late in the night—when a strange light lit
up the tent in which they slept—that Taegin realized he had an enemy at
Comhcheol and knew immediately who it was.

* * * * *

He’d not thought of her since the day he had first told
Marin of her existence. Now as he walked toward Silus McGregor’s hut, he
realized he had made a bad error in judgment in not remembering about Kali. A
set, hard look on his face, he was furious with himself and determined to stop
trouble before it took a toehold on his life. He had left Burl and Daniel at
the cove with Marin—more for company than protection—and had promised Kale’s
younger brothers that he would handle the situation that had the young men so
upset this morn.