Emerald Embrace (29 page)

The mare turned to her, eyes wide and soulful, almost as if she had understood every word

“Good girl, sweet girl, that’s right, you just can’t leave me here!”

She had to keep the fear from her voice. She had to speak softly, soothingly. She managed to do so, taking tiny step by tiny step toward the mare.

“You traitor, you!” she accused the horse, but still kept her voice low and soft and lulling. “Yes, you little sweetie, you prancing around when I was trying so hard to leap upon you. Now, please, don’t you understand? Those awful people are not after you, they’re after me.”

The mare was simply standing there. Martise stretched her hand out. Desdemona tossed her head as if she were nodding. She even took a step toward Martise. And then, just when Martise was about to snatch up a trailing rein, a blackbird rose up from the bracken, screeching.

“No!” Martise cried desperately.

It was the last straw for the frightened mare. Desdemona reared, almost toppling over backward. But she landed on all four feet, and for a moment, she hesitated—before bolting out of the clearing.

“No, no, no, no!” Martise cried, and sank to the ground in despair. “How could you! I’ll see that there is horseflesh on that table for dinner if you don’t come back! Do you hear me! There will be horse steaks and horse stew and—oh, hell!”

She stared broodingly after the mare. Then she murmured, “Please come back!”

The horse didn’t return. And even as Martise sat upon the ground, it seemed that the forest darkened around her. She thought that the trees were conspiring against her, growing together, interweaving their leaves, to surround her with their green darkness.

But it was not the trees. The afternoon was waning, and the sun was fading away. It was going to be completely dark soon, and she didn’t know where she was.

Yes, she was in the forest. Alone.

Not alone. The figures in the dark cloaks were in the forest, too.

Creatures who wanted her … dead.

With that thought, she leapt to her feet. She had to walk, out of the forest, away from the green darkness. She had to escape before they could find her.

She gazed up again. The sun was setting to her left. The castle would lie to the west, too, right upon the coast. She started to walk. With each step, it seemed that the day grew darker. She heard her own footfalls and something else. It was, she realized, the sound of her own heart.

And then she thought she heard more than her heartbeat. No … it was the night. The forest playing tricks. There were things to hear, of course. The scurry of mice. That soft whistle of the wind through the leaves. Squirrels, birds, owls, perhaps, night birds, those that could see in the dark. Fly in the dark. Beat their wings in the dark.

But it was not the beating of wings that she heard, she realized. The ground was trembling. It had come alive with the sound and tremor of hoofbeats.

She was being pursued.

She spun around and cried out. In the darkness she could see a figure clad in a dark cloak, riding hard, bearing down upon her. The cloak flew in the breeze, and in the darkness it seemed that the horse and the figure were one. A giant dragon, bearing down upon her, seeking her.

The cliffs needed blood. Creeghan needed blood. And she was being pursued, the sacrifice. “No!” she yelped with terror. The dragon rider had seen her. He had known where she was, and he had ridden straight to her, and now he saw her.

She turned again, stumbling in the darkness, and started to run. The hoofbeats came closer and closer. Her breath rose raggedly against her breast, and came from her in gasping sobs.

The figure was shouting to her, but she couldn’t hear, the thunder of her heart was so great.

She swore. She would fight, fight, until the very end, but they were right upon her, almost trampling her. She screamed, trying to zigzag.

Then the rider leapt from the horse, and flung itself upon her back, and she was screaming again, and falling. Falling forever, it seemed, into a rich carpet of the green, green grass.

Hands were upon her. Strong, powerful hands. Trying to grasp her. She screamed and thrashed, flailing and kicking. A weight bore down heavily upon her and she was imprisoned by a searing heat, enwrapped and entangled within the huge and engulfing folds of a dark cloak.

“No!” she shrieked. “Please!”

“Martise! Martise!”

She went still at the sound of her name and stared into the face of her captor. Dark hair, ebony with the night, fell down upon a broad forehead, and gleaming, shimmering eyes of fire stared into hers.

Bryan’s eyes …

“Dear God!” she cried out, and she tried again to struggle free, to leap away.

But his thighs locked around her, his hands caught upon her wrists hard, and he held her beneath him. “Nay, lady, nay. This night you are mine. ’Tis time to return you to Creeghan, milady. The castle awaits you.”

“N
o!”

In utter panic, she shrieked the word again. Her eyes were wild and she trembled desperately.

Shaken by the deep-seated terror in her voice, Bryan sat back on his haunches. “Martise! We’re going to leave the forest—it’s all right. You’re not lost anymore. I’ve come to take you home.”

“No, no, no! I’ll not feed the cliffs with my blood! I’ll not be the one within the walls. I’ll not let you—”

“Shh, shh!” he whispered gently. He shifted his weight from her and wrapped her warmly into his arms. She tried briefly to struggle, but she was already exhausted and he held her tight, smoothing back her hair. “It’s all right. I am here.”

“You’re one of them!” she cried. Pulling back, she studied his eyes. Her voice trembled. “One of the figures within the copse. In the cloaks. Coming after me, to kill me.”

He shook his head, alarmed that she seemed so terrified of him. In all of the time that they had held their separate suspicions, in all of the time that they had danced around one another with their knowledge and their wonderings, she had never been afraid like this. Of him.

“I have not been in the woods, lass. I came when Jemie told me that you had ridden out and that the mare had come back without you. One can be lost on these cliffs and rocks and moors quite easily, as you have discovered, Martise.”

She pushed away from the strength of his chest. “I was not lost! I came upon a meeting. A devil’s den … something! In the copse. And you were there—oh, no! Please, God, tell me that you were not there! Make me believe you.” She had risen, and stared down at him now, and whatever else about her was a lie, her distress was very real.

He stood, facing her. “I was with no meeting in the glen, Martise. I came here after you. Now, if there was some meeting out here, I’ve a need to know of it.”

Her eyes were liquid; her lips were starting to tremble again. Martise shook her head, then waved a hand behind her. “I took a side trail and then I came to a copse. And … and they were all there. Maybe ten of them, maybe twelve. I don’t know. They were all wearing that same cloak. I tried to listen to what they were saying and I couldn’t really hear them but it was something about Creeghan and the full moon and, I think, All Hallows’ Eve.”

“Twelve,” he murmured. “The number for a coven.”

“Witchcraft!” she cried.

He shook his head ruefully. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, even here, in the Highlands. Unless the coven hides something even more sinister.”

He took a step toward her, and she gasped, leaping away. He felt his own fingers tremble. He had wanted to tell her about what he now knew. But not tonight. Not now. She was like a badly scalded cat, afraid of being burned again. Smudges of dirt marred her face, and her hair was wild and free in a magical tangle that was incredibly sensual in the verdant forest. Her eyes were huge and startlingly blue against the dirt and the darkness. Tension seemed to have sprung taut and heavy on the air. He had to ease the fear. Had to touch her.

“Martise,” he said softly, “come here.” She did not make a move, but stood poised like a young doe, beautiful, wired, ready to run. He reached out a hand to her, and the softness of his burr rang gently with his words. “I swear to you, I was not within these woods tonight until I came for you. I will not hurt you. Come to me, lass, and take my hand. I will bring you safe home.”

Her eyes were upon his, so blue, so liquid, so tormented. She raised her hand slowly, slowly, until their fingers touched. And they stood there so, while the wind picked up the tendrils of her hair and whipped his cloak about him. Then a choked sound escaped her and she was in his arms, held there close against his chest, feeling the sure beat of his heart with her damp cheeks. He stroked her hair for long moments, then touched her cheeks and smiled down at her as her head fell back and her eyes met his once again. “It’s all right. I swear, it shall be all right.” His fingers moved over the smudges. “I’ll bring you to the brook,” he murmured. He did not expect her to walk. He swept her up into his arms, and she was silent as he walked with her.

The laird of Creeghan knew its forests, knew the trails of green darkness, even in the night. It seemed that they moved not at all, or moved just briefly, gazes still locked, his arms strong about her, her fingers entwined about his neck.

She heard then the soft and melodic rush of the brook, and the sound mingled with that of the night breeze rustling through the leaves and the trees. It no longer seemed a frightening place, but rather an Eden of green and sweetly secretive magic.

Some inner voice warned her that he might have been among the figures in the cove, he might be lying, he might be the very essence of evil.

But she could not believe it, not in her heart. Not when he held her, not when his eyes touched hers. Not when the moon, very nearly full, rose high above them and the world was blanketed in a kelly-green splendor. Not when the softness of the breeze caressed her face, and his hands were so tender upon her.

Bryan laid her down in the thick carpet of grasses by the narrow tumbling brook. He swept off his cloak and set it out beside her, then drew his scarf from about his throat and soaked it in the cool waters. He hunched down upon the balls of his feet to smooth the scarf over the smudges on her face, and smiled when they were gone. He took her hands into his own and, turning them over, bathed the palms. When he was done, he kissed each finger gently.

The searing, moist heat of his kiss rushed through her, and into her being, into her blood, eliciting, demanding a response. Their eyes met. He sat upon the cloak and pulled her into his arms. And then it was her mouth that he sought with his lips. His kiss was tender and coercive. His mouth moved subtly against hers and he broke away and kissed the corners of her lips and her eyelids and her cheek and her throat. His tongue gently teased the lobe of her ear, and the hot breath that accompanied the sensual play awoke and aroused her anew. His teeth grazed softly across her lower lip before his tongue plunged deeply into her mouth, stripping away the last of her defenses, passion taking away the soft stroke of tenderness.

He bore her down to the verdant earth upon his cloak, and there he kissed her again, fingers splaying out the lush bronze beauty of her hair against the darkness of the garment. She trembled slightly, and he rose above her, promising, “It is all right. I am here.”

“Even into the darkness of the night,” she murmured. Her mouth curled into a soft and wistful smile, her lips damp from his kiss, the curve of them so inviting that he shuddered violently with the sudden, gripping force of longing.

“Forever into the darkness of the night,” he vowed. His eyes remained upon hers while he slowly unclasped the frog hooks of her bodice and loosed the ribbons of the chemise she wore beneath. The fullness of her breasts spilled out over the bone of her corset, the globes of alabaster and ivory, the nipples and aureolas blush-dark and hardened and as enticing as any sweetly forbidden fruit. And again his hand trembled as he moved it over her flesh, the palm connecting with the nipple first, his fingers closing over the rise of flesh, his thumb coursing its naked beauty.

Martise’s breath rose into soft, sighing gasps. Her eyes remained upon his. He cupped her breast within his hand and lowered his head and slowly, slowly suckled the hard rose crest into his mouth, bathing it with his tongue, drawing upon it with a greater and greater strength that brought a soft moaning sound from deep within her to mingle with the melodies of the wind and the brook.

Her fingers moved into his hair, entangling with it, smoothing out the ebony locks. She wondered how he could touch her there, there, upon her breast, and yet she could feel it, the heat of it, shimmering down the length of her body, warming it, setting it alive, and igniting that secret place between her thighs. A place where fire now burned, where the night and the green magic had entered, where she knew she must be touched and fulfilled.

And she would be …

Even as his lips caressed her, his hands moved upon her. Her skirt slid against her thighs. His fingers found the tie to her pantalettes, and his hand delved beneath her clothing. His touch played over her belly, and below. She gasped when he found the dampness at her center, teasing, caressing, so softly it might have been the breeze, so knowingly that she burned anew, and shifted against him, wanting more of him.