To Tempt Highland Fate (The Mac Coinnach Brothers) (70 page)

             
Completely finished with being trapped, Willa did as he asked, but she looked out from under her arm to watch what he would do.  She saw the glint of his sword as he pulled it from the sheath strapped to his back.  He held it high over his head, murmuring words that she could not quite make out, but that sounded like an incantation.  Then the sword came down in a mighty blow, and the barrier shattered like glass all around her, dissolving into the air as the pieces fell.  Before she could even sit up, Drust was pulling her into his arms.

             
“God! Dinna ever do that to me again!  I thought I’d lost ye.” 

             
He buried his face in her hair, and Willa nestled against the steel of his chest. 

             
Oh, yes… home.

             
He drew back a little to look at her, his eyes taking in every part of her body, his hands sliding over her back, her arms, through her hair.

             
“Are ye hurt at all?  Are ye well?”

             
“I’m… I’m fine, Drust.”

             
There must have been a note of uncertainty in her voice because a new panic flared in his eyes, and his lips parted on an indrawn breath.  His hands flew over her stomach, coming to a rest just over her womb.

             
“The child.  Is the child all right?”

             
Willa looked up at him, and she saw something in his eyes that for a moment made her heart soar.  Fear…

             
“I thought… I thought you didn’t want the baby.”

             
His whole body tensed, and his eyes went cold.  “Is it… is it…
gone
?”

             
Willa shook her head, her heart sinking back into the pit of her stomach.  After all this, after three days of misery for them both, he still wished their child had never happened.

             
She dropped her gaze to the ground, unwilling to see what her next words would bring. “I’m sorry Drust… but I’m still with child.”

             
The tension drained out of him in an instant and his eyes slid shut, his head falling back so that his long hair slid down his back. 

             
“Oh, thank God!” he breathed.

 
              Willa’s gaze flew to his face.  “What?”

             
“I canna lose ye.  I dinna think I could live.”  He drew in a shaky breath.  “I canna lose ye, Willa.  My whole damn world is here with ye.”

             
“And… and the baby?  Drust I want this child… I… I love it already.  Please don’t make me chose between the two of you.”

             
He reached to cup her face in his palm, drawing his thumb over the fullness of her lower lip.  “I… I’m no’ meant to be a father Willa… but I will try, for ye.  I will at least keep ye and our child safe and fed.  Aye, I want the bairn, if it will make ye happy.”

             
She looked up at him and tears rolled down her face.  He didn’t offer her everything, but what he offered was a start, and no doubt a big leap for him.  Damn… Faith was right about the crying thing.  There was no stopping it.

             
Drust pulled her into his arms, and as always, she felt as if she had come home.

             
“I’m sorry, so sorry”, he whispered.  “I was wrong to be angry.  I… I felt that I had just been handed a miracle that I never thought to have.  I would have lived and died for ye alone… and then, it was as if it could all be taken away in a heartbeat… to risk yer life to bring another into the world… ah Willa, can ye ever forgive me?”

             
“Yes.”

             
He smiled at her, and that smile melted her heart.  She remembered all too well their first days together when it seemed impossible that they would reach this moment.  When his only expression was a frown or a grimace of pain.

             
“Tell me, how did ye come to be locked in the circle?”

             
She shook her head, tipping her head back and shifting to press her body closer to his. 

             
“I don’t want to talk right now”, she said softly, rubbing against him and sighing in pleasure at the feel of his hard muscles under her finger tips.

             
She heard a low groan rumble through his chest, and looked up to watch as his eyes darkened with lust.  She felt his heart pick up speed and his muscles tense under her hands.  And suddenly, as if a dam had broken, he was all over her.  With a possessive growl, he took her mouth, nearly bruising her lips in his desperate need to claim her.  He tangled his hands in her hair, holding her still as he kissed her so deeply and so hard that she could hardly draw a breath.

             
Drust felt his last shred of control slip away as the emotional strain of the past few days came crashing down around him, rapidly translating itself into a very powerful physical need.  His cock strained upward, rock-hard and aching.  There was absolutely nothing else he could do in this moment than take his wife’s body, possess her completely… pound into her until she came apart in his arms and he spilled deep inside… where the babe was.  What about the babe?  It was then when he remembered Bren’s strange words to him as he left.  His brother had known…  Drust laughed.

             
“What is it?” Willa asked between kisses and frantic breaths.

             
“Naught.  I remembered something Bren said about tupping a pregnant wife.  He knew exactly what would happen when I found ye.”

             
Willa couldn’t respond because he was kissing her again, tearing at her clothes, pulling laces, shifting fabric until she was naked beneath him.  She pulled at the hem of his shirt, lifting it easily over his head, wondering for only an instant when he had managed to remove his sword belt.  Sliding both hands over his warm chest, she paused to rub her thumbs over his nipples, making him groan.

             
“I need to be inside ye right now.  I canna wait.”

             
She let her knees fall open to welcome him, and yes, while he was drugging her with kisses, he had somehow removed the rest of his clothing.  Now she watched his face as he entered her in one long, slow thrust.  His eyes slid closed in ecstasy and his lips parted slightly.  A fine sheen broke out on his forehead and she knew he was holding himself back from what he really needed.  He pulled back again and thrust forward slowly, deeply.  Willa bucked her hips beneath him, desperately needing more.

             
“Drust… please.”

             
Still he did not give in, keeping up the same purposefully slow rhythm, even though she could tell it was killing him.  His arms trembled where he held himself on his elbows, and every muscle in his body was as taught as a bow string.  But still, he was achingly tender with her.

             
“Oh,
god
…” he whispered.

              The day had been a long one, and now Bren and Faith, and Drust and Willa sat in front of a crackling fire, both women cuddled up against their husbands, and both men looking proud and content, and far more domesticated than perhaps anyone would have ever imagined.

             
Drust stretched and dropped his arm down around Willa’s shoulders, pulling her closer.  “Still no word from Eian?”

             
“No.  And I’m damned tired of losing brothers.  The last I heard he was in Brae, and no one’s heard from him since.”

             
“He’ll be back.”  Drust paused, his mouth turning up in an ironic smile.  “Perhaps he’ll even bring his fated mate and the third Mac Coinnach son.”

             
Bren shoved his hands through his hair and sank into a chair.  “Aye, well joking aside, that could verra well happen.  In fact, that’s all that keeps me from going after him.  Ye and I have both had our little adventures in matrimony”, he looked down at Faith, who raised one eyebrow at him, “and I have verra little doubt that our little brother is suffering the same fate, even as we speak.”

             
Drust shook his head in disbelief.  “I canna imagine Eian with… well, with just
one
woman.  Forever.”

             
“Well brother,
ye
took a vow of celibacy not long ago, and now I see ye sneaking off to yer chamber every evening before dinner is even over… and I dinna think ye retire so early to read up on battle strategy.”             

             
Willa’s cheeks colored even as her lips curved up in a contented smile.  She and Drust shared a look that was filled with promise. 
Later
, it said.

             
Faith rolled her eyes and shared an amused glance with Bren.  “Um, anyway.  If he does come back with a woman,
my
theory is that she’s not from around here.  Maybe not even from this
time
.  If only because a woman from the future will have been raised
specifically
not to put up with a philandering male.  He needs someone who will walk all over him, and take him down a peg or two.  Not that I don’t adore my dear brother-in-law, but I can’t wait to meet the woman who breaks him.”

             
Bren winced.  “A bit violent, are ye no’?”

             
“But we dinna ken if it will really happen… the prophecy may be wrong”, Drust pointed out.

             
Bren shook his head.  “With all that has happened already?  Och no, Eian is just as doomed as we are.”  He laughed as Faith launched herself at him, pummeling him with her fists. 

Chapter 
20

Seven Months Later

             
The bright rays of early morning light streaming in through the open window were hurting her.  Willa opened her eyes, her mind still half asleep.  Another pain struck and she curled into a ball, trying to catch her breath.  Not the sunlight, the baby was coming!  Excitement shot through her; finally she would meet the life that had been growing inside her all of these months.  She took deep breaths, trying to relax, but it was only a few minutes later that the next pain overwhelmed her.  It was so sudden that she made a sound of distress, and Drust shot upright next to her in the bed.

             
“Willa?  What is it love?  Are ye all right?”  His hands roamed frantically over her body, as if checking for an injury.  She would have laughed, had she not felt like her insides were being torn out with a hot poker.

             
“I’m… fine.  The baby…”

             
“What’s wrong with the baby?”

             
There was sheer panic in his voice, and as the pain slowly released her from its grip, she turned and did her best to smile reassuringly.