Unwanted (17 page)

“The sea is too angry to bring any ships to my shore on this night, be they Berserker long-boats or not.”
 
Connor addressed his unspoken thoughts yet again.
 
“I’ve assigned my fastest riders to dispatch after the storm and patrol the coast.
 
We’ll see them coming and we’ll be ready.
 
But tonight, I’m celebrating the Solstice with my mate and my family.”

“How is it that you know my mind?” Finn asked.

Connor shrugged.
 
“Since I mated I’ve found that the impressions in another’s thoughts are often made known to me.
 
‘Tis
the power I was granted.”

“And it’s a pain in the
arse
most of the time.”
 
The warm affection in Lindsay’s voice belied her words as she appeared from the shadows of the doorway.
 
Dressed in a diaphanous crimson gown that flaunted the sleek lines of her body and accentuated the sheen of her raven hair, she floated into the room, dazzling her husband with a smile.

Connor set his tankard down so hard the liquid sloshed over its lip.
 
His heavy chair scraped loudly as he stood.
 
“Get thee over here, wife,” he ordered, a banked fire igniting in his eyes.
 

She melted into his burly arms with a kiss that Finn thought shouldn’t be displayed in mixed company.
 
He watched the Laird devour his woman with a physical ache.
 

What could be contained within a kiss like that?
 
What would it feel like?

“Where’s Evelyn?” Roderick queried, casting an expectant glance at the doorway.
 

“Oh, she’s just—”

“I’m here!”
 
Evelyn sing-
songed
from the hall before she rushed around the corner in a swirl of golden skirts.
 
She tugged reluctant
Rhona
behind her.
 
“Sorry for the delay, but
Rhona
was kind enough to quickly alter my dress.
 
I’ve grown bigger than I thought.”

Indeed, soft billows of shimmering fabric flowed from beneath her breasts over the orb of her belly.
 
Finn stood as Roderick hastened from his seat to wrap her in his arms and help her to the table, leaving
Rhona
standing alone, looking rather dazed.
 

Finn’s heart stopped.
 

She’d been freshly bathed, her thick hair twisted into some kind of intricate braid around the crown of her head, but enough of it still curled down her back in ringlets that had not yet fully dried.
 
A simple dress of soft green velvet adorned with black and silver ribbons hugged the curves of her body and fell to the floor from her generous hips.
 
The same ribbons laced the bodice up each side, lifting her breasts.
 
Finn’s fingers itched to untie her wrapping like a Yuletide gift.

While he’d been staring, rendered speechless by the sight of her beauty, the other ladies had been seated next to their mates.

Rhona’s
anxious gaze flitted to the empty chair beside his and Finn scrambled to pull it out for her.
 
Settling into it, she thanked him and the sound of her voice flooded his memory with images of what she hid beneath her dress.

Struggling to find composure, Finn took his seat, remembering Connor’s sage words about women.
 

“You look…”
 
He tried to conjure anything in her language or his that could aptly express her magnificence.
 
Not being a man of many words, he failed miserably.
 
She looked like a Goddess, like a forbidden temptation that any man would sell his soul to possess.
 
She was sin and salvation wrapped in pretty ribbons.
 
“You look very fine,” he said lamely and scowled at his tankard.
 

But not before he missed the becoming blush creep above her bodice.
 

Obviously, he could only be master of his tongue when they were alone.
 
When he had her naked he was a goddamned poet.

But then, last night, he’d had nothing to lose.
 

“Where’s Iain?” he asked.
 

“I left him asleep.”
 
Rhona
seemed pleased at his query.

“I see you men have become better acquainted,” Evelyn observed with delight.
 
“What have you been talking about?”

Finn thought it over, wondering how to answer.
 
War, bloodshed, the past, the future.
 
The fact that their very lives were in danger.
 
He took a long sip from his
tankard,
hoping one of the other men would take the initiative.
 

“It sounded as though they were discussing their mating powers,” Lindsay answered.

Finn choked on his stout and it burned into his sinuses before he forced it down.
 

“Pardon?”
Rhona
sounded scandalized.
 

Chuckles passed around the table until Lindsay continued.
 
“No, nothing like that.
 
When a Berserker is mated he is granted a rather magical ability, more powerful than any predilection he’d had before.”

“Aye,” Evelyn fondly caressed Roderick’s forearm.
 
“Roderick has a gift for healing, though he also can touch a person and create a wound.
 
Often times a fatal one.”

“Why didn’t you touch me when I attacked you?” Finn asked before he could stop himself.
 

“I
canna
say,” Roderick shrugged a wide shoulder.
 
“Something stopped me.”

Their eyes
met,
gratitude and meaning passing between them until Finn had to look away.

“Connor can understand the intentions of a person, or see the truth through their lies,” Lindsay explained.
 
“Other times, he can outright read their minds.”

Rhona
looked over at the Laird with wide eyes, and then glanced at Finn.
 
“Can you do that, as well?” she asked, her face draining of color.
 

“Nay,” Finn assured her, though he’d give his right eye to know what she was thinking now.
 
“I’m not mated.
 
None of us were allowed to be unless granted permission from the Temple Elders.”
 

“How many of the Berserkers at your temple are mated?” Connor asked.

Finn shook his head.
 
“Only one man in my recollection has ever been granted the privilege, he was an Elder and his Berserker killed the woman he chose.
 
She was not his mate.”

Beside him,
Rhona
gasped and he dared not turn to look at her.
 

“What sort of powers do they wield at the temple?” Connor prodded.
 

“Nothing like a touch of death or reading of minds,” Finn assured them.
 
“The elders wield curses and dark incantations.
 
The rest of us can sometimes manipulate elements.
 
Ignite and extinguish fires, summon and dispel mists and wind.”

“You can do all that?”
 
Rhona
queried.
 
“Is that what your power would be if you were… mated?”
 
She breathed the word as though it sounded foreign to her.
 

“I hardly possess any ability.
 
Maybe a small bit with fire, but I never much had a talent for anything of that sort.
 
My value was always my strength and size.
 
To this day I’m stronger than any Berserker at residence in the temple.
 
Elder or otherwise.
 
‘Tis
probably the only reason I’m not dead.”

“I believe it,” Roderick nodded.
 
“Even unmated,
yer
blows are mighty.”
 
He rubbed his sword arm and continued.
 
“I encountered one of those dark curses when I was a youth.
 
I bested a Berserker in combat once.
 
He called himself
Alrik
the Blue.
 
He shouted something at me as I was about to deal the killing blow and I lost my breath.
 
Thought I was going to suffocate, but instead, I spent a decade without my ability to speak.”
 

Finn smirked.
 
“I’ll admit I was not sorry to hear that
Alrik
would never return.
 
Though his curse
was
meant to suffocate you to death, he didn’t have the power to finish it.”

“I
didna
mind being without my voice so much.”
 
Roderick nuzzled his wife.
 
“Turns out I
didna
need it.”

Evelyn leaned into her husband, but turned her attention to Finn.
 
“Before you were sent here, did you know anything about your father?”

Taking a breath deep into his lungs, Finn conjured an image of his homeland, of the temple in which he’d dwelled for over half a century and felt… nothing.
 
“I remember nothing of him,” he admitted.
 
“I’m told that my father was banished from the temple.
 
He snatched a woman from the nearby village and kept her as his whore while he attempted many times to gain entry.
 
That woman was my mother.”

Connor grunted, his fist tightening on his tankard.
 
“That sounds like something he would have done.
 
I am sorry for your mother.”

“And I for yours,” Finn offered.

“Then how did you come to live at the temple if he was denied?”
 
Roderick asked, reaching for some bread and tearing a piece for Evelyn.
 
His action spurred those at the table to begin dishing their food, though Finn couldn’t bring himself to.

“My mother dropped me at the gate of the temple when I was a small boy.
 
She found a man who would take her but would not raise a bastard.
 
Even a Berserker.
 
The Elders at the temple pitied her and let her abandon me there.”

“Did they take pity on you, as well?” Lindsay asked.
 

“
Nie
.”
Finn denied in his own language.
 
“I was charged to keep the sled dogs for the first ten years.
 
I was fed what the dogs were and not clothed at all.
 
If I was lucky, the pack would let me sleep with them for warmth.”

 
“One day, Magnus the Eldest and his favorite warrior Jorgen came down to the pit to request the dogs.
 
Jorgen loved to beat me.
 
It riled the dogs, and one of them bit him.
 
When we saw the blood, Jorgen and I both went berserk.
 
I was the only thing left alive in the pit when I came out of it.
 
More beast than boy.”
 

All movement ceased as they stared at him.
 
Rhona’s
hand slipped into his beneath the table, and that one gesture nearly undid him.

“Magnus took me to the weapons trainer after that.
 
I was clothed and taught to fight.
 
He’s used me to kill many men since that day.
 
But I’ve always had to eat with the dogs.”

“Why?”
Rhona
whispered.

“Because I had no ancestor to speak for me or offer me his table.
 
No color to call my own.”

“Color?
 
I don’t understand.”