Highlander Enchanted(55)
Heat raced through her. Her fingertips went to her lips, and rested there as she recalled his kiss. How did she want a man who could kill so easily, who admitted to being tainted by evil?
She subsided into confused silence, too warm and too aware of the man at her back who meant to claim her as his wife.
Chapter Eighteen
Some time before dawn, they entered the wooden gates of the much smaller keep and stopped in the bailey. Even before she set foot in the stone keep, she could see the evidence of Cade’s claim to have moved as many people as possible away from the place. When she had left, the bailey had been crowded with makeshift shelters, horses and MacDonald’s clan members she had nowhere else to house in the main keep.
Tired concern fluttered through her thoughts as she considered how difficult it might be to claim the MacCosse land before Laird Duncan began pursing the clan members.
Cade dismounted from behind her. They were dry from the rain, thanks to his magic. The back of her dress, however, was soaked through with warm blood, along with his clothing. He lifted her off the horse’s back and set her down. His features were paler than usual in the torchlight of the bailey.
She bit back the instinct to order him to the healer immediately, but she did reach out to him and took his hand.
“You cannot help your clan in this state,” she told him.
Cade’s focus shifted from the stable boy to her. “We willna stay long,” he said and pushed hair from her features. “Go rest. We will leave tomorrow.”
“I will send Marie to you.”
He nodded brusquely and left her beside the horse, striding across the bailey to join the priest, his cousins, and several other seasoned members of his clan.
Isabel was only too happy for the reprieve after her days in Laird Duncan’s hold. He had treated her well, but she had at no point been comfortable among the strangers. Perhaps it was the seillie magic, or the friendliness of Cade’s people, but she felt safer inside his walls than she had anywhere else since her father’s death.
Retreating to the hold, she sent the first servant she found after Marie and went to the bedchamber that was not solely Cade’s any longer. Entering the quiet, warm, space, she released a heavy breath. There was no moonlight to make the pendants glow. The hearth was bright and blazing, and fresh rushes laden with mint had been sprinkled across the floor.
Isabel peeled off her clothing, worried when she saw the amount of blood weighing down her gown. She changed into a sleeping gown, brushed and braided her hair and was about to slide under the coverlets when the door opened.
The sight of Cade left her heart racing and caused her breath to stick in her throat. She hastily snatched the sleeping robe and tugged it around her.
He barely glanced at her and went to the stool before the fire, sitting with a grunt.
She closed the door, sensing he was more hurt than he had let on.
Cade peeled off his tunic to reveal his muscular upper body, his golden skin marred by red.
“Where is Marie?” she asked.
“Headed towards the MacCosse lands,” he replied, seemingly unconcerned. “Niall rode after her.”
“Cade …” Isabel breathed. She stood in stunned quiet, digesting the information slowly. She had been somewhat content to let him bleed all night, knowing Marie was going to heal him upon arrival.
She hurried to the table near the bed and filled the bowl on top with water before plunging several linen rags into it. Returning to him, she knelt in front of him and began to wash away the blood. The taut skin stretched across his chiseled expanse of chest was hot to the touch, and she counted three wounds. She nudged the black pendant he wore aside as she cleaned him.
“Ye doona need t’do that,” he said gently and took her hand.
“I am your wife,” she replied. “Or did you forget the marriage you forced me into?”
He chuckled. “You ought to let me bleed t’death then.”
“I considered it.” She tugged her hand free and began carefully smoothing away the blood around the wounds. Admiring his physical strength once more, she began to feel too warm afore the fire. Touching him left her exhilarated and her mind stuck on the images of a night in his bed.
One of the wounds on his chest continued to bleed, while the other two had stopped. She finished and stood, going to stand behind him to start to clean the wounds there. He was so much wider than her, his skin so smooth and soft. The reminder he was a man, flesh and blood, startled her. Of course, she knew him to be, but feeling his skin and the shape of muscles beneath it fascinated her as much as the tangled strands of his hair and the subtle movement of his torso as he breathed in and out.
She had never been curious about a man before, never experienced the stirring of lust this strong.
“Why do ye not wish me to bleed t’death?” he asked, shifting his head to look at the ground as she cleaned the back of his neck.
“You have shown me kindness. In most matters,” she added, thoughts on the forced wedding. “I do not like to see you hurt.”
“I earned it.”
Troubled whenever she thought on what he had done, she did not reply and swept the wet rag down one arm and across his large biceps. “How do you come by these?” she asked, fascinated yet alarmed by his size. She was unable to fit both hands around his bicep. “’Tis unnatural.”