Lord of the Highlands

“Speak to me, love,” he whispered into the darkness.



She lay still, listening to the rasp of his breathing. Though he wasn’t touching her, his body radiated warmth along her back.



He pulled the bed linens up, sliding them carefully over her shoulder. Tucking his finger under her hair, he slid the mass of it from where it had tangled at her neck. There was another rustle, a hit of chill air, and warmth again as she sensed his arm under the covers.



“We part tomorrow.” He reached for her, and his fingers scorched her like a burn. “It will be the end of my world.” His hand stroked along her side, tracking a slow curve from hip, sloping to waist, up along her ribs, and back again. “I will be as a dead man, Felicity. A man without his heart.”



Her breath hitched and she struggled not to speak. Bottled-up emotion clutched at her throat, aching with her unshed tears.



“I want you.” The husky tremble in his voice made her shiver.



She wanted him too. Had never stopped wanting him.



He stroked up and down the side of her body.



Is this it?



Would this be the last time they’d ever be together? Felicity thought maybe she should turn around. Grab him, and shout, and make it memorable. But she could only lie there, stricken by her pain.



“Say something,” he whispered.



But there was too much to say. Nothing more she could say.



She thought for a moment, maybe if she didn’t have sex with him . . . Maybe it wouldn’t be good-bye until they did.



But she couldn’t play those games. She had to be with him, one more time. Will was so perfect, it was impossible for her to resist when offered.



“I feel as though you’ve left me already.”



She couldn’t stop herself. Her breath hiccupped, and she curled in more tightly on herself. It was unbearable. Leaving him.



“Och, love.” His whisper was unsteady, unbearably tender. “Do you cry?”



His body melded to hers. Hot flesh along her back. Muscle, the light bristle of hair, his hardness. “Please.” She felt his mouth at her shoulder. “Say something.”



Will’s touch was tentative, reaching around to cup her breast. She nudged her hips back, letting him know it was all right.



His hand stroked to her thigh. She shifted her leg, resting it over his.



He slipped into her from behind.



The last time.



He didn’t move at first. She wasn’t sure when he’d started to move. He went so slowly. Every motion, quiet tenderness. Every moment to be savored.



The last time I’ll feel him.



She’d truly believed she was his. Til this very last moment, she’d held out hope. But hope had faded to despair. She’d thought Will was the one, and yet Gormshuil had told her, if she left, she’d never return.



Looking back now, she wondered, had they always been saying good-bye? Somehow, from the start, their time together had never fully been their own. Always anchored in place and time, they’d never been free to be lovers, carefree and easy.



“My love,” he murmured simply.



She felt her body coiling. Building. She wouldn’t cry out.



My last time.



Felicity gasped as her climax slammed into her. She wanted to scream, to moan and shout. To shout at Will, at the fates conspiring against them. But she stayed silent, biting her lips to swallow her cries.



Will held her tight. She felt a tear in the corner of her eye. It spilled to her nose, hovered there, and then drifted down. She shut her eyes tight, willing sleep to take her.



This last sleep by Will’s side.



Chapter 32



Though they traveled now on separate horses, the memory of their ride together, on a single mount with her body pressed close, crushed him.



Such memories pierced Will, buffeting him in the silence. Each was a tiny flame that had sputtered to life in his heart, lit by Felicity. And now he would feel them wink out, one by one, until slowly he’d be extinguished.



They traversed Cameron lands, across emerald green glens and over tangled Highland hills, toward the spot where they’d mark out the labyrinth.



Will adjusted himself on the saddle, adjusted his sporran. The crude map folded inside weighed on him more than the heaviest physical burden.



“From what Ewen told me, it isn’t far now,” he said, trying for the thousandth time to talk to Felicity.



Please say something.



“We’ll not need to build the maze, of course,” Rollo continued. Felicity had fallen behind a few paces, and he slowed his horse to let her catch up. “This Gormshuil claims the power lies in the star map itself, which Ewen has already begun to etch into a stone that will someday be the heart of the labyrinth. He and Lily dream of saving one whom he called brother. A man named Robert who took a bullet for the laird.”



Please speak to me.



“This paper I carry bears the pattern in its entirety. The witch claims you need only place it over the stone and trace it with your finger.”



She didn’t even nod her acknowledgment. Her silence gutted him.



Past conversations poured through his mind. Why had he not treasured every single one? He regretted any times he might have dismissed her, hushed her. All he wanted now was to hear Felicity’s every thought.



“The witch promises, if you trace the lines just so, you will go to the correct place in time. I wish there were some way to return you to your exact location, but Gormshuil knows only the magic of the maze, and unfortunately the maze is in Scotland.”



Why won’t she speak? The total absence of Felicity’s easy chatter was a shock to his system. Like being deprived of air he hadn’t realized he was relying on to survive.



“That is a concern to me, though she does assure me of your safety otherwise.”



Felicity pulled her horse to an abrupt halt, the reins wound tight around her fists, and swung her head to look at him. Her eyes were swollen and red, and such explicit evidence of her pain stung like an accusation.



“Safe?” she croaked. “Yeah, my heart feels real safe in your care, Will.” She turned away, scrubbing at her face.



Her words lashed him, and Will reminded himself he was doing the right thing. Felicity was better off sad and alone, than dead.



“Love—”



“Don’t love me,” she snapped, and he thought himself a pathetic sot, for even angry words from her were better than none at all. “I don’t think you know what love is.”



“You are wrong,” he said, his voice a tight rasp. Felicity, who felt so quickly and lightly, who blithely moved her way through the world, she had no idea what depths he plumbed. How powerful love became when forged by darkness and loss. “I am desperately in love with you.”



“It’d only be desperate if I didn’t love you back.”



He shuddered an inhale. Would that he could stay with her for always. “You don’t understand. My world doesn’t allow for feelings. Has never allowed for them.”



“Then come to my world, with me.”



“Could I, I would go with you. In a moment, I would go with you, follow you to the ends of the earth. God help me, Felicity, I dream of going with you. But what kind of man would I be if I abandoned my responsibilities here?”



Sensing his angst, Will’s horse skittered, fighting to trot. He eased his seat, slowing the animal. “Felicity, don’t you see? You’ve made me a better man. But there is a debt I owe here. You’ve made me a better man, and I can’t dishonor that gift by going back on my word.”



He let the words hang, then added quietly, “I am a man of my word. And I keep my promises.”



“Then promise to find me.” Her voice was small, so timid and small and unlike Felicity it shattered him.



“I cannot,” he whispered.



“Why not?”



Because I’ll likely be dead. “Because it would be a vow I don’t know that I could keep.”



She looked away, staring sightlessly into space. Will sat, the silence torturing him. He couldn’t think what more to say, and so let the horses resume walking.



Their journey had grown gradually more difficult. Low braes had risen into steeper hills, the smooth, green glens replaced by land more tangled and ragged.



“There,” Will said, seeing their destination. Looming like a scar in the earth, in the greens and reds of gorse and bracken, stood a wall of cold, gray granite.



“The path forks and narrows,” he recited, “in the shadow of a granite crag. That’s the spot Cameron described.”



Pulling his horse to a stop, he pounded life back into his legs, preparing to dismount.



Trembling, Felicity forced air in and out of her lungs. It was time.



She watched Will punching at his legs, just the way she’d told him not to do. But now she was too tired to say anything, and instead just watched, sadly remembering their first carriage ride so long ago, when their time together had still been ahead of them. She wondered if there was something she should’ve done differently.



He was off his horse, making his way to her. The land fought him, thick and tangled with life, ferns and bulrush challenging his every step. But he came to her, raised his hands up to her, and she let him ease her from the saddle.



The feel of his strong grip on her waist stung fresh tears in her eyes. He brought his thumb to smudge them from her cheeks, and she flinched away. These tears were only the beginning, and she’d let them flow.



“We’ll place the pattern over the rock,” he said, opening his sporran. He unfolded the paper tucked there. It bore a crude map of lines and dots.



How odd, she thought. The secrets of the universe etched just there, on some old scrap of paper. There was no going back now, and it made her feel dead inside.



“The labyrinth itself matters not.” His eyes went from the paper to her. “They build the maze merely to obscure the map, which will someday lie hidden at its center. This”—his hand tightened on the sheet—“is what holds the power.”



They walked to the rock face. Though the sun still had a couple hours left in the sky, the high granite wall obscured it, casting them in cool shadow.