“Loss is a relative thing.”
“I won. Admit it,” she snapped.
“I doubt you even knew what game we played, young one.” His voice deep, silky, and mesmerizing, he mocked, “Did you come to gloat because my defeat made you feel powerful? Did it make you feel safe in seeking me? Careful. A being such as I might be inclined to find you reason to condescend. To sink to my depths.”
“I have sunk to nothing,” she hissed, feeling suddenly foolish. She was young by his standards, for the king of darkness was ancient—sprung from the loins of an age she’d heard of only in legend.
He said nothing, merely regarded her, his stare a palpable weight. She repressed a shiver, remembering her last excursion to his land. She’d nearly failed to summon the power to leave. But, she conceded with a thrill of sexual anticipation so intense that it nearly brought her to her knees, she’d not quite been in a hurry to leave the dark king’s dangerous bed. And therein lay double the danger …
“I came to offer my condolences,” she said coolly.
His laughter alone could seduce. “So offer, my queen.” He moved in a swirl of darkness. “But offer that for which we both know you hunger. Your willing surrender.”
And when he was upon her, when he had gathered her up and his great wings began to flap, she let her head fall against his icy breast. Darkness so thick that it had texture and taste surrounded her. “Never.”
“Heed me well, light one, the only thing you are never with me—is safe.”
Much later, when he possessed her completely, a full blood moon stained the sky above the Highlands of Scotland.
Aedan made love to Jane like a man who understood that this day, this moment, only this now was securely in the palm of his hand, taking her with the passionate urgency of a tenth-century Scotsman who knew not what tomorrow might bring: brutal war, drought, or crop-destroying tempest. He made love like a drowning man, desperate for the surety of her body—she was his shore, his raft, his harbor against what storms may come.
And then he made love to her again.
This time, with exquisite gentleness. Brushed his lips against the warm hollow of her neck in which her heartbeat pulsed. Kissed the slopes of her breasts, tasted the salt of her skin and the sweetness of her passion glistening between her thighs, and flexed himself deep within her innermost warmth.
He became part of her. Finally, he knew the kind of loving that made two one and understood Jane was his world. His ocean, his country, his sun, his rain, his very heart.
And that sleek, iced citadel behind his breastbone—behind which he’d concealed from the dark king that which was most infinitely precious to him—cracked at the foundations and came crashing down.
And he finally remembered what he’d sealed away there … his Jane.
“Jane, my own sweet Jane,” he cried hoarsely.
Jane’s eyes flew wide. He was buried deep within her, loving her slowly and intensely, and although he’d called her name aloud many times during the loving, his voice sounded different this time.
Could it be he’d finally remembered all of it? All those years they’d spent together in dreams, playing and loving and dancing and loving?
“Aedan?” His name held the question she was afraid to ask.
Framing her head with his forearms, he stared down at her. “You came to me. I remember now. You came when I slept. In the Dreaming.”
“Yes,” Jane cried, joyous tears misting her eyes.
There were no words for a time, only the soft sounds of passion, of a woman being thoroughly loved by her man.
When finally she could catch her breath again, she said, “You were with me always. You watched me grow up, remember?” She laughed self-consciously. “When I was thirteen, I nearly dreaded seeing you because I was so gawky—”
“Nay, you were no such thing. You were a wee lovely lass, I watched your womanhood ripening and saw what you would become. I ached for the day you would be old enough that I could love you in every way.”
“Well, you didn’t have to wait quite so long,” she voiced a long-harbored complaint. “Mmm,” she added, gasping, when he nipped her nipple lightly with his teeth. “Do that again.”
He did. And again, until her breasts felt ripe and exquisitely sensitive. Then he rubbed his unshaven cheek lightly against her peaked nipples, creating delicious friction.
“I claimed you when you were ten and eight,” he managed finally.
“Like I said—long. I was ready way before then. I was ready by sixteen … Ooh!”
“You were a wee babe still,” he said indignantly, stilling inside her.
“Don’t stop,” she gasped.
“Doona think for a minute ’twasn’t difficult for me to naysay you. ’Twas that my mother insisted all her sons forgo impatience and give a lass time to be a child before having bairn of her own.”
“Please,” she whimpered.
Heeding her plea, he thrust without cease, and she cried out his name over and again, digging her fingers into his muscular hips, pulling him as deep as she could take him.
He kissed her, taking her cries with his lips until her shudders subsided.
“Have you had time enough, wee Jane?” he asked later, when she lay drowsy and sated in his arms. “We may have made one this very day, you ken.”
Jane beamed. His shimmering eyes were again a warm tropical surf in his dark face, his lips curved with sensuality and tenderness. He’d finally remembered her! And she might have his baby growing inside her. “I want half a dozen at least,” she assured him, smiling.
Then she sobered, touching his jaw lightly. “When I was twenty-two, the dreams seemed different. They became repeats of earlier dreams.”
His jaw tensed beneath her hand.
“I lost you,” she said. “Didn’t I?”
“The king discovered I was gaining strength from my dreams. He prevented me from joining you there,” Aedan said tersely.
She inhaled sharply. “How?” she asked, not certain she wanted to know.
“You doona wish to know, and I doona need to speak of it. ’Tis over and done,” he said, his eyes darkening.
Jane didn’t press, and let it go, for now, knowing the time would come when he would need to speak of it, and she would be there to listen. For now, she would wait while Aedan became fully Aedan again.
He smiled suddenly, dazzling her. “You were my light, wee Jane. My laughter, my hope, my love, and now you will be my wife.”
“Ahem,” she said pertly, “if you think you’re getting off with that lame proposal, you have another thought coming.”
He laughed. “Your headstrong nature was one of the first things I favored in you, lass. So much fire, and as cold as I was, your tempers kept me warm. Saucy like my mother, demanding like my sisters, yet tender of heart and weak of will when it comes to passion.”
“Who are you calling weak?” she said, with mock indignation.
Aedan gave her a provocative glance from beneath half-lowered lids. “ ’Tis obvious you have a weakness for me. You spent the past fortnight trying to seduce me—”
“Only because you’d forgotten me! Otherwise you would have been chasing me around!”
Certain of it, she scrambled from beneath him and slipped from the bed, then dashed out into the great hall. Sure enough, he followed, stalking her like a great greedy dark beast.
And when he caught her …
And when he caught her, he made wild, passionate love to her. Celestial music trumpeted from the heavens. (It did. I swear.) Rainbows gathered to shimmer above Dun Haakon. Heather bloomed, and even the sun’s brilliance paled in comparison to the luminosity of true love.
And when he proposed again, it was on bended knee, with a band of gold embedded with tiny heart-shaped rubies, as he vowed to love her for all of ever. Then yet another day.
—From the unpublished manuscript
Highland Fire by Jane MacKinnon
Epilogue
“
DON’T FORGET THE LATEST CHAPTER, AEDAN,” JANE REMINDED as he slipped from their bed. “I missed last week, and Henna said they’re going to storm the castle if I don’t let them know what’s going on with Beth and Duncan.”
“I won’t forget, lass.” Donning shirt and plaid, Aedan picked up the parchments from the sidetable. He glanced at the top page.
She held her breath, waiting for him to kiss her, knowing that she would never be the same once she’d tasted the passion of his embrace. Her braw Highlander had fought valiantly for the Bruce and had come home to her wounded in body and heart. But she would heal him …
“You know, the men say that since their wives have been reading your tales they’re much more … er, amorous,” Aedan told her. Downright bawdy, the men had actually said. Insatiable. Plotting ways to seduce their men at all hours. Her stories had the same effect on him. Reading one of her love scenes never failed to make him hard as a rock. He wondered if she suspected that before delivering her pages to the eager women, he stopped in the tavern where the husbands listened, with much jesting and guffawing, as he read the most recent installment. Although they made sport of the “mushy parts,” not one of them failed to show each Tuesday when he made his weekly trip to the village. Last week, three of them had come looking for him when he’d failed to appear with that week’s installment.
“Really?” Jane was delighted.
“Aye,” he said, grinning. “They thank you for it.”
Jane beamed. As he pulled on his boots, she reminded him, “Oh, and don’t forget, I want peach ice, not blueberry.”
“I willna forget,” he promised. “You’ve got the entire village making your favored dish. I vow when the spring thaws come and they can’t make your icy cream they may go mad.”
Jane smiled. She’d been unable to resist teaching the villagers a few things that she deemed reasonably harmless. It wasn’t like she was advancing technology before its time. Pushing the drapes aside, she glanced out the window behind the bed. “It snowed again last night. Look—isn’t it beautiful, Aedan?” she exclaimed.
Aedan pulled the drapes back over the window and tucked the covers more securely around her. “Aye, ’tis lovely. And damned cold. Are you warm enough?” he worried. Without waiting for her reply, he stacked several more logs on the fire and banked it carefully. “I doona want you getting out of bed. You mustn’t catch a chill.”
Jane made a face. “I’m not that pregnant, Aedan. I still have two more months.”
“I willna take any chances with you or our daughter.”
“Son.”
“Daughter.”
Jane’s laughter was cut off abruptly when he took her in his arms and kissed her long and hard before leaving.
At the doorway he paused. “If ’tis a lass,” he asked softly, “do you think we might name her Rose?”
“Oh, yes, Aedan,” Jane said softly. “I’d like that.”
After he left, Jane lay back against the pillows, marveling. Seven months had passed since her arrival at Dun Haakon, and although there’d been some difficult moments, she wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.
Aedan still had a great deal of darkness inside him, of times and things he rarely discussed. There had been somber months while he’d grieved the loss of his clan. Then finally, one morning she’d come down from their new bedchamber above-stairs and found him hanging the old portraits in the great hall. She’d watched him, praying he wouldn’t have that stark expression in his eyes. When he’d raised his head and smiled at her, her heart had soared.
“ ’Tis time to honor the past,” he’d told her. “We have a rich history, lass. I want our children to know their grandparents.”
Then he’d made love to her, there in the great hall. They’d rolled across the floor, paused for a heated interlude on the table, and ended up, she recalled, blushing, in a most interesting position over a chair.
All of her dreams had come true. The village women waited with bated breath for the latest “installment” of her serial novel. They lapped up every word, savoring the romance, and the magic of it spilled over into their hearth and home. And no one ever complained about purple prose or typos.
She was a storyteller with an eager audience, a mother-to-be, had a milking cow of her own, reasonably hot water, the scent of her man all over her skin, and she slept each night held tightly in the arms of the man she loved.
Dreamily, she sighed, resting her hand on her tummy. Sexpot gave a little pink-tongued yawn and snuggled closer beside her.
Life was good.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
MY YOUNGER SISTER HAS LONG ENTERTAINED ME WITH SILLY Jane Jokes. What is a Silly Jane Joke? Elizabeth is so glad you asked!
A carpenter asked the very curvaceous Silly Jane to help him. He’d hurt his foot and needed someone to climb up the ladder and retrieve his bucket of paint from the top. But Silly Jane was no fool. She knew that he just wanted to look up her dress and see her panties when she climbed it. So she tricked him. She took her panties off first.
This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between Silly Jane and Jane Sillee is purely coincidental. Really.
AFTERWORD
SINCE JANE SILLEE IS AN ASPIRING WRITER AND FOLKS HAVE expressed an interest in my path to publication, this seems the perfect place to share a bit. For those of you, like Jane, who are struggling to find your audience in the current state of the publishing world, I hope that what I’m about to tell you inspires you to stay the course, no matter how tough it gets. In today’s market it’s possible that the pressure to write what sells and forget about your heart has never been more intense.
Rule number one about writing: All the best stories come from the heart.
Back in 1998 when my agent was trying to sell Beyond the Highland Mist, the publishing industry was categorically rejecting paranormal romance. The hot ticket was straight historical, emphasis on Regency. I’d been trying to get published, off and on, for several years and I seemed to keep missing whatever boat was currently leaving the dock. Some days I wasn’t even sure I was on the right dock. Or on a dock at all.
One of my earliest novels (written in 1993–94) was about the clan Douglas, and plotted around the story of Robert the Bruce. Every agent and publisher I submitted to told me that no one wanted to read a story about that time period or those “primitive Highlanders.” They said it would never get published and I should focus on Regency. I gave up on my novel, and exactly one year later Braveheart was released in theaters, followed by Rob Roy.
My next unpublished novel, The Lady Lies, was a sizzling, non-paranormal Regency that publishers told me was simply too sexy. Is there any such thing today?
With my Scots too primitive, and my Regencies too sexy, I decided to try something new but I wasn’t sure what. I’d written several novels by that time and had accumulated the requisite stack of rejection letters. They never bothered me because I figured they were rungs in a ladder and eventually, if I had the perseverance to keep climbing, I’d get to the top. At least they were proof that I was on the ladder. Then one day I got a rejection letter that said my storytelling was excellent, my writing was good, but it wasn’t commercial enough. I mulled it over for days. I think that was the first time I truly realized that writing was a business and if I wanted to support myself doing it, I needed to reevaluate what I was writing and make it more sellable.
Thus resolved, when I began my next book, I made sure it had too much sex and primitive Highlanders and time travel and, if that wasn’t enough to abso-frigging-lutely guarantee rejection, I upped the ante and tossed in the Fae. I have no idea what I was thinking. I knew better. I knew it was going to get rejected, but I was having so much fun writing that I didn’t care. It was the story I wanted to tell. It might not have been the right dock, but it was my dock.
When Random House made an offer for it, I was flabbergasted. When they made it a two-book deal, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I still have the napkin I
wrote the deal notes on. I was sitting in a cubicle at Great American Insurance Company, eating a late lunch when I got the call. Tuna salad, chips, and a dill pickle. I’ve forgotten no details of that momentous day.
Looking back, I’m staggered that Maggie Crawford—thank you, Maggie!—took the chance on Beyond the Highland Mist. It was far too paranormal, far too out there, considering what was and wasn’t selling at the time. I was encouraged to write a straight historical for the next novel, which I did.
By the time my second novel was finished, Beyond the Highland Mist had been released and sold very well, astounding most of us, and giving me a track record to look at going into my third book. I actually earned royalties on my first royalty statement, which was unheard of in the genre back then. It received numerous awards, was nominated for two RITAs, and I took home a plaque for Waldenbooks Best-selling Debut Romance Author of 1999.
Fortified by the success of my time-traveling Fae novel, I submitted a third paranormal proposal called Ghost of a Chance, included in this compilation, that tells the unpublished story of Hawk Douglas’s brother, Adrian. It was turned down, and I was advised once again to focus on straight historical. Paranormal was the smallest dock in the market, and publishers just didn’t want to take a chance on it.
I wrote The Highlander’s Touch next and set it during the time of Robert the Bruce. (I may get detoured but I never stop trying to turn down the same street.) In my proposal, I downplayed the elements of time travel and Fae. In the book, I gave them free reign. I didn’t exactly mean to, I just couldn’t help myself.
Then something happened that changed everything. My editor left and took a different job while I was writing The Highlander’s Touch, and for some reason no one made me eliminate the paranormal elements, and my next proposal was quickly approved.
By this time in my career, I was beginning to think I was on to something with my time-travel/Fae world. My second toned-down novel hadn’t done well at all. No strong criticism. No strong compliments. Tepid is the word that comes to mind. I’d rather be strongly rejected than tepidly received. My third highly paranormal novel won a RITA.