Loved by the Laird by Jillian Eaton

Author:Jillian Eaton [Eaton, Jillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, romance, Historical
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2023-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

The night passed in a blur of sleepless pacing. Mara didn’t hear Callum leave the castle, but she felt his absence in the same way that a solider felt his limb after it was taken from him. There, but not there. And no amount of wishing it back would make it so.

Ye did the right thing, she said silently in an attempt to console herself and her aching heart. The noble thing.

But if that were true, then why did she feel so bloody awful?

When dawn rose on the horizon in streaks of pink and pale gold, she made her way downstairs. Her boots waited at the front door, but she stepped barefoot out into the morning dew, curling her toes around the damp blades of grass.

Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes and willed her skin to feel the warmth of the sun…but as usual, there was nothing. Jabbing her thumbnail into her palm harder than was necessary, she indulged in a quick sigh of relief when sensation flooded her hand and shot up her arm, slicing through all of the nothingness like a star shooting through the night sky.

She didn’t know how much longer she had, but she had today.

And for that, she would be grateful.

Singing as she walked, she left the castle and the keep behind, following a dirt trail winding through a meadow of waving seagrass to the stables. Made of stone and timber, the barn had been dug out of the side of a hill, affording it protection from both the harsh weather and invading armies.

“Do ye fancy a ride, Skye?” she called out to her mare. The horse had no need for shelter, but she spent her nights in the barn for the same reason Mara stayed in her bedroom. Tradition helped tie them to whatever mortality they had left. Without it, they’d both be adrift, floating on a tide that never changed.

“Skye?” she repeated when the mare didn’t respond with her customary whinny. “Are ye still asleep, ye lazy bones?”

“She’s in here with me,” a familiar masculine voice replied.

Callum.

Mara froze even as the echo of her heartbeat accelerated, slamming against her sternum with such force that she nearly tipped forward. But when Callum emerged from barn with Skye following behind like an adoring dog, she hastily scrambled onto her heels, backing away from him as if he were the devil himself.

And maybe he was the devil with his auburn hair loose around his shoulders, and his shirt partially unbuttoned, and his sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing far more muscular skin than her eyes had seen in a very, very long while.

While she and Hugh had been intimate on their wedding night, he’d insisted on dousing the candles and covering them in a quilt of scratchy wool. The bed of the inn they were staying in had been hard and lumpy, and the air had smelled of ale and must. When she’d tried to explore his body, to run her fingers down his

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