The Celtic Legends Series by Lisa Ann Verge

Author:Lisa Ann Verge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Celtic time travel historical romance series, Irish medieval paranormal romance box set, witch seer psychic romantic fiction, ancient Ireland magic fantasy romance fairy tale, Scottish highlander warrior love story, fae romance for adults, wounded tortured immortal hero angst
Publisher: Bay Street Press LLC
Published: 2021-11-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Rhys galloped into the bailey with a stag flung over the back of his horse. The rest of the hunting party and the hounds followed him in, the dogs yelping as they spread about. The yard rang with voices as the men regaled each other with tales of the morning’s hunting foray.

But all Rhys saw was Aileen standing in the yard, arms akimbo. She was glaring not at him, but at Dafydd, who sheepishly dismounted from his horse and approached. As she started to talk, Rhys watched her face flush angry. Rhys abruptly dismounted and strode toward them as Aileen jabbed a finger in the air.

“. . . as full of excuses as a drunkard, you are, but you promised today, you promised—”

“I promised,” Dafydd argued, “before I knew we’d be hunting.”

“Well, you’re back from hunting now. Marged told me there’s time enough to get there and back before nightfall.”

“A fair lass you are, Aileen, but my time is not set aside for you—”

“Shall we give her a sword,” Rhys interrupted, “and let you two fight it out?”

“And give her the advantage?” Dafydd tugged his gloves off his hands. “She already has a mace in that tongue and a lance in her words.”

Rhys laid his eyes upon her, bracing for the blow to the chest it gave him to see her with her blood running high.

“Your brother,” she said, dropping her gaze, “promised to take me to the chaplain today. To Father Adda.”

“And I will,” Dafydd insisted, “once the cattle are herded in and the tenants’ tribute counted.”

Rhys raised a brow at Aileen. “You can’t wait until Sunday to confess?”

“It’s herbs I’m seeking.” The lass had eyes as cold as winter. “Your larder would put the meanest midwife in Ireland to shame.”

“You, boy.” Rhys gestured to a stable boy who froze like a deer sensing danger. “Saddle my palfrey.”

“You? Taking me to the church?” Aileen brushed her cloak out of the way of the milling hounds. “Aren’t you afraid the holy ground will open up and swallow you?”

“Are you?”

“I’ve no sins on my conscience.”

“And I have no conscience to be burdened.”

When color flooded her cheeks like this even the spray of freckles across her nose blended so they couldn’t be seen at all. He liked to see her uncertain, unhinged. It meant that the memory of Samhain night still throbbed between them. It was always there, a living thing, rising whenever their gazes met.

She was a witch, indeed. She’d stuffed that wild mane of hair into a net of some sort, a silvery thing, but it couldn’t contain it all. The chill wind riding down from the crag buffeted the loose hair across the paleness of her neck. That peasant’s mantle she insisted on wearing swathed her figure, but he knew that body better than he should—lean, strong, full of heat where her pulse throbbed close to the skin.

He could have had her that night. She’d been ready for a man and nothing had separated them but a few layers of linen and wool—even that had seemed to burn away with the heat between them.

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