He remembered it so clearly now. The feel of her soft, tentative lips. The crushing sensation that he was crossing into damnable territory but couldn’t help but kiss her back.
Then she kissed him like they had the second time as she slid up and down his arousal. Opened her mouth just enough he felt the tip of her tongue flicking his. He moaned and grabbed her backside, steering her more quickly as she kissed him like she had the third time. Deep and long and so passionately that pleasure tore through him. Release that made him yank her down hard, making him explode.
“Ohh,” she moaned, rolling her hips once, twice before her eyelids fluttered, her body shuddered, and her sheath milked him hard.
After that, he simply held her and prayed his seed would take root. Wanted to see her swell with their child. Craved the way he would feel the first time he held him or her. The first time he gazed into their eyes. Saw a smile shining back at him, he imagined would be every bit as bright as Riona’s.
A child, he continued to envision as he held her until she dozed off, and he carried her back to bed. One that stayed with him as he gazed at her until he fell asleep as well.
Then he dreamt.
Remembered.
He tried to steer clear of his brother in another life, but Raghnall confronted him before he could.
“’Tis brazen of ye to tell me to stay away from her when ‘tis clear ye try to be around her every chance ye get,” Raghnall chided after yet another heated argument where Declán told his misguided brother to stay away from her. That it would only mean harm to her if he didn’t.
“Ye cannot worry that much for her safety with the way ye act like a lovesick fool around her,” Raghnall went on.
“I do not,” he had sworn, certain in that knowledge. Fully aware it would mean her death, he had always been very careful. “Any feelings I might have are kept to myself.”
“Ye lie, and ye know it.” A sly grin had curled his brother’s mouth. “But ‘tis no matter because I know ye have not had her the way ye crave.” His grin only grew slyer, the pleasure in his gaze unmistakable. “Have not had her the way I have.”
“Ye lie,” he had growled.
“Do I?” The swine licked his bottom lip as if remembering the taste of her. “Mayhap ye should ask her.” He adjusted himself as if he swelled just thinking about it. “She may love ye, brother, but do not think some of that love did not spread to me years ago. Betwixt the two of us going somewhere we should not over time, she has developed longings that are not natural to her kind.” He shrugged. “Longings ye might have been too cowardly to fulfill but not me.”
Declán tried to reply, tried to drive a blade into Raghnall, but his image vanished, only for Riona to appear writhing in pleasure in his brother's arms in that same life. Spreading her thighs. Taking him into her body. Giving into something she and Declán had tried so hard to avoid for her safety. Safety the enemy cared nothing for as he enjoyed driving into her every bit as much as she seemed to relish taking him.
Unlike the morning before, when Declán woke to sunlight cresting the window sill, he was in a foul mood.
“One you need to get over now so we can think clearly today,” Riona said gently, catching his thoughts. Likely his very dream. Better yet, memory.
Like the day before, she sat on the window sill sketching away.
She gestured at the drawings she had evidently placed on his chest before he awoke. “You’re letting him get inside your head, husband, and you need to stop.”
He sat up and looked at what she had drawn. The first one was of her wrapped in his former brother’s arms, just as he’d dreamt it. The next, however, showed the same position, yet she was clothed and fighting Raghnall off. The third showed tears streaming down her cheeks as she managed to break free and race into the forest away from him.
“I wouldneverhave made love to that monster.” Her tone was venomous. “He tried to rape me, but I got away.” Sadness swiftly replaced anger. Her lower lip trembled. “And I don’t think he liked that. He didn't like me denying him. It wounded his pride in a whole new way.”
“What new way?” Ashamed he nearly let the enemy get the better of him again, he threw the drawings in the fire and joined her at the window. “What measures do you think he took?”
“I don’t know other than it led to this.” She showed him the sketch she just drew of her and his former brother burning in magical flames. The disgust and horror on her face that he was there too. “Declán, I don’t think I was married to Raghnall.” She shook her head. “Nothing about it makes sense, and it’s not in any of my memories.” She released a shaky sigh. “If I were at any point, it would have been my duty to sleep with him, right? Yet my resistance of him when he tried to take advantage of me tells us anything but.”
She was right. It made no sense. “So you think he somehow put the idea in our minds?”
“I think it had to have been something along those lines.”
She was about to say more when a rap came at the door. He chanted them into clothes only to find Áengus standing on the other side.
“M’lord.” He nodded at Declán, then Riona. “M’lady.” His gaze went between them. “I fear I have bad news.”
“Raghnall’s wall is completely surrounding us now.” Riona handed Declán a sketch of one circle flush around another circle and arched a brow at Áengus. “Right?”
“Ta, m’lady.” He nodded once and reported to them both. “Warriors are being rallied to position and preparing for battle, for—”
“Something looms in the distance.” Riona handed Declán another image. This one showed their people coming out of their homes with looks of terror on their faces as they stared at a yet-empty horizon. Her brow inched ever higher as she looked at Áengus with a grim expression. “No one has ever heard sounds quite like this, have they?”
