With new determination she flung open the door and found herself face-to-face with a grinning Elesyria.
“I knew you’d come around once you thought about it.”
The Faerie linked her arm through Dani’s, pulling her forward toward the revelry awaiting them one level down.
Midway down the stairs, the music began, slowly at first, picking up in tempo and volume. By the time they reached the double-wide entry to the great hall, the drums were echoing through the cavernous rooms and throbbing in Dani’s chest.
If she were going to describe the scene before her, the one word that came to mind wasValhalla.
Delicious aromas wafted to her, reminding her none too subtly that in her pouting, she’d skipped all meals today. The huge fireplaces on either side of the hall burned brightly, an enormous carcass roasting slowly on a turning spit in each one of them.
The tables were filled with more people than she’d even realized inhabited the castle, all laughing and shouting, trying to be heard over the music. The young girls who normally served at midday were nowhere to be seen, replaced tonight by the women she’d worked with in the kitchens this morning. They laughed and shouted right along with those they served, splashing a dark amber bubbly from the pitchers they carried into the tankards held up as they passed.
The musicians themselves held sway in one corner, three men on drums and one playing a bagpipe. Their rhythm pulsed through the crowd, punctuated by the occasional primitive scream and bellow. The piper’s face was a bright red and the cords in his neck stood out like lines of rope in response to his exertion.
It was shaping up to be some amazing party.
Presiding over it all, seated at the middle of the great table set upon the dais, was Malcolm.
Their eyes met across the room, locked to one another like iron filings to a magnet. Slowly, as if he weren’t even aware of his actions, Malcolm rose to his feet.
“Showtime,” Dani whispered and stepped into the room.
DANIELLE!
She stepped into the great hall, her eyes boring into Malcolm’s very soul.
As if a great warhorse sat on his chest, he struggled to fill his lungs with air, even as his feet moved him toward her of their own accord. The noise around him dulled to a dim roar even as the path ahead of him narrowed like a tunnel, focused on a thing of beauty at the end.
He met her halfway down the aisle separating the two halves of the enormous room, aware of nothing more than the way she looked this evening.
Most of her hair had been piled up upon her head in a most artful manner, but a couple of curls fell carelessly loose, trailing onto her bare skin, tracing a path downward, leading his eyes toward the swells of her breasts.
He met her gaze again to find her smiling, a soft, seductive turn of the lips aimed directly at him. And good that was, too. He had not a single doubt that he’d draw sword and skewer any other man she graced with that look.
She held out her hand and he took it, leading her back to the dais and behind the table to the seat next to his. On the morrow he might well owe his soul to Angus MacKilyn, but for this one night, he would enjoy the lady of his own choosing at his side.
One of the women stopped at their table, her large pitcher held high on her shoulder. He lifted his tankard and she streamed the battle brew into his cup.
Dani held her cup aloft when the woman offered, but he placed his hand over it.
“This is no the normal ale we drink with our meals, my lady. This brew is from an ancient recipe, made potent with the strength of the bog myrtle.”
Dani grinned and pushed his hand away. “I had no trouble with Guinness back home, so I doubt your bog myrtle beer will do me in, either.”
She touched the rim of her tankard to his and took a sip before leaning her head close to his in order that she might be heard. “Interesting flavor. Is it true that your men drink this before battle to turn them into berserkers?”
Someone had been filling her ears with the old stories.
“It is the custom of my people.”
He spoke into her ear as she had into his, breathing her in, reveling in the tingles shooting through his body. Whether it was her loose hair tickling his face or the effects of the battle ale, he could not say. Did not care. It only mattered that his senses were alive with her.
Another small sip and she set her cup down to lean close again. “I never heard of that custom. Never read about any such Scottish tradition, never saw it in a single mov—well, let’s just say, it’s not a Scottish tradition I was familiar with.”
“I never said it was, my lady.” It was all he could do to keep from taking her earlobe between his teeth. “I said it was the custom of my people. My father’s people. He came to these shores long ago, a Viking raider. After defeating the MacDowylt in battle, he settled in as their laird, bringing his wife and son from his homeland to join him. When his wife passed on, he married my mother, and though he committed himself to this land to raise his family, he raised us in the ways of our ancestors lest we forget who we were.”
“Thus the Odin feast,” she said, sweeping her hand to encompass the activity in the room.
