Page 10 of Outlaw Ever After

“The worst sort of danger.” He studied her lips a heartbeat too long, then his cheek divoted as he brought his gaze back up to hers. “Something tells me ye might be able to bring me to my knees, for I heard yer siren’s call across the festival.”

He pointed toward the din of the castle as if cocking a wheel lock pistol.

How is that possible? She opened her mouth to form a retort—

He plucked her lyre from her lap, strummed clashing strings.

Her jaw dropped. “Do ye mind —”

“Nay one bit. Play. The. Song. Again ,” he enunciated as if speaking to a stubborn bairn. She snatched it back, eliciting another smolder from him. “On those fine” —his eyes dipped to her lips—“morning dew–covered”—his tongue traced boldly over his lower lip as if anticipating a feast—“lyre strings of yers.”

Her cheeks burned! Ah, a prime jester, he was. Different. Suitors never asked about her skills, let alone begged to hear them, and they’d never dare flirt with her. They wanted to know how plump her dowry was—and if her parents giving birth to six bairns, three of which had survived, meant she, too, would be good at producing offspring.

She studied him a moment longer, but slowly did as he bade.

He wasn’t a suitor.

She strummed the dulcet sounds nervously. Hit a clashing note as she willed her fingers to steady. Then she sang a soft verse wavering with more nerves, easing into comfort as she closed her eyes to steady her raging heartbeat…when his flute joined.

Soft, airy harmonies, perfectly on pitch, she could envision his lips pursed over the mouthpiece, kissing the instrument—sakes, kissing it? Her eyes flickered open to see for herself and instead, noticed that emerald gaze hard upon her as if starving for every lyric that trickled off her tongue. Those lips hovered in a perfect purse of promises and pleasure over the tiny mouth of the flute, and she realized, as that gaze of his lifted to her eyes again, that it was striated with flecks of olive and jade. And my, his talent! He knew this song as if he’d heard it his whole life and before she knew it…it was over.

Silence hung. The nearby burn gurgled.

Their eyes held. His dipped once more to her lips with a look of such longing, she couldn’t be angry at him this time, for his chest rose and fell as if he’d just sprinted across the glen, as if he were as affected as she. Those lips were parted with something akin to heartache.

“That was beautiful,” she whispered.

“My mither used to sing it to me. Where did ye learn it, songbird?” he croaked.

“A book that was given to me. I thought it was lovely. Full of yearning and adoration.”

His brow furrowed. “A book? From where?”

She shrugged. “I nay ken. I was wee.”

She picked at the grass, laying down the lyre and twining a blade about her finger.

“I’ve nay thought of that song in some time,” he admitted. “My sire crafted my maw any instrument she desired. Fell in love with her song before he’d even seen her face.”

Spoken as if he was so afflicted, too.

“Yer sire must be a wonderful man to treat her so fondly.”

“He…was .”

And right then, she sensed tragedy. That familiarity she had no word for overwhelmed her with tingling, but she couldn’t look away from him. No wonder he’d followed her, if this was a song sung by a doting mother.

“Ye’re lucky, to have had a sire to be so proud of.”

She knew the pain of losing parents, a cycle that no child escaped, as the old passed on and the new proceeded to make worse their parents’ problems.

“How did he die?” she added carefully.

He shrugged uncomfortably. Uncomfortable? He exuded confidence. It oozed from his pores like sap from a maple. He looked perpetually windswept with his braided beard. As if he gave not one shite about tomorrow and was happy to let the breeze carry him on a whirlwind journey through life.

“Reave,” he bit out. “Interlopers who fought back when he tried to run them off.”

Her heart lurched into her throat at his face having gone stony, and she rested her hand upon his forearm. His sharp gaze dipped to her touch.