Page 86 of Outlaw Ever After

His muscles jumped as he cradled her head to his chest in his palm, curling over her to bury his nose against her crown and breathe her in.

“What if ye win, but I leave ye with no heirs, leaving this castle to be reaved over and squabbled over? What if I fail everyone? What if I’m never able to-to—”

He gripped her nape and pressed his forehead to hers. Watched firelight flicker in her watery eyes.

“None of that,” he growled, a ferality to his chastisement. “If I have ye , then I have everything.”

“How can I believe that?” she begged, gripping him, shaking him.

“How can I make ye believe it?” he gnashed out, his lips crashing to hers.

Her fists knotted into his clothing torqued, pushed, then…she melted into the kiss. Gripped his nape and gasped with desperation, finally capitulating. His fingers anchored in her hair, gripped it, as that anger and hurt poured out of him into her.

Tears streamed into the seam of their lips as she eagerly met his tongue, thrust for untutored thrust, yanking on him, clinging to him, and he let go. A growl rumbled up his chest as he arched her backward, fisting the ends of her Comyn shawl and cinching her against him tightly. He had to win. He couldn’t bear for her to wear any other colors.

His teeth gnashed hers. Lips smashed lips. Yet try as he might to extract this sadness from her so they might be free of it, it only took root within him, twining its tendrils into his heart.

…

She gave herself up to his urgency, his fervent words an anguished love poem, echoing through her thoughts. Let herself have this sliver of time, pushing doubts about his sincerity away for another moment’s worry.

“The thought of ye in another man’s bed makes me want to make ye a widow,” he growled against her lips. “I can never make this right.”

She cradled his cheeks at his desolate vow, grasping his beard, his knot of hair, unable to rest her hands in any one place as he pulled her across his lap. He braced her close, as his hand came to settle over her womb, clenching there, when she tasted salty wetness on the seam of their lips. Her eyes fluttered and she pulled away to see a damp trail down his cheek from furiously pinched eyes as he cradled her empty belly.

He grieved with her.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, resting his forehead to her neck as her heartbeat thudded against him, in cadence with thudding in the distance.

The thudding… Horse hooves? Many of them. His hands around her waist stiffened at the sound of villagers scrambling, shouting, securing their possessions.

“A reave…” Her grip turned to ice. “Oh God.”

She flailed for freedom. Shoved away from him and dashed to the door to hear: “A reave! A reave!” As menfolk grabbed scythe and sickle and pitchfork and shovel, anything that could be used as a weapon.

“The bairns!” she cried, bolting out to capture their hands as her faithful wolfhound bounded to her side. “Come hither!” She pulled each child one at a time, gathering them into a cluster and huddling them to the dog’s shaggy fur. “Come! Quickly now!”

Alex gripped her nape and dipped his head to eye her. “Lass, ye near collapsed—”

“There’s nay time, Alex! Ye must help them.”

“I’m nay leaving ye!” he argued back, his cheeks still damp.

She shook her head with growing frustration and writhed free of his hold. “We have to help them, Alex! They need ye. I must hide the bairns!” She looked around for a place to hide.

His jaw tensed angrily as his brow deadened, but he nodded once and pointed.

“Through the cottages, on that trail. Ye’ll get to the water’s edge. Follow the current and ye’ll come to a cave. Go to it and keep the dog with ye.”

He dropped his lips to hers. A kiss so firm it was angry, yet tender, yet pining, yet resolute. It was everything, and yet, it wasn’t enough.

He ripped away and stalked into the night like the Devil’s mage unsheathing his scythe and swinging it into his grip, directives bellowing from his lips, a warrior set on defending, as the menfolk and women alike took to the center of the path.

Alpin the blacksmith hurried to him, Faunus in tow. “Yer horse, mi laird. Hurry.”

“Nay,” he snarled, his voice receding. “I’m staying…”

…