Page 29 of Highlander’s Forbidden Fruit

Aleck startled awake. His brow was clammy with sweat. Tearing off the traveling blanket he stood up and took in his surroundings. He was still in England. The fire was a mess of glowing embers.

He didn’t need a fire, but he wanted to have something to do.

Aleck walked off to find wood in the brush by the road. He was a few miles out of York, but he had no intention of going into the city. He preferred the silence and isolation of the woods.

The memory of another wood pierced him, and he clenched his jaw. How could he have let things go so far? Evanna was a petulant child, but he was not. He had let her rile him up, and it had led to her injury. He couldn’t begin to forgive himself, therefore he wouldn’t blame Laird MacLeod if he couldn’t forgive him either.

Finding a few choice logs and sticks, he went back to his campsite and set about building the fire again.

He was two days ride from London. It felt longer. He had ridden the horse like the Devil charging out of Hell and hoped to cover more ground, yet here he was, on the outskirts of York, staring into the fire while he twirled a lilac boutonniere between his thumb and forefinger.

Thoughts of Evanna muddled his head. She’d always had this effect on him, even when they were children. He’d be practicing his bow and arrow, Lockard breathing down his neck, and Evanna would show up with berry stains around her mouth, and he would lose focus. He smiled as he remembered all the hidings he’d taken from Lockard because of it.

The lilacs had lost their luster, and a few fell to the ground between his booted toes. The idea to press the boutonniere into a book had crossed his mind, but he didn’t own a book he could place it in, nor did he see the point. Why make an effort to preserve the impossible?

Aleck held the lilacs up, so they were close to his nose, and inhaled their faint scent. They had been fragrant when he’d first spied them in Evanna’s hair, their scent had coiled into his brain and kept him up most nights. Now they smelt of a forgotten dream.

Dreams.

Aleck closed his eyes. The dreams had become more intense and insistent. He couldn’t escape them in his sleep, so he tried to put as much physical distance between himself and Evanna as he possibly could. He had managed to reach York, but he still felt her.

The feel of her was ingrained in his limbs now. His fingers flexed as his mind went over the curve of her waist, the swell of her breast, the fullness of her lips with slow deliberation. It was torture, and ecstasy; one and the same.

For a moment, a fleeting few seconds, his dreams had bled into reality, and Evanna had been in his arms, her lips parted and receptive. It had taken sheer strength of will to stop himself from swooping down and claiming those lips in a kiss.

Aleck swallowed, his jaw tightening as his old friend, shame, joined him by the fire. The taint of his dreams colored his every waking moment.

How could he explain to Evanna, sweet, foolish child that she was, how he had seen her in his dreams. The things he did to her every night; the things she did to him. If she were to ever find out, she would loathe him worse then she already did. Laird MacLeod would exile him in disgrace, and he would never be able to show his head in his family home, nor find shelter anywhere else.

But no matter how hard he tried, the dreams persisted: Evanna’s pleading eyes as he entered her room after plundering the castle, the sheer nightclothes that concealed and revealed at the same time. Her satin soft flesh, warm and pliable as it molded against his, her breasts tender and sweet in his mouth.

His throat went dry as he recalled his dreams. The aching need for her. It was enough to drive anyone mad. Seeing her in the arms of others had tested his mettle. He had controlled himself at the ball, had made allowances when the men paid a visit and she had forgotten all about him until Clara called his name and acknowledged his presence, but seeing her in the arms of John Winchester like that had made him see red, and he had lost all control.

Releasing a shaky breath, he took one last look at the lilacs then flicked them in the fire. It was good that he had been sent for. He didn’t believe he could have followed orders if he had been instructed to accompany Evanna for the entirety of her stay in England.

He had understood from a very young age that Evanna was meant for a far greater man than he. He was the second son of a small noble. He had no title, no castle, no riches to offer. A bitter laugh escaped him as he realized Evanna was smarter than him. She had come to England to find a husband and rightly so because those she had around her had been lacking. Aleck was lacking. He had always known she could never love him, and he had been proven right.

Watching the last of the lilacs char and burn, Aleck laid down and prepared himself for sleep and the dreams that were inevitable. Awake he could tame his reckless heart; dreams were the heart’s domain where they knew no bounds.

Chapter Twelve

Nine Months Later…

“What possessed ye, lad?” Laird Julius thundered.

Royce Glackin stared at his boots.

They were standing in the great hall where a small storm of flowers had blown in. Candles sat on every surface and enticing smells wafted up from the kitchens. The entire castle had been scrubbed clean twice, and a fair amount of hens and goats had been sacrificed for the feast.

“Did I ask for drums?”

“Nae, Laird,” Royce mumbled.

“Then why’d ye bring me drums, ye oaf!”

“Stevie’s gone to Inverness.”

“And who gave him permission to do such a foolish thing?”