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“I’d love to spend hours with you.” He placed his hands on her arms and pulled her down on top of him.
“We canna tarry further. We must find Eletea,” she said, her voice garbled because her head lay on his shoulder, and her face was buried against his neck.
He cradled her in his arms and rubbed his hands down the length of her shapely back. “Once we’re done, we can find more time for each other.”
Her skin, so supple a moment before, flinched beneath his touch. “’Twas a risk I took with you just now,” she said. “We shall see what the future brings.” Arianrhod extricated herself from his embrace and pushed herself upright until she sat beside him, gazing at him through troubled eyes.
“What?” he asked. A cold tongue of fear curdled the joy he’d felt moments before.
Bitterness to rival his own twisted her perfect face into something unattractive. “A while back, I asked if ye knew who I was. Ye gave me part of the story, yet some is missing.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m the virgin huntress.Virgin.It means I doona couple with men—or anyone else.”
Understanding pounded jagged claws into him. He’d finally found a woman he might love, not just one to share sex with like Celene, and she wasn’t available. The light he’d allowed to grow inside him guttered and went out. He got to his feet and gathered pieces of clothing, hurriedly donning them.
Arianrhod did the same. She looked embarrassed, or maybe the color highlighting her skin was left over from their lovemaking. She reached for her quiver and bow, but stopped and made a point of facing him squarely.
“Angus.”
He didn’t particularly want to listen to her rationalizations, so he shook his head. “You don’t have to say a word. I get it. What happened between us was a onetime deal.” Because he couldn’t control his mouth, it curled into a harsh line. “Don’t worry. I won’t blow your cover.”
Anger flashed from her multicolored eyes. “That’s not it.” She fisted a hand and drove it into her open palm. “I dinna ask for my role in the Pantheon, yet I’m stuck with it. As ye’ve figured out, I’ve scarcely kept my part of the bargain. In my own way, I’m just as isolated and lonely as ye are.”
He tightened his jaw into a tense line. This was getting worse and worse. “So what just happened between us was a pity fuck? Because you feel sorry for me and yourself?”
Arianrhod shook her head and shrank into herself. “Nay. ’Tisn’t what I’m saying at all. Och, but I’m making a botch of this.” She drew her silver brows together. “Mayhap what I want to say is ye’re beautiful. I wanted exactly what happened. Ye in my arms and inside my body. It was amazing, better than my best imaginings, yet I fear we borrowed pleasure from a place that charges high interest.” She tossed her shoulders back and tilted her chin defiantly. “Once we’re done here, we must return to our own time. Me to my charade of an existence, and ye to however ye wish to address your problem with my kinfolk.”
She walked to him and placed a hand on the side of his face. “’Tis all right if they know I told you of your origins. The minute ye disclose what ye know, they’ll likely realize it came from me, and I’ll defend your right to that knowledge before our council. Our compact with men forbids what they did to you.
“They’ll argue ye’re not exactly a man, but that’s semantics.”
He frowned, anger draining from him as he listened. “I could go back to wherever they dragged me from.”
“Ye could—and we may well do so—but ye may not find what ye seek. Magical intervention rarely works that way.”
Angus considered her words, hunted for a frame of reference for them. “In our time, modern time, only twenty-five years have passed since Arawn hauled me from that time-travel shaft. Things can’t have shifted quite so much.”
Arianrhod nodded. “Ye just said the magic words:time-travel shaft. Ye traveled through time, no doubt for a purpose that was scrubbed from your memory. ’Tis been over a thousand years since Nessa and Cathbad walked the Earth. Even if ye’re grandchild from that mating, or great-grandchild, ye may not find them. I could be mistaken, but I doona believe Cathbad or Nessa held the keys of immortality.”
He sifted his hands through his hair. None of this was easy or straightforward. “I need to consider my actions carefully,” he murmured.
“Only a fool doesna do so.” She favored him with a smile that smote his heart. “And ye’re far from a fool.” She tightened the hand that still cupped his cheek. “I would things were different, yet they’re not.”
Because he couldn’t stand to not say the words, because they raged within him, he caught her gaze and held it. “This topic isn’t closed. We’ll talk more once we’ve dispatched the problem of Eletea and the rogue dragon shifters who abducted her.”
A tiny smile flitted about Arianrhod’s mouth. “Mayhap we shall. I’m weak where ye’re concerned. Were I wise, I’d tell you nay. We’ve said all we need to, yet wanting you burns within me, twin flame to what smolders in you.”
Hope surged, but Angus tamped it down and wound wards around his mind so she couldn’t see in. There had to be a way. At least she wasn’t closed to the possibility. For now, it would have to be enough.
****
Arianrhod slung her quiver over her shoulder and followed it with her bow. Part of her was furious she hadn’t taken a stronger stand, but she couldn’t shut the door on the man walking ahead of her. She was so lost in thought, she missed a turn and had to double back to find the way they’d come in.
Her clothes were drier, but the leather felt clammy until her body warmed it. She should’ve spelled her breeches and jerkin to dry as she’d done with his shirt. After making her way up the steep, broken stairwell, she stepped outside. At least the rain let up, but night had fallen while they were inside. Thick clouds obscured both moon and stars, so she called a mage light into being. It burned a soft violet next to her, and would follow like an obedient puppy when they set off. She felt hungry, but food would have to wait. They shouldn’t have indulged themselves with sex; further delay to hunt and cook game would be inexcusable.
“I agree. Not about sex being a mistake, but about there not being time to scare up a meal.” He moved behind her, clearly having helped himself to her thoughts.
She slapped up wards. Much as she wanted Angus in every way a woman could want a man, it wasn’t good for them to be joined at the hip. Sharing thoughts would only deepen the bond thrumming between them. She’d have to make a clean cut, cleave straight through it, but maybe not quite yet.
Coward. What a filthy coward I am.
