Page 43 of Taken By the Vicious Highlander
The silence settled between them, and Lilith pointedly watched the flames lick at the bricks in the chimney until one of the logs snapped in half. It was late, and without thinking, she chanced a look over her shoulder to check if he was asleep.
Their eyes met. His gaze was annoyingly unsurprised, while surprise widened hers without hesitation.
“Are ye ready to come to bed, then?” His rough voice felt like a soft caress down her spine.
She hated how tired she was. She hated how his voice didn’t annoy her—it would make it so easy to be angry with him and defiantly sleep in the armchair. She hated the playful way he was swinging his feet and the ease at which he lay in the bed. The empty space next to him beckoned to her… and she hated how easily she caved in.
“Fine. I’ll stay.” She pushed herself to her feet and immediately pressed her fists to her temples, squeezing her eyes shut. “But if ye so much as snore…” she said through gritted teeth, trying to push through the headrush.
“Ye’ll do what, exactly?” Damon asked, a teasing edge to his voice, which was all too close to her. “Kick me out?”
She felt him then, the heat of his body surrounding her. He had moved with such predatory silence while the battled through the headrush, that his new proximity to her set Lilith’s entire body ablaze. Her eyelids were pinned shut as the blood started to settle, her world easing back into stability.
After she was sure she wouldn’t fall, Lilith exhaled and pried her eyes open. It was the small smirk tugging at his lips that made her bite back the snarky remark she had intended to say. He wasn’t mocking her, not really. There was a warmth in his expression that made her stomach twist in a completely new way.
“Ye’re impossible,” she muttered, brushing past him to sit on the edge of the bed.
“And yet,” Damon said, lowering himself onto the arm of the chair by the hearth, “ye’ve agreed to stay with me. That says something, does it nae?”
She refused to answer, instead focusing on untying the laces of her boots. The silence stretched between them again, broken only by the occasional creak of the inn’s floorboards and the distant murmur of voices.
The irony was not lost on Lilith as she glanced over at Damon, who was now staring at the flames in the hearth. Her soft chuckle drew his attention away from the thoughts he was lost in.
After a moment of assessing her, and apparently coming up satisfied, he cleared his throat. “Since we’re here, we may as well finish what I had planned.”
Lilith glanced up, arching an eyebrow. “Planned? Ye planned something?”
“Aye? Ye think me plan was to just kiss ye all night?” he snorted, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees.
His innocent smile coaxed a strange noise from Lilith’s throat that she unsuccessfully masked with a cough.
“What was yer plan?”
“I thought we’d take some time to figure out what the other likes—without whiskey. I wish to ken what makes ye happy. I thought it might help us… understand each other better.”
Her skepticism was evident, but she couldn’t quell her curiosity. “And how do ye plan to do that?”
As if the timing itself was under his control, a knock at the door interrupted the tension, and Damon rose with ease before he sauntered toward the door.
A tray of food had been left outside along with a small bag. Lilith tried to examine it from around Damon’s large figure but eventually gave up.
“What’s in the bag?” she asked as he turned around with the tray in one hand and the bag in the other.
Damon tossed the bag at her. “Open it.”
Lilith tentatively opened it and dropped its contents into her open palm. The dice were unlike any she had ever seen before. Far from crude, these were a masterpiece. She brought them up to her eyes to better inspect them.
On one, the numbers were intricate Celtic knots, and the other had small but swirly symbols. The edges of each die were banded in bronze filigree that glinted beautifully in the dim light from the hearth. Lilith tilted her head, squinting at the unfamiliar markings along the edges.
“They’re Ogham runes,” Damon explained, his deep voice softened with reverence. “They’re meant to bring luck to the bearer. Or so me gran told me. These were me grandfaither’s.”
Lilith studied the dice further, weighing each of them carefully. They were heavier than normal, the coolness sinking into her skin subtly. Her thumb traced over the smooth, polished bone surface.
“These are lovely, Damon.”
“Aye,” he said proudly. “Me braither and I used to throw them to settle arguments—they’ve seen more than their fair share of mischief.”
“Are ye tellin’ stories tonight, then? Is that what ye had planned for our second night?”
