Page 76 of The Speed of Lightning
Sitting on a bench at the corner of the meetinghouse, Arne MacSorley asleep in her lap, Freya pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the headache that had plagued her since the night of the attack. Her mind was a muddle, her heart still raw, her stomach in knots. Her father not yet returned from wherever he had gone.
The clan meeting had ended nearly half an hour ago, yet the people did not scatter. They lingered in restless clusters, some slumped in their chairs, as weary and watchful as she was. Rest eluded them all, stolen by the fear of another midnight strike.
By the hearth, Calum sat on a wobbling stool, having given his cushioned chair to auld Ogilhinn MacSorley, still nursing a twisted knee. Men crowded close, laying out plans for rebuilding, and Calum listened with the same patience he had shown since the night of the attack. Firelight flickered over his face, carving shadow and glow across his features. He was the steady calm that had carried them all through the past two weeks. She saw his father in that measured steadiness, his mother in the quiet comfort he gave, and something entirely his own in the faint, angry tic of his cheek—something only Freya seemed to notice.
She watched his ink-darkened hand as it benignly stroked at the amber chieftain’s brooch now at his shoulder. The wolfhound rippled as his forearm flexed, and her breath caught, her mind captured as she recalled the power with which he’d torn her attackers away from her, the violence he’d used to end a life.
The memory of her friendly lad holding her under the rowan tree was faintly out of joint now. The change had come in a single moment, turning her toward a new course without chart or compass. That boy she had carried in her memory was now overlaid with the vision of him coursing after her abductors like a wild animal—unstoppable, predatory, lethal.
All around him no one seemed to notice the change—but for her, everything was different. She had seen the side of him that she’d mythologized in her stories, the part of him that war had wrought. She had fully seen Calum as the man he was and he was different.
What had revealed itself that night wasn’t amiable protection, the favor of one friend to spare the other. It was a warrior true to the very title he now carried. He was a warhound, more passionate and territorial than she ever couldhave imagined, willing to fight for her, to die for her, ready to kill if anyone threatened her.
As if he sensed her eyes on him, he turned winking at her. The safe little gesture left her flummoxed, and she returned her focus to Arne, pulling her plaid over him a little tighter as he slept, trying to find somewhere to channel her nerves. A swell of feeling rose in her chest, strange and disorienting, multiplying everything she’d ever held for Calum, a pull so strong it made her ache. She had no language for it, no past to compare it to, yet it filled her chest until she could hardly breathe.
There is no life for me without you, MacSorley. I couldnae lose you.
A second later Calum’s solid weight settled beside her on the bench, his arm curving around her shoulders. Her stomach swooped, a rush that left her unsteady.
He leaned forward, watching a bit of drool slip from Arne’s open mouth onto her apron. “Poor lad.” The gray of his eyes met hers, and her skin prickled under the warmth of his arm. “How’s the head?”
Heat climbed her cheeks for no reason she could name, an awkward flutter clenching inside her. “Hurts.”
“You need a proper night’s rest, MacSorley.”
For two weeks they’d slept in the meetinghouse, jammed in the Chieftain’s quarters with seven other displaced families from Inverlussa. She’d been tempted by the thought of their warm straw mattress in the quiet bothy for a few days, but Calum had deemed it safer to stay in the meetinghouse until regular patrols were worked out.
His hand worked gently at the muscles of her neck, and she slackened into him, comforted by his closeness. “I’m getting rest.”
“Not nestled among twelve bairns. Every time I look over, your eyes are open, your arms full of children.”
The tightness in her shoulders unwound beneath his touch, and her head dipped forward, eyes closing. “They need me.”
His fingers stopped moving. “I need you.”
The dark timbre of his voice made her eyes fly open. He was watching her in a way he had not since their wedding night, and the sight sent a fresh lurch through her stomach. What did he mean? Why was he looking at her like that? Why did she feel so utterly foxed?
“I—” She wanted to give him something true in return, but what?I had what was between us all wrong. I cannot stop thinking about the night of the attack, of how you defended me. I want to love you, but I’m afraid—very afraid of needing you this much.
“I—” she tried again to fill the silence, but the longer she hesitated the harder it became to fill.
She caught the flicker of hurt in his eyes before he masked it, that familiar wall sliding back into place. The same look he had worn since learning she was the Storyteller.This is all transactional…
“I need you…to take care of yourself, MacSorley.”
The nickname tacked on to the end cheapened the sentiment. He had begun to do that more often, as though he were deliberately holding her at a distance. Except—she did not want him to hold her at a distance.
A sudden shout outside shattered her thoughts, the sound jarring and out of place. She froze, straining to listen. Around her the clan shifted uneasily, straightening in their seats as the noise swelled until the meetinghouse doors burst open.
In seconds, two lines of MacDonald guard poured into the hall. Children shrieked for their parents, scrambling into their arms. Arne woke with a start, his terrified cry piercing the air before he scrambled beneath the bench.
Bewilderment flashed across Calum’s face for the briefest instant before instinct took over. He dragged her behind him, his grip fierce and unyielding.
Ogilhinn pushed himself up from the high seat, bracing an arm around his wife, outrage carved into his weathered face. “Wha’s going on?”
Freya’s heart hammered. They knew. They knew she was the Storyteller, and they had come to drag her away for her crimes.
Grufa glared at the MacDonald guard, his disgust barely leashed. “More coigreach.”
