Page 72 of A Celtic Memory
Naturally, that was the last thing on his mind.
“And here I thought we were going to sleep,” she murmured between kisses after he lay her down in the tent.
“No, you didn’t.”
She smiled then gasped when he wasted no time undressing her but settled between her thighs and thrust deep. He had been filled with dread when he woke earlier to find her gone. Had she been taken from him already? Was their time over before it barely had a chance to begin?
Those fears translated in his need to have her now.
To possess her body and soul until even the gods could not take her from him.
“No one’s taking me from you,” she said hoarsely when he moved faster. Ground deeper. “Not ever.”
He prayed she was right because he couldn’t imagine a reality without her. Refused to entertain it. He made that more than clear over the next few hours as he worshiped her flesh. Loved her until she whimpered with pleasure. Wept with the sensations they could pull from each other.
Eventually, after one of the many times they peaked, her eyes drifted, and she fell asleep. He watched her for a while. Admired her beauty and relished her warmth before he must have dozed off, too, because the next thing he knew, he stood in another time and place.
Unbelievable anger and sinister rage filled him when his woman cried out for him. She sounded different, but he knew it was Madison. She called out to him again.
Needed him to look her way.
Go to her.
But too many druids stood in the way. Made it impossible to see her.
“Nay,” he roared, cutting one down despite the immense power they threw at him. “I will not let ye take her!”
“I will find ye again, mo grá,” she whispered into his mind. “I will never give up.”
Terror filled him. He needed to see her one last time. “Do not do this. Ye owe them nothing.”
“I owe them everything.” Yet he heard the pain in her voice when she repeated what she had said before. “I will find ye again, so do not forget me.”
Forget her? How could he ever forget her?
Mindless with pain and fury, swearing revenge, he somehow bypassed another Unnamed One’s magic and drove his blade through her midsection. Then another’s only to lay eyes on his beloved before she was consumed in fiery magic.
“Nay,” he roared, falling to his knees. Their gazes stayed on one another until she wailed in pain and vanished.
And just like that, he lost his will to fight.
To live.
To feel anything but searing anger that he couldn’t act on when too many druids closed in to fend him off. All he could do was stare at the last of the fiery embers that had taken her life. Stare in grief as his surroundings changed without him being aware.
Not until Madison called out to him from somewhere else.
He stumbled to his feet only to realize he stood just beyond his castle.
“Cian,” she kept calling out. “Can you see me? Hear me? I’m right here.”
He felt her overwhelming need that he look her way, so he did, but nothing was there.
Rather, a feeling of dread filled him.
Overwhelming heartache.
“Cian, can you hear me? You’ve got to wake up!”
