have been better not seeing the village.
Fallon sorted the weapons, looking for several to arm Cara with. Lucan had already found her a sword, which he sharpened before the fire.
He glanced at Cara, who sat next to him altering a gown. She hadn’t said a word since arriving from the village. He was acutely—and painfully—aware of her nearness. Even being the few feet apart that they were, he felt every breath, heard every beat of her heart.
Lucan wanted to pull her into his arms, to taste her lips again. His body throbbed from the all-too-brief kiss. He closed his eyes as he remembered the way her body had swayed against his, how her nails had scraped his scalp as she threaded her fingers in his hair.
But most of all, he recalled her little sigh of pleasure.
He should never have kissed her, never have given in to the temptation to touch her, but it had been too much. Now that he had a taste of her, he wanted more. Needed more. It was all he could think about.
In the middle of a village with the dead lying around him, all he wanted to do was have Cara’s soft body against his again, her slender arms wrapped around his neck while his fingers learned every contour of her skin.
Lucan drew in a ragged breath and shifted in the chair to ease the ache of his cock. His balls tightened when Cara licked her lips and glanced at him. He barely held back his moan.
He had thought having a god inside him was torture. It was nothing compared to the hunger for the stunning woman beside him. With her in his life, in his home, he was in a different kind of hell. A hell that was altogether worse than anything he could ever have imagined.
That was the truth. There had been women in his clan who had caught his eye. Once he had set out to have a woman, he charmed her until she was his.
Cara, however, was different. She wasn’t some simple lass. She was embroiled in the middle of a magical war, pitting Warriors against Warriors, with the most evil of beings trying to capture her.
Instead of hiding in the corner with her hands over her ears while she screamed in denial, she sat beside him sewing as if her world hadn’t been turned upside down.
The problem was Lucan could see her in his life. He could imagine pulling her close at night and waking with her in the morning. He could imagine sitting before the hearth after supper and talking of the future.
And he would pursue Cara diligently. If he weren’t a monster. As it was, he had nothing to offer her.
Lucan moved the sharpening stone over the sword’s blade several times in quick succession. He put all his focus on the weapon, ignoring the cravings of his body and Cara’s soft flesh. Over and over he moved the stone along the sword. He tested the blade against his skin. The barest touch of the weapon caused blood to well on the tip of his finger.
“Immortal or not, be careful.”
He looked at Cara to find her watching him, the needle paused in her fingers. “I willna die from a wound.”
She lowered her hands to her lap, the altering forgotten. “Are you saying you cannot die at all?”
“Nay. We can die.”
“How?”
“Beheading.”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know this?”
Lucan lifted the sword’s blade straight up in the air. He inspected the weapon for a moment before he reached for a cloth and cleaned the sword. “I know because Deirdre told us. We were daft with anger and fear, but I heard that part of her speech.”
“Did she say more?”
“Aye.”
“And you didn’t listen?” Cara’s voice had risen with every word, her face incredulous.
Lucan bit back a grin. He didn’t think she would appreciate him laughing at her outrage. “I tried. I heard that part of it at least.”
“There may have been something else of importance.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, it doesn’t matter.”
Her brow furrowed and her lips flattened as she turned her head to the flames.
“What is it?” he asked.
Cara’s dark gaze met his. “How did Deirdre know where I was?”
“I wish I knew. Could someone in the village have told her?”
“It’s a possibility, but I don’t think so. I’ve told no one how my parents died, and no one knows where I came from. How would any of them have known I was the one Deirdre wanted?”
“Good question,” Quinn said as he strode up. “One I’ve been mulling over.”
Lucan raised his brows. “Did you find the answer?”
“Nay, but it got me thinking. How did Deirdre know about us? How did she know we were the ones with the god inside us?”
Lucan squeezed his eyes shut and cursed. “We’ve kept ourselves separate from the world, but in doing so I believe we let opportunities for knowledge pass us by.”
Fallon snorted as he moved unsteadily from the table to the hearth, a bottle of wine in his hand. “That’s horse shite, and you know it. Deirdre knows all of this because of her use of black magic.”
“If that was the case,” Lucan said, “she would have imprisoned us again.”
Quinn shifted from one foot to the other. “I doona think it’s her magic that led Deirdre to Cara, though I do believe magic was involved.”
“That makes no sense,” Cara said, and returned to her sewing.
Lucan had to agree with her. “Explain, Quinn.”
“We all know that Deirdre is powerful, but how powerful? What if her magic has limits? As Fallon said, if Deirdre was that powerful, she could have captured us again.”
Fallon’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning she isn’t all-powerful as she led us to believe?”
“Exactly.”
Lucan shook his head. “I saw for myself the power Deirdre had. Even with the gods inside us, we cannot defeat her. Neither of you could have forgotten her show of power when she took us.”
There was a pause, and Lucan knew his brothers were reliving the moment Deirdre had called up the black magic and the sheer force that had surrounded her. Her power had only grown in the three hundred years.
“What if she wasn’t able to find Cara until now because something changed?” Quinn asked.
Lucan set aside the sword and crossed his arms over his chest. Once Quinn had spoken, he couldn’t help but wonder if his little brother was right. “Cara, did anything dramatic happen lately?”
She lifted a dark brow but didn’t raise her gaze from her sewing. “Not unless you consider me pledging myself to God and the nuns significant.”
Lucan could only gape at her. “You were going to become a nun?”
“Aye,” she replied, and bent her head closer to the fabric in her hands.
No other explanation, no reason. She was a beautiful woman who, he had no doubt, had men lusting after her. “Why?”
She blew out a breath and raised her gaze to him. “Because of what killed my parents. Because the only place I felt safe at night was in the nunnery. I wasn’t a MacClure. I wasn’t part of their clan. I
Her voice broke at the end and Lucan found he wanted to go to her, to draw her into his arms and shoulder her worries for her.
Lucan found it hard to breathe. Her mahogany gaze held such a wealth of regret and trepidation and resolve that he wanted to be the man who could change her life. He wanted her to turn to him when she was in need. He wanted her to want him with the same primal passion that burned his veins.
He forced his gaze away before he did something foolish like taking her in his arms again. His hunger for her was so fierce, so intoxicating, that he had to grip the arms of his chair to keep from reaching out to her.
When he found Fallon staring at him with a knowing look, Lucan knew he hadn’t kept his desire a secret. He
