Warrior's Moon

And none of it had compared to the ragged-edged wound in her soul that bled daily from Caelis’s rejection and absence.

Terrible love had terrible power.

“You love me, but you do not trust me?”

“I cannot,” she replied starkly.

Caelis swallowed convulsively, his hands fisting and releasing at his sides like he wanted to reach for her but would not let himself. “You do not believe I love you.”

“I know you do not and I accept that.” Need was not love, nor was the mating pull.

As he’d pointed out, not all mates loved one another. Uven could not have loved the mate he’d killed; he certainly had not loved the daughter they made together.

“Am I meant to be grateful for that?”

“I do not know.” Was gratitude better than mere duty and lust?

“I am.” He sighed, the expression in his blue eyes unreadable. “Very grateful.”

Tears she did not expect burned at her eyes. She blinked, trying to dispel them, but the moisture continued to build.

He said another one of those Chrechte curses and closed the distance between them. Gently cupping her cheeks with his big warrior’s hands, he brushed at the drops spilling over. “Dinna cry mo toilichte. Please.”

“I do not mean to.”

He bent forward and sipped at the moisture, pressing small, infinitely gentle kisses over her face. “Let me take the pain away.”

“I can’t.” She would not risk another pregnancy and having her choices taken away from her now that she had acknowledged her love for him.

It made her far too vulnerable and he needed no further advantages between them.

He nodded, as if expecting no other response. “There are many ways for me to bring you pleasure to shatter the pain without copulation.”

She did not know what he meant. Her experiences of joy in a man and woman’s joining had all happened with him and other than the night before, she had never known the ultimate pleasure without him ending up inside her. “I…”

“In this, at least, will you trust me?” he asked.

He was giving them both an opportunity to move forward. She didn’t know how to build her trust in him except through time and him showing the willingness to rectify the past as far as he was able.

But he was offering her another opportunity to build trust in him. If she let him do this and he kept his implied promise not to breach her body, that would be more solid rock in the foundation for their relationship. Wouldn’t it?

The instincts that had been screaming at her to keep him out of her room earlier, were now telling her that sharing intimacy with him would help in ways little else could do.

“Please,” he said again.

And she could not deny him. Did not want to deny him. She needed this opportunity to build trust as much as he did.

“Yes.”

His huge body gave a violent shudder and a low growl of approval rumbled in his chest.

Caelis bent and lifted her into his arms, high against his chest, her shift flowing down his near-naked body. “I will overshadow every memory of the touch you did not want with pleasure. I alone will ever again caress your body.”

“Promise?” she demanded though his words had sounded as much like a vow as anything she’d ever heard.

He looked down, a pain in his own gaze matching the wounds in her heart if she could let herself believe it. “I do.”

“Never again.” She would never submit to the unwelcome touch of another.

His mouth set in a grim line. “Only me.”

“Only you.”

“This is my vow to you.”

She nodded, accepting his words as much as her damaged heart would let her.

“Never again will my promise to you be set aside because of my loyalty to another.”

Her breath stilled in her chest. “You do not mean that. Do not say that if you do not mean it.”

From the look on his chiseled features, there could be no mistaking the seriousness with which he took their words.

He laid her on the bed, making no move to remove her shift, and then stepped back. He placed his right fist over his heart. “I vow it.”

“On your honor as a warrior?” she asked, unable to help the frisson of doubt prompting the words.

“On my honor as a Chrechte and conriocht.”

And he had promised her that no other man would ever touch her intimately. Fear that had been such a heavy burden, she hadn’t even acknowledged it anymore, lifted off her, lightening her heart in a way she did not know was possible any longer.

“Percival cannot have me,” she said, joy ebullient in her heart and tone.

Caelis fell to his knees beside the bed, his hands grabbing her own tightly. “No one. I will protect you with my life.”

“Not just your son.”

“I could not have my son or daughter without the gift of their mother. Never doubt it, you are of primary importance to me.”

She wanted to believe his words. So much.

And she realized the choice was hers to make. Just as his had been six years ago.

Was she any less responsible for her own decisions now?

In that moment, she chose to believe.

She believed Caelis would not reject her again, that he would protect her with his life. Not by giving it away on her behalf, but by giving it to her.

“Thank you.”

His face contorted with some great emotion. “You unman me, Shona. Dinna thank me for what I cannot help any more than I can stop my own lungs from breathing.”

She brushed her hand down his face, loving the feel of his masculine stubble against her skin. “I will love you forever.”

That was her vow to him.

And she considered it well worth making when his smile took over his features as he stood. “Thank you.”

“Dinna thank me for what I can no more help than my own breathing,” she said in imitation of his voice.

“I’ll ever be grateful for it all the same.” The smile warmed his voice, reaching out to touch and heal her heart.

“You look like a bride.”

She wanted to be his, more than he could possibly understand. “Tonight I am only a woman in love.”

“You are never only anything.”

“Am I not?” She could not help her own grin at his claim.

He shook his head. “You dinna understand, but one day, you will.”

She put her hand out to him in invitation. “Caelis…”

“You are everything, mate.” He yanked off his kilt and weapons, laying them within easy reach of the bed.