I lay in my brother’s arms. The velvet of my long skirt reached out to touch where Devyn’s body stretched out, for ever immobile, on the sand. He would never rise, never breathe, again.
Gideon knelt beside us, looming over me, his heavy cloak whipping in the cold wind. I heard the druid’s voice asking again for my consent to this union. I struggled to lever myself up, my brother helping me until I was sitting upright, supported against his broad chest. They too were still clothed in last night’s finery.
Only hours earlier we had danced in these clothes. Music had flowed through the air.
Last night.
It seemed like another world.
I reached a hand out and placed it over Gideon’s heart, where it had rested as I pleaded with him in the castle garden to release me. His hand slowly came up to mine and held it there.
“Cat, please…” His heart beat steadily, I could feel it. My head fell forwards on my chest. I was so very tired. But the pulse of life in him was strong and sure. The new life in me fluttered. I could do this.
“Yes. I do.”
All went quiet. It was done.
The bloody cloth was unwound and fluttered to the sands.
There was stone-like stillness as everyone waited. Then I felt hands grabbing the silver cuff on my arm but the damned thing refused to budge.
I moaned at the pulse of pain there. The vows had stopped it from being agony, but the band was still intact. I had done this for nothing. I had betrayed Devyn with these words. For nothing.
Gideon looked from my arm to the druid.
“It hasn’t worked.” His tone was flat. Final.
The druid looked nervously at me then up at Gideon before clearing his throat.
“The marriage is not… uh… not complete.”
Gideon stared down at him, frowning. His incomprehension finally cleared as he met the unwavering gaze of my brother.
My numb, overwhelmed brain stuttered at the suggestion. I shook my head. No. Not now. Not ever. I couldn’t. Whatever Gideon saw in my eyes as he watched me had him withdrawing, his entire body stiff as he turned his back on me.
“My lady,” the druid began, “you understand? You and his lordship, you must consummate the marriage.”
I shook my head again. “No. Seen it. At weddings. Falls off.”
His words seemed to be coming from very far away. The druid looked worriedly between us. There was Gideon, the warrior, striding away along the shoreline as if to put as much physical distance between us as possible, his body stiff and unyielding. My brother going to him, angry, commanding. Insistent.
Then he was in front of me, the golden lord who had been Devyn’s childhood friend – though I had seen little sign of that friendship in the way he had treated him. I reached out and held Devyn’s hand. So cold already. If I held it in mine could I delay it somehow?
“Catriona. Catriona. ” Rion’s voice repeated the name he insisted on calling me over and over until I looked back up at him. “Does your arm still pain you?”
I nodded. It had lessened to a dull throb, but it was still there. Perhaps if I answered, he would go away.
“You and Gideon must consummate the marriage. Do you understand?”
“I don’t care.” My gaze didn’t move from Devyn. I wanted to memorise every curve and hollow of him.
“What?” He seemed confused at my answer.
“I don’t care,” I repeated. “I tried. He’ll know I tried. What happens now? I live. I die. What does any of it matter?”
“It matters,” he started again. “Do you understand me? You have to live, for the baby. We think that because Gideon does not wear the corresponding cuff, you must be married fully. You must be joined. Physically. Do you understand?”
I turned to him, focusing on his austere face.
“You must do this. We don’t know how long you will have before the pain begins properly again. And then… it will be more difficult.”
“More difficult?” my numb lips repeated. I looked at him wonderingly. Did he even know what that meant? Devyn was still here. I held his hand in mine but I had just married another man. A fresh wave of anguish tore through me. He was gone. “I can’t leave him.”
Rion’s blue eyes pleaded his cause from his frozen face. “Catriona, you… I will see to Devyn. He won’t be alone. But you must live.”
“Why? Why must I?” I asked softly again. That idea was taking hold again. I had tried. What if I just let go? What if I let the handfast band take me into nothingness. “It would all be over.”
“It is not over,” a rough voice said behind me as a large hand encircled my upper arm. “Do you hear me?”
I looked up at him angrily, pulling at my arm until he released me.
“This is not how it ends.” Gideon’s face was set in grim determination.
If his will alone could make it so, I would have believed him.
“Do you want to live?”
I did. For Devyn. For our baby.
I placed Devyn’s icy hand back on his chest and got to my feet unaided. The pain had indeed receded, but I could feel it there waiting, waiting to return.
Gideon held his hand out to me and I took it.
I let Gideon lead me off the beach, through the glade, and up a path into the forest. I let my mind go numb again and simply allowed myself to be dragged behind him until we came to a small cabin.
“I spent some time here as a boy. It’s a place for the novices to come to spend time in nature,” Gideon said as he pushed open the door. The inside was bare – just a small table with a couple of chairs and a pallet on the floor. My new husband had
