Awaiting the Wolf Killer Highlander by Alisa Adams
21
It was nightfall, and the summer lightning bugs hovered and flickered over the tall grass as Edmund and Dand strolled together in the direction of the Hamilton lands.
“Romantic, isn’t it?” Edmund commented, stooping to pick a wildflower.
Dand turned to him, scowling. “That was not the thought your company naturally brought to my mind, sir, no.”
“Not for us, you dolt!” Edmund chuckled. “I was referring to the lovesick pair behind us.”
Sorcha walked hand in hand with “Malcolm,” who had invited them to freely call him by his real name now that his name had been cleared, though Sorcha suspected that it might take her a while to become accustomed to that.
Perhaps I should simply call him “my love” for now, she thought gleefully, looking up into his piercing green eyes and admiring the way they caught the starlight.
Suddenly, they heard a joyful noise from over the hill ahead of them: music.
The sound of flutes and drums and bagpipes filled the night air, and singing as well.
Then the banners were lifted high, displaying the tartan and seal of the Hamilton clan.
There were hundreds of them pouring over the hilltop—men, women, children, soldiers, artisans, and peasants. It appeared as though the entire clan had rushed out to meet Marcus upon hearing the news of his existence from Fergus.
And sure enough, Laird Fergus Brodie was in their midst, personally leading a man dressed in ornate ancestral armor and robes. He had a long white beard and eyes whose color matched Marcus’s perfectly.
“Can this be him?!” the older man exclaimed, running forward with his arms spread. “Can this be the son I thought I had lost all those years ago? Come, my beautiful boy, and let me look upon your face!”
He embraced Marcus with tears in his eyes. Marcus appeared stunned and uncertain at first, and then he threw his head back and laughed, returning the embrace. “Aye, Father! God be praised, we have found each other at last!”
They cackled and cried together, and the rest of the Hamilton clan crowded in to look upon the face of the boy who had been tragically lost so many years ago—the boy who had grown into not only a man but a warrior. They were awestruck, and many of them even reached out to brush him with their fingertips, as though proving to themselves that he was real.
“Well!” the old man sniffed, wiping the tears from his cheeks, “now that we have found our way back to each other, lad, I suppose we ought to be properly introduced! I am Laird Iain Hamilton.”
“And I am Marcus,” his son responded. “I was Marcus Fraser, and then I was Malcolm Haldane…”
“...and now you are Marcus once more, and you may be called by your rightful name of Hamilton, with all the honors and privileges that go along with it! Welcome home, my child!”
A cheer arose from Hamilton’s clansmen, and Edmund and Dand happily joined in.
There was a great celebration at Castle Hamilton, one that continued well past dawn, with more music, dancing, and many toasts to the return of Iain Hamilton’s rightful heir. Dand and Edmund gladly joined in the festivities, speaking to as many of the Hamiltons as they could in order to forge new relationships and explore lucrative possibilities between their two clans.
At one point, Marcus took Sorcha aside, away from the din of the revelry, and took her hands, looking deep into her eyes. “So, then. It seems I am a noble after all. And not just a noble…”
“But a king, of sorts,” she finished with a smile. “And a warrior, and, well, a wolf-killer. Somehow, despite the fact that your true identity was hidden all this time, I knew it was meant to be you.”
“Just as I have known, from the first moment we met, that I was put on this earth to be with you,” Marcus said. “Will you be my bride, then, Lady Sorcha Campbell?”
“Aye, Marcus Hamilton,” she replied happily. “And I shall love you for the rest of my days.”
Marcus laughed, then stood upon the nearest table, pulling Sorcha up to join him. “I have an announcement to make to all assembled here and to every living creature in the world if they will hear me! Lady Sorcha has agreed to marry me and join our two clans!”
A celebratory roar filled the great hall of the Hamiltons, and the wine, ale, and mead flowed freely. Laird Iain hugged Sorcha, warmly welcoming her into their family.
They remained there for the following week as the wedding details were planned and prepared. There had been some talk of conducting the ceremony at Castle Campbell; however, with the plague still raging through that area, it seemed like an unsafe (and, indeed, insensitive) idea to celebrate there. However, Laird Iain pledged to send as many healers as he could with them when they returned to the Campbell lands to ease the burden of the ones who were already there and overworked.
So Moire came to join Fergus at Castle Hamilton, along with Freya and Aodh, and all of the Campbell siblings were happily reunited once more. Sorcha was beyond delighted to see Aodh and Freya in good health again when they had been so horribly ill the last time she’d laid eyes upon them.
“I feared the worst,” she said as she hugged them tightly, her eyes filling with tears. “I feared I would lose you both, and I could not have survived such a thing… Not after all the years we spent in captivity together, and not after our family had already endured so much misery and heartache!”
“There is no need to fret any longer, Sister,” Aodh said in his usual stoic fashion. “All is well.”
She ruffled his hair playfully, amused as always by how mature he tried to seem despite his relatively tender years. “Tell me, how did the healers remove the sickness from you both?”
Freya shrugged. “They used lots of dried herbs and flower buds, and they mashed them all together with other things. They would not tell us what. Only that we would be cured…and we were!”
Damn their secrecy, Sorcha thought. I am betrothed to my true love, and I am happy for it, but it will not remove the plague from our lands. Perhaps I was a fool to believe in curses and prophecies.
Still, all of that would have to wait. For now, she had a wedding to prepare for.
The marriage was an even grander and more lavish affair than Marcus’s homecoming celebration had been. The Hamiltons may not have been in line to be kings anymore—not under English rule, at any rate—but they were still one of the wealthiest clans in Scotland, and Laird Iain spared no expense in decorating the castle and inviting the lairds and ladies of the clans who were allied with him.
When the blessed day came, the bride and groom exchanged their vows and kissed, and a mighty cheer arose that seemed to travel from one end of Scotland to the other. The revels lasted for countless hours until almost every cask of wine in the castle had been drained, and the guests had danced for so long their legs could scarcely move.
Then Marcus led Sorcha to the guest chambers they now shared and took her in his powerful arms. Their lips met again, though this kiss was quite different from the one they shared on the altar. It was more private and tender, more loving, sweeter than any kiss they’d ever had before.
Because it was filled not only with adoration but the expectation of what would follow.
Slowly, gently, he untied the laces of her wedding gown and slipped it down from her shoulders, revealing her lovely body. Each soft contour of her caught the flickering light of the fire in the hearth, making the surface of her smooth skin seem to ripple and dance with her desire for him. She stood, allowing him to view her fully. It was the first time she had ever been naked before a man, and she relished the strangeness of it, the vulnerability she was able to indulge in with him, knowing that she could trust him with her life, her heart.
Then Marcus removed his own clothes, his eyes never leaving her magnificent form until he, too, was nude and exposed before her.
They could have pounced and lunged at each other right then, like a pair of wild animals. There was a part of each of them that desperately wanted to.
But instead, they simply stood inches away from each other, savoring the moment, the way their love for each other burned in the air between them, invisible but hotter than the most raging bonfire. They both hovered on the edge of it, allowing themselves to be warmed and teased by it.
Suddenly, they could wait no longer. They plunged in and were consumed by the fire of their love, melting them down and reforming them into one being, as disparate pieces of metal are forged into a single strong sword.
Their hands explored each other’s bodies eagerly, sliding across skin and combing through hair. Sorcha’s nails dug into Marcus’s back, and her teeth bit the corner of his mouth, almost hard enough to draw blood. The hiss that escaped his lips spoke of pain and pleasure combined into one and wordlessly begged for more.
She had every intention of giving it to him.
Sorcha lowered herself to her knees, finally breaking eye contact with him so that she could gaze upon his stiff and quivering manhood. She took it into her mouth, allowing it in as far as it would go until its tip brushed the back of her throat. He let out a low moan that was just on the edge of being a howl, the wild baying a wolf might let out beneath a full and glowing moon.
His hands were on her head, his rough fingers running through the locks of her hair as she pleasured him. When he could take no more, he pulled away from her and bent down, picking her up swiftly and carrying her to the bed. She was breathless in his arms, and she felt as though the two of them could take flight together, soar through the window and into the night sky, that they might fly toward the horizon to greet the very dawn.
And indeed we might, she thought deliriously, for now we are married and have the rest of our lives to spend in each other’s embrace.
Marcus pushed her knees apart gently, and now it was his turn to gaze at what was between them—slick and glistening and eager for his touch.
And touch it, he did.
His fingers caressed her delicate folds, and she opened up for him like a flower thirsty for rain.
He positioned himself above her, and their eyes burned into each other once more as he silently asked permission to enter her, and she granted it just as silently. Their souls spoke without words; they had no need for them.
He thrust inside her, and she gasped, feeling him fill her completely. The length of him reached up into parts of her that she had not known existed, and those areas within her bloomed into sharp and sudden life. Their hips moved against each other in a fierce and dizzying rhythm, and when their mouths connected again, they passed the same breath back and forth between them until it felt as though she might faint.
His climax rushed within her, and hers came just a moment later like a summer shower cooling the shimmering heat of the ground in its refreshing deluge. Exquisite delight flowed through every part of her body.
And somehow, she knew that it would only get better from there.
Meanwhile, something decidedly odd occurred some distance away, in the lands of the Campbells. As the sun broke over the hillsides to the east, its light cascaded across the fields of blue flowers that grew there—the very same flowers that Sorcha wore in her hair, the ones she had shared with Dand and his family in the dungeons.
The same ones, in fact, that grew plentifully in the land of the healers where Aodh and Freya had found their good health again.
The tiny petals of these flowers opened to the sunlight, and a cool breeze shook them, dislodging clouds of pollen that drifted down to the village and beyond. The fine grains of this golden substance wafted from home to home and were inhaled by every member of the Campbell clan.
Some of them suffered from mild coughs or itchy eyes.
But all of the afflicted were healed.
Perhaps all of this was simply a happy coincidence, the natural change of seasons doing as it always did, without a care for whether the pollen could cure the illness that ravaged the Campbells.
Then again, perhaps there is a certain truth to curses and prophecies, at that.
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