Page 56 of Nyall

She didn’t want to hurt him, so she reached up and kissed him before she whispered, “I have a better idea. Come back to the house with me.”

Once inside the cottage Caroline pulled down the window shades, and then lit all the lamps so they would show their silhouettes against the coverings. She then drew the commander over to the hearth, and leaned against him, twining her arms around his neck.

“I know you want me even when Nyall’s not here,” Caroline said, speaking as if they were alone. “Since he’s made it obvious that he doesn’t want to be involved any longer, it’s just you and me now. We’ll get by if we love each other.”

“Aye, if ’tis your desire, I shall pleasure you, and keep you company when I may,” Jamaran said, glancing at the window. “Only ken I shouldnae take you as the captain does. I mustnae risk siring a bairn with you.”

“It’s fine. I’ll be sure to watch my cycle for the safe days. If I get pregnant, you’ll just have to change me and the baby.” She turned her back toward the window and rolled her eyes before she said, “I’ll have to join your people, and live out the rest of my life in the sea with you and a kid I don’t want, but that’s the way it goes. So, do you want to try baby-making sex tonight? It’s safe, I think.”

The door to the cottage flung open, and Nyall stalked inside.

“Go you mad?” he demanded, glaring at them. “You’ve said time and again you never wished wed him or join his people. Now you love him? Now you’d bear his bairn?”

“Of course I would. He’s my lover and my best friend.” She kept her arms around Jamaran as she looked over at him. “Why do you care? You don’t want me anymore, remember? You might hurt me.” She made a rude sound. “You just don’t see that you already have, you dumbass.”

For a moment the captain looked as if he might lunge at them and tear them apart. His shoulders sagged, and then his knees gave out, and he ended up hunched over on the floor.

“Go gently with him,” Jamaran said, kissing her cheek before he slipped away and left the cottage.

Caroline went to stand over the miserable mess she’d made out of the man she loved. His pride had taken a fall, emotionally and physically, but he’d fought himself and lost. She couldn’t force him to let her into his heart, but it was high time she let him into hers. She knelt down and took his hands in hers.

“I can’t make you do anything,” she told him. “But if you’re really done with me, I’m not going to give up and kill myself. I’ll make another life for myself with Jamaran, or one of the villagers. Maybe I’ll just live here alone in the cottage and take dozens of lovers until I’m too old to do anything but knit. The point is, I’ll survive, Nyall.”

He made a low, wounded sound.

“If you’re not done, then you should know that I’ll never be like Lark or Valerie.” She gestured in the direction of Dun Ard. “I’ve been alone too long to ever get comfortable living with your clan. I’m going to be independent and obnoxious, probably until the day I die, which I hope will be in eighty years or so. I’m mortal, so that could happen tomorrow, too. My patience has hard limits. So does my ability to be polite. You know all this, but there is one thing I’ve never told you. One thing that is never going to change.” She waited until he looked at her. “I love you, with all my heart.”

Instead of responding with pleasure, pain flared in his eyes. “Caroline, ’tisnae you. ’Tis me, and the tainted love that created me.”

“Then help me understand,” she said. “Do that much for me.”

She listened as Nyall told her about his mother, Tiree, and the obsession with and jealousy over Prince Mar that had slowly driven her insane. It tore at her when he described how his mother had isolated and abused him, and then made him watch as she finally committed suicide. It also explained so much that she hadn’t understood about Nyall. No wonder the prospect of loving anyone had scared him so much that he only bonded with Jamaran, whose thoughts he could hear at all times. The commander, she realized, was the only person he had ever completely trusted.

“Tiree’s blood, ’tis running in my veins along with Prince Mar’s,” Nyall finally said. “I’ve never dared love a woman, for fear I should do the same to her—even more so since I acquired the lightning boon. I couldnae bear such when I might spare you.”

“Your mother couldn’t stand another woman even looking at your father, right?” As he nodded she touched his cheek. “My darling captain, if you were the same, then how could you have shared me with our Selseus friend? Why would you tell me to love him instead of you? Did your mother ever do anything like that with the prince?”

He took in a sharp breath. “No. She couldnae.”

“You care more about not hurting me than having me all to yourself,” she said gently. “When you’re willing to sacrifice so much for someone, that’s when you know it’s real, true love. Their happiness becomes more important than your own.”

As he grabbed and embraced her, tears spilled down Caroline’s face, some his, some hers. Then Nyall kissed her, so tenderly and reverently she thought she would start sobbing. He picked her up, keeping his mouth on hers as he carried her over to the bed. There he undressed her, and stripped off his own clothes before he lay down with her.

He simply held her naked body against his and looked into her eyes, as if he were really seeing her for the first time. She stretched and settled against him, happy to have this much when she thought he’d never touch her again.

“Once as a lad I spied on a shepherd and a dairy maid in the glen,” he said, stroking his hand along her arm. “I’d never seen two people fack before that day, and watching them made my cock swell. I used my hand to rub my shaft, imagining me the shepherd and my fingers the maid’s quim, and ’twas so good. I spilled on the ground, my first time doing so. Then Tiree found me.”

Caroline grimaced. “Oh, no.”

“She took me back to our chamber and beat me bloody.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “All the while she named me a monster, and called me the same near every day after, until she died. ’Twasnae until years later that I learned from Duncan what I did, ’twas an act of innocence.”

“Just for that? God, why didn’t your father ever take you away from your mother?” she asked, angry now. “He had to know what was going on with her.”

“I didnae spend as much time with the prince as my brothers,” Nyall admitted. “I only recall that when he did visit us, and my màthair had one of her tirades, my sire would leave at once. He didnae care enough to listen, or he wished me suffer her punishments in his place. I could never tell if ’twas his lack of affection for her or me. Mayhap he disliked us both.”

She made a disgusted sound. “Your father might have been an all-powerful Fae, but as a dad he was a complete loser.”

“I reckon he didnae understand mortal emotions, nor how he might nurture his halfling sons. Fae, they’re very different in mind and heart.” He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “You and Jamaran helped me see that my desires, unnatural or no’, dinnae make me a monster. ’Tis but my nature.”