first moon. In the distance, as a silhouette, she could see the Highlands, and her heart soared. Just over those mountains, there was safety. If she made it, she vowed she would never cross to the McCloud side again.
She could hardly believe it.
They were free.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Reece woke to the breaking dawn of another day, the first to rouse. He looked around the dying embers of the bonfire and saw all of his Legion brothers still sleeping around it under the open sky. He had been thrilled when Thor returned the night before, and the two of them had stayed up half the night talking. At some point they had drifted off, and Reece had been plagued by troubled dreams. He kept seeing Selese’s face. In one dream, he saw her in a rowboat, adrift at sea, drifting away from him on strong tides; in another he saw her dangling over the edge of a cliff, holding his wrist. In all these dreams she was slipping away from him, and he kept trying to save her, but it was always too late.
Reece had awakened sweating, looking frantically for her. Of course, she was not here. He had not spoken to her since she’d rejected him the day before; he’d tried to forget about her, spending the rest of the day throwing himself into his work, helping the villagers rebuild, trying to push her from his mind.
Yet with every stone he’d laid, with every bit of labor, he thought only of her. For some reason, he just could not shake her from his mind. Despite himself, he had grown fond of this little village, of this simple place beneath the wide open sky, its simple people, its calming ways. It was such a refreshing change from King’s Court. And yet he knew that his time here was almost done, and that he would likely never see Selese again.
Reece paced in the early morning light, tormented over it. She had left things off in an ambiguous way, and he could not be entirely certain if she did not like him. He knew that if he did not try to speak with her now, one last time, then he would never come back here, never take that chance again. He knew that if he returned to King’s Court without taking that chance, without closure, it would haunt him.
Reece felt stuck between two worlds, desperately needing to talk to her again, yet afraid, unsure if she wanted to see him. Her words had been confusing. On the one hand, it had felt like a rejection; but on the other, she had not entirely closed the door, and had made that cryptic reference to admiring persistence. She was a mystery—and that was partly why he liked her. He had never encountered anyone like her, who kept him on his toes as she did. He’d finally met someone who didn’t care about riches or titles or status, who could care less about who he was, or where he was from. She was as pure and genuine a person as he’d ever met—and that just made him love her all the more.
He did not know why he was so obsessed with her. Was it because she had brought him back from the dead? Or was there something else? He felt an intense connection to her, one he could not shake, and he had never felt anything like it before. He could not ignore it, no matter how much he tried. He was burning up inside.
Reece could stand it no longer. He had made up his mind.
He finally turned and hurried off, turning down the streets of the small village, marching with determination to Selese’s cottage. He was overflowing with things to say to her; he needed to know why she had spurned him, and how she really felt about him. He was carrying on a whole conversation with her inside his head, and by the time he reached her door and grabbed her knocker, he was already worked up.
He slammed her knocker several times, the only sound in the sleepy village, reverberating throughout its empty streets. It sounded way too loud, and as a dog began barking in the distance, he felt conspicuous, as if he might wake this whole town up.
He slammed the knocker again and again, until finally he heard a voice.
“All right all right!” came a sleepy voice behind the door.
Reece stood back, suddenly realizing what he had done, suddenly realizing that he was