The fire illuminated black and blue runes adorning his chest and arms starting just beneath his rib cage and knotting over and around his nipples, his shoulders, his throat, and finely crawling up his sculpted jaw.
Cuffs of solid gold circled above the swells of his biceps, his wrists, and his neck. His hair ruffled in the breezes, but as close to the flames as he stood, there was no conceivable way he marked the chill of the evening. The ebony of his unbound hair fell to the middle of his back and matched the shadow stubbling his jaw. The two braids over his shoulder teased at his beruned collarbone.
Surveying his people with unabashed pride and satisfaction, Liam found her where she stood at the crowd’s periphery. The look he sent her was so full of sensual promise, Mena’s body released a wet flood of thigh-clenching arousal.
How could he provoke her with just a look? How on earth was she to ever resist such temptation?
Because you must, she admonished herself.
Whatever he read on her features inspired a glance of such victorious self-satisfaction on his face, she suddenly wanted to throw something at him.
Something like herself, perhaps.
Jani waved to him, oblivious to their unspoken interaction. “The laird has only missed one Samhain since his father died,” he informed her, “and on that year, there was blight on the cattle. So the people demand that every year he is here for the ritual.”
Mena tore her gaze away from the overwhelming sight that was the Laird of the Mackenzie clan. “You don’t really believe that driving a few cattle through two bonfires and saying a spell has anything to do with the survival of the livestock herds, do you?” she asked skeptically.
Jani shrugged. “Who is to say, Miss Mena? The story is that Liam Mackenzie, his father, and all Lairds of the Mackenzie of Wester Ross are descended from an ancient royal Pictish line that mingled with invaders from the north. It is said they carry the blood of the Lachlan berserker in their veins.”
“Berserker?” Mena queried.
“Yes, a mythic Nordic warrior who gains the strength of ten men and incomparable ferocity at the sight of blood.” He sent her a meaningful glance. “Sound familiar?”
“I thought it was said he was possessed of a Brollachan.”
Jani gave another of his very quick shrugs. “Highlanders say lots of things. Telling stories is one of their favorite pastimes.”
She glanced back at the laird, who lifted his face to the stars, as did his congregation, and sang in a surprisingly lovely baritone to the sky in that lyrical language Mena didn’t understand. His delicious brogue lent such a potent sensuality to the prayer that he could very well be seducing a lover rather than symbolically blessing herds of livestock.
Mena was struck not just by his masculine beauty, but also by the beauty of his people gathered around, their faces warm with whisky, ale, and rapture as they repeated parts of the lovely verses, cheering as each herder finished driving his choice few symbolic animals between the fires to finish the blessing.
The rite wasn’t long, formal, or ponderous as the mild Protestant services she’d attended growing up had been, and before she knew it, the spell was over. A bagpipe blared, and then another, until four pipers placed at the north, south, east, and western points of the circle lifted their wailing tunes in perfect synchronization.
A young child toddled too close to one of the bonfires, and Ravencroft swept her up and flung her high before settling her giggling body on his massive shoulders. He patiently ignored her playful tugs on his braids as, one by one, middle-aged or wizened women stepped forward to light torches in the fire before leading entire families in their wake.
“What are they doing now?” Mena asked Jani.
Jani gestured to the older women. “The reigning matriarch of each family must take the ritual fire home to her hearth. If their house is close, then she’ll take it to the village tonight. If not, she’ll take it to the tent and tend the coals until they travel safely home and ignite in their own dark fireplace. The Druid-blessed Samhain fire keeps them safe over the coming winter.”
“How lovely,” Mena murmured, as she marveled at how quickly the crowd began to disperse, each family following their matriarch back to where she would take the blessed flame.
She noted that the young father of the errant child affixed to Liam’s shoulders had wound his way to his laird. Liam tossed the little one up, eliciting one last squeal of delight, before he settled her back in the young man’s grateful arms. The men exchanged what Mena imagined to be paternal smiles and words of exasperation over mischievous young daughters before they locked forearms in a traditional show of kinship.
An emotion gathered in Mena’s throat in the form of a lump that refused to be swallowed. Did Ravencroft want more babies? Would he like another chance to raise children from the beginning? Were he ever to marry again, he was most definitely virile enough to father many sweet, dark-haired little ones.
Little ones she could never have.
Frustrated tears welled in her eyes. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself firmly. None of it mattered, as a relationship between them was as unattainable as the stars. She knew it, and eventually, he would as well.
Miserably, she watched him move through the throngs of his clan. Women doted on him, using any excuse to touch his exposed skin the color of his own famous whisky. She could see from her vantage that though some people feared him, the women desired him, and the men respected him. Be he the Brollachan or the berserker, his people flourished beneath his leadership, and they loved him for it. How could he not know that?
A man like him would be easy to love.
Once the word amalgamated out of the universal impossibilities of the future and the terrifying rifts of the past, Mena realized that she was utterly lost.
She hadn’t fallen in love with Liam Mackenzie. No, she’d drifted into it in subtle shifts. The moment they’d met had been like the whisper of a storm kissing a hot, humid day with a blessed chill. The promise of something dark and exciting gathered on the horizon, and Mena had watched that storm rumble closer with every instant they’d spent together. Every time she’d banked the fires that blazed in his eyes. Every time he’d ignited heat into her cold heart. He’d chipped a bit of her resistance away and replaced it with the force of his raw, unbridled passion. He shared with her what men rarely did, and he unveiled the darkest parts of himself for her to see. Illuminating them not only to her eyes, but to his own and his children’s in an attempt to try and be better. He wanted her to understand him more so that she feared him less.
And Mena loved him for it.