But he gave her no chance to do either. He simply pressed his lips to hers, kissing her.
It was the most amazing sensation Una had ever known. Her lips did not merely tingle against his, they felt so much more. Pleasure. Fire. And the need for more and more and more.
She gasped her shock at the delight of it and felt his tongue tickle her own through her parted lips.
Her entire body pressed to his, an ache growing inside her for something she had no name for. She moved restlessly against him, the damp shift no barrier between his warm skin and her own.
One large warrior’s hand moved down to cup her bottom in a gesture so intimate, Una cried out from it.
And then he was gone.
FOUR
Nothing else had changed around her, but Bryant and the big brown horse had disappeared, as if they’d never been.
Una’s hand came up to press against kiss-swollen lips. He had been here. He had kissed her.
And then he’d been taken away? To go to whomever he was actually supposed to meet? The thought saddened her so greatly, tears burned her eyes.
“Why am I here?” she called out brokenly to the empty forest.
“This is a place the Chrechte come for answers,” a voice said from her left.
Una did not want to turn to face the other woman, but manners dictated she had no choice.
She turned to find a woman with similar features to Anya Gra, only much younger and without the sadness shadowing her cerulean gaze that was so much a part of the Éan’s celi di. Had she seen Una’s shameless display with Bryant?
The other woman shook her head as if answering the unspoken question. “This is a place of healing for some, a place for answers for others, some come here simply to find peace.”
“I see no one else.”
“That is often the way.”
“But earlier . . .”
“There is always a purpose in the meetings you have with others here. Remember that, little Una, braveheart.”
“I am not brave,” Una denied. “Not anymore.”
“The spirit of the girl still lives in the heart of the woman.”
“I do not think so,” Una said apologetically, sorry she had to disappoint the beautiful and clearly kind lady.
“I know your heart as you do not.”
“But it’s my heart?” Somehow the words came out a question rather than the statement Una had intended.
“Is it?”
Before Una could answer, the woman was gone, too, and then Una felt herself falling, air whooshing by as if she’d jumped backward off the highest waterfall in the forest. Not something she was ever likely to do.
She did not land with a jar, or a thump. She didn’t actually feel the landing at all, but suddenly she was on her sleeping furs, inside her own humble home and fully awake, the first rays of morning chasing the night shadows from the room.
* * *
Una dressed carefully for the feast to welcome the Faol warriors being held in the royal abode among the trees.
She’d been able to miss the last one held in the village immediately after the men’s arrival, not least because her father had forbidden her to go. But none who had been invited to the home of Anya Gra and her grandson, Prince of the Éan, were allowed to say nay.