Incarnate: The Moray Druids #3 (Highland Historical) Read Free

kneel beside her prone body. 
    “What happened to ye?” he demanded, ripping off his cloak and covering her with it. 
    So much for distracting him with her bare skin.   She’d have to improvise.
    The reasons she couldn’t answer him were two-fold. 
    First, because the cloak was fur-lined and sumptuous, retaining the warmth of his body and sliding across her cold, bare skin like a lover’s caress. 
    Second, because his shirt was unfastened to his torso, and she could see the swells of his chest and the dark shapes of his nipples hardened against the cold beneath the thin linen. 
    He was lean in the way that wolves were lean.  Long limbs thickened with power and sinewed with grace, but also clinging to his braw frame in a spare, hungry way that made her wonder if he ate enough to support a man of his size.
    Vían didn’t quite know what to do in the presence of such a male, let alone what to say, so she merely stared at him in an open-mouthed stupor. 
    “Are ye hurt?”  He made as though to put his hands on her, but then thought the better of it, studying her with shrewd, yet gentle eyes.  “I doona see any blood. We’re ye attacked, lass?”
    “I—I don’t know,” she answered shakily.  “I don’t remember anything. I just… appeared here.”  Lies were more believable when peppered with the truth. 
    “Can ye move yer limbs?  Yer fingers and toes?” he queried, still squinting at her alertly from beneath a cruel brow. 
    “Aye,” she lifted her arm out of his cloak as though to show him, letting it fall down past her shoulder and breast.
    There, he looked , she noted with pleasure.  His gaze snagged on her creamy breast and pebbled nipple, before he tore it away and reached to cover her again. 
    “Were ye robbed?” he pressed, “Were ye—” He broke off, color crawling up his neck as his jaw clenched.
    “My head.” She pressed a hand to her forehead.  “’Tis pounding, but I feel no pain elsewhere, and I have nothing of value to steal.”
    “Perhaps someone came up behind ye,” he murmured.  “May I?”
    At her nod, he reached out and threaded big, careful fingers in her thick hair, probing her scalp with the expertise of an experienced physician. 
    “Are you a healer?” she asked, turning her head so her lips brushed against the skin of his arm. 
    “I have some experience with it,” he hedged, pulling his arm away from her with a start.  “I doona feel a lump, though that doesna mean one willna develop.  Do ye think ye can stand?  I’ll want ye away from here in case they come back.  There is much danger in these woods.”
    “I’ll try,” she said weakly, allowing him to help her upright.  Immediately, Vían let his cloak fall to the earth, leaving her only with her almost transparent shift, as she swooned against him.
    He caught her easily, and tensed as she pressed her body against his.
    “Do ye live here in the forest with yer…father?  Husband?” he asked uncomfortably. 
    “I live alone,” she said against his chest.  “I have naught but a cottage by the loch.  Can I prevail upon you to take me there, sir?  I don’t think I can walk all that way back just yet.”
    Lifting her easily, he secured her on the back of his horse before bending to reclaim his cloak.  Swinging up behind her, he wrapped them both in the fur, and pulled her back into the circle of his strong arms.  “Lean against me, lass.  Ye’re like ice.  I’ll share my warmth with ye.”
    Vían leaned back, letting her head rest in between the grooves of his chest.  Pangs of guilt and conscience stabbed at her belly, but she brushed them away.  Though he was handsome and gallant, Malcolm de Moray was still a man.  Still weak and prone to temptation.  He’d take what she offered, or maybe he wouldn’t even wait for her to offer. 
    And then she’d take from him.
    She hoped he didn’t hurry to the loch, though.  His body fit so well against hers, and she soaked in the