A Faerie Fated Forever (30 page)
Read A Faerie Fated Forever Online
Authors: Mary Anne Graham
Tags: #clan, #laird, #curse, #sensual, #faerie flag, #skye, #highlander, #paranormal, #sixth sense, #regency, #faerie, #london, #marriage mart, #scottish, #witch, #fairy, #highland, #fairy flag
Father McGiven waited not a moment longer. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the joining…….”
After a ceremony that may have set records for its brevity, the priest pronounced them married. The groom’s obvious arousal grew throughout the ceremony. Thus, it surprised no one that the bridal kiss was a passionate possession, a branding, a giving and a taking. It was long and thorough and as it concluded, the crowd pressed forward to offer congratulations.
Nial ignored them all to scoop his wife into his arms to take her to their bridal bower. He barked at those, including her own mother, who tried to be presumptuous enough to remove her from his immediate touch. As he kicked the bedroom door closed behind them, he was already raising the skirt of her gown and his kilt. He was buried within her less than ten minutes after they were formally married.
The knot in his throat made it almost impossible to speak, but Nial tried, growling more than stating, “Thank God for faeries, sweetheart. The words were nice but this is our union.”
His haste had been to join. Now he slowed and took her tenderly and with each thrust he called out his love for her. When it was over, he collapsed in her arms, and she said, softly “Nial, you….. you begged for me.”
“You saw?” Somehow, he had hoped that she hadn’t witnessed him on his knees, pitifully begging for the only help he knew how to summon. He rolled off her and interrupted her gruffly, overcome suddenly with the fear that she would see him as less of a man.
She repeated her question, “Why?”
If he had been willing to display the depth of his love for the world, he could hardly shirk from confessing it to her. So he held her eyes as he spoke, “My love, you know I was worried before the ceremony. We were expecting trouble. It arrived not openly, but as a hidden threat from an enemy who wore the face of a friend. It was Calum who has apparently hated me for years. He saw himself as second best. He said that he lost competitions that I always thought were friendly contests. He measured himself by some calculation of his own making and created a fiendish scheme to make me lose the only competition I ever cared about. He thought that made him a winner. What did he win?"
"Calum, how bizarre. I spent a fair amount of time with him on Skye. I always liked him. He even saw my odd eyes and my cursed hair and..."
"He knew?" Nial asked, jolted. "He knew of your beauty? Had I realized that, I might have put it together and prevented all of this. You're okay?"
"After what we just did, now you ask that?" She teased but regretted it when she saw fear flash in his eyes. She hastened to reassure him. "I'm fine. Well, I'm almost fine. I may die of curiosity if you don't tell me why you knelt before the faeries today."
“Sweetheart, I told you that you meant more to me than anything else, but until today, even I didn’t know how true that was. The Faerie King demanded that I beg. No one expected me to do it; no one wanted me to do it. But the plain fact is, though I balked and refused at first, when I weighed my pride against losing you forever, well, there was no question.”
He turned and asked the question that would torment him forever if he didn’t know. “Love, do you see me as less of a man because you saw me on my knees, begging?”
Her eyes filled not with the scorn he feared, but with worship that made his chest expand again and made him feel like strutting and crowing. Her words only made the feeling grow.
“Husband, today, you challenged death for me and won. That doesn’t happen in real life, it only happens in faerie tales. My Prince Charming, you have made me believe in faerie tales again. Now, we get to the best part, the happily ever after part.”
He was her proud Highland laird as he answered. “I must disagree, love. How about, satisfied ever after instead? Oh and lass, I don’t have a glass slipper but I have something else that I know will fit and I think you’ll enjoy it a lot more.”
It did, she did, and they lived satisfied ever after – and happily ever after too.
Up in the clouds, the faeries mourned for the mating game had ended for this laird. They perked up though when they remembered the little one. They anticipated all the mischief they would brew with the anxious father-to-be and then all the fun they would have with the next laird as he faced the choice.
Hmm, they heard that Nial and Heather would name the baby Ian in gratitude and tribute to the first laird, whose connection with the faeries had saved the life of Lady Maclee.
Imagine how much fun they would have with him!
THE END
About The Author
If you were born in Hartsville you were surely fated to adore romance.
Mary Anne Graham was born an Outlaw in the tiny town of Hartsville, South Carolina. She attended Francis Marion in nearby Florence back when it was a college rather than a university and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with double minors in history and mass communications. She went on to USC Law School – think South not West - and graduated with a Juris Doctor degree. She (somehow) survived and passed the bar exam. She practices law in South Carolina.
When she wasn’t busy writing legal briefs, Mary Anne read and re-read her shelves and shelves of works by authors like Johanna Lindsey, Catherine Coulter, Elizabeth Lowell, Susan Johnson, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Julia Quinn. Although her career as an attorney called to her passion for justice, it wasn’t quite the right kind of passion for the lady from Hartsville who always dreamed of writing a book of her own – someday. Deciding that the only wasted dream is the one abandoned, she sat down to work on populating her bookshelves with some tales of her own.
She now lives in “paradise” - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with John, her computer programmer husband and her sons Zack and Sam. All of her men spend much of their free time battling each other at computer games over their home network. Mary Anne used to feel a bit left out of the wired world the men inhabited, but it suits her just fine these days, because she is at her laptop, crafting a happily ever after where second chances and new beginnings are always possible.
You can reach Mary Anne through her blog - "Quacking Alone." (http://quackingalone.wordpress.com) Stop by and let her know what you think of this book.
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