Thirteen Chances (27 page)

Christian took one more step, and it was literally as close as he could get to her without blending his essence into hers. He looked down at her, where she stared straight ahead at his chest. “Look at me, Emma.”

Very slowly, she did.

Her breathing came faster, little white streams of chilled air rising between them with each ragged breath. She said nothing, simply breathed.

Placing a hand on the seawall behind her, Christian ducked his head, so that he looked her square in the eye. “When you first came to Arrick, I was determined to drive you away. Once I lost that battle, I was determined to hold you at arm’s length. To keep myself from needing you so badly.” He drew a deep breath, lifted his hand, and traced her lips with his knuckles. The barest of tingles coursed through him, and he could hear how it affected Emma. He could hear her heartbeat quicken.

“I lost that battle, too,” he said. He stared at every single inch of her face, every line he’d grown to love centuries before, yet found himself astounded that he loved them even more now, even without Emma’s soul remembering him. “I haven’t the strength not to be in your life, Emma Calhoun.” He grazed her jaw. “I need you too much.”

They stared at each other, and tears welled up in Emma’s eyes. The wind caught a strand of her hair and blew it across her cheek, where it caught on her lip. With a forefinger, Christian absently moved to brush it back.

His finger went right through it, and Emma let out a small gasp.

Christian’s insides winced. Bloody hell, what was he thinking? He couldn’t touch her. Not now. Not ever.

And it simply wasn’t fair to ever ask her to accept it.

“What … do you mean?” asked Emma, her voice barely above a whisper. She shivered now, her heartbeat quickened even more, and her breathing came faster. She looked at him. “I see in your face you’ve changed your mind already. Don’t.” She pushed closer to him, then pulled a hand from her coat pocket and traced his cheek. “Please, tell me.”

Christian couldn’t help but study her face beneath the autumn moon. So beautiful, so honest and caring a soul she was, it hurt to watch her and not touch. It bloody
hurt.
“Did you mean what you said a moment ago? That you feel as though this is your life now?” He swept a hand toward the sea, half turned, and did another sweep toward Castle Grimm. “All of this? Things you can touch, feel, taste, and things”—he dipped his head and moved his mouth to hers—“you cannot?” He slowly dragged his lips as close to Emma’s skin as he could, to the corner of her mouth, across her cheek, then to her jaw, just below the ear covered by that crazy hat she wore. He hovered one hand close to her hand clutching the stone behind her. He traced each knuckle until she gasped. “Truly, can you stand to not fully taste? Could you be satisfied with just closeness, and not true intimacy?” He ducked his head and kissed her throat.

“Could you stand to never feel my hands, my mouth, my tongue on you?”

Christian pulled back and stared at Emma. Her chest rose and fell with each ragged breath, and her eyes had drifted shut. She’d caught her bottom lip between her teeth and now bit down, and a tear trickled from her pinched lids.

Then, without opening her eyes, she whispered the most common of words in the most sensual of ways.

He’d never hear it the same, ever again.

“Truly,” she said, her voice breathy and slight. She opened her eyes. “As long as it’s you, yes. Truly.”

They stared at each other for several seconds, and Christian’s heart cracked.

Then they both smiled.

And lost themselves in the only intimacy they could conjure …

After two days of training, including a gargantuan amount of grunting, sweating, swearing, hollering, ugly hand gestures, fistfights, and ringing of steel against steel, not to mention the pounding of horses’ hooves in the jousting arena, Emma’s whole sense of the medieval era had changed completely. So many males. So much testosterone. So much
blood.

Even the horses were boys. Studs, at that. And
they
fought.

The Dark Ages had been vicious.

Everyone had now separated into teams. On the mortal side, Team Grimm, Team Dreadmoor, Team Munro. On the ghostly side, there were so many that the teams had to be broken down into three groups and the warriors then had to choose teams. Team Arrick, Team Donovan, and Team Le Maurant. The Irish were so plentiful that they made up Team Donovan alone. Many of the Welsh spirits had joined Team Arrick, as well as several Scots and English. A few drifted in from Romania, and they’d joined the Germans and the French for Team Le Maurant.

She couldn’t deny how incredibly fascinating those medieval warriors were to watch. The ghosts and the mortals took turns training—all except Christian, who could actually, somehow train with Gawan. Emma had stopped asking
how
a long time ago. The Dreadmoors and the Munros were … fascinating. All brawn and muscle and fierceness, and Tristan? God Almighty. When he and Ethan Munro had faced off with the swords, it was Ultimate Fighting at its very best. Well, almost.

There were two others who, in her opinion, rose just a fraction above the rest.

Christian and Gawan.
Wow.
They were a true sight to see. All tattooed and wild-eyed, with their hair loose and their bodies bare, they seriously looked like they would kill each other, if given the chance.

She watched them now, as did no fewer than a hundred mortals and ghosts combined.

Bared to the waist and crouched like lethal cats ready to spring, they moved in graceful, calculated, predatory circles around one another, Gawan with his one large sword, Christian with his deadly double blades. Emma’s eyes fastened on Christian’s markings, black, ancient, and menacing, the one on his back flinched with each muscle movement, as did the ones on his arms.

Had she been a warrior, she’d have never had the guts to pick up a sword and face either one of them. Their look alone would have made her surrender.

“Fascinating, dunna you think?”

Emma turned to the man standing beside her. Just as gorgeous as the rest of the warriors, he was not one of the participants. Gabe MacGowan along with his wife, Allie, stood close. They were friends of Justin Catesby, so she’d been told, and proprietors of the most haunted pub and inn in Scotland, she recalled. She smiled up at MacGowan. “Absolutely. I still can’t get over it.”

His wife peered around her big husband and grinned at her. “I bet you’ve never attended a sporting event like this one, have you?”

Emma sighed and turned back to the fighters. “Hardly.”

“I see you’re rootin’ for the wrong team, lass,” a deep, heavily accented voice said on the other side of her.

Emma turned and looked up. The man, dark haired and sexy as all get-out, he wore a flirty grin and reeked of arrogance.

Much like Christian, she thought.

He lifted her hand and raised it to his lips, and brushed the lightest of kisses across her knuckles. “Aiden Munro, lady.” He inclined his head to her shirt. “Team Arrick, aye? I’ve a Team Munro shirt I could give you, should you choose to change teams.”

Gabe MacGowan snorted.

Emma smiled. Last month she’d have melted on the spot at such a gorgeous man’s charm.

But after being wooed by Christian of Arrick-by-the-Sea, she found that everyone else paled in comparison.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, retrieving her hand from his.

Aiden Munro simply smiled.

“Canna leave a lass alone for a second, aye?” said another deep, brogued voice. Ethan Munro, accompanied by Tristan and several of his knights, pushed in beside him to lean against the fence. They all chuckled.

Emma slid her gaze over all of them. Big and powerfully built, they were dangerous with one another, yet gentle as kittens when it came to women.

“And what lad in his right mind would leave a lass such as Emma at the fence alone?” asked Aiden. He winked at her.

“Lad, I’d give a month’s wages to hear you say that, were Arrick in the flesh and blood,” said Tristan. He, too, leaned forward and gave Emma a wink. “Now leave the girl alone. I’ve a powerful mind to defend her in Arrick’s honor.”

A round of
ayes
sounded through the men, and Aiden Munro beamed. “Och, you’re on, Dreadmoor.” He glanced down at her, bent his head, and kissed her cheek. “Be right back,” he said. The arrogance followed him like a heavy mist.

Just then, swearing from the arena pulled Emma’s attention back to Christian and Gawan. Both of Christian’s blades were on the ground. Gawan stood, the tip of that big, sharp sword pointed directly at Christian’s throat.

Christian stared hard at Aiden Munro.

Aiden merely threw his head back and laughed … then promptly took off running, his sword slapping his thigh.

Tristan de Barre, followed by a growing crowd of warriors, fell in behind him.

“I suddenly feel rowing and making little marble chess pieces isn’t quite so … manly anymore,” mumbled Gabe MacGowan, beside her.

She looked at him, and his expression made Emma laugh. She looked at his wife, Allie, who stared up at Gabe with so much love and adoration, it all but sent an electric wave through the air. “Oh, I think you’re doing just fine,” Emma said.

Gabe pulled Allie close and kissed her on the top of her head. “Thank God.”

Christian strode to the fence, placed a booted foot on the bottom rung, and propped his arms on the top. He stared down at Emma. “I see you’ve picked up a few admirers,” he said.

“That big lad Tristan took off to defend her in your honor,” offered Gabe. “My money’s on Dreadmoor.”

Christian laughed and gave a nod. “I’m counting on it. Arrogant pup, that Munro.”

“I think he’s cute,” offered Allie.

Emma bit back a laugh.

“Well,” Gawan said, walking up to join them, “ ’tis nearly dark, and the tournament begins in the morn, promptly at nine.” His eyes gleamed. “I for one cannot wait.”

Emma noticed Christian had the same gleam.

Allie leaned over her husband. “Let’s go find Ellie, Amelia, and Andi. I’m starved.” She paused. “Have you noticed all of our names start with A or E? I’ll be stumbling all over the alphabet now.”

“Me, too,” said Emma, and gave Christian a long stare. “See ya.”

Christian’s eyes met hers in a way that made her want to squirm. “Aye. See ya.”

And with that, Emma and Allie left Christian, Gabe, and Gawan at the fence, and headed off to the great hall to find a bit more estrogen, and to get a bite to eat.

The rest of the evening was spent in the great hall, where Emma heard stories of days gone by, of yesteryear, of once-warriors and the battles they fought, the women they’d loved, their homes and their families. Many of the spirits were lost, had no memory of how they’d become ghosts at all. Gabe’s wife, Allie, had pulled several aside, listening intently to what they did remember, taking notes, and promising to help them.

Emma also saw, with her own eyes, a total of twenty-two men, all from another place in time, another century, living their lives in the present.

Some of their old selves still existed. How could they not? They were medieval men, born hundreds of years in the past. While they’d certainly adapted to modern times—heck, half of the Dreadmoor guys drove Harleys—they’d maintained a greater portion of their old lives. Sometimes, the two centuries—the one they’d lived in the first time, and the one they lived in now—converged.

How they wore their swords and 501s at the same time was a perfect example of this convergence.

Emma leaned back against the stone wall of the hearth, and pulled her knees up. Christian sat on one side, Jason on the other.

That darn flirty Aiden Munro sat directly across from her.

She thought for sure Christian would beat him to a pulp.

Amelia, Ethan Munro’s wife and Aiden’s newest cousin, who was sitting on the other side of him, reached over and bopped him on the head. Then she winked at Emma.

Christian of Arrick-by-the-Sea simply smiled at Aiden Munro, and Aiden smiled back. They understood each other, so it seemed.

Jason leaned toward her. “I vow ’tis wondrous to see you reject yon Munro. Quite the conceited lad, aye?”

“Cocksure,” mumbled Tristan, who sat not far away, his wife, Andi, leaning back against him. She nodded enthusiastically with her husband’s comment. “Cute, but cocksure,” she added.

Aiden’s smile grew wider.

Then, the tall tales and legends began. One by one, the warriors recalled myths of their lands, their time. One warrior—a Welsh Pict from the ninth century—spoke in an ancient language. The room became quiet, and Gawan translated.

Gawan nodded. “Oy, aye,” he murmured. “He speaks of the eternal well of magic water, farther up the northern coast of Wales,” he said. “Farther north than Arrick, even.” He nodded, listening to the warrior’s words. “St. Beuno’s Well, it’s called. ’Tis only a myth, aye Chris? How many times did we look for it?”

“Scores,” Christian said. “We looked our entire teenage years, did we not?”

Gawan laughed. “Methinks you’re right.”

“So,” Emma said softly, “what sort of magic powers does it have?”

Gawan shrugged. “ ’Tis said that one soul, pure of heart, must risk death to obtain water from the well.” He winked. “ ’Tis said to have mystical healing powers.”

“That would have come in bloody handy,” said a ghostly soul.

Everyone roared.

Emma’s heart leaped.

Gawan shook his head. “If only ’twas so simple.”

“Let’s quit this hall, aye? I’ve a mind to get you alone once more this day,” whispered Christian.

Emma shivered at the suggestion.

She stood and smiled at the crowd. “Good night.”

Many responses sounded through the hall. Some were in English; some in Old English; some in a language completely unknown to Emma.

“Bright and early, right Emma?” said Ellie, grinning from her cozy spot next to Gawan. “We’ll have to get a head start on feeding this crowd in the morning.”

“Absolutely,” Emma agreed. “See ya then.”

As she let Christian lead her from the hall, they passed a giant of a man, standing against one of the largest tapestries in the room.