“You must come. She is calling for you. ’Tis bad, Alaric. I fear she’ll not last the hour. She is so weak she cannot hold her eyes open, and the fever rages so high that she’s delirious.”
Alaric took the steps at a run and rushed down the hall, barreling past countless people. When he burst into Keeley’s chamber, his heart seized.
She lay still, so still he feared he was too late. But then her lips twisted ever so slightly and she whispered his name.
He rushed to her side and knelt beside the bed. “I’m here, Keeley. I’m here, love.”
He stroked his hand over her face, wanting her to feel his touch, wanting to reassure her that she wasn’t alone.
She was so fragile, so very precious against his hands, so very breakable. He couldn’t accept that she could be taken from him at any moment.
“Alaric?” she whispered again.
“Aye, love, I’m here.”
“So cold. Don’t hurt anymore. Just cold.”
Alarm prickled up his spine.
She turned as if seeking his face. Her eyes opened to mere slits but she didn’t focus on him. Her gaze was sightless as if she looked into a dark void.
“I’m afraid.”
The admission gutted him. He gathered her in his arms and tears burned his eyelids. That a woman who’d feared nothing was now afraid was more than he could bear.
“I’m with you, Keeley. Do not be afraid. I’ll not leave you. I swear it.”
“Take me …” she broke off, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Take you where, sweeting?”
“To place … where we said … good-bye. Where you last … kissed me.”
He buried his face against her neck and wept.
“Please.”
Oh, God, he didn’t want her to beg. The pleading in her voice completely undid him.
“Aye, Keeley, I’ll take you. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
She smiled faintly and her eyes closed, as if the few words she’d spoken had completely spent her.
He gently gathered her in his arms and lifted her. He held her against his chest and pressed his lips to the top of her head. Tears slipped unchecked down his cheeks as he strode down the hall. No one tried to stop him. Mairin and Rionna openly wept as he passed. Maddie wore a stricken look and Gannon bowed his head in grief. At the top of the staircase, Caelen stood, his fingers curled into tight fists at his sides.
Then slowly he put his hand out to touch Keeley’s hair and let his fingers slide over her cheek. He leaned down and brushed his lips over her forehead in a tender gesture. It was the first time Alaric had seen him show any open affection or regard for a woman since the woman he’d loved betrayed him so many years ago.
“Be at peace,” Caelen whispered.
Then he backed up and strode away, his jaw clenched tight.
The entire clan gathered as Alaric bore Keeley through the courtyard and around to where the loch spread out to the east. He walked through the trees where he’d waited for her just a week earlier. He stopped at the water’s edge and lowered himself to sit on one of the boulders.
“We’re here, Keeley. Can you feel the breeze on your face? Can you smell the fresh air?”
Her eyelids fluttered weakly and she took in a deep breath. The action caused her immediate pain and a wicked spasm crossed her face. For several long moments she lay in his arms, her chest working up and down with exertion.
“Aye,” she said finally. “ ’Tis wondrous to feel the sun on my skin. I’m tired, Alaric. I’ve tried so hard to fight.”
He could hear the ache in her voice, the grief over the knowledge that she was dying.
“I want you to know that I’ll die happy. All … all I ever wanted … was to be yours. Your … wife. Even if for a while. You are mine and I am yours.”
Alaric stared up at the sky, sorrow crushing down on him with the weight of a boulder. “You’ve always been mine, Keeley. From the moment you took me into your cottage. There’s never been another woman who captured me, body and soul, the way you did. There’ll never be another. I should have been willing to give you what was rightly yours before now. I tried to do what was right and in the end, none of it matters if I lose you.”
“Hold me,” she whispered. “Stay here with me and hold me until the time has come for me to go away. I can feel myself growing weaker. I don’t think ’tis a long time.”
A raw, gut-wrenching sound of agony ripped from Alaric’s throat. His chest burned as if he’d swallowed fire. His hands shook so badly that he worried he’d let her fall.
“Aye, I’ll hold you, Keeley. I won’t let you go alone. We’ll stay here together and watch the sun go down over the loch and I’ll tell you every dream I ever had of our life together.”
She smiled and shivered against him. She went completely limp in his arms as if she’d expended all her remaining strength to say what she needed. For a long moment she lay there until she roused herself, seeming to have one last thing that she needed him to hear.
“You’re my dream, Alaric McCabe. And I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment your horse dumped you at my cottage. I spent so much time being resentful and lamenting the circumstances of my life, but ’tis true that I wouldn’t change a single thing because then I would have never known your love.”
He cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. Their tears mingled and the salt slipped onto their tongues as Alaric tenderly kissed her lips.
He closed his eyes and rocked her back and forth in his arms. The day faded to dusk and the evening grew colder. Gannon came out with furs and quietly wrapped them around Alaric and Keeley before leaving the two alone again.