Warrior, Opposed: Book One Of The Comhairle Chronicles

Chapter Twelve - Sacrifice

Touching her fingertips to her lips, Deòthas remembered the feel of Tor’s kiss, hungry and sure, setting her aflame in ways she hadn’t even known possible. She would have bedded him, if Eallair hadn’t interrupted. And thank the gods he had.

If it was just sex, just a meaningless fling then it would be ok. Unusual, yes, but ok… Well, it would lead to heartbreak and disaster, but perhaps a little less so than anything deeper. However, there’d been something in Tor’s expression when he’d kissed her, in his need to protect her the night before, something that already went further than wanting to bed her to sate curiosity. And, gods help her, she wanted there to be more. The idea that someone like Tor could want her, could possibly grow to love her with time, it astonished her. Almost as much as it terrified her.

Her problem? She didn’t believe she had it in her to be a participant in something ‘more’. ‘More’ opened doors to ‘much more’, and ‘much more’ led to ‘relationship’, and then that, in turn, travelled on to ‘family’. And family? Well family existed in a place beyond her. Her mother had beaten, berated and routinely starved her. Her grandparents had fed her only to remind Drùis who was in charge, to punish Deòthas’s mother for the indiscretion of bearing the child of a daonna. Deòthas didn’t know how to form relationships. The only interactions she understood and could get behind were confrontations.

She had always been socially impaired, she knew that. And Tor would suffer for it, if she let him think they had a hope. As much as she wanted him, it seemed impossible. The idea that he craved her warmed her to her hardened heart, but it would be a mistake to fall to the sensation’s march. Self-destruct had become part of her programming after so many years of defiance, of picking fights because she didn’t know how to communicate any other way. She’d drive Tor away eventually, or kill them both trying to do so.

Wasn’t it better to nip things in the bud, even if no other man would ever gave her the chance? They’d both be saved from a lot of heartache and the inevitable catastrophe that anything more than sex would turn out to be.

Yet as her fingers brushed her lips again, she imagined Tor’s weight on top of her body. It wouldn’t be easy to say no to a second advance. Not when she wanted him as much as she did. Bean-uasal, Great Mother, guide her, because she’d never felt anything like it and she didn't know how to resist..

“Deòthas!” Raghnall’s voice sounded harsh as it broke through her reverie, and she flushed before she could mask her embarrassment with her usual defiant apathy or insubordination.

 “You’ve been asked a question, would you like to focus for a moment and answer it?”

The trainees watched her expectantly from their places on the training mats, where they’d knelt after sparring to ask Tor about the trials. Some studied her with raised brows. Some sniggered and nudged each other. She sighed, wearied by her inability to present a positive appearance, and she didn’t have a damn clue what question needed answering. With no other route to take, she glanced at Tor for assistance. Much to her surprise, she saw irritation in his expression. Was he annoyed at her?

No, not at her. Tor cast a withering glare at Raghnall, then reluctantly admitted, “They want to know why you sought dispensation to take alternative trials. Raghnall’s told them that you didn’t have to face the final, mandatory trial. He said you got out of it.”

Sighing, Deòthas lowered herself onto the mats, sitting cross-legged on the floor so she wasn’t looking down on the trainees as they knelt in their disciplined line in front of her. No one had ever asked her why her trials were different, mainly because the existing ghaisgich accepted that they’d had to be. The Taghadairean couldn’t have asked her to trust the other Council warriors, as there no trust existed in either direction. Voicing that truth would sting though, because trust had never developed either.