“You mean your mate?” Kirk jumped in and met Finlay’s next strike. “Yet I sensed only contentment coming from you last night, and an overwhelming amount of it.”
“If I was content, that emotion has well and truly gone. This morning I awoke inside a cavern deep within the cliffs at the cove, and I have no idea why I did. There was also no sign of anyone but me, yet I’m certain I was with someone. I’m running out of time and she needs me, just as badly as I need her.”
“Finlay, I’m so sorry.”
He stumbled to his knees, grasped his head.
“Are you all right?” Iain fell to one knee beside him, Kirk dropping down on his other side.
His searched his mind, found the pathway those sweet words had been delivered along. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered to his brothers. “There’s a telepathic link between me and another.”
“You’ve completed the bond?” Wild confusion lit Iain’s face, likely the same wild confusion racing across his own. “How could you not remember joining with your mate?”
“C-come to the chief’s solar, Finlay.” Her voice flowed through, all shaky and pained. “I-I promise to explain everything where we’ll be afforded more privacy.”
“Who are you?” He found his footing and stood. “Chief’s solar,” he said to Iain and Kirk and took off, his brothers hot on his heels. He pounded into the great hall, skidded around the corner and flew into the side antechamber bereft of its chief but instead holding Isla and Julia standing either side of Julia’s sister who sat in a padded chair. He strode toward her. “Arabel, isn’t it? You’re the fire-wielder? Is it you who just spoke to me?”
“Aye, I did.” She bunched her hands in her lap and twisted her fingers within the silvery-blue folds of her skirts.
“How”—he seized the arms of her wooden chair and scraped it closer, bringing them nose to nose—“did you manage to do that?”
“Finlay, calm down.” Kirk shut the door, pulled out a chair and plunked it behind him. Kirk gripped his shoulders and urged him down. “No looming over the poor lass.”
Iain eyed Isla and the two clearly spoke, although along their merged link and by the look on Iain’s face, he wasn’t happy with whatever he’d just discovered.
Scrubbing a hand over his heavily whiskered jaw, Finlay faced the women he’d created a merged link with. Arabel trembled, her head bowed and her gaze on her whitened knuckles. Aye, he needed to take more care. She was scared and he’d caused her to be so.
Slowly, he leaned forward and covered one of her hands with his. She was cold, and for one who wielded fire, she shouldn’t be. That he knew to the depths of his soul. He pulled back an inch, lost the contact he needed but assuaged the fear taking hold of him instead. “What is going on?”
“I’ve done you a grave wrong.” She lifted her gaze and those beautiful eyes of hers glimmered with tears. One trickled free, trailed down her soft cheek and splashed her gown.
He touched the salty drop with one finger and shook his head. Hell, he’d made his mate cry and that was the last thing he wanted to do. “Please, don’t cry.”
“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” More tears, and as each one fell, they hit him like he’d taken a spear to his gut. “When emotions of grief or loss rise, so too does my cold-fire. It makes me cold.”
“Then fix your cold-fire, right now.” Her talk of it set him completely on edge, although he knew not why. “Hurry.”
“Of course.” She closed her eyes and remained quiet. Long minutes passed before her cheeks finally flushed and she ceased trembling. When she lifted her lashes, she looked into his eyes and he almost drowned within the watery blue depths lit by sparks of gold around the edges.
“Are you feeling better?”
“A little.” She gulped. “Finlay, when you first discovered we were mated, you were so determined to complete the bond even though doing so would have ended in your death. In the past two centuries only six fire-wielders have been born afore me with the skill of fire and all have perished following the death of their loved one. There is no intimacy permitted with one who wields fire.”
“Yet we’ve clearly been intimate and I survived such a joining. What happened at the cove?”
“Yesterday, I ran there and you chased me. You wouldnae give up the fight and when the storm hit, we took shelter in the cavern. Fire came in the form of lightning, water in the form of rain, air in the form of the fierce wind that rose, and the earth, well we were deep inside the cavern when the storm unleashed itself. My fire was exhausted and I couldnae raise even a glimmer of heat. The four elements had come back into realignment.”