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.”