It was Gena Anderson, Shawna realized.
“We’ll leave the rest of them to the law,” David said quietly. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said.
He wrapped his black velvet jacket around Shawna. She tried to walk and stumbled. He picked her up and carried her from the cavern. She closed her eyes as they walked. She never wanted to see the Goat God, or her fallen uncle, again.
They came out into the chill of night. Clinging to David, Shawna looked up to the sky.
The moon was full and shimmering.
Naturally. It was the Night of the Moon Maiden. But it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
She was in David’s arms. And she was his wife.
And the way that he was looking at her now…
She knew that he loved her.
That was all that she really knew, but it was enough. The huge orb of the moon began to fade. Darkness encroached, but she wasn’t afraid.
She was in his arms.
She was safe.
And she was loved.
She’d been drugged more heavily than she had realized when lying in terror upon the stone altar in the cavern.
Hours later, she awoke in bed.
Her bed, in the master’s chambers. She woke in a bit of a panic, trying to assure herself that she was no longer painted in blood.
She was not. She lay cleanly—and primly—in a white, high-necked, laced, and detailed nightgown.
And she was not alone.
David was by her side. David, Laird Douglas, still kilted, but cleaned, the blood gone from his arm and a white bandage around it. His eyes were very green and dark and grave as they surveyed her, his hair fell just a bit mussed and rakish over his forehead. His features were at ease, very handsome, his mouth not at all pursed, his smile a full and sensual one as she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Laird Douglas!” she said softly.
“Lady Douglas,” he returned, and brushed her lips with a kiss.
Not a cold kiss.
Nor a mockingly passionate kiss.
A warm kiss. Tender. A leisurely kiss. Gentle. Given with lips that trembled ever so slightly.
Ohg od, it was so…provocative.
“David…” she murmured.
“Aye?”
Then she suddenly remembered that there remained things she didn’t understand.
“David,” she said anxiously, “truly, Alistair was no part of it?—”