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"Will that do?" I asked innocently.

"Aye," he said in a daze. "That will do it."

* * *

CHAPTER SEVEN

My gift.

Desire.

It came to me as easily and naturally as breathing, and once woken, it refused to sleep. I slid into a state of desire as surely as a trout in the stream—only instead of being cool and swift and darting, it was warm and languorous.

Cillian came often that summer. Familiar as he was to me, I learned him in a whole new way. I kissed the corners of his lips and the dimples that formed when they curled in a smile. I bit his earlobes and the sturdy, slender column of his neck until he groaned. I let him put his hands on me, reveling in the feel of them. Where once we had lain for hours in the meadow talking, now we lay and kissed for hours, until I felt my blood had turned to molten gold.

Only the shadow of worry in my mother's eyes kept me in check.

"Dagda Mor!" Cillian pushed himself away from me when I bade him stop. He crouched for a moment, then rose and walked a few steps. I sat up and tugged the loose bodice of my dress back into place, watching him curiously. He glanced over his shoulder and winced at the sight of me. "Do you know what you do to me?"

"Aye," I said softly. "You, too."

He spun, fists clenched. "Why make us wait?"

"My mother—"

"Oh, Manannan of the deep take your mother!" Cillian shouted.

I raised my eyebrows.

"I didn't mean it." He flung himself on his knees before me like a penitent, shuddering. "Ah, Moirin! Forgive me."

I touched his cheek. "I do. Of course I do."

But I did wait.

I spoke to my mother about it, asking her why it worried her so.

"You're young," she said shortly.

"How old were you?" I asked.

She was stirring a pot of cattail roots and didn't answer for a long time. When she did, she didn't answer the question I'd asked. "Would you have the truth, my heart?" I nodded and her dark gaze met mine. "It's a powerful calling. I fear losing you to it."

"Cillian?"

My mother shook her head. "The bright lady's gift."

It was my turn to be silent.

"Did you imagine I didn't know?" There was sorrow in her smile. "Ah, I suppose you did. Children are slow to credit their elders. Yet how could I not, when I felt her presence there at your conception? How could I not, when it's hung like a bright shadow over you all your life?" She laid a hand on her breast. "The diadh-anam within me says that this is right. That this is as it should be. For reasons I cannot know, the Maghuin Dhonn Herself wills it. But I am a mortal woman and I fear to lose my child. So I have sheltered you from it as best I could. And now that it has found you, I do but beg you to go slowly from me."

My heart ached. "Stone and sea! I'm not going anywhere."

"No?"

"No." I laid my head in her lap. "No."

"Moirin mine." Her fingers stroked my hair. "I pray it's so. Stay a child for a while."

"I will," I promised.

I did.

It was hard, though—so hard! I wanted and wanted and wanted, and Cillian's wanting added to mine, setting my blood to boiling. But I held off through summer and autumn, and then winter came again, necessitating distance between us and cooling our ardor.

I took solace in the cold and the quiet.

Then came spring.

It was a time of greening and new growth, when the soil was damp and fertile. Every plant sent out new shoots, feverish with excitement. Every tree burst into leaf. All my nerves were on edge with it. When Cillian came for the first time that spring, grey eyes hot with yearning and his shoulders grown broad and muscled, there was no question. I didn't even ask what he'd brought in his satchel.

No more waiting.

"Moirin." His voice was hoarse. "Now?"

"Now," I agreed.

In the meadow, he kissed me like he was starving, yanking at my gown with impatient hands. It should have been tender, but it wasn't. We'd waited too long for tender. I didn't care. The feeling of his callused fingertips on my breasts drove me mad. Cillian pushed my thighs apart, fumbling