Waiting For You

Darkness settled around me like a jewelled cloak of velvet black, hiding me, protecting me. If I were a child, this would be naught but a silly game, one that would end in scraped knees and squeals of laughter, me grinning and my two brothers scowling over losing to a slip of a girl.

Again.

But not this time.

Tonight, beneath the dim light of the half-clad moon, away from the sounds and safety of my Father's hall, I knew there would be no escaping. I was just turned sixteen, old enough to know that this was no game, that I was no longer a child and this man anything but my brother.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are..." he whispered, his voice carrying ever so softly on the cool breeze. "You know I'll find you, little dove."

Little dove. How long had it been since he'd called me that? His footsteps crunched on the unswept stones beside me and I pressed myself against the chill wall at my back, willing my gown of dark lavender to blend in. He was so close, so very painfully close.

"You promised, remember?"

The image of that night, its breathless exhilaration, its terrifying promise, engulfed my trembling body. Of course I remembered. How could I forget?

We'd found ourselves alone in my Fathers study, as we had a thousand times before. I in my father's chair, my legs curled beneath me as I watched dampening flames flicker out of existence, and him, whittling away at a tiny piece of wood, the gleam of his blade casting dazzling patterns on the beamed ceiling above.

"What are you making?" I'd asked, my curiosity drawing me into a crouch beside him.

He'd grinned at me, a lopsided smile that showed off the dimple in his left cheek.

"It's a present, little dove."

"A present?" I leant closer, trying to see past the tilt of his tanned hand and the confident strokes of his small knife. "For who?"

He shrugged, and I couldn't help but notice how broad he'd grown, in both chest and shoulder. I shook the disturbing thought from my mind and turned my attention back to the little trinket, held safe in his hand.

"Show me."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Please."

His blade slowed despite my tone and I could see him mulling it over, deciding whether or not to give into me as he usually did. He sighed, sheathed his knife and slipped the frustrating secret into his pocket.

"Another time, Catty."

I lifted my chin and glared at him. "Don't make me wrestle you for it. You know I'll win."

He snorted as he uncurled himself and stood, towering over me. I shot up an instant later, straitening my skirts in an effort to hide my fury that he'd outgrown me, not just by the usual hand span or two, but an entire head and shoulders.

"It's not proper or right for young ladies to wrestle. Besides, that was years ago. We're not little children anymore."

It was my turn to snort. He was calling me - me! A young lady? I was a beanpole, a moon kissed stick with barely a curve on her. Budding ones maybe, but nothing even close to womanly, not yet at least. And I had neither the time nor patience for the intricacies of tamed hair and precious gowns of eye catching colours and revealing cuts.

No. A Lady, I was not.

"You're a woman in your own right Caitlyn," He said, as if hearing my thoughts.

I stared at him, unable to swallow the thick lump of surprise that seemed to have wedged itself in my throat.

He turned from me without a backwards glance, heading for the door. "I should go. Fynn would kill me if he found us alone together."

"Why?" I asked, the odd statement loosing my tongue. Our brother was unrelenting with his black and white ideals, but as far as caring about Raff and I being alone together? That was as normal and natural as breathing.

He paused in his retreat, his brown eyes searching my face in a way that left my heart racing. What he found there, I wasn't sure, but it made him reach into his pocket and pull out his little treasure. I went to him, burying my small hesitation beneath a rush of victory as I looked down at the thing cradled in his hand, resting there as if it were the most precious thing in the world to him.

A ring, I realised, made of two Ivy vines twining them selves together, meeting and parting then meeting again, like lovers and their coming together and parting of passionate embraces. He took my hand in his, and I felt its warmth as he closed my fingers around it.

"Raff?" My voice was small, barely a whisper.

"It's for you."

"But... why?" He'd given me lots of little treasures over the years, most of which I'd kept in a small box under my bed, but nothing like this.

"Because I'm leaving with Fynn tomorrow, and I want..."

I stood frozen, my feet rooted to the spot as I willed him to finish his words so I could make sense of this, of him. He released my hand with a sigh then brushed a dark curl from my eyes, his calloused fingers running from my temple to my ear.

"You Caitlyn. I want you."

I reefed away from him, horrified. "I'm your sister Raff! What you suggest is – is sick. Wrong!"

"I am no more your brother then the man who mucks out the stables, who shoes your father's horses or tends his cattle." He hadn't raised his voice, he'd never do such a thing to me, but that didn't mean there hadn't been a fierce edge to it.

I stayed where I was, just outside his reach, my stomach twisting itself in knots. If Fynn ever found out about this, about what his best friend and for all intents and purposes, our brother, had just said to me – he would kill him, childhood bond or not.

"I know, but – but we grew up together. You and Fynn and me... and... and..."

"And that doesn't change the fact that I am not your brother. That I have a man's desires, a man's heart and a man's dreams."

I stared down at my clenched hand, too afraid to uncurl my fingers and look at the embodiment of his love within.

"Caitlyn," he said, so close I felt the sweet warmth of his breath on my skin. It sent my heart into a thundering fit, one that threatened to shatter my ribs from within. "Look at me."

I did as he bid, unable to refuse him. What he wanted from me was wrong. Evil. But oh, what I wouldn't give to reach out and touch his face just now, to feel what it would be like to have his arms wrapped around me and the heart in his chest thumping against my cheek...

"I'll be back in two summer's time. You'll be sixteen then and..." He took a steadying breath, his dark eyes intense, almost frightening with the depth of longing they showed as he leant forward and kissed me. It was soft and sweet, a tender embrace of the lips that sent a wave of honeyed warmth coursing through my veins.

He made himself pull away, his breathing as ragged as mine as he pressed his rough cheek to my forehead, his words so quiet I almost didn't hear them.

"When I come back, promise me you will kiss me again. If you feel nothing for me other than you do your brother, I'll leave you be and go. But if..."

I nodded my promise, even before he'd finished speaking, and as he relinquished his hold, his lingering gaze revealing how much it pained him to go, I felt the hot rush of tears grace my flushed cheeks.

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing out the cold that seemed to be seeping into my very bones from the ancient stone at my back. The sound of his footsteps had stilled and there was nowhere else for me to go. No escape, for I was surrounded by nettles and thornbushes, still waiting to be reefed from their barely thawed ground.

If he'd returned when he'd suppose to, an entire season from now, I would have been able to slip away. Maybe I still could if I made a run for it, but not without shredding my dress. I could hear their whispers now, those of our guests and newly returned men, wondering why I had changed from a more than appropriate gown whilst barely half way through the evening. But even if I was willing to ignore their whispers and my father's disapproving looks, the chances of me outrunning him once he'd heard me, were nigh impossible.

I straitened my shoulders, opened my eyes and lifted my chin. I had no choice but to face him. No choice but to hope that someone strolled out here by accident and interrupted us before he had a chance to claim what was owed.

Oh, I wanted him to kiss me all right. I wanted more than anything to know that feeling again. I'd pined for it, for him, the entire time he'd been gone. His ring, hanging from the soft leather cord beneath my dress was testament to that, but I couldn't tell him. I could not let him believe that after all this time, he and I were possible.

Fynn would be horrified, and my father... disapproval aside, he'd never part with the chance of a new ally for the sake of his daughters heart, no matter how much he loved me. It just didn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. I sucked in one last, deep breath and stepped from the safety of the garden bed.