MacAlister's Hope by Laurin Wittig Page B

around his waist.
    “We almost lost her,” she said quietly against his chest. “We would have lost her and the bairns but for Mairi…she’s so strong in her gift already. She had no fear, no concern that she might fail, as both Elena and I struggled with. She kept her mother strong enough to birth the bairns as if she had been using her gift for a lifetime.”
    “And the bairns? We heard them cry.”
    “I thought we had lost them, too. The laddie came round quickly but the lass…” She looked up at him, a grin on her face that he had not expected. “I used the Winter Stone, Kieron. I found a way to help her breathe because of it.” She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him, shyly at first, then more sure of herself. “Thank you,” she said at last, stepping far enough away to pull the pouch with the stone from her belt. She held it out to him. “Without it, I dinna ken if she would have lived.”
    “Keep it, love,” he said. “I think auld Beira would agree that it is in better hands with you than with me.”
    “But you use it all the time,” she said, still holding it between them.
    “I use it for minor things, things I should be able to ascertain without it. You use it to heal. ’Tis far more important.”
    She let her hand drop. “’Tis too bad we cannot simply share it.”
    Kieron pulled her back into his arms, remembering that Beira had told him the stone would bring him to his destiny. He was certain the stone had worked its magic. He was certain he held his destiny in his arms. If he had to wait to make her his wife, he would do so, for as long as necessary. She would be his, as he would always be hers.
    The door opened once more and Mairi stood there, looking less an uncertain girl and more a self-assured young woman than she had when he had seen her a sennight ago.
    “Mum would see you both,” she said with an enigmatic smile.
    “Me?” Kieron asked. “I do not need to impose…”
    “Both of you,” Symon called from where he sat on the bed cradling a bairn in each arm.
     

     
    Fia took Kieron’s hand and together they joined the family at the bed. “Someone should send for Stineag and Ailish,” Fia said, noting the absence of Symon and Elena’s younger girls. “They shall want to meet their new brother and sister, too.”
    “Aye. Mairi,” Elena said, “will you fetch your sisters? Fia can keep watch over me and the bairns while you are away.”
    Mairi didn’t look terribly happy to be sent away, but her good nature won out. She kissed her mum on the head, then ran a finger over the cheeks of her new siblings, and left the chamber.
    “She is stronger, both in her gift and in her temperament, than I realized,” Elena said. “She says she felt no pain as she helped strengthen me and the bairns. I daresay she is ready to work with me, when I am recovered.” She slanted a look at Fia. “Do you not agree, sprite?”
    “I have said so for some time now, so aye, I do agree.”
    A look passed between Elena and Symon that Fia recognized. The two were up to something.
    “I understand Annis was less than useful to you while you were amongst the MacAlisters.”
    Fia blanched and looked at Kieron. “You told Symon?”
    “Aye, and he has already banished her to her chamber, awaiting her punishment.”
    “But,” Fia said. “But…”
    “She did accuse you and Kieron of certain things,” Symon said.
    In spite of her years trailing after her chief and his wife, Fia found the look on his face unreadable. She could not tell if he was angry at her behavior, or simply disappointed. Either way, she was embarrassed and could only look at her feet.
    Elena patted the bed next to her, and Fia sat there, unable to look Elena in the eye, either.
    “I can think of several fitting punishments,” Elena said.
    “Do not punish Kieron,” Fia said, now pleading with both of them. “It was not his fault.”
    “I was not speaking of you, nor Kieron.” She gave her husband a soft smile Fia knew