Redeemed (Heroes of the Highlands) (The MacKays #2) by Kerrigan Byrne

you.”
    Too exasperated to sit anymore, he stood in one fluid move. “Trust me, I havena forgotten,” he insisted. “But I doona believe that magic is mystical. Just a greater understanding of what we doona yet know. No magic is absolute and no magical creature indestructible. The laws of the Universe tend to balance such things.”
    She shrugged. “If you say so.”
    “Argh!” He threw his hands up and stormed away from her, angling south across the moor. She was so damned adorable. So sweet and wounded and… “What are ye doing here anyway, besides being an insufferable Harpy?”
    “Not Harpy,” she corrected, keeping perfect pace with him. “Banshee. And I’m here to apologize for last night.”
    He snapped his head to look at her. “What the bloody hell do ye have to be sorry for?”
    “What I said—what we did— upset you.” She offered him a conciliatory smile. “And I regret it, because everything before that was…” She delicately cleared her throat and looked away from him, her cheeks tinged with that becoming heat.
    “Aye, that it was,” he agreed gently. Because the lass was absolutely correct, whatever it had been defied words. The most erotic experience of his life. And he’d not even been an active part of it. How was it possible? And he’d acted like a fool. He’d tainted the experience with his own weakness. “It is I who was wrong,” he admitted. “Which is rare.” The addendum eased the peculiarity of the admission.
    Her melodious laugh was a delicate explosion of delight. It rippled across the sky as remarkable as the northern lights. All the moisture in Daroch’s mouth dried and bloomed in his palms, which he rubbed on his trews.
    “It did help, you know.” They skirted a marsh pond and still angled south, the only sounds other than their voices were Daroch’s heavy boots on the soft earth. “It was… I felt… Anyway, I understand more now about lovemaking versus violence. Pleasure versus pain. I know myself better, if that makes any sense.”
    A tight sound vibrated in his throat. “I hate that ye ever… that it’s ever been anything other than pleasure for ye.”
    She was silent a long while. So long that Daroch could hear the cogs turning behind her ears. “I get the sense that perhaps it has not always been pleasure for you either.”
    He refused to discuss it. “Aye, well, not everyone’s senses can be acute.”
    “Stop implying I’m stupid every time I’m right about something you don’t want me to know,” she snapped. “It’s a loathsome tendency and it reveals more than it protects.”
    Daroch gaped at her. Christ, she was too perceptive sometimes. He preferred to be surrounded by idiots. They were easier to fool, to intimidate, and to control. “Ye’re right… Forgive me.”
    She smiled and he was instantaneously gifted with the return of her good humor, “That’s twice in one night.” Her elbow passed through him with a few ghostly nudges. “One for the history books, is it not?”
    His lips trembled with a poorly repressed smile. “Most definitely.”
    “So you’ve never…” she pressed.
    “Never… what?”
    “Never—you know.” She waved a hand a looked away, he blush intensifying.
    “I doona know,” he smirked. “I’m a Druid, I’m no mind reader.”
    “Oh for heaven’s sake,” she elbowed at him again. “What we did! What I did.” Her hands flew to her face to cover glowing cheeks. “I don’t even know what to call it. But in all your centuries, you’ve never… done that?”
    Daroch chuffed. “Exactly the opposite, I spent a great deal of my tender years perfecting the art.”
    Her hands dropped to her sides. “On women?”
    The sharp note in her voice didn’t escape his notice. Daroch took one look at her stricken expression and a laugh burst from him. Slowly at first, as though remembering how to abide, then with more vigor. “On myself,” he managed between spasms of amusement. He put a hand on his ribs as