Hidden Jewel (Heartfire Series) by Jennifer Strong Page A

same revealing cut and style as the one she had so nonchalantly removed a moment before; the clean kilt cinched low on her hips was the brightly colored tartan of the Mackintosh clan. Her eyes glittered with an odd mixture of beguiling sadness and knowing innocence, underlaid, much to his surprise, with curious expectation. That look was too familiar. It  her! he thought, staring. My dream girl .
    And what a complete changeover. Before, he had thought, had had a very real impression, in fact, that she looked as if she'd recently been in battle. The blue tint to her skin reminiscent of the ancient Highlanders, bodies painted with woad, screaming like Ban-Sithiche in the Gaelic as they charged all-out across barren moorland. All too easily he imagined her amongst them, sword drawn, a fierceness in her strange, iridescent blue eyes. She certainly looked strong enough. The image his colorful mind had dredged up had been so stunningly real... and now... Oh! now she looked as if she should be swathed in velvet robes and silken gowns, a crown of silver and gold set upon that fiery head. Such beautiful perfection!
    He stared into her lovely, expressive eyes, fought the sudden compulsion to show himself when she seemed to stare back as if he were in full view.
    She knew he was there, oh yes; had known the entire time. He thrummed with a vibrancy of life that matched her own; she had sensed the quicker rush of his life force within the slowly aging forest the moment her mare had turned onto the path leading up the south-face of the mountain, had been aware as he followed with the silent stealth of an accomplished hunter, watched her with the intense curiosity of a stranger who believes himself cloaked into invisibility by shadows. Without doubt, she knew this was one of the two she had come for; a stranger in this age of ruin and renewal; a ghost of her past. A true and perfect match for herself, one of three. She sighed softly, willed herself not to acknowledge his unwanted presence.
    The hidden stranger’s immediate, almost volatile, reaction to her nudity overwhelmed her. She felt his response deeply, the intensity of his desire struck her with a force that made the blood sing in her ears, her head swim with vertigo; when his release came on an aching need washed over her, tingling in her breasts, her womb, leaving an unaccustomed slickness in its wake as the feelings he evoked slowly dissipated. Fighting off an urgent desire to run across the stream and confront him, this lad who had caused such strong feelings to resurface after long months of carefully burying anything resembling need, Ailill quickly covered her nudity and stared hard across the water, willing the stranger to show himself, to acknowledge her presence with an introduction; with an exchange of names, a wave, a nod, anything. So that she would not have to. Instead he remained hidden from her imploring eyes, stubbornly unmoving in his discomfiture. Even when James raced into the clearing, impatient to be reunited with his daughter at long last, he stayed carefully out of sight. Heading out of the wood beside her father with a noticeable reluctance, she glanced back frequently for a glimpse of the visitor until the tree line curved away, taking her, as well as the possibility of seeing him, out of sight.
    When she was gone Micah stood up, legs trembling from crouching so long, his limbs weak with the ferocity of his sudden release- it had been a shock, as if his own mind and body had been controlled by some unseen force. Casting one last look of longing at the spot where the fiery beauty had stood, exquisitely nude, he shuddered and quickly made his way to the village below, impatient to search out his twin and share what he had seen. His desire to meet the girl was great; strong enough to overcome the initial embarrassment he felt over spying on her. As his mind replayed the scene over and over his face burned with shame. He felt that he had violated her somehow,