She brushed against him again and he abruptly pulled away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He sat there, panting, trying to lash into obedience the wild horses of his control.

"What's wrong?" She touched him tentatively on the shoulder.

He didn't reply. What the hell had happened? He was as out of control as a young boy with his first woman.

"Cameron?" She trailed her hand softly down his spine.

He shuddered and arched beneath her touch. "Don't do that!" There was a short, hurt silence and he added in a quieter voice, "Don't touch me."

"Don't you like it?"

"I like it fine."

"Then why?"

"Because it's stretching my control to its limits, that's why."

"Your control?" There was almost a purr to the way she said it.

"Aye, touch me again and I might not be able to keep my promise to you. And I don't break my word."

"I see."

The only sound in the room then was the crackling of the fire and Cameron's own heavy breathing. He tried to concentrate on pure thoughts, but the scent of her skin, of roses and warm, aroused woman teased his nostrils. Coals shifted in the fireplace and all he could think of was the way she would look clad in nothing but firelight. He gritted his teeth willing his rampant body to obedience.

"What if I want you to?"

His stomach lurched. Did she just say what he thought she'd said?

Her hands moved at his hips, there was the click of buckles and he felt his kilt begin to slide away. He turned around to face her. "What the hell?"

"I ... I've changed my mind." In one movement she pulled her nightgown over her head and knelt there, naked, her heart in her eyes.

With a groan he pulled her to him. He lavished her with kisses, loving every inch of her skin with hands and mouth and body. She was warm satin, fragrant as petals and her hair flowed over her like the silky dark water of the peaty burn.

She shuddered and gasped and pressed herself against him, wrapping her long silky legs around him, plastering him with hot, slightly clumsy kisses that drove him purely wild.

He'd planned to wait, to take it slow and gentle but she was wild and eager and impatient and so greedy for him he couldn't hold himself back.

As he entered her she cried out, arching and shuddered, clutching him with hard little fingers, her thighs trembling and closing around him as her body accepted him deep inside. Welcoming him.

Ancient rhythms pounded through him and he shattered then, and at the spiralling edge of his awareness felt her shattering with him.

Eight.

Cameron woke first in the morning. Usually after a night of love-making he sprang out of bed, raring to meet the day. Now he lay quietly, listening to the soft sound of her breathing, examining the unaccustomed feelings that lay heavy and full in his chest.

He was married. He had a wife. This was how he'd wake every morning for the rest of his life. He felt ... He tasted the feelings floating inside him ... Happy. Humbled. Awed.

Yesterday he'd sworn a mad, rash vow and performed the most reckless act of a somewhat reckless life. It could have been the biggest mistake of his life.

He glanced at the girl curled up against him, her silky chestnut hair spilling over her shoulder, half hiding her face.

Instead she was the biggest gift.

He lay there, breathing her in, the scent of her; roses and woman. His woman, his bride.

Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled sleepily. "Cameron," she breathed, and he couldn't help it, he had to kiss her, and then, well, he couldn't help himself again. He had no self-restraint, and apparently, neither had she.

Afterwards they lay entwined, their breathing slowing, skin to skin, gazing into each other's eyes.

After a while she gave a shivery sigh. "That was the loveliest way to wake up." She stretched and gave him a rueful smile. "I suppose this means the courtship is over."

And she looked at him with that damned look in her eyes that shattered him every time.

Cameron took a deep breath and began, "My love is like a red, red rose that's sweetly sprung in June, my love is like-" He broke off. She had tears in her eyes.

"What is it?" he said. "What's the matter?"

"Rabbie Burns," she whispered. "You're quoting Rabbie Burns to me on my wedding morning." Great crystal tears glittered on her lashes. What the hell had he done wrong?

"You said you liked poetry."

"You said you didn't."

"Aye, well, I promised you a courtship. And you do smell like a rose, and so I thought ..." He swallowed. "They fit. The words I mean. They all fit. All the words." He scanned her face anxiously. Didn't she see what he was trying to tell her?

Her mouth quivered. "Cameron Fraser, I know we've only known each other for a day and a night, and you'll probably think it's foolish of me, and premature, but I think I'm falling in love with you."

She loved him. He wanted to shout it from the battlements. His chest felt full and heavy. He cupped her cheeks with his hands and kissed her. "It's neither foolish nor premature, Jeannie Macleay Fraser, but a proper thing in a bride."

"And you?" She gave him that look and waited. Och he was gone, he was truly gone.

"Perhaps I'll one day come to rue the day I plucked a wee bog sprite from the mud and married her, but I doubt it. Right now I think it's the cleverest thing I've done in all my life."

She tried to frown. "A bog sprite?"

Cameron grinned and kissed her. "Aye but this wee bog sprite smells like a rose." He kissed her again. "My bonnie lass." And again. "My red, red rose." And then because she might not have understood what the poem meant, "My love."

After the Gloaming.

Leah Marie Brown.

Oh! Samhain, that wicked and perilous season has once again come upon us, when the barrier between this world and the orbis alia is dissolved and spirits roam free, wreaking chaos where once there was order; when the evil lurking in the shadowy chambers of men's hearts is exposed, leaving the innocent vulnerable.

Excerpt from Scottish journal.

Scotland, October 31, 1513.

Deidre Monreith clutched the edges of her hooded cloak to keep it from billowing in the wind gusting through the battlement of the crumbling tower and looked out over the vast, wooded domain that would one day belong to the man she loved.

To her right, the Solway Firth glimmered beneath the setting sun, reminding her of the angry, smouldering ashes that glowed many shades of orange in Potter Murray's oven.

And to her left, rising majestically from the centre of a triangular-shaped moat, was Caerlaverock Castle. Constructed of thick, amber-hued sandstone and boasting a double tower gatehouse, it was the most impressive castle in all of the lowlands.

Perhaps in all of Scotland.

For hundreds of years, the wretched, wily English had been crossing the border, pillaging the lowland villages and laying siege to Caerlaverock. Yet still she stood! Rampallions be damned!

Truth be known, the pride that swelled inside her when she looked upon Caerlaverock was a mere trickle when compared to the torrent she felt for the man destined to rule it.

Robert Maxwell, eldest son of John Maxwell, the fourth Lord Maxwell, would one day be master of Caerlaverock and all the Maxwell lands. Brave, handsome, charming and clever, Robert was to be the fifth Lord Maxwell, laird of the Clan Maxwell, commander of the mightiest garrison south of Edinburgh.

For a certainty, 'twas a challenge she knew he'd rise to with little effort. Had he not already proven himself a champion in the lists, effortlessly vanquishing many a battle-tried opponents?

And to his prodigious roll of admirable traits, she would one day add steadfast husband.

For Robert Maxwell loved her Deirdre Monreith, the humble daughter of his father's bailiff.

Robert loved her! And soon he would climb the tower steps, take her in his arms, and whisper the sweet, wooing words that made her heart ache with gladness.

Ravaged by warfare and abandoned to nature, the derelict tower upon which she now stood was all that remained of the first Caerlaverock Castle. A forgotten place, nestled in the woods, it was where they met in secret, beyond the prying eyes of the hall.

The sound of a twig snapping somewhere beyond the tower walls drew her from her reverie and she suddenly realized the sun had set. She peered into the strange blue-black darkness that always followed the gloaming. Everything appeared to be as it should; and yet she could not dispel the pervasive sense of foreboding that had plagued her intermittently throughout the day. The ominous feeling had settled upon her, thick and heavy, like a mantle that could not be shirked.

Had something moved in the distance? Was that a light flickering near the water?

She leaned out over the battlement probing the thick, black forest and salt marshes. She searched for ... something, anything that would disprove her ever-growing fears. But what could possibly be lurking in the darkness? She wasn't a child, after all. She no longer worried about glaistigs. She smirked now as she remembered how terrified she had once been by her da's tales of the nefarious spirit who rode under the cover of darkness, snatching unsuspecting souls from their beds, and carrying them away upon her headless steed.

Just as she was about to turn away, she noticed a dim, red light flickering in the distance.

"Beware the bean shth, lass." She could almost hear her father's voice whispering in her ear. "The female wraith with eyes of blazing red who leaves her otherly-world realm to keen on the doorstep of one about to die."

"God's teeth! Deidre lass, have ye misplaced yer wits?"

She spun around and saw Robert standing near the top of the stairs, his ebony hair gleaming in the moonlight, his muscular arms crossed in front of his broad chest.

"Robert!"

"Come hither and move away from the wall before ye fall to yer death," he snapped, his tone unnaturally cold.

Something about his manner frightened her, increased her mounting sense of doom. She obeyed and quickly stepped away from the crumbling rock wall.

It was his wont to greet her with a pretty word or sonnet so why did he not remark on her beauty or take her in his arms? Something was amiss.

"I am to wed Janet Douglas," he confessed, confirming her suspicions in the worst manner imaginable.

The dagger-sharp pains assailing her heart, robbed her of breath.

"Nay!"

"Aye, 'tis true. We wed in six days time."

He turned, meaning to quit the tower, but she darted in front of him, blocking his path, desperate to retain that which she held so dear if only a moment longer.

"What shall I do?"

He frowned, as if truly perplexed by her query, and his brow knit together.

"Do?"

Tears clouded her vision.

"What shall I do ... without ye?"

"Perchance, ye shall marry a cooper, flesher or swineherd and give him a hut full of squalling brats," he said in a tone devoid of warmth, a sardonic smile marring his handsome face.

"I pray ye stop," she cried, pressing her hands. "This cruel jest wounds me."

"I jest not. I mean to wed Janet Douglas."

"But I love ye!"

"Verily?" He shrugged. "Love is but a festering wound that heals when properly tended."

She stood in mute horror.

For a moment she feared an archer had fired a crossbow, for the pain assailing her heart was surely akin to that of an arrow to the chest. Who was this man standing before her, coldly sneering, as if they had never laughed and shared their dreams? As if he had never happened upon her in the bluebell woods nor secretly left those delicate blossoms upon her windowsill?

Something broke inside her, sending painful shards of light catapulting through her brain. Grief blinded her and muddled her wits. The grief abated, replaced by anger.

Fists clenched, she lunged forward. She meant to strike out at him, to inflict a fraction of the pain he had inflicted upon her, but he grabbed her wrists and shoved her violently from him.