"You can." He was impressed that she did not insist he take her out of the water.
The longer they stood there, the more rigid she became as terror that was so great it even masked the scent of her excitement overcame her. Something shifted inside him as he saw it happen. He hated to see her afraid and was determined to help her. Even his sexual desire took a secondary role to that determination.
"If you drop me, I'm afraid I'll sink into a dark abyss, that the water will hold me down until all my air is gone, until I die… I… I feel like the lake is bottomless, that I will be lost forever. Promise me, you will not drop me."
He was impressed with her for having the courage to voice her fears. "I have already made this promise."
"Say it again."
"I promise I will not let you sink."
She smiled gratefully, though it was a poor attempt. Her mouth trembled and she had turned the color of parchment. "Thank you."
"The loch is not bottomless either, lass."
"I know, but…"
"I am standing on the bottom now and it does not go over my head for a dozen or more feet out."
"I would like to learn to swim here then."
He kissed her softly on her partially parted lips. "All right, sweeting."
A hot blush stole over her cheeks at the endearment and it was all he could do not to kiss her again. She was so damn precious. And she made him smile. He'd been laird for a decade, ever since his father's death in battle, taking on the responsibilities shortly after his voice changed. He'd learned restraint early. He'd also learned duty was more important than pleasure and he had spent the last ten years proving that.
This slip of a woman made him crave the pleasure. She was dangerous, but she was also irresistible.
She gasped and grabbed onto his shoulders the first time he tried to let her go. He found himself almost forgetting their shared nudity in his quest to help her overcome her terror of the water. It took an hour to get her floating with his hand only lightly touching her back, but he was so proud of her for getting that far that he was grinning when he heard an approaching soldier.
He looked down at her lovely body exposed to his gaze and the summer sun and for the first time in an hour saw her as the soldier approaching might see her. Her breasts, belly and thighs floated above the water, while the rest of her was revealed through its crystal clear depths. He had swum naked with femwolves before, and even had sex with them afterward, but never before had he felt the sense of possessiveness he did toward Emily right now.
She was not his woman, but he did not want anyone else to see her this way. Her berry-ripe nipples were beaded from the cold water, and the golden brown curls on her feminine mound glistened with droplets of moisture. Her thighs were apart just far enough for his hand to slide between them and touch her delicate folds if he wanted to.
His hand itched to do just that, but his senses told him the soldier would be there soon.
He sighed soundlessly and then spoke. "Someone is coming."
She'd been floating with her eyes closed upon his instruction, but now they flew open and she tried to sit up. Because she was in the water, she started to sink instead, of course, and he had to grab her to keep her face from going under.
She spluttered and latched onto his shoulders with urgent fingers. "Where? Who?" She frantically looked around the clearing. "I don't see anyone."
"He will be here in a few seconds."
"I suppose you can hear him," she said sarcastically.
"Yes."
She frowned and shook her head. "It makes no sense and I don't know why, but I believe you."
"I do not lie."
"I need my clothes." When he didn't move fast enough to suit her, she tried to shake him. "Now, before he gets here."
He was in complete agreement, but it still took him a moment to force his muscles to obey the command to leave the water. Now that he wasn't focused on teaching her to swim, his need for her was taking precedence over his common sense. His wolf wanted to touch and taste her delectable naked curves.
"Lachlan!"
The wolf would have to wait along with his wholly human need. Using the speed of his inner beast, he carried her to the shore, and then threw his plaid around her like a blanket. The soldier was approaching at a run and would break through the concealing trees in a few seconds. She grabbed the edges of the plaid, making sure it covered her. It was not a woman's plaid and though he was much bigger than she was, a good portion of her legs was still exposed.
He shoved her shift and tunic at her. "Go over there and dress." He pointed to a dense clump of bushes that would hide her from even a werewolf's gaze, though the man approaching was only human.
Lachlan didn't need to be in wolf form to pick up Ulf's scent at this distance. His senses were superior even in his human body, but not quite as good as when he changed.
Emily had grabbed her clothes and disappeared behind the bushes. "You are going to meet your soldier naked?" she called.
"It is my brother."
His plaid landed on the ground a foot or so from the bushes. "Get dressed."
"A captive does not give a laird orders," he instructed her.
"This one does."
He almost laughed at her impudence. He knew no other woman like her… femwolf or human. He had just picked up the plaid when Ulf came into the clearing.
He was scowling. There was nothing new in that. His brother smiled less frequently than he did, but the look of accusation in his eyes irritated Lachlan. Ulf believed his family position gave him the right to question his laird, and Lachlan often humored him. It was not his brother's fault he had not been born werewolf.
He had pitied his older brother since the year came for Ulf's first change and it did not happen. Their father had been disappointed; their mother had been relieved and Ulf had learned that unlike what he had believed since childhood, he would not one day rule the Balmorals. There had been signs that his brother was fully human all along, but their father had ignored them, insisting his sons were both wolves.
He had been wrong. Only one had carried the ability to change and it had been Lachlan. From the week after his first full moon as a werewolf, he had been trained to take over the clan one day. Ulf had never protested. It would have done no good. A human could not survive a challenge by a werewolf and Lachlan would have challenged Ulf's leadership if he had tried to assert it. For the good of the clan.
His entire life had been lived toward that greater good and he was not about to forget his responsibilities now.
"Where is she?" Ulf demanded by way of greeting.
Lachlan could hear Emily pause in her struggle to tug her clothing on. She'd also stopped breathing, as if waiting to hear how Lachlan answered.
He nodded toward the bushes with his head while he secured his plaid.
Ulf's scowl grew more pronounced. "What is she doing over there? You're wet. You were naked when I arrived. Have you taken to tumbling your enemy's castoffs in the water? I thought you only indulged in that sort of thing with femwolves."
Lachlan knocked his brother to the ground with a hard shove. "Guard your tongue."
Ulf had the grace to look chagrined when he realized what he had said. Emily was no more aware than most of the humans in the Highlands of the wolf nature inhabiting some of their clanspeople. Ulf knew the penalty of betraying the Chrechte's secrets to those who should not know.
Death. And being the laird's brother would not save him.
Lachlan did not know what Emily would do if she knew the pack's secret, but she was human and that meant they did not take the chance.
Then, to cover both Ulf's blunder and his own correction, he said, "She is no one's castoff, as I have told you."
Emily muttered something about arrogant men poking their noses into business that was not theirs and he had no doubts she could hear every word he and his brother spoke.