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if to offer all the more of herself to his questing fingers. He ought to warn her away. Instead, he eased closer.
“What would you need a potion for, Violet?” He smoothed her hair from her face and blew a gentle stream of air along her hairline to cool her.
“I wanted something to make me amenable to the marriage my father hoped to arrange.”
His blood chilled. Everything inside him protested.
“Marriage?” He cupped her chin in his hands and tipped her head to face him. He would kill the bastard who tried to take her away from him now.
He’d touched her. Tasted her. He didn’t realize it until this moment, but she belonged to him. And no contract that her father arranged would change that.
“My father said he would wed me to anyone who would be his champion, anyone who ended the horrible things that are rumored to happen in these woods.”
The tightness in his chest eased. The drunkard father was not a madman after all. The plan made sense, since Violet needed a strong protector. And the assurance of having her legally cleared the way for what Finn wanted from her right now. Right here.
“That’s me,” he reminded her, knowing now that Fate had sent him to her this day. For all that a tragedy had led him to Caladan, he could be grateful that this woman waited for him on the other end of the journey. “I am the champion of Caladan and if there is a fiend lurking in these woods, I will find him.”
His reward would be better than mere vengeance. Violet might not realize it yet, but she was more than ready to give him the sweetest prize of all.
* * *
     
“Tell me more of this potion you used,” Finn demanded as he studied her in the firelight.
Outside, the rain still battered the roof of the old mill while the rising river splashed the foundations. Violet had never brought another living soul to this place. Now she shared it with a man she’d only just met, yet he was a man who knew her all too intimately.
Her heart fluttered fast at the sight of his strong profile in the glow from the small hearth, his stern jaw a decided contrast to the soft fullness of a mouth that had brought her unexpected pleasure.
“I hoped the potion would soften my heart,” she admitted, trusting him more since Morag had encouraged her to look past his warrior ways to the man beneath. The man who had not taken advantage of her in the dark corridor earlier when he could easily have despoiled her. “Instead, it stirred my—” flustered, she gestured helplessly to her body “—desire.”
“Are you still suffering the effects?” The concern in his expression surprised her.
“Morag said the symptoms I described were too intense to be attributed to the herbs.” Shrugging, she wondered if her skin would ever return to normal again. Even the simple act of lifting her shoulder made her breasts brush against the inside of her dress in a way that felt decadent. Sweetly sinful. “I do not understand this heightened sensitivity.”
“She did not suggest an answer?” He tilted his head, regarding her curiously. His thick dark hair brushed his shoulder as he turned and she recalled the lush, silky feel of it in her fingers.
“No. But I left in a rush because of the storm.” She’d wanted to tell Morag about Finn’s arrival more than she wanted to complain about the herbs. But she’d seen the way Morag had reacted to the news of Violet’s suffering. “I don’t think she was surprised, though. She seemed more…amused. Which is unlike her, because normally when she mixes herbs without success she is distressed about it.”
A wolfish grin spread across Finn’s features, his teeth shiny white in the darkness.
“That is because she understood your condition for what it was.” He lifted a lock of her hair from where it lay on her shoulder and twined the dark curl around one finger. “It is a circumstance that every man and woman should be so fortunate to experience once in a lifetime.”
Without the fabric twined about her neck,