The old woman shook her head. “There are things I have not told you, m’lady,” she said, “about your birth.”
“I’ve heard the story—”
A bony hand reached out and covered hers. “Then you know that Eaton was not your father.”
Sorcha blinked hard. “Nay—”
“ ’Tis true. That is why the prophecy was fulfilled. You have the blood of the great Llywelyn running through your veins—”
“No!”
“Would it be so bad?” Isolde asked.
“Father—”
“Eaton loved you. As his own. He never knew. But were it not for your heritage, this”—she lifted Sorcha’s thick hair and touched the back of her neck—“would have meant naught. You’re a true daughter of Llywelyn, and as such, you were destined to save Prydd.”
“Is that what I did?” Sorcha asked.
“Aye.”
’Twas true, Leah would now be the Lady of the castle while Sorcha stayed here, at Erbyn, to marry Hagan. Leah would wait for Bjorn, hoping that he would someday find the truth to his own birth. Tadd’s reign of cruelty had been short-lived.
“Come now, ’tis time,” Isolde insisted as she tucked a wayward strand of Sorcha’s hair behind her ear.
Sorcha gathered her gown and walked through the corridors of the castle she’d called home. Hagan was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. He still walked stiffly; his wounds had healed but still pained him. But as he gazed up at her, he smiled.
Her throat filled, and tears threatened her eyes as she hurried to him and he wrapped his arms around her.
The priest cleared his throat, but Hagan ignored him and pressed his anxious lips to those of his bride. The ceremony be damned, right now all he wanted to do was embrace the woman who had been
his tormentor, his prisoner, his lover, and, at the very last, his savior.
“Come,” Father Thomas said.
“You are sure of this?” Hagan asked.
“Oh, yeah, m’lord,” she replied with a saucy smile. She brought his hand to her flat stomach. “Think you not that your child deserves a name?”
His intake of breath was swift. “My child?”
“Aye,” she whispered, laughing as she tossed her wild hair off her shoulders. “Born during a tempest, with hair the color of a raven’s wing …”
“Come, we have no time for this now,” he growled into her ear. “And if I remember, we still have a bargain that you’ve not yet paid.”
“A bargain?”
“Struck long ago,” he said with a wicked grin. “Now, priest, make haste. ’Tis time for this one to become the Lady of Erbyn as well as the savior of Prydd.”