Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Kiamh watched from the shadows as a cloaked and veiled female entered the shepherd’s shelter.
Slipping out of the MacAlen stronghold had been difficult at first, but now he’d become an expert at the best times to avoid much notice.
Fifer still believed he kept to his chamber while recovering from his fall and the imaginary wounds it had inflicted, and a little dark magic had allowed him to slip in and out of the gates with others while appearing as their shadows.
Today he had to take vengeance, and then use it to further his schemes.
According to the gossip he’d collected, Malvina Duff had been meeting her lovers there for months since coming to the highlands with the new magistrate.
Sometimes she had entertained two or three swains at once, but then she’d suddenly and mysteriously lost her insatiable appetite for facking.
Most believed her husband had something to do with that, but he knew better.
Since learning why she’d stopped spreading her legs for every man who wished use her he’d become entirely disgusted.
Did she truly believe her unchecked hooring would have no consequences?
He walked to the back of the shelter, standing beside the open window that gave him a complete view of the interior.
Malvina had already shed her cloak and veil, and had spread the former over some old fleeces she’d mounded on the dirt floor.
The stink of animals seemed not to bother her as she unlaced her bodice, removing it and her skirts to reveal the thin shift she’d worn beneath the costly gown.
The back of the undergarment showed the skin of her back, now made smooth again.
Doubtless her greedy quim would match the flawless flesh.
Thanks to the Fae magic she had used to heal herself, she would never again have to worry about catching inconvenient and unsightly diseases, or bearing bairns for that matter.
His hands fisted at his sides as he thought of the suffering she had caused with her licentious ways and unquenchable hungers. She doesnae deserve to live on and fack as she pleases.
The man who came in a moment later remained cloaked as he seized and forced her onto her hands and knees.
Clamping a hand over her mouth, he muffled her screeches as he unfastened his trews and produced an obscenely large tadger, which he stuffed into her as she struggled under him.
His hood fell to one side, revealing his long white hair.
Kiamh knew of only one man in the vicinity with such unusual locks.
Lomond, the MacAlen’s seneschal.
Kiamh watched as Lomond violated Malvina, who seemed to be enjoying it toward the end.
He grunted as he ejaculated into her, and then drew out and carelessly wiped his member on the back of her skirts before straightening and lacing his trews.
She collapsed, curled up on her side and sobbed soundlessly into her hands.
“You neednae feign such with me,” the seneschal told her. “As I told you before, I’m happy to play your attacker when you wish. You’ve but to summon me by dove.”
She wiped her face and sat up, holding her torn shift to her breasts. “Truly? I’ve been so lonely these past months.”
“I shall assure you never wish again to be ravished. Fair day, my lady.” Lomond patted her on top of the head before he left.
Kiamh watched as she lay on her back and absently rubbed her chebs with her hands. The fat tears creeping down her face slid faster due to the violent tremors of her delight. That, more than anything else she had done, utterly revolted him.
’Tis the last fool she shall ever swive.
When he came into the shelter Malvina looked up at him with eyes still dazed with her bliss.
“Did my lover send you back to take care of me?” she asked, yawning. “I’ve never lain with a druid lad.”
She sounded drunk, Kiamh thought as he kicked her in the head, knocking her out.
He picked up her clothes and then used the cloak under her to drag her out of the shelter and through the forest. Deadfall and dirt collected on her, as if in mute testimony to the fact that she would never again be clean.
He stopped finally at an old root cellar overgrown by brush, which he’d cleared out for this very purpose.
Hauling her inside the dark, musty underground chamber, he dropped her in the center and then lit the lamp he’d left on a high shelf.
When Malvina stirred a short time later Kiamh knelt down beside her. She didn’t realize she had been gagged and staked out for several moments, and then she stared at him with lust in her eyes. Even after he’d attacked her and abducted her, she reckoned it all a game for her pleasure.
“’Tis all you ever desire, I reckon.” Kiamh gently stroked the hair back from her wet, dirty face.
She smelled of twinflowers and Lomond, and the hem of her shift had risen to reveal her legs sprawled open and the insides of her thighs covered with the remnants of her lover’s seed.
“Only these days I’ve no desire for females. Diseased hoors, even less.”
Dawning fear erased her desirous expression, and then she tried with frantic jerks to free herself.
“You cannae escape,” he promised her as he pulled down her gag. “Tell me, why dinnae you ever tire of spreading your legs for any bastart with a stiff rod?”
“Why dinnae you?” Malvina shot back. “I ken you, druid. You’re the one Fifer MacAlen swives like a wench.”
He chuckled, for she had no idea who he was. “No’ yet, but soon.”
“He shall tire of you, and give you to his garrison,” the magistrate’s wife predicted. “Then your holes shall be stuffed every hour of the night, for the MacAlen warriors like skinny eejits like you. Free me, and I shall take you into my household–”
“Liar,” he murmured as he gripped her throat to silence her. “I should cut out your tongue.”
Malvina’s face darkened as she shook her head and tried to breathe, producing a strangled, wheezing sound. At the same time her body trembled as if in anticipation of yet another ravishment.
He would release her from this terrible life of hers.
“Death, ’twill be kinder,” Kiamh promised, brushing the fingers of his other, gloved hand over her gaping mouth. “No woman should live as you do. And you ken how to write, aye? Even if I cut out your tongue before I freed you, doubtless you would expose me to my enemies.”
She tried to speak, but the lethal balm he’d rubbed on her lips blackened them, and then sank into her flesh and spread through the veins across her face.
It leeched the color from her skin as it raced through her body, destroying everything inside her until she was simply a shell of herself.
Kiamh sat back on his haunches, watching the poison snuff out the last flicker of her life.
His hands shook oddly as he placed around her the objects he’d brought to be discovered along with her remains.
“When they find you, they shall assume you murdered by our enemy.” He stood and looked over his work, swallowing bile as he did. Why should her richly deserved death trouble him? “Farewell, hoor.”
Kiamh left the root cellar. He’d done her a service, killing her, even if it had made his stomach turn. He then stripped and walked into the freezing waters, submerging himself so he could rid his own body of the stink of her.
I’m no’ like her. I fack for love.
When he surfaced he sensed someone watching him, but saw no sign of any clansman, vassal or villager on the shoreline.
The shadows of the forest concealed everything.
The danger mattered little to him, for he could do much worse than he’d done to Malvina.
Indeed, if someone tried to expose him, he could drive them mad with a few words.
Soon the laird shall be mine, and then, the world.
Sgathan watched from his vantage point in the canopy as on the other side of the loch Kiamh waded up onto shore and dressed in his garments.
Seeing the moonlight on the druid’s pale, thin body made him imagine him dead and floating in the loch.
It would prove simple to snap the mortal’s neck and leave his body in the water.
For a time he let himself dream of indulging in such an act.
He had never yet slain a mortal, but all his instincts told him that Kiamh was a threat to the MacRune.
Sgathan couldn’t kill the druid because of the oath he’d sworn along with his clan to protect mortals. He also no longer trusted his instincts, particularly at this time.
He glanced up at the wide grin of the half-moon before he dropped down and walked deeper into the woods surrounding Gealladh until he reached a small clearing.
During the day his duties kept him busy enough to ignore Dorchad and his dalliance with Rebecca McIan, but at night the empty hours gave him too much time to brood.
He had considered taking the healer away from the island and placing her with a trusted mortal family that would arrange a suitable marriage for her.
That likely wouldn’t end well for a woman from a time when she had been permitted to make all her own decisions.
Convincing his twin that becoming entangled with a mortal would end in tragedy could not be done without revealing why, which he’d kept from Dorchad all their lives.
Knowing he was a coward for keeping that terrible truth a secret didn’t make it any easier a burden to carry.
“Cannae you sleep, Brother?” a mellow voice asked from the shadows.
Sgathan turned to see Lochran emerge from the trees surrounding the meadow, his dark eyes reflecting the faint silvery moonlight. “No more than you, I reckon.”
The Night Watch chief chuckled. “Day, ’tis my night. You saw that druid in the loch?” When he nodded his easy grin flattened. “He didnae wear the sling that Healer McIan fashioned for him tonight, yet he does when he comes to her.”
“Even with the sling he doesnae move like a mortal hurt,” Sgathan said. “I reckon he only puts on a show for her when she’s inspecting the injury.”