Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Kissing the young red-haired female he’d fished out of the loch emptied all reason from Chieftain Dorchad MacRune’s thoughts.
Indeed, her boldness, the sweet warmth of her lips and fetching fragility of her slender body under his bulk nearly drove him mad.
She tasted like honey, and smelled of warm sunshine.
Why had she asked for such from him? Like this he could ravish or strangle her with ease; surely any other female in her position would have screeched in terror.
Not this lass. As he kissed her, she whimpered into his mouth, and yet parted her thighs to cradle his hips as if they’d already become lovers. The fact that she’d saved him from taking an arrow in the back only added to his lust for her.
As second in command to Lord Tair MacRune, Dorchad had many responsibilities far more important than dealing with intruders.
Keeping control over a clan made up of hundreds of the men fathered by their dark Fae sire, Rune, could be called his most important duty.
He also kept a close eye on all of the clan’s senior men, and stepped in to aide them with their responsibilities when necessary.
Whenever Tair left the stronghold Dorchad ruled in his place until he returned, a burden he hated almost as much as the darkness that constantly tempted him to do otherwise.
He had no business touching this wee butterfly wing of a mortal.
Dorchad ended the kiss to look at her dazed eyes and glowing face.
This close she appeared much younger than he’d reckoned, and for a terrible moment he wondered if she had even come into her womanhood.
Yet when she dragged in a breath her small chebs rubbed against his chest, assuring him she was no young lass.
He wanted to take his dagger to her unfamiliar, mannish garments and cut them apart so he could inspect her body for himself.
“That was amazing,” she said, and touched his mouth with tender fingertips. “Thank you.”
She thanked him, as if he’d given her a boon? Or did she reckon he served her now? Dorchad had no intention of dancing attendance on a female mortal as the laird had with his woman.
“Do you think to tempt me to do more, wench?” he demanded, and then deliberately clamped a hand over one of her little mounds, squeezing in hopes of finally frightening her.
Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t scream. Under his palm her peak hardened, pushing out at the soaked fabric covering it.
“When you touch me like that, I can’t think at all,” she said, breathing the words.
Somehow she’d become entirely besotted with him. Dorchad told himself that it was the shock of falling in the loch that had made her so dottled. Her innocence and beauty made him want to kill whoever had let her wander alone and unprotected.
“Never say such to a man atop you,” he told her, softening his monstrous voice as best he could. “You dinnae ken me or what I desire.”
“That’s an easy fix.” Her lips, slightly swollen now from his ravaging, curved with sweetness. “Tell me what you want.”
Such innocent provocation from her was the kind that no female had ever shown him. Perhaps she had been sheltered all her life, to make such an offer to the worst of the MacRune.
Or she’s half-blind and suffered a blow to the head.
He moved his hand to the wet fire of her hair to check her scalp, which even now was raveling itself into a thick mop of bright red curls.
Her glorious locks also smelled of a summer day, and slid as soft as down between his fingers.
He found no tell-tale lump, and when he looked into her gray eyes, the color of a mountain hare’s fur in summer, they seemed clear enough.
Her wide, curving lips put all manner of unseemly notions in his head, as did the scattering of golden ferntickles across her small nose and high cheekbones.
He imagined kissing each one as he held her down and stripped her.
Would she resist as he stroked his cock in and out of her quim all the night?
She’s no’ yours to fack or torment.
The wench had called herself a doctor, he remembered. Lucia Brooke, the laird’s wife, had used the same word to refer to the clan’s healer, who had of late left the keepe to visit his kin in the islands. Like this one, Lady Lucy had also dropped from the sky.
She’s come from the future, thanks to that cursed rag.
That realization proved as chilling as the loch’s waters, and Dorchad pushed himself off her and pulled her up to stand with him.
He saw no strange fabric on her, although her garments appeared odd compared to the gowns worn by females in this time.
The light green bodice she wore had wrist-length sleeves but no fasteners or lacing, and had been embroidered with gold threads so fine they resembled gilded cobwebbing.
Her brown trews, made from a thicker fabric, seemed like a divided skirt, the fabric of the legs had been left so wide.
On her feet she wore dark brown slippers with gold buckles across the toes.
“Since someone is shooting at us, shouldn’t we find some cover?” Rebecca asked, looking around them.
He suspected the arrow had come from the archers’ range, where the stronghold’s patrols and guards often practiced their skills.
One of the men had likely aimed poorly, or by chance had shot an arrow in the wrong direction.
Because of a weakness he’d possessed since birth, Dorchad became the target of anything in the air that strayed within three ells of him.
The fact that the arrow might have gone through her on its path to him made an unfamiliar guilt weigh on him.
“No, the arrow, ’twas a stray. Never shield me again as you did, unless you wish for death,” he told her, using his chilliest tone, which usually sent females running fast and far away from him.
At last his harshness had some effect on the wench, for her eyes grew shadowed as she twisted free of his grip.
“I don’t want either of us to die, friend,” she said before she walked off into the trees toward the docks.
Friend. She made the picture of wounded dignity, except now and then when her shoes slid on the thick duff covering the ground. Doesnae she see me clearly?
Dorchad dragged a hand through his hair.
While the wench couldn’t easily leave the island, she did know how to swim.
If he didn’t go and stop her she might try to cross the loch.
After but a few moments the frigid waters would steal her heat and cause her to swoon and drown.
That might be the best solution to her intrusion, but he had sworn like the rest of his clan to protect mortals, not stand by and watch them go to their deaths.
’Tisnae her doing.
The pang of sympathy he experienced made him resent her presence even more.
He didn’t need the added responsibility, but there was nothing he could do about her.
Thanks to the cluet, an enchanted cloth that belonged to the dark Fae queen, this Dr. Rebecca McIan had likely been brought to this place and time to fulfill a wish made by a MacRune.
Why the stupit treasure chose to do so, he could not fathom.
He’d wanted to order the clan to avoid even thinking of making a wish, but the laird had not agreed.
“You ken the moment you tell our brothers to do thus a thousand wishes shall come into their heads,” Tair MacRune told him. “Then the lovers they long for shall rain from the clouds.”
For that reason, Dorchad needed to collect the woman before she spoke with anyone else.
Catching up to the red-haired doctor took only a few dozen strides, but as he reached for her she turned and showed him her tear-streaked face.
Instead of quiet dignity she now appeared on the verge of hysterics.
“Please,” she begged, holding out her small palms as if to fend him off. “I’m sorry that I said those things, and behaved the way I did. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I’ve gone a little crazy.”
She’d wept over kissing him? Did she blame herself for his lust?
With his cock still hard and stiff, and his dark Fae blood pounding in his veins, he couldn’t think with any prudence.
At least she had sense enough to finally recognize the threat a man like him could be, he thought as he yanked down a hanging vine and used it to bind her hands.
“What are you doing?” she asked, sounding even more upset.
By the Gods, did her eyes not work? Employing the remaining length as a leash, he pulled her along after him toward the nearest curtain wall gate, expecting her to protest or try to parlay with him along the way.
He would scare her the moment she uttered another word, and assure she never again approached him.
Rebecca said nothing, her fingers clutching at the vine as she staggered along after him.
The gate house guards raised the portcullis, and pretended to stand at attention as Dorchad passed them.
Only their eyes shifted as they stared at the wench, which made him growl.
No one made that mistake at the inner curtain wall gate, and once inside the kitchen gardens he stopped and turned on her.
“Do you ken–” He stopped as Beinn came out of nowhere, his sword brandished as if to attack them. Dorchad swore as he saw her eyes roll up in her head, and lunged forward to catch her as she swooned. “Fack me.”
The guard lowered his blade and looked crestfallen. “Forgive me, Chieftain. Seneschal told me I should frighten any outsiders thus, as my other efforts didnae work so well with Lady Lucy.”
“Stop. Later I shall beat Seneschal to death.” Dorchad swung her up against his chest and carried her into the stronghold, but instead of taking her down to the dungeons he strode through the passage leading to his quarters inside the keepe.
When he lay her on his bed the coverlet seemed to swallow her up.
The scent of her rose to envelope and shame him.
This wee lass belonged to the light. He had no right to cover her in his darkness.