Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Dorchad woke to the wash of an icy wind, which brought the stench of otherworldly power with it.
Something had intruded into his bed chamber, and he sensed it was not of this realm.
He sat up to protect Rebecca with his body, and became astounded to see they lay outside of the stronghold, in the center of a meadow at the other end of the island.
As he looked down, the coverlet bunched around their legs turned dark. Although not sure if he was awake or dreaming, he tried to grab the thing, but it evaporated like smoke through his fingers.
The facking rag toys with us now?
The stink grew more intense, so he scanned the meadow for the cause.
On the far side from where they lay a rift had opened in the soil like a wound, pouring dark power out onto the soft green grass and withering it to gray ash.
All the animals in the forest had gone silent, as if fearing to draw attention to themselves.
“How did we get out here?” Rebecca whispered, huddling close against his back. “What is that?”
“Dark magic.” He pulled the tartan from his shoulders and covered her with it from head to toe. “Stay here and dinnae show yourself.”
Dorchad rose, the grass cool on his bare feet as he strode toward the rift.
He stopped when a fountain of blood red and viscid green light shot up from the tear in the soil, swirling and coalescing into a being twice his height.
As silver and black liquid rolled over the giantess’s flesh to form garments, it covered her enormous breasts and wide hips before forming a skin-tight seal from her neck to her ankles and wrists.
Behind her monstrous things stepped out of the dark power, each heavily armed and dressed in battle armor that matched the giantess’s liquid garment.
The features of the guards’ faces appeared so misshapen and unlike anything of this world that his stomach turned.
They also told them who the towering female was.
She’s the dark Fae queen, come to demand something more from us.
“You,” the queen said, and beckoned to him. “Attend me now.”
Dorchad continued on toward her, stopping a respectful distance and bowing deeply.
He said nothing, for Cath had already warned everyone about her after she’d appeared to the laird.
The wrong word might prompt the evil monarch to set fire to the world before they had a chance to appease her.
He also needed to find out why she had come again to the island.
“Why do you hold your tongue?” she demanded. “Does your fear of me choke you so much?”
The dark blood in his veins had come from the likes of her, and in that moment he wanted to curse her with every vile word he knew.
She and her kind were the reason his màthair had abandoned him and Sgathan.
The queen shared the same sickening blood as Rune, who by abandoning his sons after siring them had left them to die as well.
He might hate himself for all the darkness that had tainted him since birth, and kept him from living as other men did, but at least he’d fought against its poison all his life.
She gloried in her blood and malevolent ways, for she could only be the ruler of all eternal evil.
As red and green sparks erupted in the shadowy power hovering around her, Dorchad said in his mildest tone, “I await your command, my queen.”
“The cluet recently granted another wish. Why did your clan not find and deliver it to me?” As she spoke, she drifted around him, looking all over him as if he were a prized stallion. “Do not remind me that I gave you abominations until the winter solstice to find the wretched thing.”
He wanted to tell her that he’d just had his hands on the wretched cloth, but knew she’d go into another fit of rage and possibly wipe out the clan and everyone else in the highlands along with him and Rebecca. But how could he answer her in such a way that wouldn’t make her so furious?
“You’re wrong, your majesty,” a soft but clear voice said from behind his right shoulder.
Dorchad’s blood turned to ice as Rebecca stepped between them. She had his tartan wrapped around her, but her shoulders, arms and legs remained bare to the immortal’s gaze. She looked at the dark Fae queen in return with a calm countenance, showing no horror at the ghastly sight of her.
“Be silent,” he muttered to her.
“Chieftain Dorchad is not an abomination,” his lover told the immortal, ignoring his order. “He’s a good man.”
The queen looked down her nose at Rebecca. “Such loyalty from a little nothing of a mortal. Brave, too. She came out of hiding for you, half-blood, and now defends you in front of my guards. The yellow-haired one that your laird caught only whispered her counsel to him.”
“Later I shall beat this female for daring to speak to you, my queen,” Dorchad assured her, pulling Rebecca against his side and only just resisting the urge to clamp a hand over her mouth. “Please, tell me how the MacRune may serve you better.”
“One of my hunters sent word that my consort, that thieving Osgan, yet lives.” Her sneering smile peeled back into a hideous grimace of hatred.
“He skulks about in your territory now in disguise. While you dither about looking for my treasure, doubtless he does the same. If my hunter fails to find him, perhaps I shall send my army to search this wretched realm for him.”
“Give the MacRune your leave to hunt the thief,” Dorchad said quickly. “He shall ken much about the cluet, and where ’twas hidden.”
“If you wish, only hurry, for my hunter shall torture him until he confesses,” the queen said, and reached out to touch Rebecca’s shining curls.
“I like the hair on this one, and she smells delicious.” She caught her chin and tipped it up to look at her face.
“Do you wish to live forever in my world, little mortal? All you must do is everything I tell you.”
Dorchad knew the immortal was using some kind of erotic magic, for his cock was so stiff now he could spill at any moment. He ignored his own lust, kissed Rebecca’s temple and murmured, “Refuse.”
“I belong to the chieftain, your majesty. I already do everything he says, and he commanded me to refuse you.” She said it with so much wry affection the queen laughed. “But thank you for the offer.”
The dark Fae monarch came closer, putting her face so close to Rebecca’s their noses almost bumped.
“You’re gifted beyond the scope of most mortals.
” She stroked one of her long fingernails across Rebecca’s bottom lip.
“’Tis never enough to quench the longing, is it?
Even this grim half-breed must labor greatly to appease you.
” She leaned closer and whispered something in her ear before she said to Dorchad, “You possess a fragile treasure here, MacRune. If you ever tire of this realm, summon me and I shall take you and your female back to Elphyne to serve me. I would be very pleased to add you both to my collection.”
Her sensual power swallowed him whole at that moment, and he could envision what eternity serving the immortal would be like for him and Rebecca.
They would drown in the pain and pleasure of surrendering to her, and know bliss so exquisite it would fill them with eternal lust for more.
Nothing he’d known or ever knew would give him so much dark joy.
Nothing he’d experienced had ever horrified him as much.
“Thank you, my queen.” It was all he could do not to shove the immortal back from his woman.
After one last, longing look the queen retreated to the rift in the soil.
As her guards encircled her she looked back at Dorchad, and nodded to him before she dropped into the dark well of power.
Her monstrous guards did the same, and then the ground shook as the ugly gash in the soil closed and vanished.
“I should keep my pledge to her.” When he glanced down he saw how pale Rebecca had grown. “Why didnae you obey me?”
“I thought she was going to hurt you.” She closed her eyes, and tears streaked down her cheeks. “I’m not sorry, either, so go ahead and punish me.”
Dorchad despised weeping females, but Rebecca had just survived an encounter that would have driven most mortals insane. She’d also tried to protect him when she’d thought him in danger, from his own kind, no less.
“Do you ken how close you just came to living in eternal torment as that cursed female’s bed slave? Or how much she would cause you to suffer forever?” he asked her as he held her and rubbed her back. “Never do such again.”
She nodded, pressing her face against his chest.
He let her sob for a time, and when at last she calmed he looked over at the dark silhouette of the stronghold.
He should get her inside, and report to the laird about the encounter.
Yet even as he thought of his duty he gently dried her tears and cradled her against him until she looked up, her expression both grateful and miserable.
“Tell me what the queen murmured to you,” he prompted.
“She said I’d never sleep again, and that I wouldn’t want to.
” Rebecca rubbed at her ear. “Then she told me how she’d have sex with me the first time by binding me to a bed of crystal daggers, with all her kingdom watching us.
She promised my wounds would heal after just a few moments before she hurt me again, and again. For a moment...just a moment...”
“You wanted to go with her, and submit to that nightmare of pleasure,” he guessed, and she nodded slowly. “She used magic to bespell us, so ’twas the same for me. Indeed, I came close to begging her to take us both.”
“Can we go home?” Rebecca asked, shivering.