Chapter 2 #3
“ O ch, you’re so handsome.” The smiling, buxom serving wench set down a tankard of ale and boldly sat on Osgan’s thighs. “Shall you stay the night?” She linked her plump arms around his neck. “For I must work but another hour.”
Except for one other patron, the shadowy common room of the village tavern stood empty, so Osgan doubted she’d have more to do than mop up the day’s spills and filth from the long tables.
She had the boldness of a practiced harlot, but the sweetness of her young face gave her an air of entirely undeserved innocence.
She likely charged for her favors, but he knew she would not ask him for coin.
No one ever did after they bedded him.
Osgan pulled his cloak around her before he put his hand on her plump breast, which he skillfully caressed.
Any time he touched someone he’d just met, he enjoyed watching their first reaction.
Her blushing cheeks, quickened breath and squirming arse pleased him.
The thrills would prove the same every time for her, but unfortunately he grew bored quickly.
“If ’tis your wish, my lady,” he told her.
Being addressed as such made the wench giggle madly, and then she began covering his face with kisses.
Only when two more villagers came in and the tavern keep shouted for her to attend them did she climb off and return to her work.
She then gave glowering looks at her master whenever he turned away, and then pouted at Osgan.
“You’re a lucky one, lad,” a silver-bearded man said from the next table, and lifted his goblet in a salute. “Clodagh’s much sought after here.”
Osgan turned to regard the older fellow, whose face appeared nearly as pink as Clodagh’s.
He reached into a pouch on his belt and touched the Fae-charmed stone inside.
When any threat to him drew close, the stone would grow hot, and if death were approaching for him it would burn his fingers.
Since it remained cold, that proved the stranger no threat.
“She’s a sweet lass to offer to look after me.
” He noted the older man’s worn embroidered robe, which somewhat resembled those donned by druid kind in his past life.
“Do you hail from a nearby croft, friend?” The last thing he wanted was to expose his new identity and situation, which had taken him some weeks and great effort to create.
The man smiled as if flattered. “No, lad. I’m but a simple traveler.”
“I’m the same.” With that lie he shifted his stool closer. The moment the man eyed him he covered his thin hand with his own and leaned in closer. “I’m considering a companion other than Clodagh for the night—one more suited to my wonts.”
Clammy fingers curled under his, and then he drew back his hand after the brown gems on the bronze wrist cuff the traveler wore shimmered. That meant he had been warded with a spell shield, but it didn’t seem to keep out Osgan’s tàladh . Would it do the same for him if he stole and wore it?
“By the Gods, your allure, ’tis beyond persuasive,” the robed man said. “What manner of magic do you wield?”
Osgan laughed, drawing the gaze of everyone else in the tavern. “I do naught but live and breathe, as you see.”
With an odd expression the man shook his head as if addled, and then jolted to his feet. “’Tis time I made my way home.”
Osgan watched him place some coins on the table before he hurried out of the tavern.
Perhaps he was a holy man who abstained, or one who had only swived females.
Regardless of his bent, he would now spend several days with a stiff cock and a troubled heart, as did all men who found Osgan fetching before they ran away.
He drank his ale and finished his meal, but when he took out his purse the tavern wench rushed over and begged him to keep his coin.
“I’ve paid for your repast out of my own wages,” Clodagh assured him. “And rented the best room in the inn across the square.” She put an old key on the table and leaned down to whisper, “Warm the bed for me, sweeting.”
He smiled at her as he rose, pocketed the key and made his way out of the tavern, although his smile vanished as soon as he was out of sight.
Some months had passed since Osgan of the Taezali had arisen from a century-long, death-like sleep.
Since awakening he had yet to pay for a meal, a drink or a bed, but that was nothing new.
When he had been a mere mortal he had been able to easily seduce anyone, from the youngest virginal dairy maid to the crotchety old laird who had been swiving her—sometimes both at once.
No one had ever been able to explain it.
As a lad Osgan had simply enjoyed taking pleasure of anyone he’d wanted, but gradually he’d seen that he could use his erotic gift to better his own situation.
Much to the despair of every female in his small village, he’d left and travelled to a large town, where he’d swiftly charmed his way into serving as seneschal to a wealthy merchant with a lonely wife and five unmarried daughters.
By the time he’d left that town he’d bedded everyone in the household, including the merchant himself.
“Fack me, lad,” the rich man had crooned as he watched him suckle his cock. “I must marry you to one of my lassies so I may swive you as much as I please. Only I worry I shall strangle them so I may keep you all for myself.”
Extracting himself from such situations proved much harder than creating them, and Osgan soon learned never to accept such offers or linger with any of his lovers.
He nearly changed his mind when in the islands he encountered a tall, beautiful female with the most luscious body he’d ever beheld.
She would not tell him her name or from where she hailed, but she took him to her bed chamber at the inn and facked him for three days straight, until he’d succumbed to exhaustion, something that had never before happened to him.
Happily she’d also chosen to nurse him back to health.
“You’re a living tàladh , lad,” she’d told him when he’d finally recovered. “Nearly anyone you desire, you may have and enjoy.”
No female had ever done or spoken to him as she had. “How do you ken such of me? Come you from the magic folk?”
“Of a kind,” she’d said, smiling. “I’m but visiting your realm.”
The woman, an immortal creature who called herself light Fae, had told him little about herself, but answered all of his questions about his own strange boon.
He had been born with a gift that the Gods bestowed on a mortal only once in a hundred thousand generations.
Along with giving him a handsome face, thick black hair and a body made for swiving, it had imbued him with such charisma that he would always be irresistible to both women and men.
He could seduce nearly all with a simple smile, touch, or even one swift glance.
“You said nearly anyone. Who then may I no’ lure to me?” Osgan had to ask.
She sighed. “A few, rare mortals cannot be swayed from their devotion to those they give their heart. Their affections possess such depth and strength that your appeal is rendered meaningless to them.”
He grew sulky. “What of your kind, then?”
“I should be immune to your tàladh , but I cannot resist you,” the woman admitted. “I doubt any Fae could. Only you must take care with bedding the Fae. We’re far stronger than mortals, and in the throes we may easily snuff out your fragile life.”
The Fae woman had taught him a great deal over the winter he spent with her. She’d gifted him several enchanted stones which protected him from harm and slowed his aging. Osgan might have stayed with her forever, but one morning he woke to find her and most of her servants gone.
“Our lady has returned to Elphyne, and shallnae return,” the stablemaster told him as he led the woman’s finest mount to Osgan. “She wished you to have this mare. I’ve room at my cottage, if you need shelter and food, maister. ”
Sometimes his ability to charm others at first sight could be quite inconvenient, so he lied to the burly man. “I shall return shortly.”
He never had, choosing instead to search for another immortal Fae he could seduce.
In the years after that he’d travelled and found dozens that had taken him to their beds.
Through those liaisons he had acquired more objects of power to aid him and render his life easier.
In time that had led him to meet the queen of the dark Fae, who had become utterly smitten with him.
She refused to give him anything worthwhile, however, so when Osgan had gone with her to Elphyne he set about discovering what was her greatest treasure.
Satiating the queen’s sadistic desires kept her distracted long enough to allow him to test the cluet, and then steal it. Escaping the Fae otherworld with the treasure had been even more difficult, but thanks to another immortal he’d seduced, he’d managed.
It had been perfect, until he arrived in the mortal realm and discovered the cluet no longer reacted to any wish he’d made.
As soon as the queen discovered Osgan and her treasure gone she had sent her chief assassin after him.
Since the power of the cluet would no longer protect him, Osgan had to think up another way to deal with Rune.
He’d eluded him for a time, changing his appearance and taking refuge with old, powerful lovers who could protect him.
One of them who had dwelled for centuries in Elphyne before fleeing to the mortal realm to escape a vengeful adversary had provided him with the answers to both problems.
“You’re a fool for leaving the otherworld, but it’s good you did not steal the queen’s cluet,” the immortal told him after listening to his carefully crafted lies. “The treasure doesn’t grant wishes to mortals.”
“She permitted me to use it in the otherworld, and it granted my wish for a feast of all the best delicacies from Scotland,” Osgan countered.
“All living beings become immortal while they live in Elphyne,” she said, chuckling. “That’s why I said you’re a fool. Had you stayed, you could have kept using the thing and lived forever.”
Osgan thought quickly. “If I had managed to steal the cluet, and became an immortal here, it would obey me.” When she nodded he said, “Truly, how could any mortal become as eternal as you, my love?”
What she’d told him sent him to the highlands, where he’d buried the treasure in a remote spot before he’d gone north to a very special Fae hollow his lover had described. Once there, Osgan had allowed his presence to be known, which had lured the dark Fae assassin to a meadow near the hollow.
The battle had been brief but ugly, thanks to the assassin’s vicious attack.
Osgan used an object of power to make his badly-wounded body appear dead, and when Rune had limped off he’d crawled into the hollow.
Wedging himself under the roots of a sacred oak tree, Osgan had surrendered himself to the hollow’s curative sleep.
After a hundred years he had awoke completely healed and an immortal, and went to collect his prize.
He winced as he recalled how confident he had been riding back to the spot where he had buried the treasure.
His head had been full of the wishes he would make as soon as he unearthed the cluet.
He would order it first to shield him forever against all attacks from mortal or immortal kind; that would prevent anyone from taking the treasure from him.
After that he would need a fine home in the highlands, perhaps a castle he could fill with beautiful females, fetching males and all the warriors needed to protect them.
Then he would wish for a feast that lasted forever, like the one he’d wished for while in Elphyne.
He could have anything he wanted now, Osgan recalled thinking, and no one could ever harm him again.
A fool’s belief, as it turned out.
As he rode away from the village, Osgan remembered the happy days of his boyhood, before the tàladh had rendered him so irresistible to others.
The Taezali had always been farmers and cattle breeders, uninterested in war or any kind of strife.
The Romans had easily chased them from their lands, forcing them to become nomads.
He never knew who sired him on his timid mother, who died of fever when he was still a baby.
The tribe’s women all raised him after that, doting on him as much as their husbands until he reached manhood, when their affection took on a decidedly carnal tone.
Osgan had always been a content lad, but finding out the pleasure he could give and receive by facking had changed everything for him.
Now as the trees thinned out and the banks of the loch appeared Osgan reined in his mount and stared at the massive silhouette rising from an island in the center of the waters.
The enormous stone stronghold against the darkening sky seemed like a slumbering monster that might awake at any moment.
As it had struck him the first time he’d seen it, the reality of the castle weighed on him like it had been built on his shoulders.
A hundred years ago it had not existed, but now it did—and not atop his body, but sprawled over the heavy, flat-topped rocks in the very center of the land.
The exact same spot where Osgan had buried the cluet one hundred years ago.
He tethered his horse to a tree and walked to the very edge of the water, where he stood and stared at the MacRune walking the flat tops of the two curtain walls surrounding the stronghold.
He’d gone to great lengths to establish a new identity and position for himself, but he would have to continue to be on his guard.
Using others to face the dangers and do the difficult work always worked best for him.
Thanks to his tàladh his lovers always believed his lies and agreed to help him no matter what he asked of them, like the two he had seduced recently.
He needed one more, Osgan thought, who could act as his spy.
He would ensure that this one fell so completely in love with him that they would do anything he commanded, even if it meant risking their own life.
Osgan smiled. The ease with which he seduced men and women made his quest simple. If any or all three of his lovers died in the process, it would be nothing for him to simply acquire more.