Chapter 12
Silver Water Keep
They rode north down the mountainside, Alina
on Etain and Roark on the rangy roan she’d named Beasty, leading
the other three horses and tossing the men’s boots one at a time
every quarter league or so until they made the northern edge of the
woods where the country opened into rolling hillsides. They doubled
back another half a league, leading the horses in several large
circles, and then they removed the saddles and tack from the men’s
horses, tossed them along the wood’s edge and turned the horses
loose.
From there they turned into the woods and
rode until they came upon a rain-filled stream with a rocky
shoreline. Urging the horses into the water, they backtracked south
to another large area of rocky shore, where they dismounted and
walked the horses out of the water. Remounting, they rode northwest
for Silver Water Keep and rode until noon, when they stopped in a
little glen of beech fern with a rill running through it.
“When's the last time you slept?” Roark asked
Alina as they dismounted and let the horses drink.
“I dozed on and off yesterday night,” she
said, the dark circles under her eyes telling him it had been more
off than on.
“Considering Ned and the lads are likely only
now coming out of their daze enough to start looking for their
boots and mounts, how about we rest here for a while?” He ran a
hand back through his sweaty, grimy hair and rubbed his hands
roughly over his face. “I for one could use a dip in the water and
a bit of sleep.”
She gave him a tired smile. “Sounds
good.”
They staked the horses and stripped.
Bone-tired, sore, and half-starved as he was, Roark’s cock still
rose at the sight of Alina’s lissome limbs and womanly curves. Her
weary gaze fixed on his erection. “Don't worry,” he told her. “I
can wait.”
Alina’s lips curved up. She stepped up to him
and pressed her soft breasts and warm belly against his. “I can’t,”
she whispered roughly.
Roark held her face in his hands, her green
eyes reflecting all the fear and rage and determination he’d felt
while being held captive, and all the relief, longing, and desire
he felt now.
He took her mouth with his, devouring the
salty sweet taste of her like a starving man granted the most
sumptuous of feasts. He ran his hands down the tautly muscled
length of her back and cupped her round buttocks, pressing her
pelvis even closer, rubbing his engorged cock against her soft
curls. He scooped her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist,
her warm flesh nestling his cock. Clinging to him, she lifted
herself up so the tip of his cock barely touched her flesh, and
Roark held her with one arm as he grabbed his cock and held it and
she lowered herself over him, her wet, warm, welcoming sheath
taking him in and closing around him, her intimate muscles rippling
and contracting around his throbbing cock.
He pushed up as she bore down and ground her
pelvis against him in delicious, torturous, flesh-melding,
mind-bending circles. Slowly at first, then faster and faster as he
thrust harder and deeper, again and again. She arched against him,
her fingers gripping his shoulders as he gave one last shuddering
thrust and she threw her head back with a raw, primal moan as her
muscles convulsed around him.
Panting, she met his lust-hazed gaze, her own
heavy-lidded and unfocused. Roark took one of her peaked nipples in
his mouth and her groan reverberated from his mouth to his cock. He
laved one nipple and then the other as their sweat cooled and then
she lowered her mouth to his and kissed him with such need and
desire his cock grew inside of her.
“Ach, Ali girl,” he rumbled as he walked with
her still straddling him to a grassy spot of ground. “I feared I’d
never be stones deep in you again, love.”
She laughed as she lifted herself up and slid
down his belly and legs. “I just found you,” she said as her feet
touched the ground. “I wasn’t about to lose you, to lose this.” She
bumped her pelvis to his. “Not as long I have any say in the
matter.”
“Glad I am to hear it,” he said, kneeling
down on the grass and bringing her with him. He lay on his side,
facing her, and trailed his hand over her shoulder, the dip of her
waist, the swell of her hip, the soft firmness of her buttocks. He
moved his hand over her belly and between her legs. She was as wet
and ready for him as he was hard for her. “Glad I am you chose me,
my lady owl.”
“Glad I am you chose me, sir stag,” she
breathed, her eyes dark with passion. “Though I’m not sure how much
of a choice either of us really had in the choosing.”
“I wouldn’t have had it any other way,” Roark
said, moving his hand over her soft, tender flesh. “No matter what
happens.”
He woke with his nose buried in her nape, his
arm hugging her close and his cock nestled against the soft warmth
of her backside. Glancing around to get his bearings, he shot up.
“Damnation.”
Alina stirred and blinked her sleep-filled
eyes and yawned. “What’s the matter?”
“We’ve gone and slept our way into the
afternoon,” he said, standing and running his hands through his
still grimy hair. “Which means we’ve cut any advantage we’d gained
over Ned and the lads by a good bit.”
Alina sat up and pushed her mane of tangled
hair back from her face, her cheeks still rosy from sleep and their
lovemaking. “Do you think they’ll come after us again? Or consider
themselves lucky we didn’t slit their throats when we had the
chance and call it even?”
“I don’t know.” Roark grabbed his breeches
and pulled them on. “They may consider letting them live reward
enough, but the ten pounds of silver they’d planned on getting for
me alone was likely more than they’d earn in a year of hard labor,
even split three ways.” He donned his tunic. “Let’s hope their
horses wandered away.”
Alina eyed the stream and stood. “So much for
a wash and a rinse.”
She pulled on her breeches and her boots and
walked over to the stream, her top half still unclad, and knelt
down and splashed water over her face and under her arms. When she
stood up, her hair in wild disarray, the gold pearl dangling
between her full breasts, her nipples pebbled and pointing straight
at him, Roark was sorely tempted to take his chances with the men
who may have been coming after them for another romp with the
beautiful, wild creature standing before him, staring at his naked
chest and smiling like a cat about to lap up a bowl of cream.
Roark stepped toward her, a low growl of male
approval rumbling in his chest, when the horses startled, snorting
and dancing on their line. Roark and Alina went still, both of them
eyeing their waist belts and blades where they lay on the ground
several feet away. They let out big sighs of relief when a doe
darted across the stream.
“We’d better get riding,” Roark said. “With
any luck, we should make Silver Water Keep sometime tomorrow
afternoon.”
***
Roark counted four riders approaching from
half a league west, all of them armed. He capped the spyglass and
gave Alina a reassuring nod. “They’ve spotted us,” he told her.
“What do we do now?”
“We stay on the road and continue to ride
toward them.”
It was late afternoon and the sun was in
their faces, not a favorable position for a fight, which Roark was
hoping to avoid. As the four riders neared, he held out his arms to
his sides, palms up and empty, as did Alina. One of the riders
stopped twenty paces from them, notched an arrow to his bow, and
aimed it at Roark’s chest while the other three rode right up to
them, two of them pulling their long swords and flanking Roark and
Alina.
“What are you doing on MacLeod lands?” the
fourth man asked. He was a tall, lanky greybeard with a beaked nose
and eyes, a lacquered vest and arm bands.
“We come to speak with your laird,” Roark
answered. “My name is—”
“Roark MacInnes,” the man said. “We know who
you be.” He jutted his chin toward Alina. “And who she be as
well.”
“If you know of us by the laird Roger
MacKinnon’s men,” Roark said, “then you’re mistaken as to who she
is.”
“How so?”
“That’s for us to tell your laird.”
The greybeard chuffed and the two men
flanking Roark and Alina edged their mounts closer, their swords
still pointed at them. “What makes you think we won’t kill you
right here and save the laird the trouble?”
“If you were going to kill us, we’d already
be dead,” Roark reasoned. “Besides, the reward offered is for us
returned to Roger alive.” He eyed the greybeard and played his
hand. “I don’t think you’d want to be killing the laird’s own
kin.”
“Kin?” The greybeard took a closer look at
Alina, his perusal stopping and holding at her big, emerald green
eyes. “Follow me,” he told them, swinging his mount back north.
The road was bordered on the west by a wide,
fast-moving river, and on the east by woods of oak and pine
covering the hillsides. Roark and Alina rode side by side as they
followed the river northwest for another league where it flowed
into a loch surrounded by verdant fields of farmland newly planted
with spring crops, and low-lying hillsides dotted with sheep,
cattle, and horses.
Several small thatch houses lined the road
where the river met the loch, and four fishing boats were docked at
a wooden pier. They turned northeast for another quarter league and
rode up to a two-story manor house of stone and wood the size of
North Shore Keep and Thorn Bush Keep combined, with a huge
well-kept lawn, a fenced rose garden, and numerous
outbuildings.
They followed the greybeard through a stone
archway onto the keep’s grounds, drawing a crowd as they neared the
manor house. The greybeard pulled his horse up near the main
entrance to the house and dismounted, indicating they should do the
same. Stable hands came running, and Alina held her hands up as
they approached Etain.
“Please, move slowly with her,” she said to
the eager young man reaching for the mare’s reins. “She’s gentle
enough, but skittish with strangers.”
“Will do, Mistress,” the lad said, taking a
step back and eyeing Alina’s breeches. He spoke softly to Etain and