by Hazel Hunter
Domnall scowled at him, but his tracker wasn’t making a poor jest. “Aye, and when the Sluath find her? How shall those old crones or a mortal mate protect her?”
“As well as their kind may. ’Tis what Jenna is.” Mael hung her saddle over a low oak bough. “You may long for what cannae be all you wish, but she’s no’ Mag Raith.”
“No’ Mag Raith?” Domnall demanded as fury flooded into his chest. He grabbed Mael’s tunic and slammed him back against the weathered trunk, making the tree shake to its crown. “She wears my ink on her back.”
“That doesnae make her yours, or give you the right to look at Edane as if you’d gut him for a gift of cloudberries.” The tracker glanced down at his chieftain’s fist. “If you cannae reckon it, next you should beat me into the dirt until I stain it red. ’Twas how my sire settled such matters with me, and my sisters, even before they could walk. Aye, and his mate, who never spoke above a whisper to him, and only then to beg him stop hurting her and her bairns.” Mael met his gaze. “Well?”
Domnall released his grip on him, and looked up at the clear sky. “I’ve no excuse for what I’ve said and done. Forgive me.” He held out his arm.
“Always, Chieftain.” The tracker clasped forearms with him before he straightened his wrinkled tunic. “You’d do better to attend to it now, else your temper boils over in truth.”
“Attend to what?” he asked.
The tracker slapped his shoulder. “’Twill come to you.”
They finished untacking the mounts together, and Domnall walked back to the camp with him. Mael hailed Broden, and went off with him to check his snares. Kiaran knelt by a sapling, using it as an anchor to braid leather strips into new jesses for his kestrels. Edane had opened the sacks they’d traded for, his fingers nimbly sorting through the greens.
Jenna sat cross-legged by the fire, but rose as soon as she saw him. “Everything all right?”
Then it came clear to Domnall what Mael had meant.
“Come, lass.” He went to her, and took her hand in his. “We must speak.”
“Something wrong?” Jenna asked as Domnall led her around the remains of the castle’s outer wall. She glanced back, but none of the others were following them. “What did I do?”
“Naught.” He sounded almost detached, but his grip tightened as he led her through a gap in the wall and into a passage.
They had to go around a huge tree growing between the two stone walls. Domnall swept aside a curtain of flowery vines, revealing a curving stone arch into another passage.
“’Tis yet here.”
Jenna followed him through the arch into a larger chamber lined with huge stone bins. Ferns sprang from the floor debris, carpeting the big room in feathery green fronds. Rotting timbers lay askew from where they had fallen, probably from the original ceiling. Above them innumerable vines had engulfed the few remaining beams, and now dangled long creepers in search of new anchors.
Domnall looked at everything, but his gaze kept straying back to a dirt-glutted stairwell at the far end of the chamber. He frowned at it as if it meant something.
“Is this where you and the others took shelter?” she asked, wondering if that was why he’d brought her here.
“Aye.” Absently he rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “’Twere no stairs, but a roof of ash beams and willow boughs. We found grain left to rot in the bins.” He met her gaze. “Taking refuge at Dun Chaill, ’tis the last any of us remember of that night. I never wished you to ken how long ’tis been since we first came here.”
Jenna knew he was trying somehow to protect her from something awful, but not knowing scared her more. “Please, just tell me.”
Domnall released her hand. “’Tis been a thousand and three hundred years.”
The air between them seemed to solidify into a thin glass, poised to shatter any moment, and all she could think at first was: This is why they never talk about time.
Reacting should have been simple for Jenna. She might have laughed at him for making such a ridiculous claim, but he wasn’t joking. She’d walked through walls and waterfalls. She’d watched beautiful, evil creatures flying down out of the sky to grab her. After all that she’d seen since waking up in the ash grove, believing him was easy, and yet she felt paralyzed. So Domnall and his hunters had been alive for more than thirteen centuries. They looked like men, but they couldn’t be human.
Like the Sluath.
“You’re saying that you and the others are…”
“Immortal,” he said softly.
A soft rush filled Jenna’s ears, and her head began to spin. “How?”
“I wish I could tell you. We reckon ’twas done to us in the time we cannae remember.” Domnall stretched out his hand. “Dinnae fear me, lass.”
“I don’t know you.” She took a step back, and then another. “Any of you.” She turned and ran.
“Jenna, wait,” he called after her.
Vines lashed her face as she fled deeper into the ruins, careening into the edges of crumbling stone and stumbling over thick roots concealed by the ferns. She knew Domnall was coming after her, she could hear his heavier steps thudding in her wake.
Jenna staggered into a hall that ended abruptly in three moss-covered walls. When she whirled around Domnall blocked her only way out. He stopped there, his hands at his sides, his expression so severe he looked like a stranger. She backed up until her shoulders struck stone, and braced herself.
“We didnae choose any of it,” he told her, his voice low and rough. “We took shelter here as mortal men, and awoke a hundred years later remade as we’re now, our memories of it gone. We dinnae age or sicken. Our wounds never fester but heal swiftly, no matter how grave. Our skills became beyond more than what ordinary men may do, and yet we lost all desire for the hunt. To kill for sport or pleasure, ’tis what became detestable to us. The Mag Raith arenae Sluath, but we shall never again live as mortals.”
Domnall’s face wasn’t angry. Though his fevered eyes glistened and his mouth twisted, it was in anguish. Jenna saw it clearly even as tears began slipping down her own face.
“Why did you keep this from me?”
“I’ve been selfish, to leave you unaware. So that I might be just a man with you.” His fierce gaze remained locked with hers. “I want all from you, luaidh. I’d give you what I’m able. Yet I cannae sire a child, nor grow old with you. I’m no’ a man. You must choose to stay or leave me.”
Domnall stepped aside, creating enough of a space for her to pass.
Pressing her hands against the wall behind her, Jenna tried to push herself away from the stone. Instead the rough surface shifted under her fingers, and a scraping sound grated in the air as the wall began to move.
Chapter Twenty-One
Smoke from greasy tallow candles made the air inside the mortal tavern murky and thick. The acrid stink of spoiled ale made a lower, noxious cloud as it rose from the spillage muddying the floor. A man growled, a maid squealed, and laughter belched through ceaseless mutterings of the gathered men. Behind a long table the big-bellied proprietor filled mugs as he listened to a red-faced drover.
As a druid would never frequent the sort of place where one found brutes for hire, so Galan had altered his appearance. Adding to his body ward the illusion of a hardened mortal mercenary had drained him, but he would attend to acquiring more power later. For now, he had but to find the Mag Raith, and all he’d ever desired would be his again.
“Fair evening, Marster.” A buxom female in a half-unlaced bodice and bedraggled skirts stepped into his path, her ample breasts straining to pop free with every breath she took. “Fetch you a bottle? We’ve the grandest whisky in the highlands.”
“No.” Galan tried to shrug off the hand she’d put on his arm, but she crimped her dirty fingers into his sleeve, determined to hold onto him. “I’ve business here, wench. Release me.”
“Aye, Marster, but we’re no’ a facking kirk.” Beneath the lank strands of her soot-blac
kened hair the tavern maid’s eyes glittered with bright malice. “You come here, you drink, or my husband shall toss you out on your arse.” She nodded at the fat man filling the mugs. “Ale, then?”
He stepped to one side to avoid two men who had risen to shove and shout at each other. “Bring it to the back.”
Galan slipped past the brawlers to enter the adjoining room, always occupied by the tavern’s less savory patrons. There he encountered a dozen men drinking and talking around the largest trestle table. He scanned their scarred faces, filthy garments and many weapons, reassured that these mortals would serve his purposes.
The tavern maid appeared and pushed a sloshing mug of cloudy ale at him. When he took it, her hand remained out. “Two groats for the drink.”
Fortunately, he’d traded a nugget of Prince Iolar’s gold for a sack of silver coins, and dropped two into her palm. When she kept her hand open, he realized she wanted more.
“Cannae you count?” he sneered.
“Two for the ale.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Another for drinking in the back.”
Galan slapped the third coin in her hand, watched her bob and scurry off to the front of the tavern. She handed his coins over to the fat man, said something, and they laughed together, setting Galan’s teeth on edge. The sooner he concluded his business, the sooner he could leave the swill hall.
He turned his attention to the men, and he waited for an invitation to join them at their table. When none offered him a seat, he took out and tossed a large chunk of gold onto the table.
The sight silenced the mercenaries. Galan drew inspiration from the tavern wench.
“Two of the same for every man who rides with me.”
No one touched the gold, but an iron-haired man stood up. The scars on his face and the mashed ruin of his nose attested to a lifetime of courting violence. Beneath his blade harness his tunic bore old rusty stains in streaks—blood spatter that he’d never bothered to wash out.
“Aye, but you’ll want more than company,” the mercenary said, his voice as flat as his eyes. “’Tisnae so?”
“I seek five rogues who stole my horses.” He moved to the end of the table so they could all look upon him. “Villagers and crofters along their path shall have seen them. Mayhap even provided sanctuary for them. I’ll want them persuaded to tell me what they ken, whether they wish to or no’.”
“Ah. You’ll want them coaxed to spill their gullets.” The man’s lifeless gaze shifted around the table. “What say you, lads? Crave you a romp with herders and farmers?”
The men slammed their mugs on the table and roared their “ayes.”
Galan picked up the gold and placed it in the hand of the mercenaries’ leader. “I’ll come for you at dawn. Have them ready to ride.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jenna jerked around to see the center of the stone wall swinging into a dark space, from which came the rushing sound of cascading water. She could see stone steps leading down into a chamber below floor level. Cool mist rose to drift around her, and she ran her hand along the seam of the stones as they grew damp.
“Incredible,” she murmured, and looked up to see Domnall beside her. “Could it be a sluice or drain pipe?”
“I dinnae ken.” He crouched low to peer down inside the space, and used a heavy stone to wedge the door open. “’Tis light beyond the steps, but more I cannae make out from here.”
She knew he was looking at her because he was waiting for her to say something else. He wanted her to tell him that she’d go, or stay, or simply couldn’t handle what he’d become—what he was. Yet what had happened to him and the Mag Raith was no more their fault than what had been done to her. He’d accepted her as she was, with no knowledge of her life or her past. He’d left behind all he’d had for her sake. He’d told her the appalling, mind-boggling truth about what he was so that she would know everything about him before they became lovers.
Now that she knew, it made no difference. She wanted Domnall, whoever and whatever he was.
Jenna held out her hand. “Let’s see what’s down there.” Though he looked at her hand, he didn’t take it. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
The remnants of pain vanished from his eyes as he twined his fingers through hers. “You’ll no’ regret it, lass.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Come, we must let the lads ken what you’ve found. They–”
Jenna slipped from his light grip, and trotted down the steps. She wasn’t going to wait for a committee to go exploring.
“Jenna, no,” he called after her.
But in just a few strides, he’d caught up. “Stubborn lass,” he said, catching her shoulder. He turned her so he could get past. “Stay behind me.”
He stepped down, shielding her with his big body and keeping a firm grip on her hand. The stairs became steeper toward the bottom, leading them deep beneath the ruins. At last they reached the bottom, and Jenna saw what waited for them—a captured waterfall.
The castle’s builders had somehow diverted a huge amount of water to flow through the top of the subterranean chamber. It emptied into a round pool with channels leading off in four directions that disappeared into ducts in the walls. Sunlight poured in from clear domes in the stone ceiling, reflecting off huge round mosaics inlaid in the pavers around the pool, illuminating the space. Both the domes and the mosaics had been made from highly-polished quartz. The refracted light caught the mist and created dozens of rainbows over the water, adding a lovely aura of enchantment to the chamber.
Domnall led her around the pool to the waterfall, and stretched out his free hand into the water. “’Tis much warmer than the stream.”
“It could be coming from another source.” She tilted her head back to peer at the narrow aperture at the top of the chamber. “I think the flow just started. The stonework up there is still dry and dusty in places. See the splash marks?”
“Opening the chamber entry mayhap released the water.” He pointed to a mechanism, partially hidden by the cascade. It resembled a horizontal sluice gate. “I’ve never seen the like of it.”
“Me, either.” She frowned as she inspected the stone ducts carrying off the overflow from the pool. “This isn’t a well. It’s not collecting enough of the water.” She turned her head. “They put a platform under the fall.”
“Aye, for ’tis a bathing chamber.” Domnall scooped her up in his arms, and carried her under the cascade, dousing them both.
Jenna shrieked and clung to him, but the water churning over them felt as warm as a sun-splashed summer day, and quickly soaked them both. “I don’t bathe with my clothes on.”
“Nor I,” Domnall said and shifted so that the water fell over his shoulders and back, shielding her from the spray. Droplets beaded his lashes and ran down his face as he placed her on her feet. “We should remedy that.”
She smiled. “Absolutely.”
Their sodden garments and boots should have made it awkward and difficult to undress, but they moved in perfect harmony. He’d already seen her in the buff, but Jenna felt as if she were unwrapping a gift as she helped him pull off his tunic. Domnall’s upper torso seemed utterly flawless, completely covered in firm golden skin. The strange tattoos covering his arm contrasted sharply with his flesh, and yet now looked as beautiful to her as the rest of him. He took hold of her arms, lifting them so he could strip her dripping tunic over her head.
She wanted to hurry, but her hands lingered, stroking him from the broad yoke of his shoulders to the bunching bulges of his biceps. The moment she touched his ink she felt again that slow, delicious slide down her spine, as if they shared the same nerves. He must have felt something, too, for the smooth vault of his chest went taut.
“Do you feel that?” Jenna whispered, and then shivered as his fingers stroked up the length of her spine. “Oh, yes, that.”
“Every time you move, I feel it now.” He trailed his fingertips over her breasts, spreading blooms of heat and sensations so intense her n
ipples pebbled under his touch. “You’re so soft, lass. Your skin, ’tis like new petals.”
Her fingertips glided down to the banded muscle of his small waist. “You should just walk around naked.” She shamelessly pressed her breasts into his hands, and slid her own around to the laces binding his trousers. It took a few moments of plucking at them before she loosened them enough to slip her hands inside. The tight mounds of his buttocks contracted against her fingers, as smooth as the rest of him. “Ah, you have to let go for a moment.”
“Aye.” He had her breasts cradled in his hands by then, and was slowly sweeping his thumbs over her puckered peaks, watching as if completely absorbed. “Mayhap soon.”
Jenna dropped down on her knees, taking his trousers with her, and eased them off his long, strong feet. That revealed the thick, swollen column of his erection, ruddy and laced with distended veins, right before her face. She couldn’t help rubbing her cheek against the proud shaft, and would have done more but for his hands lifting her back upright.
“You’ll unman me, you wee brazen wench.” He jerked loose her laces and in one motion shoved her trews down to her ankles before curling his arm around her waist and lifting her out of them. He held her suspended, plastered against his chest, and she wound her legs around him. That brought her slick folds to press on his shaft, where she felt as if she were melting against him. “Jenna.”
Domnall didn’t have to tell her anything. She knew he couldn’t wait another moment, and neither could she.
“Kiss me.” She wrapped her arms around his strong neck. “Come inside me.”
His mouth took hers with ravenous hunger as he clamped his hands under her bottom, and lifted her onto the heavy dome of his penis. As his tongue parted her lips, his cock forged into her pussy.
Jenna nearly came from the thrilling shock of being so perfectly kissed and penetrated at the same time, and clamped around him with all her soft, hot wetness. His body strained against hers as he plowed deeper, stretching and claiming every inch of her as his own.