A Scot's Resolve (The MacLomain Series: End of an Era, #3)

by Purington, Sky

  “Bloody hell.” He remained unmoving, letting her ride out her pleasure. “Ye’ve a good grip, lass.”

  Where she might have been appalled at him saying that before, now she reveled in it, preening at the compliment as her body throbbed and pulsed, milking him. Yet even as she began drifting down, she wanted more.

  So much more.

  As much as he could give her.

  He chuckled, catching those thoughts. “I think we are the perfect match, lass.”

  She couldn’t agree more. Especially when he finally moved and took her the way she would have fantasized about long before now had she known how good it felt. Pleasure uncurled through her body and consumed her in ecstasy even before she went over the edge.

  At first, his thrusts were more tempered, but that changed quickly as his need for her took over. He moved her forward without stopping until he knelt behind her, gripping her hips pleasurably rough as he slammed into her more aggressively.

  In direct response, her vision hazed red, and she growled with approval, egging him on. Wanting it harder. Rougher. Yet as she had already learned from him, he intended to take her the way he saw fit. A way, she realized as he warned her not to climax, that was designed to help her control losing herself to fulfillment too quickly.

  He had a way of commanding her one moment and coaxing her gently the next that helped her navigate the overwhelming sensations he wrung from her body. Yet like her, he wasn’t immune to the raging chemistry between them nor the volcanic heat rising in them both. One that needed to vent soon or she’d scream.

  Which, as it happened, she ended up doing anyway when he finally thrust once, twice, then ordered her to let go on his third. Just like that, a floodgate opened, and her whole body quivered, strung tight before she shot straight into oblivion. Or at least that’s what it felt like as he roared his own release from somewhere far away. The tent seemed aglow in a thousand colors as she sank to the cot, only to find it wasn’t a cot at all but a cave floor.

  She was reliving a memory.

  Having just found fulfillment, her dragon purred beneath his. She smiled in pleasure when she heard the first thump in her womb, then alarmed when she realized others might have heard it too.

  “We were not supposed to do this,” she whispered into his mind. “They have heard. They will come.”

  His dragon nuzzled the side of her neck. “’Tis but folklore, mo anam cara.”

  “’Tis not folklore but rumor.” She went to the cave entrance and looked out over the land. “Rumor that they will come for the next great beast born. That the dark one needs him to take back his land. To have his revenge.”

  “Nay,” he swore, joining her, massive in his fierce golden glory as he glared at the horizon and any who dared challenge him. “Nobody will touch our child.” He met her eyes and warned her. “As I have told ye before, if we but keep to ourselves, all will leave us alone.”

  “’Tis not right,” she seethed. “We were here long before them.” Caught by the heartbeat of the offspring they had just created, she rested her cheek against her womb. “This is his land, not theirs.”

  Yet for all her defiance, Madison knew as the memory let her go, that the land had not been theirs. Times had changed. Gods and humans alike had come. A dark brotherhood had risen up, born of the man who had survived Donn Fírinne’s shipwreck. A son who had somehow made it to shore and went into hiding to avoid the wrath of the gods.

  A man who bid his time and cultivated his magic.

  A predator who then handed it to his ninth son, who then handed it on to his ninth son for nine generations. Her dragon had been wrong about them focusing on Ireland, though. No, they had other intentions. Because Goddess Ériu forever protected Ireland, they were unable to claim what they felt should have rightfully been theirs. So over time, feeling not just cheated but entitled, they focused on something that could make up for it. New land.

  An isle that would someday be called Scotland.

  To accomplish their dark goal, though, would take a mighty feat. One that required magic from creatures that had been here long before them. Creatures such as a unicorn and a dragon.

  “Not just any dragon, either,” she whispered, seeing the truth of it.

  “Nay,” Cray murmured, wiping away her tear, seeing the same thing. “But a very specific one.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “THE NINTH SON of the ninth son?” Marek frowned at him and Madison. “Nine generations born to Ireland?”

  “Aye,” he confirmed.

  They rode alongside his brother toward the rear of the retinue the next day. Though Madison had seemed less compulsive over the past few days, she was once again ticking things off in her head, counting away. A direct response, he realized, to how upset she was by what they’d learned last night.

  “It seems my mate sacrificed herself in hopes they would take her instead of Ceann.” He kept his arms firmly locked around her on the horse, hoping to ease her pain. A pain he understood all too well. “And I was so desperate to stop her, I never sensed Ceann following me.” He sighed. “Essentially, I led my son right into their trap.”

  “You mean I did,” Madison murmured, sadness in her voice. “It’s all my fault.”

  “Och, nay, lass.” Marek shook his head. “You were willing to leave your bairns and mate behind and sacrifice yourself to save your son. ‘Tis admirable and had to have been verra difficult.”

  “It was,” she said softly, methodically tapping the pads of her fingers together. “From start to finish...I just know it...”

  For all they had remembered, they had yet to recall specifically what happened at that Stonehenge. All they knew was that it had been very bad. Heartbreaking.

  “What do you think happened to our other children?” she asked, not for the first time. “They were still so young.”

  “Aye, but I dinnae think they were alone, lass,” came Grant’s voice moments before he materialized beside them, walking along as though he’d been there from the start. “I did a wee bit o’ poking around and discovered several dragon tribes still about in Ireland.”

  Cray stopped their horse and eyed his uncle, perplexed. “Why have I not heard of them before?”

  “’Twas irrelevant to most things.” Grant shrugged. “They are quiet and mostly keep to themselves, but they are there.” He perked a brow. “Did you think there were only dragons in Scotland when you know they exist in ancient Scandinavia and in the twenty-first century?”

  “I guess I didnae give it much thought.” In reality, he’d given it no thought. Before Maeve came along, he had only ever concerned himself with finding a Scottish dragon to lay with.

  “Anyway,” Grant went on. “’Tis said by one tribe claiming to be their descendants that there was once a noble and mighty tribe living high in 'Eire, where it could overlook its beloved land. High in a great mountain cave where they could see all.”

  Madison tensed, and her breath caught. “Just one family?”

  “Aye, just one,” Grant said softly, a knowing look in his eyes. “’Tis said they were cursed by death himself but fought back, unwilling to give him his due.”

  Cray narrowed his eyes, knowing that was not how it went at all. “We werenae cursed but targeted. Lured. Trapped.”

  Sacrificed.

  “Aye.” Grant gave Madison a compassionate look as half his body twisted on the wind then stabilized. “The point of the matter is the mightiest of beasts, the great male dragon who had taken his mate when young and loved her fiercely, vanished one day alongside his youngest bairn.” He shook his head. “Never to be seen again.”

  Madison glanced over her shoulder at him, then frowned at Grant. “What about the female dragon?”

  “She returned and raised the remainder of their children in peace,” he replied. “Never to take a mate again.”

  Her eyes welled, and she nodded, whispering because she was clearly too emotional to speak louder. “I’m so glad the other eleven weren
’t alone...that I was there for them.”

  So he and Ceann had died. While he knew it saddened her to think she had lost them, they could only be grateful she had lived on. That their little ones weren’t left to fend for themselves.

  “You said this Irish tribe claims to descend from us then?” Cray asked. “That our bloodline lives on?”

  “Aye.” Grant smiled and nodded. “’Tis many, many generations removed but aye, ‘tis what they claim.”

  Madison met Cray’s eyes over her shoulder again and offered a wobbly smile, as happy as he was to hear that. Though they were different people with different bloodlines, it meant the world that the love they had shared lived on.

  “So now not only do MacLomain’s have dragon blood thanks to our Viking ancestors,” Grant said. “But no doubt a wee bit o’ dragon in our souls thanks to the sacrifices your family made.”

  “I dinnae know,” Cray murmured. “It sounds like we contributed more to what might have ended us than anything else.”

  “Och, nay,” Grant admonished. “You know already that you and your wee ones contributed good things via your stone. My guess? Somehow, someway, when they used your wee bairn to do evil, it worked against them just as it did when they used the unicorn.” He shook his head. “For you cannae use such good, such innocence, for such bad.”

  Though Grant didn’t say anything, Cray knew he referred to the fact that Ceann was trying to make his way back. That, like the unicorn, he was still part of all this, struggling to break free from the darkness of being sacrificed.

  “Thank you for looking into this for us, Grant,” Madison said. “We appreciate it more than you know.”

  Grant waved it away as though she need not thank him. “I’m just glad I was able to discover what I did.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, I had no such luck at the Salem Stonehenge. If there is a stone there directly related to all this, I wasnae able to sense it.”

  “Mayhap in time,” Marek said, almost as if he sensed something himself. “Things seem to be revealed to us when the time is right.”

  “Verra true, my lad,” Grant agreed.

  Cray nodded his agreement as well, all the while basking in Madison's scent. Because they’d been coming to terms with what they had learned last night, they hadn’t lain together again but simply held each other. Something, he was surprised to learn, he quite enjoyed doing with a lass. He had never been afforded much opportunity to do it with Maeve and most certainly hadn’t with his numerous dalliances over the years.

  Yet he suspected had he been given the chance to hold any of them in his arms overly long they wouldn’t have come close to feeling like Madison. How could they when she was without question his soul mate? His dragon mate? Though he didn’t voice it, she had to know. She had to feel what he felt. The ever-growing bond between them.

  Her ring had flickered the color of his eyes several times now, but it always sort of sputtered out. Almost as if they were gaining ground toward something remarkable but struggling to get there. Yet how else could it be considering what they had gone through? They needed to push past what had happened back then to find each other now. He knew it like he knew nothing else.

  He also knew he didn’t bloody well care if her ring ever shined.

  They were meant to be together.

  “Have you seen the others, Grant?” Ethyn asked, having been unusually quiet most of the morning. For that matter, since he had been possessed. “Do we know why Tiernan’s compass took them in another direction?”

  “Nay.” Grant shook his head. “They have come across nothing of import save numerous wolf tracks that seem to circle around them.”

  That caught Ethyn’s attention. “As though mayhap several wolves are tracking them?”

  “Nay, they’re convinced ‘tis but one.” Grant tossed Ethyn a pointed look. “One relatively large wolf at that.”

  Ethyn appeared a little surprised. “Phelan, then?”

  “Aye, ‘tis the assumption.” Grant was about to say more but got caught in the rain as it began falling and splintered away.

  “I will be glad when that sort of thing doesnae happen to Grant anymore,” Ethyn muttered. “It has to be unsettling for him.”

  “Aye,” Marek agreed, then frowned at their cousin. “What do you make of Phelan being in both places at once?”

  “I dinnae know.” Ethyn shook his head. “Other than that she’s covering a lot of ground.”

  “It sounds like she’s trying to protect everyone at once,” Madison commented.

  “Aye,” Cray concurred. “One way or another.”

  Though they continued to chat on and off as the day wore on, she mostly cuddled back against him, as content to be near him as he was her. By that eve, when they made camp, their spirits felt somewhat lighter, no doubt thanks to their dragons helping them process what they had learned.

  At David’s request, they were invited to dine with him again. This time they were also joined by Regent Andrew Murray as well as Archibald Douglas, who knew they were kin to Tiernan and Aidan. After all, his cousins had been here all along, a permanent fixture in David’s life, keeping him safe the best they could. What they didn’t know was that they were all either witches, wizards, or dragon shifters.

  “Scouts report Berwick is suffering more by the day,” Andrew groused. “We must make haste.” He shook his head. “We should have already been there by now.”

  “We will be there soon enough,” Archibald assured. “And we will be better equipped to handle Balliol and the Sassenach king than we would have been had we not taken the time to rally such an army.”

  “That’s not entirely true, is it?” Madison said into his mind, clearly remembering what had been said about this before.

  “Nay.” He was as discontent as Andrew. “Though we have a man defending Berwick, it does little good when their supplies are cut off. The townsfolk need help. They have needed it for some time.”

  “That’s not our role in this, though, is it?” she murmured, following his thoughts so swiftly now he could hardly recall a time she wasn’t in his mind.

  “Nay, ‘twill be Ethyn’s, I’m sure, as Andrew will be taken by the Sassenach before then.”

  “Not killed?”

  “Nay,” he replied. “If all goes as it should, Andrew will be taken by Balliol in Roxburgh. Once taken, he will be imprisoned for a time then freed.”

  “So you don’t have to see a regent killed like your cousins did?” she exclaimed.

  “Nay.” He frowned. “But then I feel like I’ve had my fair share of death already.”

  She squeezed his hand, understanding more than anyone why he felt that way.

  “So who becomes regent next?” she began only to trail off when his eyes went to Archibald Douglas.

  “Douglas will become regent and oversee the siege,” he replied. “Meanwhile, Ethyn will oversee him.”

  “What makes you think it’ll be Ethyn?”

  He started at the question, mainly because he didn’t exactly know. “’Tis just a gut feeling, I suppose.”

  “It could just as easily be your brother, couldn’t it?” she asked later that evening. They had found a little hideaway with a small pond and waterfall in which to bathe. “Marek’s been sucked along on our journey just like Ethyn.”

  “True.” He pulled her back against him when she thought to lean over and test the water. Nuzzling her silky hair, he inhaled deeply, wondering how he was ever going to manage the rest of his life with her so close. Everything about her distracted him. Called to him. Made him so aroused it was oftentimes hard to think straight. “But ‘tis Ethyn who came first. Then ‘twas Ethyn who thought he saw one of your friends.”

  “You mean one of our enemies.” Her head dropped back, and she shivered, loving when he kissed and nipped her neck. “If he saw Ciara, that is.”

  “Assuming Ciara is the enemy.” He dropped kisses along her shoulder as he lowered the corner of her dress. “Mayhap, as ‘twas with you an
d me at the beginning, nothing is as it seems.”

  “True,” she whispered, helping him lower her dress, as eager to feel him against her as he was to feel every inch of her. “But then that would mean Destiny or Alyssa was the enemy.”

  “’Twould,” he managed, not much interested in talking about potential enemies anymore. “But ‘tis not to worry over now, aye?”

  “Worrying won’t change anything,” she agreed, turning in his arms. Her dragon eyes were as fiery hot and sensual as the sweet scent coming off of her. “Honestly, I’d rather not think about anything for a bit. Just take a moment to—”

  He didn’t let her finish her sentence but kissed her hard, then soft, then passionately, doing something he had never done with another. He gave everything he felt for her in a kiss. All he wanted to tell her but figured she knew already. When he was done kissing her, he took his time continuing to undress her.

  He finally did what he’d wanted to do from the beginning. What he would have done had he not been so desperate to satisfy his lust. Bit by bit, he kissed and stroked, worshiping every part of her from her pert breasts and pebbled nipples on downward. When he went to drop to his knees, starved for the sweet juices he knew were moments from running down her thighs, she stopped him and shook her head, dropping to her knees instead.

  “My turn,” she purred. Her dragon eyes were absolutely glorious as she looked up at him demurely, urging him on. Waiting for him to show her what he liked. What he had been fantasizing about every second since he laid eyes on her.

  “Aye, then, my wee dragon,” he whispered, wrapping his hand in her silky hair, fixated on her lips when she licked them. The way they turned soft and moist. The way they looked as she took his direction and at long last gave him what he was so eager for.

  He wasn’t sure when he lost control of directing her only that it was far too soon. To be expected, he reasoned, immersed in extreme pleasure. She was in his head, seeing what he craved, knowing what he liked, what he envisioned. So it was no surprise that when he lost the ability to speak aloud or even telepathically, she knew what to do anyway.