Pirates of the Angui (Cipher's Kiss Book 1): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance

by Heather Walker

  She didn’t move, still fixing him with a cold hard stare. She looked straight through him, all her softness vanished in an instant.

  Ned sighed. “Are ye angry with me for touching it? Is that it? Did I get too close?”

  She jerked away and sat up.

  Now he knew it was true. Her leg might have healed and she might be able to move around perfectly well with that false leg of hers, but in her heart, she hadn’t healed, not completely. She was injured, wounded, maimed.

  She sat with her back to him.

  He gave the whole thing up. She wasn’t ready for this. He should have known better than to push her beyond her limit. He hooked one arm behind his head and raked his fingernails over her back with his other hand. “It’s all right, lass. Dinnae think anything about it. If ye really dinnae want to share a bed with me, I’ll get another room and leave you alone.”

  She whipped around fast and said, “I have to tell you something, Ned. It’s about the Gunns.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Malcolm,” she breathed. “He was there, at the garrison in Aberdeen. He told me they had the whole harbor guarded and planned to use me as bait to capture you when you came to pick me up.”

  He exploded in laughter. “Is that what’s bothering ye? Ye should have kenned I’d outfox that stinking—”

  “Will you just listen to me, please?” she pleaded. “He changed his tactics. He started acting really friendly toward me. He even tried to seduce me—or maybe I tried to seduce him. I don’t know, but that doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is that he changed his strategy. He was going to let you come and pick me up, and then they were going to follow us. They were going to track you until you found the Cipher’s Kiss, and then Malcolm wanted me to tip the Gunns off so they could wipe you out.”

  He gazed up at her face alight with excitement. “Is that all? Is that what’s holding ye back from coming to me?”

  “Aren’t you the least bit concerned about this?” she asked. “Are you just going to ignore my warning and blow it off?”

  “I already kenned we were followed out of Aberdeen,” he replied. “I didnae think I could steal ye from the garrison without being followed. I didnae ken the Gunns were involved, but we detected a pursuit heading for the ship, and I trust we’ve got her away before the Gunns overtook them.”

  She blinked at him. “Are you serious? You saw all this coming?”

  “Lassie,” he remarked, leaning in toward her, “we’ve been at war against the Falisa for thousands of years. Ye didnae think we could fall for that so easily, did ye? Malcolm Gunn will have to come up with something better if he wants to catch us.”

  “And you’re not worried about me betraying you to the Gunns?”

  “That’s for ye to decide,” he replied. “Ye’ll have to fall on one side or the other when the time comes, but I can tell ye I wouldnae be lying in bed with ye right now if I thought ye’d turn us over to the Gunns.”

  Chapter 20

  Ree gazed down at Ned’s face, dark tan against the white bedsheets. On the one hand, he had anticipated Malcolm’s pursuit and come to rescue her anyway. He’d put his life in danger to save hers. On the other, she understood him better than ever now that she knew his story. The deep hurt the Falisa had inflicted on his people still festered below the surface. He hadn’t loved since losing his wife and children. He was utterly alone in the world, with only a ragtag band of wounded men like himself to keep him company.

  All of a sudden, she couldn’t bear the separation between them any longer. She had to heal his broken heart with her own and could only hope her own wasn’t crippled beyond functioning. She flung herself on top of him, and this time, no hard prosthesis got in the way. She felt his softness together with the hardness of his muscles. She didn’t feel the fiery physical only lust she had experienced with Malcolm. This went so much deeper than that. And this was no eighteenth-century gentleman. He wouldn’t think her a shameless tramp for giving way to her feelings. He wanted this as much as she did.

  She smothered his body with her own, gliding her thighs against his legs the way he did before. His kilt slid out of the way. His hands slithered down her hips and pulled her skirts up to her hips. Her bare legs touched his skin, and an electric flame shot through her.

  She’d never let anyone get this close to her leg since she lost it, been careful not to let anyone even know she lost her leg. That attitude started to break down during her encounter with Malcolm. Now Ned found her defenses already weakened and ready to shatter. She hadn’t given a rip if Malcolm found out she had one leg. She wanted what she wanted.

  She felt differently about Ned, though. She cared what he thought. She cared very much if he liked her and respected her in spite of her amputation. Her heart quivered at the thought that there might actually be something real between them.

  She straddled his hips while they kissed. The longer this went on, the more desperate she became. She looked deep into his eyes. Could this be real? Could he really feel the same way about her that she felt about him?

  She dared not take him at his word. She had to protect her fragile heart at all costs. Her soul screamed to hold him at a distance, to get as far away from this terrifying intimacy as fast as she could, but she couldn’t tear herself away. She could tell herself to end it now, before it got out of control, but her body wouldn’t obey her. Her body had its own agenda. It wouldn’t deny its own desires any longer. She’d held her smoldering passions under control all these years, and now they erupted out of her with volcanic fury.

  Her breasts ached to touch his chest. Her mouth yearned to devour him all over. She wanted him with her every pore and fiber. She wanted to cover him with herself until nothing remained of either of them.

  He glided his hands up her thighs and under her skirts, finding every scrap of bare skin under there. She searched his face. His cheeks were flushed and his pupils dilated when he gazed up at her, fighting for breath between every kiss torn from her lips. She slowly rubbed her wet core against his bulging manhood, running her fingertips down from his face to his chest. Every wrinkle on his skin excited her beyond endurance. She had to have him or die trying.

  He scooped her legs forward so she knelt on either side of his hips, then pushed her upright so she looked down on him from on high. He petted her cheeks, down her neck, to her bodice and unlaced her dress, pushing it aside to expose her breasts to his hands. He massaged them in gentle circles until Ree whined in undisguised lust. She leaned her breasts into his grip. Nothing ever felt so good.

  She arched her back. She wanted him to see her like this, naked and wild, with nothing held back. Her loose hair fell over her face and brushed her cheeks. It fed her wildness, and she let it take over her heart and soul.

  He covered her all over with his hands. He couldn’t touch her fast enough. She jerked her dress off her shoulders and faced him bare-breasted. He took hold of her hips and gave her a mighty wrench, and she slid onto his shaft, just like that.

  She cried out in surprise at the first powerful intrusion. The next instant, her mounting desire took over. She kicked her knees against the bed to thrust that wicked tool deep into her being.

  Now the insanity of her own ferocious desire seized her as never before. She beat her hips against him and planted her hands on his chest to give herself greater leverage. He pawed at her breasts and matched her rhythm stroke for stroke.

  God, that hard slab of meat felt so good inside her! She never wanted this to end. Her juices flowed around its veins and seeped down into his hair with every thrust. It tingled along her channel when she pulled back. Then it slotted home until she couldn’t stand the intensity anymore.

  Ned bared his teeth and snarled up at her. He spoke to her in a language she didn’t understand, but she couldn’t mistake his meaning. The words boiled out of some deep animal need to possess her and occupy her, to claim her for his own.

  All of a sudden, he shifted to English. “Kiss me,
lass,” he breathed.

  She had to obey. She bent down and kissed him, and their lips locked, even as their hips continued their cosmic pulse. That endless seething tide of craven ecstasy translated up Ree’s body to her lips. It jumped across the infinitesimal gap between their mouths to complete a mystical circuit holding them together.

  Ned clamped one mighty hand behind her head to hold her in place, pinning her mouth against his, and he wouldn’t stop kissing her even as his tool kissed her down below. Their bodies locked together, never to come apart. His other hand guided her hips back and forth against his pelvis.

  The energy heaved inside her. She couldn’t contain it. It would split her in half any second now. What would become of her then? She would never be the same.

  Ned wouldn’t let her go. Her lips stopped working so she couldn’t kiss him back, but still he held her against his mouth. A broken howl tore out of her throat. She couldn’t hold back any longer. She raked her swollen fissure against his hardness, and the wave broke across her in torrential climax.

  She screamed out loud. Ned slackened his grip for a fraction of an instant, and she collapsed on top of him, her hair scattered over his chest. She couldn’t stop shrieking. His powerful arms closed around her shoulders, but that unstoppable beat kept pushing them together where the roots of his shaft plunged into her very being.

  When she feared she couldn’t endure the intensity a second longer, another wave of blistering passion swept over her. It carried her over the next peak and down into a bottomless sea of rapture. She never knew her body could feel so much pleasure. She gushed steaming nectar all over him, but he never gave up. He kept thrusting his wicked lance into her engorged flesh and growled into her ear.

  The guttural noises coming out of him poured into her brain. They expressed the primal tremors breaking down all the old barriers holding her back. She would have made noises like those if she wasn’t so busy screaming in cataclysmic passion.

  He took hold of her head, lifted it off his chest, and held her face in front of his, then watched the tormented waves of carnal fulfillment sweeping over her. She stared at some hidden reality beyond sight while one peak after another destroyed the shell that once protected her.

  All at once, he launched himself off the bed, caught her in his arms, and jumped up onto his knees. She would have fallen if he hadn’t held her against him. He wrapped his powerful arms around her ribs and controlled her movements as he plowed up into her from below and sent her spinning into the stratosphere.

  He didn’t wait for her to respond. He pumped her full of himself, lowering her onto his shaft and up again in his own rhythm. None of that mattered anymore. She was too far gone, and she wouldn’t come down.

  His rasping groans turned to a roaring in her ears. His fingers laced in her hair, and he craned her head back. Her screams broke free. As long as he kept entering her, she would keep spiking into glorious climax again and again and again.

  He tried to kiss her, and his teeth closed on her lower lip. Wild fury broke out of her soul, and blazing white light poured from her eyes and mouth and hair. This damaged body ceased to confine her. She transformed into a crackling bolt of lightning whizzing through space, powerful and magical and perfect.

  Chapter 21

  Ned got out of bed and buckled on his saber and sporran, then pulled his shirt over his head. He stretched and looked out the window. A cloudy day spread over the farm country around the inn.

  He turned back to see Ree sitting up in bed and picked up her prosthesis and handed it to her. “Time to rise and greet another day, lass. I can smell breakfast cooking downstairs.”

  She didn’t touch her prosthesis. She looked back and forth between it and him.

  He held it out to her. “Come on. Let’s get out of this dump before the Gunns catch wind of where we are.”

  She still made no move to take the device away from him.

  He frowned, then set it down on the bed next to her and turned his back. If she wanted to erect her defenses against him now, after they just spent a night of rapture together, that was her business. He wouldn’t make it easier for her by losing his temper.

  He moved to finish getting dressed, saying, “I’ll go downstairs and settle up. Ye meet me in the main room for breakfast when ye’re ready.”

  Now that he’d kept his back to her, he heard her moving around in the bed. The artificial leg clinked. She must be putting it on. She just didn’t want him to see.

  “Will the ship come back to your hiding place to meet us?”

  “We’re no meeting the ship,” he told her.

  “What?” she gasped. “Why not?”

  “She’ll be miles away from here by now,” he replied. “I dinnae ken where she is and I dinnae want to ken. She’s safe, wherever she is, and the Gunns will still be coming after ye. It’s best we keep away from her for now.”

  “What will we do?” she asked. “Where will we go?”

  He jerked his thumb toward the door. “Come downstairs, and I’ll explain all over breakfast.”

  He left the room without another word, went downstairs, and sat by the fire until his breakfast came. He was in the middle of a pile of eggs and bacon when Ree appeared and sat down across from him. Ned kept silent until the landlord laid Ree’s plate for her and left the room.

  “What’s this all about?” she asked. “What’s the big secret?”

  “We got the ship fixed in Orkney,” he told her.

  “Orkney!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t that the Gunns’ stronghold?”

  “Aye. That’s why I chose it.” He snorted with laughter. “I’ll admit it wasnae the very best strategic decision I’ve made in me time, but that’s all water under the bridge now. I found this book in a shop on the Isle of Hoy. Take a look.” He flipped it open to the page.

  Ree read the words, “For the Purpose of Prolonging Life. You don’t actually think it means anything, do you? It could be a quack remedy.”

  “It could be,” he replied, “but I dinnae think the Gunns would keep such a book in their library if it didnae contain some useful information. Look farther down the recipe. It combines this potion with two others. See? To be combined with the Elixir of Longevity found in the Compendium of the Order. We would have to find them to make the Cipher’s Kiss.”

  “You’re assuming a lot, aren’t you?” she countered. “First of all, you’re assuming this recipe really would work to prolong life, which is asking an awful lot. Then you’re assuming these two formulas combined would actually create the Cipher’s Kiss that you’re looking for. They could combine to make something completely unrelated. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Aye, I did think of it,” he replied, “but this is our best lead so far. Do ye think ye can make the formula?”

  She read down the list of ingredients. “Three noggins of brandywine tundra beetle. Four saukniweiss rounds of eldervane. Ten half portions of wicknot root. I have no idea what any of these ingredients are. The only word of this I understand is portion, and since it calls for half-portions, I’d have to know exactly how much a portion was to get the measurements right.”

  “But ye could do the formulation,” he returned. “If ye kenned all that, and ye could identify all the ingredients, ye could produce the elixir. Could ye no’?”

  “Well, in theory, yes, but still, it’s a pretty tall order. We’re just as close to finding the Cipher’s Kiss now as if you had never found that book.”

  He took the book away from her and studied the page. “Dinnae rob me of all hope just yet, lass. Look what it says. Combine all and leave to steep under a blood moon among the Stones of Uist.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Just what it says,” he replied, “but I happen to ken the Stones of Uist are on the Isle of Barra, south of Lewis. The wicknot root is also found on Barra. As it happens, Clan MacNeill controls the island, and they happen to be particular allies of ours, and have been for a long time.”


  She cocked her head. “MacNeill? Isn’t your name Niall?”

  “Precisely. That’s two crucial elements of this recipe that come from a very specific location in this country. If anybody kens about the formula, it’ll be the MacNeills.”

  “Do you really want to go running halfway across the country on a wild goose chase?” she asked. “What if you’re wrong? You will have wasted all that time and effort.”

  “First off, lassie, it’s no’ halfway across the country. It’s all the way across the country. We’re outside Aberdeen on the far east coast of Scotland, and Barra is about the last spot of land ye’ll find on yer way out to the Atlantic Ocean. Second off, if there’s one piece of this puzzle I have in abundance, it’s time. I have searched for this formula for over five thousand years. A few more days to travel across Scotland winnae make much difference.”

  “All right,” she replied. “I guess I can live with that.”

  He stretched his hand across the table and took hers, lacing his fingers into hers. “I have waited many and many a year to find a woman I wanted to use this formula on. Now I’ve found ye, and I winnae let ye go until I make ye mine. Understand that above all else.”

  She blushed, and they both ate their breakfast in silence while they gazed into each other’s eyes.

  This woman was his future—his whole future. Nothing made sense but spending the rest of his days with her. He could have children with her. He could rebuild the Angui to its former glory. Nothing would stop them, and she was the first brick laid as a cornerstone against that long dreamed-of empire. His heart burst when he thought of the possibilities.

  After they ate and Ned paid the landlord, he and Ree stepped outside into the morning. While he stood there deciding what to do next, a coach pulled up in front of the inn. Six horses pawed and snorted to be away. A lady stepped down from the coach and looked around.

  Ned called up to the driver, “Do ye have room for two more? We’re going as far as Fort Augustus.”