Highlander's Sword: Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (Clan Matheson Book 3)

by Joanne Wadsworth

  “Thank you. I’ll go and find a quiet place where I can rest.”

  “Kirk and I will keep guard here while you do.”

  Leaving Kirk and Cherub behind, she backtracked into the woods with Alec lumbering along beside her, his bear ever watchful of their surroundings.

  “This spot should do well.” Alec halted a furlong in where the grass grew thick between the trees and the canopy opened up overhead, the breeze stirring the leaves and making them rustle, the vibrant colors of dark green and warm yellow, relaxing her.

  “This is perfect.” She dropped her sack next to the tree, laid down and patted the space beside her. “Shift.”

  “I’m coming.” With a hungry growl, he made the Change in a blaze of red and orange sparks, his bear gone and her man now standing before her, his beautiful body thick with muscle and rippling with strength. Satchel and weapons in hand, he placed them on the ground then eased down next to her, flipped the top leather flap open and pulled his black leather pants, white tunic and steel-studded gray jacket out.

  “Wait.” She caught his hands before he could don his clothes and shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Naught is wrong.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him down on top of her, his delicious scent floating all around. “Rub against me.”

  “If I rub against you, I’ll likely want far more.” Yet he did exactly as she’d asked, his warm and fresh pine scent swirling around and embedding itself deeply within her. Aye, naught could satisfy her more, of being held within his strong embrace.

  She slid her fingers into his silky black hair, palmed the back of his head and brought his mouth to hers. Need rose strongly within her and she kissed him, tasted his passion and shared her own. “There is nowhere I wish to be right now than right here with you.”

  “I can’t believe I ever thought I could turn you away.” He tangled his fingers in her hair, brought the golden mass to his nose and breathed deep. “My life won’t be worth living without you by my side. I give you my oath, Annella, that I’ll keep you safe, never bring harm down upon your head. I’ll only ever cherish and adore you.”

  “’Tis about time you believed in the bond, and right now, I’m in a fierce mood to cherish and adore every inch of you. I also wish to request my favor now. I want to be loved by you, afore I go, but in my own way. Are you prepared to trust me?”

  “You’ll always have my trust.”

  “Thank you.” Feeling a whole lot naughty and glad they currently had sufficient privacy, she slowly closed her eyes, allowed herself to drift toward the dark of the dream realm, set her spiritual body free of her physical one and floated overtop of her and Alec, her physical body slumping beside his and her head tipping to one side.

  “Where did you go, my annoying sprite? I can’t love you if you disappear.” Alec sat up and swept his hands through the air as she swirled around him.

  “My way, remember?” Gently, she touched her wispy lips to his, no more than a light brush of her inner essence streaming over him then she swirled against his bare chest, traced her tongue over each of his tiny and hard male nipples before licking down over each rigid band of tight flesh covering his stomach.

  “Annella.” He groaned her name as he fell back on the grass and patted the air in search of her. “I can feel you all over me but I can’t hold onto you. Solidify your spiritual body.”

  “Brace yourself, my mighty bear. I’m about to have my wicked way with you.” She stroked his hips with her essence alone, his cock rising high and firm from within the lush black curls at the V of his groin, and too tempted not to take what was on offer, she solidified herself, wrapped her lips around his full length and gasped at the deliciousness of having his cock in her mouth. With her hands on him, she softly caressed his balls as she tickled her tongue over the head of his shaft and sucked him deep.

  “Ah, hell.” He clutched fistfuls of grass, his breath coming harder and faster. “That feels incredible.”

  Taking his length even deeper into her throat, she bobbed up and down on him until a hot burn sizzled through her. No more could she wait. She wished to give him the ultimate pleasure, as he’d only ever experience at her hand.

  “You’re a minx. I want to be inside you, now.” Raspy words as he shoved his elbows behind him, heaved her tunic up and suctioned onto one of her nipples.

  “Me too.” She shoved her black rawhide pants off, straddled his hips then sank down on top of him. Impaled on his cock, she kissed him as she rode him hard and fast. “I’m going to come.”

  “I’m right here. Come as you please.” With one flick of his finger over her nub, her channel tightened something fierce and she pulsed around him, over and over and he held onto her firmly with his hands on her hips.

  As she slowed her pace, he grasped her physical body’s hand which lay limp next to them then rolled her onto her side and trapped her between him and her physical body. “I have to bite you, where I know the mark will remain.”

  “Do whatever you wish to either of us. Both are me, just as both you and your bear are you.”

  “Thank you.” He leaned over and past her, sank his teeth into the sensitive skin at the hollow of her true body’s neck and bit down, the connection remaining in place between both her forms making her gasp with pleasure as his bite sent her flying once more to the stars, her channel sucking greedily at his length and making him lurch.

  “I’ve got to come, can’t wait any longer, but within the other you.” He pulled himself from her, whipped her physical body’s pants down to her knees and grinning at her spiritual body still convulsing next to him, moved over top of her limp form and thrust deep inside her once more. He grunted and shuddered and so did she, his orgasm coming swift and fast, his seed spurting deep inside her true form where it could take. “Woman,” he muttered as he pulled both of her into his arms and squished the three of them so deliciously together, “I can’t believe I get two of you.”

  “Well, I get two of you, man and beast, so I believe we’re even.”

  “I get the far better deal.” He kissed her and she kissed him back, then he nuzzled the neck of her limp body, his shaft still embedded deep inside her true self, the thickness of him something she sensed dually even though in her spiritual form.

  “Are you going to come again?” She wriggled to her feet even though sensations still stormed through her, straightened her tunic and stood over her chosen one as he thrust inside her body below him again and again, every fierce push making both of her contract around him. What he did to either of her, she sensed and while he continued to pound, she gasped and tried to pull her breeches back on. Dressed, she stood over her mate and her naked limp self, stroked down his back and cupped his balls from behind as he thrust heavy and fast, his passion flaring strongly, his need for her intense.

  He bellowed and sank even deeper inside her, then he came, shooting his essence within her before he rolled to his side and onto the grass. A wide grin lifted his lips as she stepped in between his spread legs and crouched. Even her limp self somehow had a smile curving her lips.

  “You are making both of me very happy.”

  “I’m beyond happy right now.”

  “Aye, you appear so.” Gently, she wrapped one hand around her chosen one’s spent cock and raised a brow. “Might I recommend that you have some more fun with me while I’m gone. Even though I’ll no’ be here in spirit and soul, I shall clearly be here in body.” She swiped her thumb over his slippery head.

  “You’re going to make the perfect wife, but I’ll wait to do that again for when you return.” He picked up her limp body’s hand and nibbled on her fingertips and as he did, she blew him a kiss and returned to a wisp before allowing the dream realm to take her. She soared through the dark of the heavenly skies and breezed in and around the twinkling stars.

  Aye, theirs would be a most heavenly loving each time they came together, with twice the fun it seemed.

  Chapter
11

  Within the dream realm, Annella flew through the darkened skies, although barely any stars blazed being that so very few slept this early in the afternoon. She spied the smallest, littlest twinkle, one single soul, not Father’s by any means, but that of a newborn babe whose essence flickered so very close to where Father, Ronan, and Alec’s stars usually glowed when they rested. The star’s essence called to her and she clutched ahold of it, drew inward and blinked within the sweetly innocent dreams of a heavenly new life. The newborn babe, only a few days old, held a soul that shone like a beacon of hope. Beautiful. Peaceful. Fully at rest.

  She allowed her solidified body to emerge and touched a hand to her chest as she crouched next to the wee babe swaddled in white cloths and lying in a crude wooden crate on the dusty floor of a small thatch-roofed house with walls of brown mud. A fire burned in a pit in the center, smoke curling from it and drifting through the vented cone-shaped roof above. A young lass of mayhap eight and ten lay asleep on a straw pallet beside the babe, her MacKenzie tartan covering her and her damp brown locks tangled about her face.

  “Ariel, Muirin sent some healing herbs to aid you in your birthing recovery.” An older woman with an ample bust and wide hips hustled through the door, her kirtle’s russet skirts swishing about her legs and a basket hooked over one arm.

  Annella dissolved her form and wisped upward before the woman could see her.

  “Och, child.” The woman smiled at the sleeping lass and in a whisper continued, “’Tis good to see you’re finally resting. The herbs can wait until after you’ve awoken.”

  Muirin again, and this woman knew the fae sorceress. “I’m getting closer to where I need to be, Alec.”

  “You’ve found your Father?”

  “He does no’ rest at the moment, although a wee babe’s essence drew me toward the child. Muirin’s name has been mentioned here in this hut. I need to take a look around.”

  “Be careful, and keep your mind fully open to mine. I’ll follow your every move, and ensure I see what you see.”

  “Aye, of course.” A mere wisp of white, she breezed out the door and drifted over the village of houses cloistered so tightly together. On the forested mountain across the loch, a waterfall cascaded over a high ledge and crashed into a stony ravine a hundred feet below. “I have no’ traveled far, just to the village across the other side of the loch. I’m near the junction where Loch Carron meets Loch Kishorn. I can see the waterfall from here.”

  “Don’t draw any attention to yourself as you look around.”

  “Aye, Captain.” She kept her mind fully open to his, withholding naught as she glided over the thatched rooftops while below a central fire blazed in the middle of the village and two flush-faced women in brown kirtles and aprons tended blackened pots bubbling over the flames. The heavenly scent of seafood stew wafted upward and several villagers ambled toward the fire as they gathered together in chattering groups for the coming evening meal. ’Twould be dark soon, although as yet, the sun still hovered above the far horizon.

  Farther she coasted, past goats baying and munching on the thistly grass sprouting alongside a short stone wall near the shoreline. Two lively children squealed as they tore barefoot under a hemp rope strung between two trees, drying clothes and several lengths of the MacKenzie plaid flapping in the breeze. The children’s giggles made the corralled horses within a wooden-beamed enclosure near them, whinny and stomp. Dust floated into the air and she breezed through it toward a lad with a woolen cap, his grass-stained tunic’s sleeves rolled to his elbows as he brushed one of the animals tethered to a post.

  She soared along the sandy shoreline of the loch, searching for even the minutest sign of Duncan and his men. Such a group of warriors would be hard to miss if they were somewhere here.

  Out in the loch’s bay, an elderly fisherman in his skiff tossed his nets out, while perched on a boulder along the grassy embankment, a lad of mayhap six and ten wearing brown breeches and a frayed shirt whittled away on a long length of yew as he fashioned a bow. He picked up a length of cord lying across his lap and slotted it between the notches he’d made at each end of the wood, then he stood and with his bow in hand and a pouch of arrows slung over one shoulder, cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled, “Papa, I’ll go join the laird’s warriors as they hunt.”

  “Take care and obey Duncan MacKenzie’s orders.”

  “I shall.” With a jaunty whistle the lad followed the worn pathway running alongside the shoreline and disappeared into the forest beyond the grazing cattle.

  “Did you catch that, Alec?”

  “I did. Stay on the lad’s tail. The laird he speaks of is clearly Duncan.” He shared his movements with her as he scooped her physical body up, now fully clothed, and cradling her in his arms, he jogged back to the waterfall where Cherub and Kirk watched over the trail weaving downward toward the village. To Kirk, he called out, “Annella’s at the village, is following a lad who’s on his way to see Duncan.”

  “Then we follow the lad too.” Kirk, dressed in a faded blue shirt and brown pants with his black war coat donned overtop and claymore fastened at his side, nabbed Cherub’s hand. “Take us to the skies.”

  Alec nabbed Cherub’s arm. “As fast as you can.”

  “Wait, Alec. You need to leave my physical body somewhere safe if we’re heading directly toward Duncan’s lair.” She whizzed after the lad, weaved through the towering trees in fast pursuit. “Should there be a battle to get Father back, then I’m safest remaining like this in my spiritual form.”

  “There is no safer place for your true body than in my arms.”

  “I agree, but we are only four compared to however many warriors Duncan has and you will need both your arms free if there’s to be a fight.” She pursued the boy with his dark hair flopping forward over his brow. “Take me somewhere safe.”

  “Not yet. We’re following you first.”

  She streamed higher, broke free of the treetops just as the lad too dashed out of the woods and hurried along the winding upward cliff side trail overlooking the rocky shoreline. The waves rolled in and hit the rock wall, splashed high and sprayed the blackened surface. She breezed alongside the boy as he climbed the silt and stone pathway then soared ahead of him, made the top of the cliff’s peak and gasped. Down the other side within a secluded bay at the base sat a protected garrison with a powerful war galley bobbing in the water from its mooring at the end of a stone landing. A second MacKenzie stronghold, this one sitting on Loch Kishorn and also hidden well out of sight. “Duncan and his brother appear to be amassing an army along these shores.”

  “Along with procuring a battle-skilled fae, your father.”

  “They’ll not have him for long, although something still bothers me. When I visited Ronan, he said he sensed something was amiss, that ’twas as if Duncan was his enemy, yet also no’.”

  “Things definitely aren’t quite as they seem. We must be prepared for anything.”

  “Cherub also told me she understood only what she’d sensed that night I’d been taken, that like me, my father and brother too had a journey ahead of them, one that she was forbidden to halt. Her exact words, ‘The mated bond is a very sacred union and I’m no’ permitted to breach its creation or completion.’”

  “And now we’ve discovered Ronan has found his mate, just as you and I have found each other.”

  “Duncan’s also aligned himself with a fae sorceress, and I’ve never known any of the fae to make a stand against their own kind. Ask Cherub what she thinks about all of this.” She streaked down the shingled side of the cliff, wisped over the curtain wall and into the bailey. A good thirty men trained in battle leathers, gritty dust pluming at their feet in the waning afternoon light, their claymores clashing and each strike ringing loud in her ears. Slowly, she circled the main tower as she searched for an open window or door.

  “Cherub has Kirk and I cloaked and we’re not far behind. She said Muirin must be from beyond the veil, one of
the full-blooded fae. She’s never come across her before. She’s also unsure what we’ll find within Duncan’s lair, but to be prepared for anything.”

  “If Father is here in this stronghold, then he’s being kept only a mere hour or two’s ride from Ronan.”

  “We ride out now for Carron Castle.” Duncan stepped out from under the eaves of the front door with two warriors at his side. He slapped both men on the shoulders. “I have a proposition to put to Ronan and it cannae wait any longer.” He clomped toward a stone shack tucked against the curtain wall, an iron rod in one hand and his short dark hair glinting blue on the ends. Wearing his battle leathers, he bellowed to a lad at the stables. “Ready my horse.”

  “Duncan is leaving for Carron Castle, said he had a proposition to put to Ronan. At least we now know the name of his brother’s holding.”

  “I caught what he said through our link. Keep sharing, love.”

  In his thick black boots, Duncan entered the shack and she waited with bated breath. Moments later, he stepped back out, the iron rod he’d been carrying dispensed with. He bounded onto his war horse, snatched the reins being held by the stable-hand, the two warriors who’d been with him already mounted on their own destriers. Heavily armed, the three men rode out the main gate under the arch, their horses galloping hard.

  “I dinnae know if this proposition he has for Ronan is good or bad, but regardless, we’re running out of time, and I’ve still yet to find Father.”