“Aye.” The king’s sharp-eyed gaze bored into him. “We’ll be celebrating more than a wedding. It will also be the ideal opportunity to discuss my coronation at Fortriu. I doubt any of the minor kings will want to miss that.”
A politically sensitive wedding, a potentially contentious coronation and obviously MacAlpin was inviting the other Pictish royal clans as witnesses. A suffocating weight compressed his lungs. Far from serving out the remainder of his days fighting for his country’s freedom and receiving comfort from the arms of an undemanding mistress, he was to become a stud for his king’s machinations.
“When do you want us to leave?” He hoped his revulsion wasn’t apparent in either his expression or voice but the king’s eyes narrowed.
“You disapprove the plan?”
“No, my liege.” Just because he personally found it abhorrent didn’t blind him to the potential gains they could make in forging such strong connections with the mighty clan of Ce. “In principle we stand to gain a great deal by such an alliance.” And then he chanced voicing his dissent. “But I have reservations the King of Ce will accept my offer.”
Seconds passed, the air thick with distrust. Then the king’s frown faded and he laughed, a short bark of amusement that appeared to flummox his advisers as much as Connor.
“God Almighty, boy,” the king said, flattening his palms on the map and leaning across the desk. “You didn’t think I had you in mind for this marriage, did you?”
It had been many years since anyone had dared call Connor “boy” without risking a bloodied nose. MacAlpin might be seventeen years his senior but that hardly qualified him to utter such term of abuse.
His status, however, gave him the authority to say whatever he wished.
Connor mentally gritted his teeth and ignored the scarcely concealed sneers crawling across the advisers’ smug faces. His king was above censure. The same couldn’t be said for the fawning minions he now surrounded himself with.
“So that was the reason for your reticence.” It wasn’t a question. It sounded like a revelation, and a welcome one at that. Connor glowered, yet instead of striking him for such insolence it only made the king laugh again.
“And what of you, Ewan?” The king finally transferred his attention to the other man. “Did you think you might have been chosen for a royal bride?”
Connor didn’t have to look at his friend to know compressed anger simmered beneath his surface. He could feel it vibrating in tightly repressed waves.
“My liege,” Ewan said. It sounded as though he forced the words between gritted teeth.
The king shoved himself upright. “I have no doubt either one of you could charm even Princess Devorgilla into your bed if you so much as smiled at her. Alas, it takes more than the famed Scots charm and a hard warrior body to tempt a king to part with a daughter.” Again amusement flared across his face. Amusement and…something else. Something so fleeting, so bizarre he had to be mistaken.
Relief?
“To hook a king,” MacAlpin said, “we have to offer royal blood.” Once more his attention focused on Connor. “Your half brother, Fergus.”
“Fergus?” He’d watched his brother escape matrimony countless times over the years. But no amount of charm or bargaining would release him from this duty.
His brother could be a bastard but he didn’t deserve to be shackled to a heathen shrew. Then again, Fergus didn’t believe in fidelity. It was unlikely this marriage would change his mind.
“His mother’s connection to me through our grandfather gives him enough royal prestige.” The king let out a breath. “And by God, he’s sired enough bastards to prove his virility.”
Connor ignored the dull ache that knotted his gut at the king’s careless comment. Fergus produced brats as easily as he changed bed partners, and didn’t give a shit about any of them.
If nothing else, he would soon ensure the Pictish princess was with child.
Chapter Two
The kingdom of Ce, Pictland
Aila, Princess Devorgilla of Ce, shivered in the early morning chill and pulled her woolen cloak more securely across her body. Once, long ago, she hadn’t needed any protection against the harsh Highland elements. But the frost that had entered her heart nine years ago had never truly thawed. And the remnants flowed through her veins, stealing any hope of warmth even on the most glorious summer day.
And although it wasn’t yet summer, today was certainly beautiful. Drun, her elderly deerhound, leaned heavily against her thigh and absently she draped an arm around his neck as she inhaled a great breath, savoring the scents of spring grass and fresh earth, her face turned toward the sun. With her eyes closed, she listened as the morning chorus of blackbird, song thrush, wren and chaffinch filled the air; the faint bleating of lambs echoed in the distance and the bark of the hunting dogs sank into her consciousness.
Familiar. Safe. Her home, where nothing fundamental had changed for more than two hundred years.
She opened her eyes and glanced into the far valley. The palace of Ce-eviot, the royal stronghold of the land of Ce, commanded an unparalleled view of the surrounding countryside. No enemy could advance unseen nor breach the mighty hill’s ramparts without detection.
Yet a faint tremor of unease fluttered through the pit of her stomach. Frowning, she turned and, shielding her eyes against the early morning sun, looked south, where in the far distance the twin mountains of the mythical Earth goddess dominated the landscape.
Nothing. What had she expected? Not only was Ce-eviot protected by its elevated position but also by the two dozen or so outlying hill forts. Their defenses were legendary. Next to Fortriu, they possessed the most impenetrable palace in Pictland.
But the strange disquiet lingered. A haunting, unwelcome sensation that reminded her of other times when such intangible intuition had attacked without warning.
Shivering, and this time not from the brisk spring breeze, she turned to make her way down the slope toward the tranquil stone monastery. As always, no matter how she tried to ignore them, her glance snagged on the nearest ancient standing stones that formed part of the massive circle surrounding the holy sanctuary. Her ancestors had used the heathen power of the stones as a conduit to the old gods. And when she was a girl so had she. The recollection of what she used to believe in, who she had once been caused her to stumble on the uneven ground. Without thinking, she steadied herself on the immense boulder that towered three times her height, the boulder that displayed sacred carvings that predated the origins of their palace by more than two thousand years.
Instantly the comforting mountains, glens and woodlands vanished, sucked into a vicious vortex of screaming wind and howling rage. Breath choked her throat, tears stung her eyes but she couldn’t drag her hand away from the intricate symbols etched over the entirety of the stone.
Her heart hammered; terror snaked deadly tendrils into her paralyzed brain. Why had she touched the cursed symbols? Images of slaughtered warriors slashed across her mind, scarlet blood spraying, the stink of decay twisting her stomach. Primeval warning pounded through every beat, every breath, a warning she didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, didn’t believe in.
Fiery pain catapulted through her fingers as she wrenched her hand from the stone and cradled it with her other. Such a spiteful punishment from a redundant goddess who Aila had long since discarded. Teeth clenched, she concentrated on regulating her heartbeat, calming her erratic breath as Drun whined in sympathy and pressed his great head against her waist.
It was only a memory. Yet the thought lacked conviction. With loathing, she glared at the serpent, symbol of the goddess Bride, as it coiled around the cauldron carved deep into the face of the boulder. I don’t need you anymore, Bride. The thought glowed with impotent fury and smothered anguish. You failed me. What use were warnings when they came too late? What use were visions from the ancients when they did nothing but torment the living with impossible dreams? Dreams she would do anything to
see fulfilled but that were now forever beyond her reach.
Bride was dead to her. Still cradling her stinging hand, Aila stamped down the slope toward the monastery, where Bride had been reincarnated as a mortal. Fallible and as such, more easily understood.
More easily tamed into the tapestry of the new religion.
Aila pushed open the timber door and entered the tranquil sanctum, but before the familiar peace could soothe her soul, a discordant thought pierced her mind.
The blood-soaked warriors had not been Vikings.
* * * * *
The dark stranger, his face obscured by swirling shadows, came to Aila again that night. Somewhere deep in her mind she knew this was a dream, the same way she always knew these were dreams. And, as always, she didn’t try to resist no matter how much she knew she should.
He cradled her face between his calloused palms, his touch gentle but assured. They were no longer in her bedchamber but somewhere she had never been before, not even in her previous dreams. A secluded glen, and the last rays of the setting sun turned the mountains a fiery crimson, as orange sparks glittered across the rippling surface of the nearby loch.
She flattened her hands against his naked chest and the heat from his skin warmed her in a way she had never been warm in the real world for too many years. His heart thudded beneath her palm and the vibration echoed through her blood, fanning the embers that glowed deep within her sheath.
He trailed his fingers along the column of her throat. Erotic tingles of desire rippled over her exposed flesh, causing tremors across her shoulders and along her arms. His teeth flashed in the twilight at her reaction, but still she couldn’t see his face.
She had never seen his face in all the months he had come to her.
“Who are you?” she whispered, but the words were only in her mind because she didn’t want to know who he was. Her secret lover was no one but a figment of her dark pagan imagination.
In the black of night she did not care.
Again he smiled as if he could hear her thoughts after all. But he didn’t reply. He had never said a word and although a part of her longed to hear his voice, mostly she was relieved. Talking to a dream-lover was one step too close to the edge of madness.
Slowly he unbraided her plaits until her hair cascaded over her shoulders and covered her breasts. He slipped her gown over her arms and her hair brushed against her nipples in a tantalizing caress.
He held her hands and tugged her to the ground. The grasses were soft, like shredded silk, and as he laid her on her back, the softness embraced her as though she sank into the downiest of feathers.
As he loomed over her, his fists planted in the grass beside her shoulders and his calves scarcely touching her thighs, she speared her fingers through his black hair. But even as she pushed his hair back, hoping for a glimpse of his face, he lowered his head and drifted kisses along her throat.
She buried her fingers in his hair, cradling his head, as his lips worked their dark magic. His hot breath teased her sensitized skin and delicious quivers spiraled from wherever his mouth touched, wherever his breath grazed.
He shifted lower, keeping a whisper of distance between them, and his mouth ensnared her nipple. She gasped, reared up, but still couldn’t feel the hard ridges of his chest against her. Instead she felt him smile against her breast, his teeth brushing her erect nipple, and sharp darts of pleasure arrowed straight to her core.
Restlessly she shifted. She wanted to wrap her legs around him but he kept her trapped within his thighs. But he didn’t smother her with his hard, warrior-toned body, didn’t crowd her with his need. She couldn’t escape him but she wasn’t his prisoner. He existed only to pleasure her and her hands fell to his shoulders, her nails clawing his unyielding flesh.
His tongue flicked across her sensitive peak, a wondrous torture. He cupped her other breast, his thumb mimicking his tongue. She wanted to tell him to suck harder, to pinch her nipple, but the words locked in her throat.
He relinquished her breasts and they throbbed with unfulfilled need as he slid farther down her restless body. His breath singed her belly and his fingers teased her waist and hip, trailing seductive ribbons of fire across her trembling skin.
Feverishly she reached for his face. She wanted to kiss him. Kiss him properly on the mouth but he resisted her efforts as he always did. Burning frustration tore through her, but only for an instant as he lowered his head and sprinkled kisses along the seam of her thigh.
He parted her slick folds and slid a finger against her swollen clitoris. Her hands fisted in the grass, her eyes closed but she couldn’t contain the throaty moan that escaped. He circled her sensitive bud, the pressure mounting, unbearable, his uneven breath a sensuous whisper across her damp cleft.
The tip of his tongue glided over her clit. Wet flesh, hot breath and the shocking graze of teeth caused sharp tremors of desire deep inside her channel. She gripped his hair, tried to pull him up, but he was as immovable as rock and his tongue continued to tease and torture without mercy.
She wanted more. The frenzied thought pounded through her mind and deep in her dream, deep in this secret world that wasn’t real, she faced the truth. She wanted his cock inside her.
With one last blaze of fiery orange, the sun sank behind the mountains and the grass swirled around her in myriad tiny whirlwinds. Her heart slammed against her ribs in denial but she couldn’t hold on to her secret lover. Couldn’t hold on to the dream any longer.
The time for dreams is over.
The feminine voice floated through her mind and Aila clenched her teeth in a desperate effort to reclaim the moment, but it faded farther from her grasp with every frenzied heartbeat. Consciousness and cold reality beckoned her, and biting her lip to prevent any sound from escaping, she opened her eyes.
The first pink tendrils of dawn slid through the timber shutters, illuminating the sleeping figure of her cousin beside her. Raw frustration rampaged through Aila’s blood, no matter how she tried to dampen the lust sizzling between her thighs. A scorching reminder that her wicked dreams, while already fading, affected her just as wantonly in the waking world as in that nighttime cocoon.
She clutched at the tangled bed linen, tried to regulate her erratic breathing and racing pulse. Although the details of her dream were as insubstantial as the early morning mist that gathered in Highland glens, she longed to be back in her mysterious dream-lover’s embrace.
Perhaps he would come to her again this night. His visits had become more frequent of late and although she knew it was wrong to wish for those dreams, it made no difference.
No one would ever know of them.
It’s time to awaken. The voice was inside her mind, yet was surely not her thought. An eerie shiver crawled over her exposed arms and she hastily pulled her furs up to her chin. Perhaps she wasn’t as fully awake as she imagined. And then the voice whispered through her mind again, as ethereal as a half-forgotten dream. A new day awaits.
* * * * *
The following afternoon Aila flexed her aching fingers and stared idly through the large arched window as one of the resident peacocks strutted across the grass, displaying his magnificent feathers to his adoring harem.
Two hours earlier one of the monks, Uuen, an incurable gossip, had informed both her and her young noble students of the arrival of a band of Scots. Flanked by a dozen of their own warriors from an outlying hill fort, the Scots were now being entertained at the palace to await the king’s return.
As she watched her little sister Finella skip across the grass toward the monastery Aila’s mind drifted back to the Scots’ unexpected arrival. Doubtless it was connected to the death of King Wrad, whose demise was the cause of her father and younger brother’s absence. Did the Scots think to take advantage of the loss of their high king? To try to drive a wedge between the remaining kingdoms?
If so, they would be disappointed. The Picts learned from their mistakes. And fighting each other when their numbers were
so depleted was no longer a viable option.
Finella finally reached the window and indicated, by a series of urgent hand gestures, that she wanted Aila to come outside. Aila glanced at her young charges and wished, not for the first time, that her sister displayed some talent for illumination. But Finella couldn’t draw or paint to save her skin. Her artistic skills centered on exquisite needlework and with a small smile, Aila trailed her fingertips over the elaborate threadwork of her gown.
“Dismissed,” she told her students, who heaved a collective sigh of relief. She only taught those with talent, those who showed eagerness to learn the intricacies of artistry. But if they wished to remain under her charge, they worked like slaves. She stood for no foolishness during her lessons.
Stepping outside, she drew her cloak around her and watched Finella as she raced toward her, dressed in nothing more than her brightly colored gown. As always, her sister had managed to elude her appointed companions.
“Aila.” Finella spun to a halt, grabbing hold of Aila’s arm to stop herself from toppling over the peacock that ruffled his feathers in clear annoyance. “Did you hear? The Scots have arrived!”
“I heard.” She wrapped her arm around Finella’s shoulders and they strolled toward the copse, a good distance beyond the bronze-smith’s forge, a favorite place of hers from childhood. Drun, her faithful shadow, hobbled by her side. “And are they the hairy savages you’ve always imagined?”
“Oh no.” Finella’s green eyes widened in awestruck astonishment. “Truly the men are quite beautiful. Although they dress a little oddly and speak with a strange accent, they’re scarcely savages. Why would Mamma say such things?”
Finella took everything said to her as the literal truth. Aila smothered a sigh. Had she ever been this naive at ten? They all knew the Scots were savages and the Vikings were devils. It didn’t mean they necessarily looked any different from the most noble of Picts.
“A handsome face can hide a corrupt heart. Remember that, Finella.” And then her curiosity got the better of her. “What do they want, do you know?”
Her Savage Scot: 1 (Highland Warriors) Page 2