by Hazel Hunter
“I heard that,” Bhaltair said, his voice floating in from the corridor.
Lachlan pressed his lips together and looked at the ceiling rafters, while Cailean had a coughing attack. Raen unbelted his tartan and tossed it at the younger druid, who staggered under its weight. Their antics made Kinley grin.
Tormod tugged the tartan off the druid’s head and folded it neatly. “If you’re wanting me in this fight, my lord, I should heal first.” He gave Lachlan a wary look. “Just so I’m at my best.”
“Aye, off to the loch with you,” the laird said, and tugged Kinley into his arms. “Seems you may have to wear the hideous robe after all.”
“Not this time,” she said and tugged at a fold of his tartan. “Tonight I’m leading the clan into battle.”
Once the druids arrived and joined the clan in the great hall, Kinley watched from the edges. Lachlan addressed them briefly and turned over the explanation of the mission to Bhaltair and Cailean. As they began, he took Kinley with him to his tower chamber to change.
“No one is talking about Evander,” she said as she sat on the edge of the bed to tug off her boots. “Or how he almost killed Raen before he took off with his legion spy honey for parts unknown.”
“Aye, but the seneschal freed the druids and the blood thralls,” he reminded her. “And Raen said that he turned into the path of the spear after ’twas thrown.”
“Sure he did, right before Evander left him to bleed out.” She saw the look he gave her and held up her hands. “I’m just saying.”
“If Raen wishes to pursue Talorc and his woman, and bring them back to be judged, by clan law, I will go with him, and hunt them. Their sentence will be death, and while I have never executed a McDonnel, I will see it done.” Lachlan came to sit beside her. “That is why no one speaks of it.”
“It’s not always good to be the laird, I guess.” She looked around them. “Damn. I need a come-back.”
He smiled. “What does that mean?”
“When soldiers in my time are about to go on a mission, they leave behind something that still needs to be done. Dirty clothes that have to be washed, or a half-written letter, or a borrowed tool that has to be returned to a neighbor. It’s like saying they know they’ll come back to do it, which is why we call it a come-back.” She laced her fingers through his. “It’s just a silly superstition.”
Lachlan brought her hand to his lips. “Lass, we are no’ so different as you think. My tribe let their fires go out the night before a battle. ’Twas thought to be good luck, so that we might return to light them again.” He drew her to her feet. “We’ve no’ much time left. There’s something I want to ask you.”
“All questions must wait,” Kinley said and pulled her tunic over her head. Then she unlaced her trousers and dropped them. She knelt down at his feet. “Until after I get you naked.”
Lachlan stripped to his waist, and sat back down on the bed while she worked his trousers down his long legs. She wanted so much to take her time, and kiss every inch of his now-flawless skin, but there wouldn’t be time until after the op. Kinley caught his thick, erect shaft between her palms, savoring the warmth and steely hardness of him before she pressed her lips to the glistening eye of his cockhead.
His serpent tattoo began to move, swiveling its head to look down at her.
Tasting Lachlan while his ink watched her made her hungry for more. She took him in her mouth, curling her tongue around his satiny bulb as she sucked.
“You’ll make me spill, lass,” Lachlan said as his hand tangled in her hair. He worked his fingertips against her scalp in a soothing motion, before he withdrew from her mouth. “And I want to fill you while you come with me.”
“I don’t know,” she said and reached up to touch his ink. The serpent’s tongue flickered against her fingers. “I think the snake wants to come out and play.”
“Tonight the snake must watch.”
He lifted her up as he lay back on the bed, and slowly lowered her onto his slick cock. She reached down to guide him in, catching her breath as he parted and penetrated her. He impaled her as she engulfed him, and for a moment she thought she would climax as she felt her folds stretch around his root.
Bracing her hands on his shoulders, Kinley slowly lifted herself, clenching around him so he felt her pussy caressing him as she did. As his dark eyes lit up, she thrust back down on him, driving him deep and taking his full length. The groan he uttered resonated in her chest as she did it again, harder and faster, her fingernails scoring his shoulders and her breasts bobbing wickedly. She bent down to rub her hard nipples against his mouth, teasing him but not allowing him to catch them and suck. Relentlessly she worked herself on him until the sweet friction had him swelling inside her.
“Kinley,” he groaned.
With a savage growl he rolled with her, pressing her knees up and plunging into her with a single, brutally delicious thrust. He held her gaze as he plowed in and out, his big body tight and shaking over hers. He dragged his hand to her breast, catching her hard nipple and pinching it as he stroked in and out.
Kinley knew she couldn’t win this battle, and she didn’t want to. She wanted them both to fall together, with each other and into each other, where they would never be apart or alone again. She reached up to touch his mouth, feeling his heaving breaths warm her fingers.
“I love you.”
Lachlan gathered her up, plunging one last time before he held his cock deep and kissed her mouth. She melded herself to him, gripping his hair and taking his tongue and squeezing his shaft. They both cried out as the dark, sweet heat they shared turned into an inferno of bliss.
It seemed as if she came forever, trembling and moaning and shuddering on him. He jerked and grunted and shook in return, and when they fell together they didn’t let go. Kinley didn’t think that she could, not now, not ever.
He kissed the tears from her cheeks, and the sighs from her lips. He didn’t have to tell her it was time to set this aside and that the world outside was waiting. They both released each other and climbed off the bed.
She didn’t want to stop touching him, even when they were dressed and ready for battle, but once he belted her tartan she took a step back. “All right. I’m ready for battle now. What did you want to ask me?”
“’Tis too soon, mayhap, but I cannae sleep at night for thinking on it.” Lachlan took hold of her hands, and went down on one knee. “Kinley lass, to me you are like the stars shining on the loch, and warm rain on my face, and the smell of meadow just bloomed. I’m no’ always a patient man, or an easy one, but I’m yours now, for as long as you’ll have me. Will you be mine, and marry me?”
She’d needed something to give her luck, and he’d given her the best come-back ever. “I’ll tell you my answer,” she said, grinning like a fool, “after the battle.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE DAPPLED PEARL of the full moon rose in the cloudless, star-speckled sky over the sacred grove. Night seemed to imitate day as thin, colorless light illuminated the ancient stones, and their guardian oaks. Every living creature that inhabited the grove had already fled.
If time had possessed breath, it would have held it.
Kinley reined in Tama, and held up her torch to wave it from side to side to signal the all-clear. She then dismounted, taking care to adjust the edge of Lachlan’s tartan to cover her hair. Behind her the hundreds of tartan-clad fighters marching in three ranks merged into single-file to follow her in.
She stopped beside the time-spelled stone. It was strange to be leading an attack. She’d never fought anyone except to defend herself or others. If this went the wrong way a lot of blood would be spilled, and it would be her fault. How had Lachlan done this for centuries?
An archer trotted up to her and nearly tripped over his own feet. Once he righted himself, he said in a loud, overly-gruff voice, “We are assembled, my lord, and prepared for your commands.”
“Ready for orders,” she corrected him in
a low murmur. “No offense, Cailean, but if I’m going to make them believe I’m the laird, I need someone with a deeper voice.”
“Will I serve?” Bhaltair said. He wore Neac’s tartan and chain mail. “Stand up straight, brother. You’re supposed to be a McDonnel.”
“Aye, Master…I mean, Chieftain.” Cailean frowned and waved his hand before he rejoined the ranks of the druids behind them.
“Do you truly believe the undead will think us the clan?” Bhaltair asked as he watched the shadows moving through the oaks.
“As long as they don’t come too close, and everyone keeps covered up, we should be able to fool them long enough for Lachlan to get the kids from the tunnels.”
At least that’s what she hoped.
Having the druids swap their clothing with the McDonnels had been the key to the success of their plan. While they pretended to be the highlanders surrendering to the legion in the grove, Lachlan and his men would enter the lair and grab the children.
“The legion’s sentries must have spotted us coming into the grove,” the old druid said. “Do you think the commander will order all of his men out of the tunnels?”
“Probably not, but he’ll want most of them to see this. Lachlan and the guys can deal with the guards they left behind.” Kinley peered as she saw the glint of metal shields, and the first line of undead soldiers emerge from cover. “Okay, it’s show time.”
Romans marched into the grove, spreading out in neat ranks around two men on horseback.
“I need you to do your best imitation of the laird now,” Kinley told Bhaltair. “Don’t let them see your lips moving.”
The druid nodded and pulled up a fold of his neck scarf to cover his mouth.
“Tribune of the Ninth Legion,” Kinley whispered, and waited for Bhaltair to shout her words at the Romans. “I am Lachlan McDonnel, Laird of the McDonnels. My clan and I have come to surrender to you, once you have freed the mortal bairns, as you promised.”
The two mounted men trotted their horses toward the center of the grove. Both wore heavy armor, plumed helmets and red cloaks. One had festooned himself with glittering objects. They both removed their helmets and handed them off to soldiers on the ground. Kinley could see the younger Roman sneering, but his older companion had a shrewd, detached look that immediately troubled her.
“Tribune Gaius Lucinius,” Bhaltair muttered to her, nodding at the younger of the pair. “The other is his prefect, Quintus Seneca.”
“I promised you nothing, Highlander,” Gaius shouted, sounding almost excited. “You will surrender to me, or I will have my men butcher you where you stand.”
“Put down your weapons,” Quintus said in a cold, calm voice that carried clearly. “Once you have disarmed, and kneel before the tribune, we will consider releasing the children.”
Kinley hoped Lachlan and Raen had already found the kids, because she suspected this was going to be over in about a minute. She extended her arm, and rolled her fist. Behind her the front line of the druids pretending to be the McDonnels did the same, signaling all of their troops to prepare to run.
“Well?” Gaius rode closer, stopping only a hundred yards from Kinley before he dismounted and drew his sword. “Will you kneel before me, or must I lop off your legs, Highlander?”
Kinley swatted the air, signaling for the druids to run.
“We dinnae kneel before walking corpses,” Bhaltair shouted, and turned only to stop and backpedal. “Oh, gods, no.”
He and the other druids hurried toward Kinley as dozens of undead came out of the trees behind them, cutting off their escape route.
Lachlan carried the last two infants out of the tunnel. He handed them off to the clansmen who were waiting with the carts they had filled with the other children.
“Drive them to town,” he ordered over their pitiful shrieks. “Guard them and their parents until dawn.”
Raen pulled off his druid robe and used it to cover the sobbing babies before the cart pulled away from them.
“I set fire to the bodies,” he declared. “And the altar, the pens, the dais, and anything else I passed that would burn.” He spat on the ground. “Facking Romans.”
It would be a long time before Lachlan could forget what they’d seen below in the legion’s lair. The bones of their victims lay everywhere, as if the bodies had been left to rot where they dropped. The pens where they had kept captives as blood thralls had been carpeted with filth and rags. The worst sight had been the Temple of Mars, where they had found the bairns in cages, and a charnel pit filled with the decomposing bodies of sacrificial victims. The stench of rotting flesh had been so thick it made the air taste like poison.
He’d let the woman he loved more than his own life lure the undead from the lair, for she had convinced him that her plan would save the villager’s bairns. Now that it had, he felt ice creeping through his veins.
“Kinley and the druids should be here,” he told Raen, scanning the empty woods around them. “Something has gone wrong. We must get to the grove, now.”
Lachlan rode as if chased by demons, pushing Selon as hard as he could to cover the distance quickly. As he reached the edge of the grove he saw the druids who had disguised themselves as the clan, surrounded on all sides by the legion. The undead jabbed at them, driving them as cattle to the slaughter, but the magic folk were gathering in small clusters, kneeling before the Romans, and joining hands as they looked up at the stars.
Kinley was in the very center, held between two Romans.
Kinley tried to shove the tribune away, but his grip on her arm only tightened as realization dawned on his colorless face.
“You are not the McDonnels,” Gaius said, his voice growing shrill as he looked at the faces of the druids around them. “You but dressed in their clothes. Quintus, how can this be?”
“It was a trick, Tribune,” the prefect said, and backed away from Kinley. “We must go back to the lair. That is where the highlanders will be waiting.”
“No, we shall not walk into our own graves,” the legion’s commander screeched. He grabbed Kinley by the hair, and jerked her around to see the druids kneeling in the grass. “Now you will watch them die, as the highlander did his men.”
“You were the one who did that to him?” She smiled a little. “How did you like getting kicked in the balls? Did they fall off before the druids cursed you and your boys?”
The tribune’s eyes went squinty-crazy as he looked at the men and women kneeling before his legion. “You know about the curse.”
“It’s your own damn fault. If you hadn’t slaughtered the clan, they would never have been able to cast their deaths on you.” She saw him smile, and felt suddenly uneasy. “You think it’s funny?”
“I think if my men kill all these druids as tribute to Mars, the Great God, we shall be released from the curse.” He turned her and dragged her back against him, pressing the edge of his sword against her throat. “You will watch them die.”
“Gaius, leave her. The McDonnels are coming,” Quintus said before he fled for the trees.
“Coward. Mars will not release him this night.” He turned her around to see Lachlan and the McDonnels running toward the grove. “Ah, the Pritani scum are arrived. They can watch the heathens die, too.”
Kinley struggled to free herself, but went still as the blade cut into her neck. In the next moment Gaius would shout the order to execute the druids, who were doing nothing to save themselves. All of them would die. Their blood would stain the sacred grove and her hands forever, unless she stopped the tribune from giving the order, and bought them a little more time.
“Let’s give them something else to see,” she muttered and lifted her flaming hands.
As fury and fear twined inside her, the flames raced up her arms. In moments they engulfed her and the tribune.
Gaius screamed, flung her to the ground, and thrust his sword down at her chest. She tried to avoid it, but the blade rammed through her shoulder. Though agony explo
ded through her, she kicked viciously at the tribune’s ankles. As he collapsed on top of her, the weight of him and the blade held her pinned.
The flames spread to her tartan, and for the first time Kinley felt the heat of fire. When the tribune lifted his head as if to call out, she wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled him back into the blaze. Her hair was burning now, charring and falling away, but still she held on. The fire swelled around them so that they became the center of a giant geyser of flame. Through it she saw the other undead back away from the druids, turn and flee.
The smell of burning flesh choked her, and Kinley knew she was dying along with the repulsive tribune. But somehow it didn’t hurt. Nor was she afraid.
These things we do, that others may live.
It was her time.
I love you, Lachlan.
Tribune Gaius Lucinius gurgled something as he rolled away from her into the blackened grass. His body glowed red and white as it was reduced to charcoal and finally ash.
Kinley felt her own body growing lighter and lighter as she burned, until all that was left was a final prayer. She reached up to touch the winged serpent on the Pritani stone.
Thank you for Lachlan. Thank you for his love. Watch over him.
Lachlan fought the undead as he always had, with unrelenting speed and power. Raen and the clan joined him, spreading out to meet the legion’s line on both sides and preventing it from flanking them. He worked both blades as he cut down every Roman who came at him, and strode over the fallen to move closer to the center of the grove. He kept his eyes on his woman, convinced he would reach her in time.
But seeing the huge burst of flames that consumed Kinley and the Roman made the laird go mad.
The battle became a nightmare of heads and limbs and screaming mouths as Lachlan hacked his way through the men between him and Kinley. He tried to plow through the line, only to be dragged back again, and nearly gutted Raen as he turned.