Seducing a Scottish Bride

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  Pray that ne’er happens, she was sure he said beneath his breath.

  She shoved a curl off her forehead, her heart thumping. “I know our union was meant to be. You know that I have visions and I have seen you in them!”

  He stared at her, wine cup poised at his lips, his face an unreadable mask. But a muscle jerked in his jaw, its sudden appearance giving him away.

  He knew.

  She was sure of it.

  “You know this, I am thinking!” She tossed back her hair. “Know that you’ve come to me as a raven and as . . . yourself! That you reach for me, dragging me against you and kissing me. So why” — she jammed her hands on her hips, her voice rising — “when we are together, myself nigh unclothed, do you look on me with such coldness? Why —”

  “Och, lass, you err.” He shook his head, his eyes darkening. “It has naught to do with you. ’Tis me, only me, I swear to you. Ne’er have I —”

  “Do I have the breasts of a crone?” She tore at her bodice ties, yanked her gown open. “Am I so undesirable that you —”

  “Nae!” He threw the wine cup to the ground. “Ne’er you even think it!”

  “But —”

  A sound, deep, masculine, and elemental came from somewhere and then she was in his arms, crushed hard against him, held even more tightly than in the visions.

  “Lass, lass! You are more desirable than any woman I have e’er known.” He drew back to look at her. “E’er, I say, do you hear me? Ne’er have I been more tempted!”

  “ But —” The ground seemed to tilt beneath her feet and a blast of chill wind stole her protest.

  She bit her lip, her heart thundering wildly. His gaze pierced her, dark and feral.

  Heat blazed between them, alive and crackling, a sizzling rush of need so fierce her knees buckled and she would’ve plunged to the ground if not for his iron-bound grip on her.

  “If you desire me, then make me yours!” She saw the want glinting in his eyes and it spurred her on, making her bold. “I am your wife. Do not shun me!”

  She thrust her fingers into his hair, twining them in the thick raven strands as she pressed into him, aching, burning for his kiss.

  But rather than oblige her, he stiffened, already pulling away from her.

  “No- o-o!” She clung to him, holding tight. “I won’t let you do this —”

  “I have already done the unthinkable.” He tore free of her grasp, agitation shimmering off him. “And, aye, you deserve the truth, though I’d give anything to have spared you.”

  “Then speak true.” She put back her shoulders and stood tall. “See that a MacKenzie does not melt in the rain — or crumple upon hearing words she’d rather not!”

  “Ach, lass.” He blew out a breath. “Let me tell you this much,” he began, starting to pace. “Torcaill told me how powerful your gift is. He sensed it and, aye, deep inside, I was no’ surprised, as I have had . . . dreams.”

  He rammed a hand through his hair, glanced at her. “ ’Twas just as you say. Me, holding and kissing you, needing you more than the air I breathe.”

  “Then why do you reject me?” She came after him hot-foot, chin raised and breasts bouncing. “There can be no reason. Especially if you know —”

  “There are scores of reasons!” He whirled to face her, the weight of Creag na Gaoith pressing on him. “Do you see yon scarred and broken crag?”

  He flung out an arm, indicating the dread heights, the mass of rubble at its foot. “Tell me, lass, if you are blessed with the taibhsearachd, why did you choose such a maligned place for your feasting-in-the-wild?”

  She blinked. “Why not this place?”

  Her confusion hit him full-on, a white-hot knife twisting in his heart.

  She glanced at the lochan, its shining water clear and bright in the cold afternoon sun. “I’d ridden for hours and saw nowhere more pleasing.”

  “And so it was . . . once.”

  “Once?”

  Ronan nodded, finally seeing Creag na Gaoith’s bogle peering at him from amidst the fallen stones.

  A pale, almost-too-faint-to-see image, his first wife, Matilda, stood there, delicate as a spring bloom. But watching him all the same, her flaxen-blond hair unmoving in the wind, her sky-blue eyes calm, trusting as always.

  Ronan blinked and she was gone.

  But his guilt — and his dread — remained.

  “My first wife died there,” he said, speaking quickly before prudence stayed his tongue. “We came here often and were walking there, on the other side of the lochan, when a sudden rockslide took her life. We’d only been wed a few days.”

  “Dear saints!” The color drained from his new bride’s face. “I am sorry. How horrible it must have been for you.”

  “It was, and the guilt haunts me still.”

  “Guilt?” Her voice was shocked. “You couldn’t have prevented a rockslide.”

  “Say you?” He reached to finger one of her glossy curls, needing her vibrancy, the light and warmth that seemed to glow from within her.

  “To be sure I say it!” she charged, a flush staining her cheeks. “How could you have —”

  “Perhaps” — he released the curl — “because in that very moment, as we strolled along beneath Creag na Gaoith, I thought to myself that I loved her so desperately I would ‘move mountains to please her.’ ”

  “What?” Her eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you blame yourself because of a thought?”

  “That is the way of it, aye,” Ronan confirmed, the truth sending bile to his throat. “I am cursed, see you. My thoughts sometimes take on frightening shape and form, the darker — or more irresponsible — ones causing irreparable damage if I do not marshal them quickly enough.”

  “I do not believe that.” She frowned at him, her chin more stubborn than ever. “And even if it were true, I know that —”

  “It is true, I assure you. There are many —” he broke off, his eye caught by a movement at the edge of the clearing.

  Something large and grayish-white crashed through the heather, its massive head lowered and its great curving horns the most deadly he’d ever seen.

  “A bull!” Gelis clapped a hand to her throat and stood frozen.

  “That’s more than a bull!” Ronan lunged and grabbed her, once again shoving her aside. “Hold Buckie!”

  And then the unholy creature charged, bursting from the trees with a terrifying bellow, the thunder of its hooves blistering the air, its earth-shaking speed leaving no time for finesse.

  And totally ruining what could have been a moment of revelation.

  Spinning round, Ronan seized one of the Viking tent’s support poles. He ripped it from the ground and ran forward into the bull’s path, couching the pole like a lance.

  Behind him, Gelis screamed.

  He ran on.

  And then his world split, breaking apart on the bull’s outraged roar as it hurtled toward him, head low and horns weaving, a murderous glint in the creature’s eyes.

  Eyes red as fire.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gelis! Tip the table and get behind it!” Ronan yelled with all his lung power, raising his voice above the ever-louder drumming of hooves. “Do it now — with Buckie!”

  Somewhere the two garrons screamed, their plunging, whinnying fear blending with Buckie’s frantic barking and the wild fury of Ronan’s own blood in his ears.

  Then the ground shook and the great Scots pines edging the clearing careened sideways, their tall, dark trunks colliding with the sky.

  Ronan dropped to his knees, aiming the sharp-ended tent pole like a long pike. He braced himself, waiting. Hoping the bull wouldn’t change his course.

  Praying he had the strength to withstand the crash.

  Then, quick as winking, the beast tossed its thick, shaggy neck and swung about, thundering ever nearer, but not toward the sharp end of the pole.

  Now he charged from the side, hurtling straight for the middle of the pole and at a speed that left
Ronan no time to reposition himself.

  Crrraaaaack!

  The impact snapped the tent pole like a twig. Unscathed, the bull thundered past, his horntip missing Ronan’s hip by a hair’s breadth. The beast flung himself around at once, his powerful hindquarters clipping Ronan’s shoulder and knocking him to the ground.

  He slammed onto the splintered pole shaft, white-hot pain shooting through him. Cursing, he rolled to the side and leaped to his feet, gaining his balance only moments before the bull charged anew, hurtling straight for him.

  Heart in his throat, he vaulted over a patch of heather as the bull barreled near, the beast’s hot, snorting breath blasting him as it shot past and circled around.

  This time the animal paused.

  It was the break Ronan needed.

  With a great screech of steel, he whipped out his sword, already slashing and stabbing. He swung the blade in a lightning-quick windmilling arc, ready and waiting for the bull’s next charge.

  Head low and swinging from side to side, the beast kept its distance. Bellowing furiously, it pawed the earth again and again, its powerful right hoof cleaving a deep black scar in the mossy, peaty ground.

  Then the great, unholy head lifted and swung in another direction, the beady red eyes fixing on the toppled trestle table and the striped welter of the collapsed tenting.

  Fiery eyes focusing, the creature shook itself. Then he shot forward with a tremendous burst of speed, tearing across the clearing even as Ronan raced to cut him off.

  “ No-o-o!” he roared, waving his sword above his head, flailing his other arm like a madman, anything to distract the bull.

  Draw him away from Gelis and Buckie.

  “To me! To me!” he yelled, almost upon the beast. “Wheel about, you —”

  “Cuidich N’ Righ!”

  The cry merged with his own just as he took a wild, slashing swipe at the bull’s rolling, muscle-bunched back. A bright, silvery streak arced beneath his down-swinging blade, deflecting the blow as the eye-blinding flash whizzed past the bull’s ears, barely grazing him, before plunging hilt-deep into the ground at the animal’s feet.

  His bride’s sgian dubh.

  And not a third the length of his sword, yet the bull nearly upended itself trying to stop its hurtling momentum before crossing the dirk’s steel.

  With a great unearthly cry, the beast tossed up its hind legs and jerked about, its forelegs scoring the earth in the fast, furious turn. Still bellowing, it took off, pounding away toward the heather whence it’d come.

  In a blink, even the thunderous drumming of its hooves faded.

  The bull was gone.

  Panting, Ronan threw his sword onto the grass and bent over, his hands braced on his thighs. Sweat stung his eyes, near blinding him, and every muscle in his body burned. Screaming pain pulsed in his side where he’d slammed into the shattered tent pole, a heated agony so fierce he suspected he might have cracked a rib.

  Not that he cared.

  Lady Gelis’s dirk raging up from the rich black earth was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

  Just as Buckie’s barking set his heart to soaring.

  Both meant they were alive and unharmed.

  Relief coursing through him, he straightened. Then he dragged his forearm across his brow before stooping again to retrieve his sword and the sgian dubh.

  “Did I not tell you MacKenzies are bold?”

  Gelis’s voice, ringing.

  Ronan almost dropped both weapons.

  He whirled around.

  She stood before him, all high color and heaving breasts, her eyes bright and her wild, flame-red hair tangled and wind-tossed.

  “Though,” she observed, speaking as lightly as if they stood before a cheery hearth fire, “it would seem our nuptial feast has been ruined again.”

  Once more he felt the ground tilt beneath his feet, albeit for a very different reason.

  He looked at her, now certain she could bring any man to his knees.

  “Had my dirk not nicked your sword, we would have had him!” she declared, her dimples winking.

  “Sweet thunder of heaven, lass! That bull could have had you — wanted you!” He jammed his blade into its scabbard, shoved her sgian dubh beneath his own low-slung sword belt. “Praise God you weren’t injured!”

  He seized her, yanking her so swiftly in his arms that he lifted her off her feet.

  “You are not, are you?”

  “Nae.” She shook her head. “I am . . . well! Not even a bit shaken.”

  “You could have been killed.” The very thought chilled him. “Seldom have I seen such an aggressive bull, attacking for no good cause or reason. No’ even in the wilds of Ettrick Forest, that bull-infested morass in the south.”

  “There we agree.” A slight catch in her voice revealed her to be more shaken than she let on.

  She’d slung her cloak around her shoulders and pulled it closer now, her fingers trembling a bit as she readjusted its clasp.

  “I, too, doubt such a beast roams distant Ettrick!” she emphasized, her magnificent breasts clearly outlined beneath the drape of her mantle. “And, it was you, not I, who stood the gravest danger.” She paused, her amber eyes narrowing. “You are not hurt?”

  He snorted.

  His entire right side was on fire and every indrawn breath was a torture, but he’d sooner lop off his hand than admit it.

  Most humiliating of all, judging by the flaming ache in his left foot, he suspected the bull had tromped on his toes in one of his thunderous passes.

  “I saw how hard you fell onto the tent pole,” she said, making it worse. “Are you sure —”

  “ ’Twas nothing,” he lied, grateful his voice wasn’t a wheeze. “I am much more concerned with you.”

  “Then all is . . . good!”

  “Humph.” He sounded less than convinced.

  Gelis lifted her chin. “You should be concerned with me,” she said, putting her best MacKenzie challenge into the words. “I am your wife, was meant to be your wife. Truth be told” — she met his gaze boldly — “no pair has ever been better suited.”

  Silence.

  Unperturbed, she poked a finger in his chest. “You know it in your heart.”

  “I know I should have seen you away from this place the moment you stepped out of yon trees.” He flashed a glance toward the tall Scots pines. “That I didn’t —”

  She pressed her fingers against his lips. “Perhaps the Old Ones drew us here?” She angled her head, watching him. “They have a way of kenning us better than we know ourselves. We fought the bull together. Perhaps that shared triumph was a lesson?”

  “Be that as it may, you will no’ come here again.”

  He released her then, stepping back to study her face, his own pale in the cold autumn light. Dark shadows were just beginning to shade the skin beneath his eyes and deep lines bracketed his mouth.

  His gaze dropped to Buckie. The dog stood pressed against her, his hips a bit wobbly but his ears still perked and his hackles raised. Clearly, he had no intention of taking himself elsewhere.

  Not that he could with one of the Viking tent’s tie-ropes looped around his neck in a makeshift collar, the other end held securely in her hand.

  “You see,” she said, following his gaze, “we were safe all along. And” — she reached to take his hand, twining their fingers — “if the bull had charged us, you would have slain him first. That I know.”

  Ronan harrumphed again, wishing he were as certain.

  Nor did he know how they were going to make it back to Dare, especially with Buckie.

  The two garrons were gone.

  “We are no’ safe even now.” He pulled his hand from her grasp, turning aside to stare off in the direction the beast had taken. “He could return any moment.”

  “Not that bull.”

  She sounded sure of it.

  Ronan eyed her, something about her tone lifting the fine hairs on his nape. “What do you me
an no’ that bull?”

  Had she, too, noted the creature’s odd red-glowing eyes? Guessed — as he had — that the creature was bespelled?

  If so, she ought to ken they were safe from him nowhere.

  To be sure not here in a scarce-to-be-defended clearing with no place to hide or run should the thing have a change of heart and come thundering back again.

  Instead, a hard-riding group of Dare’s best guardsmen came spurring into the clearing, the two missing garrons led behind them. They drew up fast, stout warriors all; each man a faithful stalwart, tough, seasoned, and well-hung with bristling steel.

  “Ho! Ronan!” The first called, lifting a hand in greeting. “What goes on here?” He rode forward, his sharp gaze noting the collapsed Viking tent. “We heard Buckie barking and then your two mounts came crashing through the trees.”

  Ronan took a deep breath, dignity not letting him show his relief at their arrival.

  He’d forgotten their hidden presence.

  More than evident now, they swung round into a shielding semicircle, upright and alert, their hands ready to draw swords at a single eye- blink if need be.

  And clearly unaware of what had transpired.

  “You did not see him, then?” Ronan turned back to Sorley, the eldest and most able guardsman.

  “See who?” Sorley’s plaid rippled in the wind. “Torcaill?”

  “Nae.” Ronan made a dismissive gesture. “That one is far from here . . . sprinkling Lammas ash and iron chips round our boundary markers.”

  The druid forgotten, Ronan kept his gaze on the straight-backed, proud-featured veteran. “Tell me true,” he pressed, “did you no’ catch a glimpse of a great wild-eyed bull, gray-white and massive? The beast went charging off in the very direction whence you came.”

  Sorley shook his bearded head. “We only saw yon two garrons.”

  “And a wee dog fox,” another guardsman put in. “Strange creature, that. Creeping through a thick patch o’ bracken, he was. Then, soon as he saw us, he hopped up onto an old holly stump and raised a paw as we rode past, almost as if he were saluting our progress.”