Mated By The Demon Collections: Paranormal Romance

by Riley Moreno

  Duncan, too, felt it coming as she pulled and rubbed with a mad speed, and he was panting and moaning with a bestial desperation. Beneath his squeezing fingers, Jane felt the electrifying waves of orgasm surging through her body, setting every nerve ending afire and sending her heart pounding with a force that felt like it was going to explode. At the same time as she was cumming, she felt a glorious liquid heat spray out in forceful spurts from his enormous, throbbing manhood, soaking both of her breasts with its hot, sticky issue as he pulled his head away from her chest and leaned back to moan with sheer pleasure as he came. He stumbled back from her after he was done, gasping and panting, and she too dropped her knees as the creamy, hot liquid dribbled and dripped off of her breasts onto the forest floor.

  “That was...” she gasped.

  “Amazing,” he said in his gravelly voice, still panting.

  He stood still for a while, and then walked quietly up to her, and hugged her close and tight.

  “I'm so sorry,” he whispered. “I'll never, ever leave you again. Never.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Duncan and Jane walked hand in hand through the forest. Sunlight streamed down through the trees, warming the winter day and setting the snow aflame with tiny specks that looked like stars. It was their second day together, and they were both tired and worn-out, but ecstatically happy from the two nights they had spent in one another's arms, making love, wrapped up beneath the cold starry sky in Duncan's heavy cloak.

  “Where shall we go?” asked Jane. “We've been heading southwest for days, but do you have a destination in mind?”

  Duncan smiled, revealing a mouth full of perfectly-straight, shiny white teeth.

  “Aye, my beauty, I do. We're heading to Stranraer.”

  “Stranraer? The port?”

  “Aye.”

  “What for?”

  “We can take a ship there across the Northern Channel to Ireland. Nobody knows who we are there, so we can have a fresh start. A clean slate, a brand new life.”

  Jane smiled and pulled Duncan in for a slow, lingering kiss. After their lips had parted she stared into his piercing eyes.

  “Duncan MacDougal,” she purred, “who are you going to be in your new life? What name are you going to assume?”

  “It does not matter what new name I take, nor what I do – all that matters is that I'm yours, forever. Whoever I choose to be in Ireland, I will first and foremost be Jane MacGladdery's husband and lover.”

  A blissful heat flushed through Jane's body and set all of her nerves aflame with a zesty tingling.

  “And whoever I'll be,” she said, “I'll first and foremost be Duncan MacDougal's wife and lover. We'll make quite the pair, won't we!”

  Duncan spun her around in a flamboyant dancer's twirl, and then laid her back in his arms and kissed her deeply and slowly.

  “That's the only thing I ever want you to be, my lover,” he whispered.

  Both of them felt arousal boosting its hot blood through their veins. Duncan at once whipped off his cloak and laid it down on the snowy ground. He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her in close and tight. She could feel his erection throbbing against her stomach.

  “Duncan!” she gasped, “Aren't you tired! We did it so many times last night that we hardly had five minutes of sleep between us, and it's not even midday yet, and you're ready to do it again?”

  He grinned wolfishly.

  “I'm always ready to do it with you, Jane. Always.”

  He kissed her passionately, and they both fell down to the ground, giggling and kissing and nibbling and biting as they removed one another's clothes and wrapped the cloak around their naked bodies.

  Later That Evening

  Duncan sighed as he stoked the small campfire with a long stick. He swallowed slowly, trying to ignore the hunger that was gnawing at his insides. Jane looked up at him and smiled, dabbing her mouth with a handkerchief after she swallowed the last bite of dinner. He smiled back at her, not wanting her to know that he was going hungry because he had given her the lion's share of the food. As long as she was happy and healthy, he would bear the pain of hunger in silence.

  Once we get to Ireland, I'll no longer be an outlaw. I can get work, make money, build us a house in which we can raise our children. There'll always be food in the pantry, and we'll never go hungry again. I won't have to live sleeping with one eye open and always having to look over my shoulder. Nobody will ever say, 'oh, that's Duncan MacDougal, the outlaw'. No. They'll say, 'there's Duncan MacDougal, the blacksmith! What a fine and honest man he is!' That's what life will be like in Ireland. No more living on the run, no more hiding, no more living off the land like a wild animal.

  “I can't wait to get to Ireland,” he said. “I really can't.”

  “I know,” replied Jane with a smile. “We'll be able to start our new life together.”

  “That'll be amazing. Jane, do you think your parents will ever forgive you for running away like this?”

  Jane rolled her eyes and frowned.

  “I don't think they've even noticed I'm gone.”

  Duncan shook his head.

  “You shouldn't talk about them like that. I'm sure they're good people.”

  “You don't know them like I do, Duncan. All my father cares about is his business. And all my mother cares about is my brothers, and how much money they're making from the business. They never paid any attention to me. For them, all I was was a free servant. A maid they never had to pay.”

  “I'm sorry to hear that.”

  “What about your parents?”

  Duncan froze up for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. He still didn't want to tell her the truth about the matter – that he was a nobleman's son and the rightful heir to his father's title and estate, which had been usurped by his younger brother.

  “My father was a simple man,” he lied. “A peasant who died young, working in his lord's fields.”

  “And your mother?”

  “I never knew her. She died giving birth to my brother. I was only two years old, so I don't remember anything about her.”

  That part was true, at least. A sad look entered Jane's eyes as Duncan said this.

  “I'm so sorry to hear that.”

  “It's fine. My father loved me, while he was alive. It was enough for-”

  He stopped quickly, for he had almost said 'my brother and I'.

  “For?”

  “Um, for me. For me, is what I was going to say,” he mumbled quickly.

  “Oh. Hey, what's that roaring sound I can hear in the distance?”

  “I think it's a waterfall. Would you like to go for a moonlit walk and have a look? The moon is full and bright, so we'll easily be able to see.”

  Jane smiled broadly.

  “Yes! Let's go!”

  After half an hour of walking through the forest, hand in hand, they reached a stream, and followed it along for a few minutes. They reached a spot where the water cascaded over a cliff almost a hundred feet down into a deep, black pool below.

  “It's beautiful, isn't it?” said Duncan, hugging Jane tightly.

  “It is!” she said, raising her voice so that she could be heard above the thunder of the waterfall.

  “Look at the two lovebirds,” rasped a sinister voice from the shadows.

  Both Duncan and Jane jumped back, startled by this unexpected intrusion. Duncan whipped his knife out of his belt. His knife was the only weapon he had brought – he hadn't thought to bring his sword or bow with him here.

  “Who's there?” he shouted into the shadows. “Show yourself!”

  A man in armor, holding a longsword, stepped out into a patch of moonlight. He pointed his sword at Duncan, and then shot a mocking glance at Duncan's knife.

  “Looks like mine is bigger than yours,” he sneered.

  “Size doesn't matter when it comes to blades – it's all about skill. And if you value your life, stranger, you'll move on, and you'll move on quickly,” growled Duncan.<
br />
  “Oh, skill certainly counts for a lot, I agree,” said the armored man. “But speed is of extreme importance too, isn't it?”

  “Yes, it is – and I'll wager that I can move a lot faster than you, especially while you're in that heavy suit of armor,” countered Duncan.

  “Maybe you can,” replied the man. “But I wonder, can you move faster than a crossbow bolt?”

  Two more armed men stepped out of the shadows. Both were holding loaded crossbows, aimed at Duncan's throat.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” asked Jane, who was trembling now with fear. “Leave us alone! We're poor! We have nothing worth stealing!”

  “Maybe you don't have anything,” said the man, “but your bodies certainly are worth a few bags of gold. There's a price on that outlaw's head,” he said, pointing his sword at Duncan, “and a reward offered for your safe return, Jane MacGladdery. We don't need your lover alive though – we just need his head, so if you'll kindly move out of the way, I'll just remove it from his body quickly...”

  The crossbowmen raised their crossbows to their shoulders, ready to fire, and the armored man raised his sword. Duncan only had a split-second in which to make a decision, and he did it quickly.

  “I'm so sorry my love,” he whispered to Jane, “I'll always love you.”

  He turned on his heels and jumped off the edge of the cliff, hurtling down one hundred feet and plunging into the blackness of the pool below with a mighty splash. Jane screamed and ran over to the edge of the cliff. Nothing could be seen in the pool but ripples of water from where his body had hit the water, glinting in the moonlight.

  The armored man gripped Jane's arm tightly and pulled her roughly away from the cliff.

  “He's dead, Miss MacGladdery. No man could have survived that fall. That idiot! Now I won't get a reward for his body. Aye, the life of a bounty hunter is disappointing sometimes. Still, I've got you, and that'll be reward enough for me and my boys! Come with us now, we're taking you back to your father.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Well, well, well... You're back. And you've gone and cost me a right pretty penny, Jane. I had to pay those damned bounty hunters a month's worth of profits!”

  Jane's father glared at her with not an ounce of sympathy in his eyes. He could see that she was miserable, and that her eyes were puffy and red from crying, but he did not seem to care.

  “Go and eat. Your mother's made some food for you. After that, there are floors that need to be mopped, and shelves that need to be cleaned. I trust that you didn't forget how to do these things while you were on your little vacation, did you?”

  Jane looked up and glared at him with fire in her eyes.

  “You really don't care, do you?” she snarled. “All you wanted was to have your servant back, right?”

  Jane's father stared at her emotionlessly.

  “Go to the kitchen. Now,” he said flatly. Then he turned around and trudged off towards his study.

  It was three hours later that the sheriff and his men arrived at Jane's house. A soldier dressed in chain-mail armor rapped impatiently on the door. Jane's father, grumbling under his breath, went over and opened the door.

  “Yes? What do you want?” he asked curtly.

  “We're looking for Jane MacGladdery. Is she here?”

  “Yes, but what's the problem? I've got her back now, she's no longer missing.”

  “There's something else. She was found with the outlaw Duncan MacDougal. The bounty hunter just informed us of this now.”

  “What?! She was with an outlaw?!”

  “That's right. Could you bring her out here?”

  Jane's father trudged off into the house and returned a few moments later with Jane, who was scowling defiantly.

  “The sheriff says you're accused of accompanying an outlaw,” Jane's father said to her. “That thieving, lying bounty hunter made that accusation. Now, if you could just refute that claim we'll settle this matter, and the sheriff can go and deal with more important things.”

  A flare of anger burned with violent fire inside her.

  “It's true!” she blurted out.

  Her father gasped with shock.

  “I was with Duncan MacDougal, and I want to be with him again! I love him!”

  “You heard her, lads,” said the sheriff to his soldiers. “She just confessed her crime. Jane MacGladdery, you are hereby arrested for the crime of consorting with a known outlaw. You'll be tried before the lord of this area, Lord Scott MacDougal. He will be your judge. For your parents' sake, I hope he doesn't impose the death sentence, because then we'll have to take that pretty head off of your shoulders in three days' time. Come with us now. You're going to have to be locked in a dungeon until your trial.”

  With her world crashing to pieces around her, Jane started crying softly as the armored men put chains around her ankles and wrists and lead her away.

  CHAPER 11

  Three days later, at Jane's trial

  Lord Scott MacDougal stared coldly at Jane, and she returned his gaze with eyes full of pride and defiance. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of being scared and trembling before him. The trial was being conducted out in the open, in a field dusted with snow. A cold wind blew, and everyone present wrapped their cloaks a little tighter around themselves.

  “So, you've already admitted to the crime, in the presence of the sheriff and his men.”

  Lord Scott's voice was cold, yet something about it seemed very familiar to Jane. Also, he bore a striking physical resemblance to Duncan – a fact that hurt Jane's heart deeply every time she looked at him

  “Yes my lord,” she replied. Her voice was loud and clear; her tone betrayed no hint of fear.

  “Well then, there isn't much of a need for this trial, is there?”

  “You're not going to show any leniency, my lord?”

  “No.”

  “Well then, I suppose there isn't much need of a trial, my lord.”

  “Very well. In light of the devious nature of your crime, and the terrible, monstrous character of the outlaw-”

  A horse with a rider, armored head to toe in black armor, came thundering across the field from the far distance. Everyone, including Lord Scott, paused to turn and watch this strange and unexpected spectacle.

  “As I was saying,” continued Lord Scott, trying to draw everyone's attention away from the approaching rider, “since you freely admit to being in cohorts with such a vile monster, the outlaw Duncan MacDougal, and as you seem to show no remorse for this terrible crime, I am going to impose the harshest sentence upon you: death.”

  A collective gasp of shock rippled through the audience. Jane felt her knees becoming weak beneath her, and black spots started swimming around the edges of her vision.

  “Does any have legal grounds to object to this decision?” asked Lord Scott coldly, staring out at the crowd. People whispered among themselves in shock, but nobody came forward.

  “Very well, the sentence is passed. The execution will be at dawn tomorr-”

  “Wait!” shouted a deep, clear voice.

  The black knight had arrived, and he galloped into the center of the field, positioning himself and his horse between Jane and Lord Scott.

  “Who are you?!” demanded Lord Scott.

  “None of your business... my lord,” said the black knight. His face was masked entirely by his black-painted helmet, so nobody could tell who he was.

  “However,” continued the knight, “I know that this lady, as does any free citizen of Scotland, has the right to demand trial by combat before she is sentenced. And as she is a woman, and cannot legally fight in a trial by combat, I am volunteering to be her champion.”

  Another collective gasp of shock tore through the crowd. A legal scribe leaned over to Lord Scott and spoke quietly to him.

  “The black knight is right, my lord. She has that right. It is written in the sacred laws of the land.”

  Lord Scott stood up.

  “Yo
u will be her champion then, stranger?”

  “I will,” replied the black knight.

  “The terms of trial by combat dictate that the fight is to the death,” said Lord Scott. “You are prepared to die on this woman's behalf?”

  “If that is God's will, so be it,” replied the knight.

  “Very well. Trial by combat it is.”

  A cheer rang out from the crowd; none of them wanted to see Jane die.

  Lord Scott sat down and spoke quietly to the legal scribe.

  “And who is this knight supposed to fight?”

  “Well my lord,” said the scribe, “he must fight her accuser. I suppose I should have told you this a bit sooner... But... that means you, my lord.”

  Scott's face went pale.

  “Me?!” he hissed. “I have to fight that knight?!”

  “You are Jane's accuser, my lord. It was you who brought the charges against her.”

  “It was the sheriff, you idiot!”

  “No my lord, the sheriff merely made you aware of the charges. You could have dropped them, but instead you made the decision to press them; that makes you the accuser.”

  “Fine,” spat Scott. “So be it. I've fought in enough battles now to know how to kill a man.”

  Lord Scott stood up and he called out to one of his squires.

  “Squire! Saddle up my horse and get my suit of armor! I will fight this black knight at sunset!”

  Two hours later

  The two knights faced each other in silence, one hundred yards apart, mounted on their horses. The black knight was as dark as a demon from the depths of the forest; his horse was black, his armor was black, his lance was black and his shield was black. The only brightness to be seen on him was the silver glint of his sword. Lord Scott was outfitted in expensive, intricately detailed silver armor, fit for a king. His lance was painted yellow, and his shield had his family crest – a dragon's head, painted green on a red background – painted on it. His horse was white.

  The legal scribe stood in the exact center of the field, between Lord Scott and the mysterious black knight.