A low groan escaped her as he molded his fingers around her, squeezing gently in rhythm to the movement of his other hand. He scraped his thumb over her taut nipple and the world blossomed into hot, bright fragments as release shot through her.
“Chrysty!” she screamed then clamped a hand over her mouth, afraid Maggie and Sadie would come running. Vibrations were ripping through her sheath. A glorious sensation of heat and pressure and unbelievable pleasure pulsed within her.
“That’s it, my lady,” he said, his fingers moving faster, milking every last ripple of pleasure from her surprised body. “That’s what you needed.”
Lorna thrashed her head back and forth on the pillow—pressing her hand tighter to her mouth to keep the keening from erupting. She was on fire where he touched yet it was a burning glory that was so exquisite, so unexpected yet so intensely satisfying she felt her spirit rising above her body only to plummet to earth again as the last little pulse ceased.
“Aye, sweeting,” he said, withdrawing his fingers from her wet channel.
She watched in utter fascination as he brought his hand to his mouth and licked away her juices. What should have horrified her, shamed her, only made her sigh with contentment as he removed all vestiges of her fluids from his fingers.
The door opened and Chrysty snapped his head around.
“Out!” he ordered and Lorna looked past his shoulder to see Maggie’s pale face, the silent ‘O’ of her mouth disappear behind the quickly closed panel. When her demon lover looked down at her again, she saw anger leaping in tiny little red flames in his golden eyes.
She trembled, her hand falling away from her lips. “She saw you,” she accused. “She knows!”
“She’ll say nothing,” he said, his handsome face tight.
“Chrysty…” she began but his hand moved to her sensitive flesh again, his palm sliding over her damp sex.
“Lay still, Lorna-love,” he ordered. “And let your man pleasure you again.”
He gave her no chance to deny him. Over and over again through the night hours he took her to the threshold of sheer ecstasy, held her there until she thought she would explode like the stars dancing around her, then sent her crashing down again with climax after climax he wrought with the strong thrusts of his knowing fingers. When at last she could take no more of the sweet pleasure-pain, when she was stretched and wet and ready for him, he slid down in the bed, between her legs, gripped her hips in his hands and impaled her on his rigid shaft.
She opened her mouth to cry out but he slammed his over hers, taking the cry into his mouth. Pumping like a fiend he took her to even more dizzying heights. His weight. His hard as iron rod. His fingers digging into her rump as he pounded into her brought her hands to his back, her nails clawing into his flesh.
“Wrap your legs around my waist!” he demanded against her swollen lips.
She obeyed and the pleasure increased so greatly she thought she might well die from it. When he spilled into her—his seed cold and searing deep inside her body—she felt the ragged edge of unconsciousness reach up to grip her.
Down she tumbled through layer after layer of black curling mist until she lay limp beneath him, whimpering as he eased to his side then drew her against him, into his arms, her head resting on his shoulder. Feebly she pawed at his chest as she slowly regained what senses he had left her.
“Sleep now, my lady,” he told her and placed a gentle kiss on her brow.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she said.
“I will never hurt you,” he replied.
“Will it always be like that?”
“Always,” he swore. “Now, sleep. When day breaks, I must teach you the craft you will need to take your vengeance.”
Lorna smiled and snuggled against him. Beneath her palm his heart beat steadily, slowly. For the first time in her life, she felt she was where she belonged.
Chapter Seven
The three women sat spellbound as they listened to the tall, dark, and devilishly handsome man speak. His voice was deep, low and carried with it a cadence of authority that made it impossible for their minds to wander. In his hands he held a thick book from which he read now and again and the words he spoke wound their way into three highly susceptible minds and burrowed deep.
“When you have the way of it, you will each gather three women, go to a place where you will not be discovered and teach them what I have taught you,” he said softly. “There will be a Book for each of you and when those three are ready, a Book for each of them, as well.”
In the end he had conjured Allyn McCorley and Duncan Daughtry and Maggie had signed her name in blood above Allyn’s and Sadie had scrawled hers over Duncan’s. Each woman had her own Nightwind.
“Each of those you recruit will have her own lover,” he told them. “Let her call him as she will and he will come.”
As Allyn and Duncan began to fade away, Maggie called out to her demon, holding her hand out to him.
“He will return to you tonight,” Chrysty said. “And every night you want him.”
“What of our husbands?” Sadie asked, fear lining her face.
“Use the Book, my lady,” Chrysty said. “Put your human male into a deep sleep then take your pleasure with your rightful mate.”
“Pleasure,” Maggie breathed. “Is there truly such a thing when you lay with a man?”
“There is,” Lorna stated, her gaze locking with her lover’s. “Believe me there is such pleasure as you could not begin to imagine.”
Chrysty smiled. “Now, leave us, for there are things I must teach Lorna before the male returns.”
It was late in the afternoon and soon the sun would be almost to the horizon. Cailean would return and at the midnight hour, would force Lorna to become his bride.
“Can’t I stop him?” she asked. “Isn’t there something in the Book that will .…”
“Join with him, Lorna-love,” Chrysty ordered. “It will make the revenge all the sweeter when it is time.”
She didn’t want McGregor’s hands on her again but her demon had insisted there had to be one final mating between her and Cailean after the Joining in order to bind the McGregor to her.
“Then, you can use the Book to do to him what the other Sisters will do to their menfolk. You can make him believe he has spent a wild night of love in your arms when he has done no more than laid there like a rock while you and I take our ease with one another.”
“Beside him?” she questioned, speculation entering her eyes.
“If you wish,” he said, his white smile predatory and not-quite sane.
She lifted her chin. “I think I would like that.”
“What if we become pregnant with our lover’s child?” Sadie asked. She and her sister were at the door.
“You won’t unless you wish to,” Chrysty said. “Incubi are sterile but there is a way for you to conceive if that is what you want.” He looked to his lady. “And one day, you will want a daughter to replace you.”
“Not by Cailean McGregor!” she said, eyes flaring. “He says he can’t give me children.”
Chrysty shook his head. “The McGregor men blame themselves for not producing when all the while it was not their defect but their wives’. The men are potent.”
“Our menfolk are as potent as they come. I don’t want no more bairns!” Maggie said.
“Use the Book,” they were told. “There will be no vital seed from either of your males if that is what you want.” He waved his hand, signaling the women to go and without another word, they obeyed.
“I need to know where the women who vanished are, Chrysty,” Lorna said when the door closed behind the sisters.
“They are safe and happy with Nightwinds of their own,” he replied. “Far from this hellish place. Either Allyn, Duncan, or I took them over the wyndstones and to a much better life. We were waiting for you to come so things will be put to rights.”
He walked to where she sat and placed the Book of Shadows in her ha
nds. It was heavy as she rested it on her thighs. He squatted in front of her, wrapping his fingers over hers where they held the edge and spine of the Book.
“The men of the Tabor clan have subjugated and abused their women for centuries,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes. “They have imprisoned and tortured and murdered innocent men for just as long. Thousands upon thousands of such men have perished at the hands of men like the Tabors. Now it is time to bring those men—those Nightwinds—out of the Abyss and allow them to mate with the women they will protect. It is past time the guilty be punished for their crimes and this is where it will begin again.”
“Again?” she asked.
He nodded. “Long ago, before the Burning War, there were women who called forth the Nightwinds. The last of them has left this world—not in death but left it all the same. You will begin the culling again and those who have been hurt by men like the Tabors will be your allies. Those whom Allyn, Duncan and I carried away will return to the Hill for this is their home but not until the last of the males have been punished and it is safe for them to come back.”
The sound of hoof beats and jingle of harness brought the demon’s head up. His fierce frown told her Cailean had returned.
“Remember what I have taught you,” Chrysty said, getting to his feet. “But do not use the teaching until you are legally bound to McGregor and he has sealed the distasteful deed with his semen. Then use the Book to begin to control him.”
With that, the Nightwind vanished.
Lorna heard the scuff of feet on the porch then McGregor’s voice.
“Buckboard is on its way to pick you up,” he said. “Is she up?”
“Aye, milord,” Sadie replied. There was a pause. “Are you sure you don’t want us to stay to help her get ready for tonight?”
“I brought Lady Belle’s Joining gown for her to wear. She can get into it herself.”
Digging her short nails into the palms of her hand, Lorna would have been annoyed simply at Cail’s presumption that a woman could dress without help on her Joining day. She could, of course, but it was nice to have her female friends or relatives there to bolster her. It was supposed to be a time for rejoicing, for sharing but considering it was a time she dreaded, not having Maggie and Sadie to help her was a moot point. What angered her most was that she was expected to wear another woman’s bridal gown. A borrowed gown, she thought, tears forming in her eyes.
She was sitting in the rocking chair beside the fireplace when Cailean entered the cabin. The Book of Shadows had disappeared with Chrysty. With her hands curled over the arms of the rocker, her bare feet planted firmly on the floor, she regarded her husband-to-be with a hard stare.
“You feeling better now?” he asked. He closed the door, took off his black felt hat to hang it on a peg beside the door. When she didn’t answer, he frowned. “Don’t give me the silent treatment, Lorna. The Joining will take place.”
“Whether I like it or not,” she said in a grating tone.
“Aye,” he agreed then walked into the kitchen area of the main room, unbuttoning his cuffs to roll up his sleeves. He glanced at the stove. “You need to start fixing our supper.”
“I have no intention of cooking for you, Cailean,” she said. “You want supper, you fix it.”
“Be careful, Lorna.” Chrysty’s words drifted through her head on a warning note.
Pausing as he was about to pump water into the sink to wash his hands, Cailean straightened up. He didn’t turn around but stood facing the window over the sink that looked out over the gathering dusk.
“Get up and start supper or .…” he began through clenched teeth.
“You’ll what?” she asked, setting the rocking chair into motion. The creak of its rockers on the wooden floor was loud in the room. “Take a strop to my backside?”
Cailean sighed. His shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to start our life together like that, Lorna, but you need to learn a man runs his house, not the woman.” He twisted his head around to pin her with a steady look. “Get up and start supper. I won’t tell you again.”
Lorna smiled nastily. “Good. Beat me if you want to,” she dared him. “But I’ll not lift a hand to make your supper, Cailean McGregor.”
He said nothing to her provocative statement, only sighed and pumped water into the sink, took the bar of lye soap and began to lather his hands. When finished, he shut off the water, dried his hands on a towel hanging beside the sink then turned to face her.
“If you think to bait me into beating you, Lorna, it can be done but I’ll warn you now that I won’t spare the rod as the case may be. I’ll also warn you that I will hit you where it won’t show but where it will make it very difficult for you to sit your ass down comfortably for a good long time.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Do it, then,” she said. “I couldn’t possibly hate you more then than I do at this moment.” She pushed up on her toes, setting the rocker to moving faster. “And let me toss you a warning, McGregor. I will fight you every step of the way.” Her upper lip skinned back from her gritted teeth. “And I’ll do my gods-be-damned best to hurt you every chance I get. So if you force me to cook for you, you might want somebody you dislike to taste it for you first. Of course I doubt they’d notice spit or snot mixed in with the gravy.”
Cailean went as still as death as he stared at her. He was not accustomed to women speaking to a man as this one dared to speak to him. It wasn’t only that he was a man and she a woman. He was an elder, the Chosen leader of her clan, and she was showing him disrespect. It was within his rights to punish her however he saw fit but that was something he truly did not want to do. He didn’t want to hurt her and was mortally ashamed of having raped her. By threatening her with the strop, he had thought to frighten her into toeing the line but was beginning to see that tactic would not work with Lorna. She would make him chastise her severely before she’d give in to him but he was determined that she would.
For a long moment he stared at her then a muscle worked in his jaw as he turned away. There was bread in the breadbox and meat in the cooler in the cellar. He could make do with a sandwich or two for today. Tomorrow—when she was legally his—would be time enough to set down rules by which she would be forced to live. If her belly rumbled tonight, she had no one to blame for it but herself.
Walking to the trap door beside the stove, he bent down, opened it and descended the stairs. He went to the cooler, took the knife from the sheath at his thigh, and cut off several slices of cured ham he could fry for his supper. Grabbing a jug of buttermilk and a jar of canned peaches he climbed the steps and closed the trap door behind him.
Lorna watched as he went about cooking the ham in a cast iron frying pan. The smell of the meat cooking made her mouth water but she tried to ignore the hunger pangs clutching at her stomach. She would not give him the satisfaction of forbidding her from making her own meal.
“Bide your time,” Chrysty purred in her ear. “I’ll feed you a feast when the Joining is done.”
“And I will make him rue the day he ever sat down to eat while I remained hungry,” she thought as she watched Cailean take a seat at the table.
It had been over a day since she’d had any nourishment and her head was beginning to ache miserably. The sight of McGregor methodically chewing his food, ladling peaches onto his plate made her mouth water even more but she resolutely turned her eyes away, laying her head on the tall back of the rocker and closing her eyes as though she’d not a care in the world. Although she could feel her husband-to-be surreptitiously watching her, it didn’t matter. He would pay dearly for the torment he was making her endure.
“I am not taking pleasure from hurting you, Lorna,” Cail said softly. “This is not how I wanted it to be.”
She ignored him. For a moment she opened her eyes when his chair legs scraped across the floor but then she closed them again as he took his plate to the sink. He stood there for quite some time staring out the window then sighed. He walk
ed out of the kitchen and into the bedroom where she heard him rustling around in the closet.
“He is laying your Joining gown on the bed,” Chrysty told her, appearing across the room as a wavering shaft of light.
“I should rip it to shreds,” she grumbled, setting the chair to rocking once again.
“It is an old gown, an honored gown. It is an honor to wear it. Many a Tabor woman has worn it to her Joining and you will want our daughter to do the same.”
She gave him a surprised look. “Our daughter?” she asked, remembering he said he was sterile.
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” he said.
She nodded though she wasn’t sure she wanted a child.
Cail came to stand in the doorway between the main room and the bedroom. “Would you like me to draw you a tub of water?” he inquired.
“I don’t want you to do anything for me,” she snapped, not bothering to look his way.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
“You must not antagonize him, sweeting,” Chrysty told her. “You do not as yet have the power to protect yourself and I can not until the Joining is sealed.”
“You couldn’t stop him?” she asked, incredulous.
“Not until he does something to hurt you. That is the law of the Book. That is Her law and even then I can not kill him. Others who hurt you are outside Her law and they are expendable.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Does that include Daniel?”
“What did you say?” Cail called out.
“I asked if Daniel will be there tonight,” she snapped.
Her husband-to-be appeared in the doorway again. He was shirtless, a wet rag in his hand. He used it to wipe under his arm. “Aye, he will say the words of your religion over you to bind you legally to me according to Citadel law.”
She looked away from his brawny chest as though it disgusted her and she sensed his flash of aggravation before he ducked back into the bedroom.
“If you want me to rid you of your brother, I will, but it is not something I want to do,” Chrysty said. “As yet, he has not entirely succumbed to the influence of the Tabor clan. There may be hope for him to yet avoid the vengeance reserved for the other males.”
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