WyndStones

by Wyndstone (lit)

  “Men been doing that since Adam, I reckon,” Lady Belle said. “Who you think picked the fruit in the Garden, dearling? Weren’t that lazy man, I can promise you!” She snorted. “Men think just ‘cause they can fight and kill, they ought not to do no more than that unless it’s to get a bairn or two on their woman.” She bumped Lorna with her bony hip. “And you ask why I never married. Hell’s bells! Why you want to buy the whole hog to have to take care of when all you really want is the sausage?”

  Lorna laughed at the vulgar metaphor. It made washing the dishes as the old lady dried them more bearable. When they were finished, she and Lady Belle went out on the porch—not to join the men but to partake of the light breeze that had sprang up.

  “You take that there rocking chair, Lorna,” Lady Belle said. “I’ll sit with my kinsman.”

  “That’s all right, Lady,” Cail said, springing up as though a fox were nipping at his backside. “I was going to stretch my legs.” He cut his eyes to his wife. “I still feel a mite weak from whatever made me sick.”

  “Well, whatever it was didn’t kill you,” Lady Belle said as she plopped down in the swing and set it into motion. “You oughta be thankful for that, McGregor.”

  “Aye,” Cail mumbled as he stepped off the porch.

  Sam was back to whittling another stick, whistling softly as he worked. In the distance a wolf howled to the bright moon sailing overhead and another answered. The cicadas and crickets were revving up and in the distance the lonely sound of a loon hung on the night air. It was peaceful and the night breeze bore the delicate scent of honeysuckle.

  “That’s a right nice buggy you got there, Cail,” Lady Belle said.

  The moonlight was bright enough that the women could see Cail nod in agreement. He and Sam had unhitched the horses and fed them a bag of oats, watered them before supper and now he was standing by the larger of the two, stroking its thick mane.

  “MacLeod and his sons do good work,” Cail said. He patted the horse then moved away.

  “Never cared for the MacLeod men,” the old woman said. “They tend to be mean as cornered raccoons. Always were like that way back as far as I can remember.” She turned her sparkling gaze to Lorna. “Somebody ought to make them mend their ways.”

  “Like who, Lady?” Cail challenged. He came back to the porch, lifted his foot to brace it on the top step and leaned forward to rest his crossed wrists on his knee. “The men of the Hill have a different opinion of the MacCleod clan.”

  “Aye, well, us women have an opinion, too, boy, and it ain’t the same, I’m reckoning,” Lady Belle snapped.

  “And are you thinking things are going to be changing around here, now?” Cail asked. He swung his eyes to his wife, stared hard at her.

  “You never know,” Lorna said quietly.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Cail snapped.

  Lorna arched a brow, not commenting on his rude statement. She returned his stare with a hard one of her own.

  “You just never know as your wife says,” Lady Belle said. “Things have a way of happening.”

  “Aye but I can promise you those things of which you speak are going to come to a screeching halt real soon,” Cail said, a muscle grinding in his cheek. “Losing the priest didn’t matter but losing my brother—my twin brother—is something I have no intention of forgiving.”

  “Losing the priest didn’t matter?” Lorna queried, anger clouding her expression. “I wasn’t aware my brother was lost. Is there something you need to tell me, Cail?”

  A snort of disgust came from her husband. He was glaring at her with such cold disdain she felt it rippling down her spine.

  “We all pay for our sins, Lorna,” he said. “In one way or another.”

  “Aye, Cail,” she retorted. “That we do.”

  A flicker of surprise passed over Cail’s face at her harsh tone and Lorna thought she saw just a hint of fear settling in his gray eyes.

  “Well, I don’t know about you younguns but it’s nigh past my bedtime,” Lady Belle announced as she pushed to her feet with a grunt. “Down with the worms and up with the chickens is my motto.”

  “Have a good night, Lady,” Lorna said. “I’ll try to be quiet when I come to bed.”

  The old woman snapped her arthritic fingers. “Land o’goshen, I almost forgot. I was gonna get that painting of Alinor for you to see.” She looked at Cail. “Come fetch it down from the shelf for me, lad. Lorna, dearling, come on in, too.”

  Cail sighed but accompanied his kinswoman into the cabin. He opened the door for Lady Belle but didn’t keep it open for Lorna. His deliberately allowing the screen to shut in her face spoke louder of his irritation with her than words could have.

  “Unmannerly bore,” Lorna said under her breath and smiled as Sam rushed forward to open the door for her. She reached out to pat the young man’s cheek. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am,” Sam said with a crooked grin.

  Lorna hadn’t paid much attention to the floor to ceiling shelves that sat at the far side of the little parlor other than to note they were there. The two-foot deep shelves were lined with books and various jars, bottles, and boxes—every inch of the pine boards crammed to overflowing. Watching Cail pull a small step stool over to stand on so he could reach the top shelf, she had to grudgingly admit the man had a killer body. It was too bad his mind wasn’t as well-built.

  “The paintin’ came over from Scotland,” Lady Belle said as Cail took down a canvas-wrapped bundle. “It was passed down from clan matriarch to matriarch for safekeeping and when I pass on, it will become yours to watch over, dearling.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Cail mumbled.

  Lorna heard him and exchanged a knowing look with the old woman. Neither commented on Cail’s prophetic remark as he put the bundle down and began untying the thick jute cord that held the canvas in place.

  “I always thought it ought to be hanging somewhere special,” Lady Belle said while Cail unwrapped the covering. “Alinor deserves a place of honor.”

  “And she’ll get it,” Lorna said and when Cail cast her a sour look, she tilted her chin. “I promise you, she will.”

  “You ought not to make promises you can’t keep,” Cail said. “You know you might not be around to keep ‘em.”

  Lorna narrowed her eyes. “That road runs both ways, Cail McGregor,” she told him.

  Cail’s jaw clenched. He leaned the painting against the shelves and stomped to the screen door, shoving it open with a furious shove. The sound of his boot heels rapping on the porch boards sounded like gun shots.

  Sam stood where he was and it was obvious to Lorna he was more curious to see the painting than he was in finding out what was ailing Cail.

  Lorna walked over to the painting and hunkered down in front of it, reaching out to draw the two sides of the musty canvas aside. The moment the face of Alinor Tabor was revealed, she sucked in a quick breath—as did Sam.

  “It’s like you’re lookin’ into a mirror, Lorna,” the young man said with awe.

  It was true. The woman in the painting could have been Lorna’s twin. They had the same hair, eye color, the same tilt to the nose and curve of the lips. It was, indeed, as though Lorna were looking in a mirror.

  “Hello, Lady Alinor,” Lorna said quietly. She gently placed her fingertips on the shoulder of the woman in the painting and as soon as she did, she felt a light shock race up her arm. In that moment, something very powerful passed between the long-dead woman and the living.

  “She’s handing the power over to you,” Chrysty whispered in her mind. “How you wield it from now on will determine the course of history.”

  Lorna closed her eyes and sent her inner thoughts to the Nightwind. “I want a child to carry on after me. A girl child.”

  There was a slight pause and then the demon growled. “It will be.”

  She felt him withdrawing. She also felt his anger like a sentient life form pushing at her subconscious.
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  “Sam,” she heard Lady Belle say, “you’re sleepy. Why don’t you take to that pallet, now?”

  Lorna twisted her head around. The old woman’s hand was on Sam’s shoulder and she was staring intently into Sam’s face. As Lorna watched, the young man’s eyes glazed and he nodded.

  Lady Belle removed her hand and Sam walked—as if in a trance—to the pallet that had been laid for him and Cail and dropped to it like a rock, stretching out on his side.

  “He’ll sleep ‘til morning,” Lady Belle said.

  “That’s a neat trick,” Lorna said.

  “You can do it, too, now that you’ve touched her,” the old woman stated. “But be careful how you use it. It can addle a man’s mind something fierce.”

  Lorna got to her feet, turning back to stare down at the painting. “It is uncanny how much we look alike.”

  The old woman moved to stand beside her. “Do you believe in reincarnation, dearling?” she asked.

  “Not really.”

  “I do. I believe I am the direct descendant of a woman named Ethel McGregor who was the cook at the first Tabor Hill, the castle where Alinor was mistress. I believe all the women of our clans have been reborn down through the ages and that we have been waiting for you to come to unite us once again.”

  Lorna was made uneasy by that thought yet she realized that was exactly what had been happening. She had brought the women together, helped organize them and was—in essence—their acknowledged leader.

  “Alinor took her vengeance on Reynolds Tabor,” Lady Belle said. “All the women of Tabor Hill were avenged by the mealladhs who came to do their bidding.”

  “Sixteen clans,” Lorna mumbled. “Sixteen Nightwinds?”

  “Each clan has its own, aye,” Lady Belle acknowledged.

  “He’s brought them here from the Abyss,” Lorna said, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. That was a lot of demons roaming freely upon the Hill.

  “You need not worry, dearling. We control them,” the old woman said. “I control my Mealladh. The goddess only knows what would happen if he had free reign. They can be crueler than any Tabor clansmen ever thought of being.”

  * * * *

  Cail had walked farther up the mountain path than he had intended. He was so deep in the forest there was no sound—not even the rustle of the wind across the lacy fronds of the ferns. Although the moon was full and as bright as he could ever remember seeing it, it was shadowed beneath the canopy of the laurels and ash that spread above him. His anger carried him to the trunk of a felled tree and he straddled it, bracing his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward.

  “Why couldn’t you have been what I wanted, Lorna?” he asked. “What I needed?”

  He lowered his face to his hands, disappointed that he would have to report what he suspected to the other Elders. He had already lost one wife and now he would lose this one. He had loved Libby Kirkpatrick to distraction, never thought he’d love again after she disappeared, but from the moment he’d seen Lorna, he had had the stirrings of love for her until she stamped those feelings into the dirt.

  Dragging his face up his palms, he looked up, his fingers spread over the lower portion of his face and stared into the night. He was heartsick at what he knew he had to do the next day. Renouncing his new wife to the Council would insure her being put in the jail, examined as a witch, and then burned at the stake.

  He shuddered and bent forward again, wrapping his arms around his waist. Nausea bubbled at the back of his throat and a sour taste had invaded his mouth.

  “Cail?”

  Elder McGregor’s head snapped up and he was stunned to see Libby standing a few feet away. His mouth dropped open. “Libb?”

  “I escaped his clutches, Cail,” she said, her soft voice as low and unsure as he remembered it. “He tried to keep me from you but I escaped.”

  Cail got slowly to his feet, unable to believe the sight of his lost love coming toward him. He swallowed for the soft muslin gown she wore—that she had been wearing the night she vanished from his life—was nearly transparent in the moonlight. The outline of her slender body with its gently curving hips and lush breasts was visible. He could see the dusky coral of her areolas behind the thin fabric.

  “He didn’t touch me, Cail,” she said. Her long hair was unbound and fanned gently around her pert little heart-shaped face. “I denied him at every turn and he lost interest in me. He knew I was a good woman. I could not be swayed by his seductions.” She lifted her hand. “I wanted to get back to you. It has always been you.”

  “Libby?” he questioned again, feeling the hard erection forming in his pants.

  “It has always been you, Cail,” she said again, coming toward him with her hand outstretched, her full lips gleaming wetly beneath the moon’s radiant beams, her eyes filled with love for him.

  He swung his leg over the trunk and took a step toward her, inhaling the heady scent of the light fragrance she always wore. It sent a shiver of anticipation through his body and made the blood race in his veins.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he said. His gaze moved hungrily over her pretty face.

  “I’m here now, my love,” she said. She was but a foot away, her smile an invitation to take what was rightfully his.

  Cail didn’t stop to think, to reason. He crossed the distance between then and threw his arms around her, yanking her to him in a fierce hug. He lowered his mouth to hers, covered it, and thrust his tongue deep, feeling the pulse of his cock against her stomach.

  Her fingers laced through his hair and she returned his kiss with more fervor than he could ever remember her having bestowed upon him in the years they were together. She ground her delicate body wantonly against him.

  “Ah, Libby, I need you so badly,” he groaned, tearing his mouth from hers to press kisses down her throat. He brought his large hands from around her to cup her breasts, lowering his head to capture one peak through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

  “Take what you want. It belongs to you,” she offered, sliding one hand to his shoulder and arm to reach between them. The moment her small hand closed around the bulge in his pants, a hard shudder rippled through his tall frame.

  Fierce lust drove straight through Cail McGregor’s body at her touch and he dropped to his knees, dragging her with him to the forest floor. Mindless of the wet ferns, the cloying scent of decaying vegetation and musty smell of damp soil, he stretched out atop her, forcing her legs apart with his knees. Grunting, he clawed at her gown, dragging it up her thighs before fumbling with the fly of his pants to free his throbbing shaft.

  She let her legs fall far apart and arched her hips in surrender, imprisoning his neck between her soft hands as he rested his head on her shoulder.

  “Fuck me, McGregor,” he heard her hiss but didn’t question the words even though Libby Kirkpatrick McGregor had never used profanity in her life. “Fuck me hard!”

  She brought one leg up to position it over his hips. The slick heat of her sheath against the broad head of his freed cock was like a live ember sizzling against his flesh. With one mighty thrust, he was in her cunt as far as his prick could go.

  “Aye,” she whispered against his ear. “That’s the way of it. Now ride me.”

  Lost completely to the desires raging through his body, he began to pump wildly into her wetness. The scent of their combined juices filled his nostrils and his lips skinned back from his teeth as though he were a feral beast plummeting into a bitch in heat. His body slapped loudly against hers and when she brought her other leg up to clamp around his waist, he surged forward like a runaway piston, slamming his hands beneath her cool rump to drag her up to meet his plunges.

  “Libby,” he breathed then captured her mouth with his once more. Her nails were digging at his shoulders, raking down his back and he thought he heard his shirt rip. He shrugged against the stinging pain rippling down his back but nothing could have stopped him. With every thrust, he grunted into her mout
h, drove deep with his tongue, arched his fingers into the cheeks of her soft ass. He dug his booted toes into the rich loam of the earth and rocked wildly against her.

  “That’s it, my handsome lover,” she said in a throaty voice. “Now come for me, McGregor. Come hard and come long. Fill me with your seed.”

  Her words drove him harder, made him harder. His cock felt as though he was pushing it through an inferno. The heat of her sheath was burning him but he didn’t care. The smell of her body, her slickness was driving him mad with need. His hips twisted atop her, ground against her. He was a rutting animal struggling for release.

  “Come, McGregor,” she hissed. “Discharge your seed.”

  Cail pulled his mouth from hers, staring down into her beautiful face as he pumped savagely. Lit by a stray moonbeam, her eyes were glittering with an odd light, her lips becoming wetter with each pass of her tongue across their upper length.

  “I…I .…” He couldn’t finish what he wanted to say for her cunt rippled around him as though fingers were squeezing hard up and down his shaft. The strength of the grip clutched and let go in a pulsing rhythm that had him panting. Drool slipped from the corner of his mouth to land on her breast.

  “Fuck me!” she ordered, eyes flaring. “Fuck me, McGregor!”

  He came brutally, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, throwing his head back with a roar that echoed through the forest. Spurt after spurt of his semen shot deep into her waiting body and her legs tightened viciously around his waist. He strained to get every last ounce of cum from his aching cock, grunting with each hard thrust.

  When he lowered his head, opening his eyes, he had difficulty drawing breath. His blood was pounding in his head so loudly he couldn’t hear whatever Libby said to him. He saw her lips moving, saw the victorious smile that stretched her mouth, but the words she spoke eluded him. Collapsing atop her, he felt her stiffen but didn’t care. He was spent, drained, milked of energy and vital juices. Like dry husks, his voice rattled as he pressed his head to her shoulder, his arms still wrapped tightly around her.