by Hazel Hunter
Evander crouched down in front of the flames, bowing his head as he fought back the spirit’s demands. He didn’t understand why it had come fully awake. He’d been angry earlier, when she’d confessed to going out to gather the orachs alone. But he’d also understood that she’d done so only so she might please him with a fine meal. He’d been managing his temper better of late, thanks to Rachel’s calming presence. Now that they’d become lovers he no longer constantly wrestled with unfulfilled hungers. Rachel had given him everything he’d wanted and more.
He couldn’t fathom why the spirit wanted her. It only ever stirred when he fought. Since the spirit craved battle, blood, and death, it had no use for females. Fiona had never aroused his spirit at all. Nor had any wench he had lain with in the past.
I cannae bring you to Rachel. How do I tell her that she arouses you, war spirit? That you wish to be inside her as much as I do? That only her complete surrender will appease you?
The spirit’s response proved as arrogant and demanding as ever.
Give her to me.
Evander could never allow it to take him anywhere near Rachel when he was like this: poised between himself and a spirit so savage only death satisfied it. As fragile as she was he would snap her in two.
“Couldn’t you sleep?”
He stood up and turned as Rachel came to him, with only his old tartan covering her lovely nakedness. In that moment he understood, perhaps for the very first time since his Choosing Day, just how dangerous he was.
“The fire wanted tending. Go back to bed, lass.”
“You can keep me warm,” she said and reached out to him, but frowned as he moved away. “What’s wrong?”
Quickly he turned his back on her. “Naught to concern you. Leave me be, Rachel.” He bit back a groan as the war spirit rose inside him, pouring into his skinwork. “Please, do as I say. Now.”
“Why are you angry?” She came around him. “Oh, my god. What is it doing to you? Are you in pain?”
He caught her hand before she could touch his chest.
“The strongest and most skilled men of my tribe were offered to the war spirit on their Choosing Day. On mine, it took me. It lives inside me, sleeping until I need its strength and power in battle. Then it wakes.” He pushed her hand away. “With a female from my tribe I could fack her with it, and she would ken what to do. You dinnae, and I willnae harm you. Please, go away from me before I do.”
Rachel peered at the ink darting across his chest, and then up at his face.
“It doesn’t want to hurt me, and neither do you. It wants to have sex with me? Can it do that?”
“No. You’re druid kind, no’ Pritani,” he said, and shuddered as his ink extended out from his flesh, as if it meant to grab her. “Even if it could, if I would permit it, the war spirit isnae gentle, lass. If we take you…’tis too much for you to bear.”
“But it’s part of you,” she said and gazed upon the moving bends of the spear as if she were fascinated instead of repelled. “This is why you’ve been sleeping in the barn? To hide this?”
He felt his self-control begin to slip. “I willnae let it have you.”
She dropped the tartan, and pressed herself against him. “Then I will.”
Evander howled, but the sound died away as the spirit flooded into his throat, and spoke through him.
“So you come to me at last, little wren. I have wanted you since we took you from the circle and brought you to our bed. Do you fear me on your flesh? Or will you take my spear between your soft lips, and in your snug little sheath?”
Rachel’s expression grew solemn. “If Evander wants that, then yes, I will.”
She knelt down on the tartan before him, her head tilted back as she waited.
“Dinnae resist us.”
Evander’s hands shook as he unfastened his trews, and watched as the inked spear straightened and slid down his belly to etch itself on his painfully erect cock.
Talorc wives knew how to submit when the war spirit made carnal demands, but Rachel had no experience or training. Yet when he brought his straining cockhead to her lips, she opened for him and took him into her mouth without hesitation. That she did so with the grace of a wife eager to soothe made him swell with new lust.
The simmering fury of the war spirit eased as she tugged on him, the velvet of her tongue stroking his shaft as she sucked. Evander gave her more, winding her hair in his fingers to guide her head as he facked in and out of her caressing lips. She made him feel like a god-ridden warrior of the ancient days, standing tall amidst the stones as the tribe’s maidens were brought to be chosen as wives. Among the Talorc small, dark women like Rachel were rare, and treasured for their delicate beauty. Had he chosen her, he would have had to fight every unmarried man in the tribe to win her.
And then, for as many nights and days as the spirit rode him, he would bind her to his bed and pleasure her with mouth and hands and cock. Evander drew himself from her lips, and hauled her up against him, kissing the soft heat of her mouth.
“Will you give me all, lass? Can you?”
The moment she murmured yes he dragged her down to the floor, positioning her on all fours as he knelt behind her. Fisting his shaft, he rubbed himself from the ruck between her buttocks to the satiny pearl of her pleasure, and back to the slick opening now flowering for his first thrust.
“Please, please,” she begged him. “I need you.”
Crouching over her, he parted her and entered her, hissing in a breath as her honey melted around him. His hands curved over her jutting tits, squeezing them as he sank into her narrow quim.
The war spirit streamed into his cock and penetrated her with the spear of ink, and Rachel cried out as Evander began to stroke in and out, plundering her with his rod as his spirit sheathed itself in her.
“Now you feel us both, lass,” he muttered against her ear, his hips slapping against her tight little arse as he facked deeper and harder. “We make you ours tonight, ours to have whenever we wish, on your knees and your back and your belly. You will give yourself to us as you do now, and we will take all your desires and make them ours. ’Tis no’ so?”
“Yes,” Rachel said, her body shaking with the force of his thrusts. Her quim fluttered helplessly as he impaled her and the spirit worked its hungry heat within her. “Oh, Evander, what is that?”
He reared back, bringing her with him and pushing her down on his cock as he gripped her breasts and pinched her nipples.
“Be still,” he told her when she tried to move on him. “Close your eyes, aye, so that all you ken is us.”
He clamped his hand under her jaw, seeking and finding the pulse of her heart. He stroked the beating vein as the spirit moved up through her, spilling heat everywhere it travelled, until it surfaced on her breast and flowed up her throat to leap back to his flesh.
Evander immersed himself in the spirit and her, and released the fury he had kept leashed for more than a year. If he had been in battle, he would have used his spear to pierce the heart of any enemy fool enough to come near him. Inside Rachel he grew even harder as he wrapped an arm around her waist, and drove his hips up. Facking her tight quim with the spear of his cock, and piercing her softness as deeply as he could, he reveled in her flesh. Beneath his hand he felt the low sounds she made as she took each hammering stroke, her shoulders trembling and her hips jerking.
“You are my mate. No man put hands on you again,” he told her, the words laced with the ferocity of his spirit. “You surrender only to me. Say it.”
A whimper stuttered from her, high and sweet, before she gasped out, “No one but you.”
Evander pressed his inked hand over her left breast, and felt the spirit jab itself there, marking her as his mate. She cried out as it brought her to bliss, and he held himself in her gripping tightness, shuddering with the force of his jetting cock as he spurted against the ring of her womb.
Rising with her still impaled on him, Evander carried her back into the be
d chamber and lay with her atop the cold linens. He never wanted to be parted from her again, but he had to know if he had frightened her as much as pleasured her. Slowly he withdrew and gently turned her to face him, and felt startled when he saw her flushed, glowing face.
“You are never sleeping in the barn again,” she told him, and shifted until her breasts nestled against the vault of his chest. “Unless you and the horses make some room for me.”
Even in the darkness he could see the small, dark spear inked over her heart, and traced it with his fingertip.
“You bear my mark now, Rachel.”
She tucked in her chin to study the skinwork.
“It’s a miniature of yours,” she said and took his hand and pressed his palm over her breast. “How did you do this?”
“The spirit chose you as my mate, and used my skinwork to mark yours. ’Tis no’ happened since I left my tribe.” The memory of being cast aside by his betrothed no longer stirred Evander to anger, but after Rachel’s unreserved, desirous surrender he wondered if anything would. “Does it trouble you?”
“I’ll think of you every time I take off my clothes.” Her eyelids drifted down. “Unless you make good on your threat to burn them.”
Evander felt bemused by how accepting she was of what should have been a terrifying experience. She had given herself to him without reservation, as if she knew exactly what he meant to do, and how she should respond. A Pritani wife could not have been more loving. Yet Rachel had claimed to love her husband—so much so that she’d ignored her father’s warnings—and spoke of seeing her future with him.
No, that wasn’t right, Evander thought. She’d said she’d felt her future when she looked at her husband. But how did one feel such a thing?
A whispering sound came from her, and he glanced down to see that she’d fallen asleep in his arms. In that moment he could see her slumbering beside him for a thousand nights to come, and a deep pang of regret tore at his heart. Aye, Rachel would be his, and mayhap in time come to love him, but nothing could change the fact that she was mortal. One day she would die in his arms, just as Fiona had, and he would spend the rest of eternity alone.
Chapter Fourteen
EARLY THE NEXT morning Evander left Rachel sleeping and saddled the roan, riding to the river to plunge into the icy water. Bonding with the streaming, bubbling currents, he rode them to a small loch on the western edge of the highlands. Once he guided his mount onto the shore, he followed it to an impassible cliff, and there tethered the horse to a nearby tree.
The surface of the loch reflected the pale, cloudless sky and framed it with diamonds of silvery sunlight. Evander suspected these warm, gossamer days of the fall would end before the next full moon. Even now his breath whitened the chilly air, and night frosts had stripped all but the evergreens of their leaves. He could almost feel the sun growing more distant, and the creatures of the forests and mountains preparing their winter nests and burrows. So he would also have to do with his heart.
The decision had been easier than he’d imagined.
Last night he had held his lover and watched her sleep, and imagined how the years would pass for them. As a wanted traitor he would always have to remain in hiding. Rachel would not have children with him, but neither would she have family or friends. He would be her world, and perhaps that would be enough for her, but if he were captured and killed, she would have no one.
He wanted to give her more, to give everything, but he had nothing left. She needed the life David had stolen from her. Keeping her with him, Evander knew, was almost as bad.
But he had to be careful not to alarm her. Rachel might not wake before he returned to the cottage, but if she did he would tell her that he had been exercising the roan. After their morning meal he would present her with the saddle he’d made for her, and ride down to the village. On his last trip for supplies he learned there would be a fair today to celebrate the harvest, and he knew she would enjoy that. Their outing would be a happy one, and when they returned to the cottage he would make love to her for the rest of the night.
Their last day together should be joyous.
Feeling unseen, watching eyes, Evander removed his spear and daggers, placing them on the ground in plain view before he approached the brush at the edge of the cliff. If he had still been a clansman he would have strode through the illusion, but he’d lost that privilege when he’d betrayed the McDonnels. He stood beside the nearest stone with his arms slightly out, showing his empty hands.
Nearly an hour passed before a young lass in a short woolen robe emerged from the cliff. Her round face filled with innocent curiosity, but her ancient eyes remained wary. She inspected him openly.
“What do you want, Renegade?”
“I come to parlay for Rachel Ingram, who is druid kind.”
Moving slowly, he took out the snip of hair he had stolen from Rachel while she slept, and placed it on the standing stone before backing away from it.
The druidess watched him as she retrieved the lock, and disappeared back into the cliff.
He knew approaching any druid settlement would be dangerous, but for his lady he’d had to risk it. As much as he wanted to keep Rachel with him, he knew she needed more than a hard life with a ruined traitor. In her time she had wealth and position, and if she chose to return to it, the druids could help her seek justice for what David Carver had done. If she remained unwilling to leave Scotland, then she should be with the clan who could properly protect her. He imagined Rachel and Kinley would become fast friends.
That prospect should have angered him. He had never cared for the laird’s woman. But now he saw the man he had been as mostly blind. Rachel had helped him to see so many things in a better light.
The clan would help her settle into a new life. Evander didn’t want to think of her with another man, but that, too, would likely come to pass. He wanted her to be happy, and to live a full, rich life. She could find a mortal husband who could give her children. She would make a wonderful mother.
The young druidess appeared again, this time accompanied by two hooded ovates holding sharp-looking scythes. She held out the lock of hair.
“Where is she?”
Evander kept his expression impassive. “Safe.”
“In your company? I think no’.” She caressed the lock. “You wish to trade Rachel, like a cow?”
He eyed the men, who seemed to be poised to attack him. While he didn’t feel greatly threatened—druids knew as much about battle as Evander did about casting spells—one of them might make a fortunate blow and cut off his head. Rachel had learned much, but she could not survive the winter alone. She might also take it into her head to go looking for him.
“I want naught,” he told her. “’Tis for the lady’s sake I come to parlay. Rachel cannae remain with me. I’m–”
“We ken what you are,” the druidess said. “Do you ken what she is?” When he said nothing she made an impatient gesture. “Go and bring her to us.”
He shook his head. “Send for Ovate Cailean Lusk. I will return tomorrow with Rachel. You will see to it that he takes her to Dun Aran at once.”
“Shall we now,” the lass said, glowering. “Mayhap you mistake us. We druids dinnae take orders from turncoats.”
“Then I cannae give her to you. Forgive my intrusion.”
As he kept an eye on the ovates, he carefully restored his weapons to their rightful places. He nodded to the lass, turned on his heel, and headed for his mount.
“Wait.” When he swung around, the druidess said, “Why did you take the reader from the grove?”
That she knew how they had met, and the word she’d called Rachel made his ire rise, and his skinwork wake. He’d suspected his lover had some sort of seer ability, and now wondered just what she could read.
“An undead patrol caught scent of her blood. To leave her would have been to kill her.” Evander gave her a thin smile. “Or worse.”
“Odd. You are said to have little
affection for females, and yet you rescue this one, of whom you ken naught.” When he didn’t respond to that, she said, “Mayhap you would have us believe you hold with your clan to protect druid kind. This would be the clan you betrayed.”
He shrugged. “Believe what you wish. I mean only to see Rachel secure and away.”
“But what of yourself?” the druidess persisted. “How do you ken that we willnae summon the McDonnels to wait on your return?”
Evander’s temper finally boiled over. He marched up to the lass, ignoring the scythes brandished by her escorts.
“You desire my blood spilled upon your shores? Summon them. I deserve death for what I’ve done. Only be sure to remove the lady before I am ended. She has suffered enough horrors in her time and ours.”
The lass made a rude sound. “Such a tender heart, for such a bad man.”
“You would punish her far more than me,” he countered. “What does that make you?”
“Interested.” She exchanged a meaningful look with the two men, who lowered their weapons. “Very well, Renegade. We shall summon Ovate Lusk to attend you and the lady on the morrow. No other shall be invited, and no blood shall be spilt. You’ve my word on it. Now I’ll have yours.”
“I promise the same,” Evander said and felt torn between tremendous relief and crushing despair as he bowed. “My thanks, Mistress.”
“I want naught from you,” the lass said and smiled sweetly. “Only ken that if you break your word to me, I’ll stuff those spears up your arse.”
Chapter Fifteen
THE RICH SMELL of morning brew woke Rachel, who opened her eyes to see Evander pulling on a pair of trousers. For a moment she admired the long, handsome stretch of his back, and then noticed his hair was damp. She glanced over at the sodden pile of clothes on the floor, which were creating a little puddle of their own.
“Is it raining again?”
His shoulders stiffened for a moment before he turned around and came to sit on the bed. “I had a swim.”