Swept By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 3

by Preston, Rebecca

  “Elena, you have to stop beating yourself up over this,” Brendan said firmly. “If anyone should have figured out what was happening earlier, it was me. How were you to know what a baobhan sith was, when I didn’t tell you about my suspicions? If I’d described her, told you about her powers, you might have made this realization earlier.”

  “Earlier… god, Brendan, we have to do something. She’s out there… she’s preying on all those men. She wants me to go and join her.”

  “We can’t do anything right now,” he said softly, looking down at her. “You need to keep talking through this. It’s the only way to break the enchantment she’s put on you — it’s a complicated spell, if she’s been working on it for weeks, and she’s a powerful creature.”

  “What is she? What is a baobhan sith? And why does she hate the Sidhe so much?”

  “Because she is one,” Brendan said simply. “Or she was, before she was corrupted. Unseelie Side… unfortunately, they’re out there. Terrifyingly powerful… all the charisma of the Seelie Sidhe, and none of the refusal to use it to harm humans.”

  “She’s a Sidhe,” Elena breathed, fascinated. “They were keeping her prisoner... to stop her preying on humans!” She giggled a little, a surprising sound that made Brendan look down at her with a wan smile. “Brendan, I solved my case. Pity I can’t call my partner to tell him about it…”

  “If he’s half the investigator you are, he’ll figure it out himself.”

  She snorted laughter, imagining her partner reporting that an immortal, time-travelling faerie queen was responsible for the two murders. “He might. It might just wind up on the unsolved pile.” She heaved a deep sigh, leaning her head against Brendan’s shoulder. “What are we going to do? I can’t trust myself to think straight about this woman, you’re weak from her preying on you… how are we going to beat her, Brendan?”

  “First, we have to chase her right out of your head,” Brendan said softly. “Do you need some time alone?”

  “No!” she said quickly, blushing a little at the panic in her voice. “No, I… you help. You’re kind of the only steady thing I have to focus on. You’re helping me figure out what’s real and what’s not. Can you stay?”

  He nodded, smiling at her. “Aye, I can stay.” A grin spread across his face. “Honestly, I’m thrilled you’re talking to me again. I’ve never seen a woman so angry —”

  “I’ve been mind controlled by an immortal Scottish vampire, haven’t I?” she said hotly. “That being said… still not thrilled about being imprisoned.”

  “The guards are gone, Elena,” he said simply. “You’re free to go. I talked to Donal this morning — that’s why I’m here, to let you out.”

  She stared at him, her heart beating, feeling uncomfortable things moving around in her head. The door was unlocked … that meant… and almost without her noticing, her hand was creeping toward the pillow.

  “When was the last time you saw Una?” Brendan asked, all business.

  She took a deep breath, stilling her hand, a little shocked at what she was thinking about still. And shocked, too, by how strongly she felt compelled to lie, to say that she hadn’t seen Una since that last night on the docks. God, what was wrong with her? She’d never felt so completely out of control…

  “Last night,” she ground out. Brendan looked concerned — he was holding her hand tight, looking into her eyes with worry.

  “Elena? Is something wrong? It looks like you’re fighting something off — something serious — did she tell you to do something? Elena!”

  “I can’t — Brendan—” She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting with everything she had. “She gave me a knife. She told me to kill you.”

  And then, despite her best efforts, she felt her hand close around the knife of Faerie steel, whipping it out from its hiding place — and turning to drive it straight into Brendan’s heart with an unearthly cry of defeat.

  Chapter 56

  But thankfully, Brendan was ready for her.

  As her wrist flew toward him, she felt him grunt with surprise — then his hand was locked around her wrist, vice-tight as he redirected the energy of the swing. Effortlessly, he twisted her wrist back, not far enough to hurt, but far enough to make it too awkward to keep holding the knife. She let go of it, feeling her body struggle without her giving it the instructions — but Brendan was much stronger than her, even wasted away as he was by the effects of Una draining his life force. Finally, that was what pulled her out of the half-mad daze she’d fallen into, the fugue state that was making her try to stab Brendan with the knife… the thought of Una, preying on him, draining his life forces and coming to him in the night, forcing him to have dreams about her…

  Is it jealousy? she thought with a jolt of almost hysterical amusement. Is jealousy really the feeling that is pulling me out of all this chaos?

  “Are you alright now?” Brendan asked her, his eyes hard.

  He was still gripping her wrist — and she realized with a shock that his other hand had moved to secure her other hand beside her, too. She was thoroughly under his control… and their bodies were rather close, she realized with a thrill of something that definitely wasn’t fear.

  “Do you feel clear of it?”

  “I think so,” she said softly… and found to her surprise that it was true. Her mind felt clearer, now — as though the urge to attack Brendan had been the last lingering vestige of Una’s control over her, of the spell she’d cast. She still felt completely disoriented and bizarre, but she didn’t feel like she didn’t know who she was anymore. “I feel … I feel like I’m waking up from some awful dream.”

  “Aye, that’s how it usually feels,” Brendan said softly. He was very close — she realized he wasn’t holding her hands firm anymore, but he also hadn’t moved out of her space. “I knew something had to be wrong with ye, Elena. There was something between us, even when I kissed you.”

  Her cheeks burned a little. “I mean, don’t underestimate my ability to make things weird and awkward.”

  He chuckled. “No, not that. It was something else. Something… something that was keeping a piece of you away from me. That’s why… forgive me, Elena, that’s why I didn’t leap to your defense when those villagers accused you of being the witch. For a moment, I thought maybe… I thought they could be right. That maybe you had bewitched me.”

  She nodded, waiting for the wave of anger at that to crash over her… then found, to her surprise, that it wasn’t there. Of course Brendan had been afraid of being bewitched — hadn’t she just experienced what a horrible, disorienting feeling that was? Why had she reacted so strongly to the suggestion they obtain concrete evidence that she wasn’t a witch — by keeping her safe and sound in a room for a few days? She knew why, she realized dizzily. She’d reacted so angrily because Una needed her to get angry… because Una knew she could leverage that anger to bring her fully onto her side. She felt sick at the thought of how close she’d gotten to hurting Brendan.

  He cleared his throat, moving away from her a little. The knife had clattered onto his lap, and he picked it up gingerly, peering down at it with an expert eye. He looked impressed… she saw him utter a low whistle as he tested the weight of the blade. “This is a beautiful weapon.”

  “Only the best for an assassination attempt on you,” she tried to joke — but it fell woefully flat. She sighed. “Una came to my window last night when I’d taken the iron cross away. She gave me that and told me that I’d be free of you if I used that to kill you. Then, she told me to fight my way out of the castle and go to join her in the forest.”

  “She must have trusted that she had a tight hold on your mind,” Brendan said softly, staring down at the knife. “These are… incredibly powerful. They’re fatal to humans, of course, but they’re pretty deadly to the Fae as well. And unlike cold iron, they can’t sense it at a distance.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Elena said simply. “You can keep it, if you like. It makes me feel sick.”
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  He tucked it away carefully after wrapping it in a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket, clearly worried about the wickedly sharp blade doing some unintended damage… well, they’d already avoided that, hadn’t they? She felt dizzy. “I can’t believe I just… attacked you like that.”

  “Like I tried to warn you, all that time ago,” Brendan teased her. “The Fae are incredibly powerful creatures, and that doesn’t just mean their physical strength.”

  “Well, what was your plan to protect me? A little iron token that you didn’t even tell me about?” she countered, raising an eyebrow in amusement. “I threw it into the Loch almost as soon as I found it. Useless.”

  “I didn’t realize you were already under her spell,” Brendan objected. “If I’d known you’d been bewitched so early on I would have — done something.”

  “Like what? What would’ve broken the spell? True love’s kiss?” she teased him… but a shy look flickered across his face and she felt her cheeks start to burn. Why had she said that? What a stupid thing to do.

  But unbelievably, he was looking at her again, his gaze warm and steady… and this time, when she met his gaze, she didn’t feel the urge to look away. “Aye,” he said, softly. “I might’ve tried that.”

  Elena couldn’t resist. This time, she wasn’t going to be the one who pulled away, the one who hid, the one who spent all her time stressing and overthinking instead of pursuing what she wanted. So she closed the distance between them, this time, instead of waiting for Brendan to kiss her — and she could feel his surprise when she kissed him, hard and furious. He responded cautiously, his hands moving up to ever so gently cup the back of her head, holding her without force, letting her pull away if she needed to… but this time, she wouldn’t be pulling away. For the first time in weeks, she had complete control of herself… of her mind, of her body, of her feelings. And the first thing she wanted to do with that freedom was kiss Brendan as hard and as fiercely as she could.

  She heard his breath picking up as she kissed him, broke away briefly to see an exultant smile on his face. “Elena —”

  “I’m myself now, right,” she said firmly. “This is me.”

  “Aye,” Brendan said softly, stroking the side of her face. “But you don’t have to —”

  “I want to,” she said, hurling herself into his embrace again. She felt his strong arms close around her, holding her tight, smelled the scent of him as she inhaled deeply… and suddenly, she wanted him so badly she felt like she was going to explode. Her whole body was tingling and roaring as though it was finally awake, finally fully aware of where she was, what she was doing, who she was doing it with… Brendan’s hands were straying across her body, caressing her back, and she yanked at the tunic he was wearing, urging him to remove it. He didn’t need any further encouragement — they broke away from one another just for a moment, breathing hard as they both set to undressing.

  “The guards outside the room are gone, right?” she asked.

  Brendan nodded, finally pulling his tunic away to reveal his bare chest… and she took a deep breath, trying to stop herself from passing out. He was every bit as muscular as she’d suspected from the few daring caresses she’d made of his body, and she reached out with much less hesitation now to run a hand across the rippling muscles of his body. He, too, was drinking in the sight of her, and she grinned a little — she’d yanked her bra off as quickly as her tunic. Before, being half-naked in front of men had made her feel shy… she’d always felt strange about her skinny frame, her smaller breasts, but somehow none of that felt like a problem, now. Not with the way Brendan was staring at her, like a starving man might look at a feast…

  When their bodies crashed together again it was with a lot more intensity than their earlier caresses. This time, with no fabric between their bodies, his hands were roaming a lot more freely, and she felt chills running up and down her spine at the various sensitive places he was finding, teasing out with his gentle caresses. Finally, his hands moved around to cup her breasts, and she bit back on a moan at how his rough, warm hands felt on the sensitive skin there.

  He’s clearly done this before, she thought with amusement, arching her back as he caressed and teased her breasts, tugging gently at the nipples in a way that sent sensation crashing up and down her body like a wave.

  They’d dropped back on the bed, and he shifted them around somehow so she was lying in his lap, her back against his chest, his hands roaming freely over her body and his lips against her throat, kissing the sensitive places down her neck and behind her ear, his breath hot and exciting against her body…

  And she could feel his manhood, too, pressing through his trousers against her back, and the thought of that — the thought that touching her was making him aroused — was so dizzyingly exciting that she almost moaned at the thought of it. Before long, she was gasping and whimpering, his hands roaming all over her body, almost holding her captive in his arms as he coaxed pleasure from her. She wriggled and moaned, bucking her hips toward his hands as they crept closer and closer to the waistband of her trousers, slipping beneath to circle tantalizingly close to her sex before roaming back up again, teasing her nipples, setting fire to her flesh…

  What was she waiting for? Growling in frustration, she reached up and grabbed one of his hands, forcing it down her body to her sex. With a low, throaty laugh that made her whole body tingle, he obliged, his fingers parting her folds and teasing at the hot, wet flesh there. She moaned — she was already so aroused from the way he’d been touching her, from the long, long wait until this moment, that it wasn’t long before his careful caresses of her sex had her gasping and writhing beneath hands, embarrassingly close to climaxing just from those gentle touches… and then, just when she thought he was going to bring her to orgasm, his hand moved away and she groaned in protest. At some point in the process, he’d pulled her trousers off completely — and she realized with a start that his were gone, too.

  “When did you —”

  “Shh,” he instructed, grinning. “Can’t give away all my secrets, can I?”

  Then he was on top of her, their bodies crashing together as he took her in his arms again, and she could feel his manhood pressing hard into her leg. Feeling bold, she reached down to caress him there, startled by the way he groaned at her touch… it seemed she wasn’t the only one who’d gotten a lot closer to the edge than intended. His eyes were shut, his breath hot on her throat as she squeezed and caressed his manhood, familiarizing herself with its shape and size… realizing, with a blush that felt like it ran down her whole body, that he was rather more well-endowed than any man she’d ever been with.

  “Elena,” he ground out. “Do you want — me? This?”

  “Yes,” she breathed. “God, yes.”

  And then he was guiding himself toward her entrance, and she took a deep breath as he readied himself… then slid inside her, filling her totally. Elena choked back a moan at the sensation, her heart pounding, her whole mind exploding with light — god, he felt incredible —

  “Okay?”

  “More than okay,” she said, rocking her hips up against him and making him groan and drive his hips straight into her. “You feel incredible.”

  He buried his face in her hair, driving himself into her, over and over… she wrapped her legs around his waist, completely overwhelmed by the sensation of him, just trying desperately to hold on as long as she could… and when her orgasm broke over her like an enormous wave, she had just enough awareness left to know that he was right behind her, groaning as his own climax took over his body. They lay together in the aftermath, completely spent, their sweat-drenched bodies almost glowing in the mid-morning light that trickled through the window.

  Chapter 57

  She dozed for what felt like hours but could only have been a few minutes. The feeling of Brendan’s arm around her, her head pillowed against his chest… she’d never felt so safe, so comfortable. It was like their lovemaking had driven out th
e last of what was lingering in her mind, keeping her tied to Una, keeping her confused… and now, with her body tingling all over with the delicious aftermath of a powerful orgasm, she felt more at peace and more full of joy than she ever had before. But as Brendan stirred, she felt a cold chill move across her heart. They couldn’t lie here forever, as much as she might want to … there was a monster on the loose, preying on the men of the castle, and despite how badly she wanted to lie in Brendan’s arms for the rest of the day, and the night, and the day again… she and he both had a job to do. She’d sworn an oath.

  So she sat up, gathering the sheet around her, and smiled down at Brendan as he uttered a groan of protest. She felt a little guilty waking him — he had clearly been in need of some rest. Let Una try to infest his dreams after an experience like that, she thought smugly, stroking his dark hair from his handsome face as she gently coaxed him back to wakefulness. She watched his face shift and stir as he came back awake, clearly going through the same mental processes she had… they couldn’t rest together like this, as comfortable as it was. Not yet. Not until they’d dealt with what they had to deal with.

  “God, look at you,” he murmured when he finally opened his eyes, gazing up at her as though he’d never seen her before. “Your hair…” He pushed it back from her face. Elena realized with a start that it had come loose from its braid and was falling down her back. “Gorgeous.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” she murmured, looking down at his face in the midmorning light. There was a softness here, a kind of unguarded look to him that she rarely saw… she smiled, leaning down to kiss him, a soft, sweet kiss that started heating up as he moved a little closer to her, his hands straying across her naked body with a sudden eagerness that had her breath catching in her throat…

  “Brendan,” she said quickly, trying to get control of her breathing. “We have to —”

  “Mm. You’re right.” He pulled away, grinning a little ruefully, and she hid her disappointment as a playful smile danced across her face.