Kanyth (Immortal Highlander, Clan Skaraven Book 4): A Scottish Time Travel Romance

by Hazel Hunter

  Kanyth took in the bra and panties Perrin wore, which showed plainly through the scanty linen shift. The gray leg warmers she wore weren’t silk stockings, but they were trimmed in white lace.

  He took a step toward her, paused and folded his arms. “You had but a robe over that as you scampered through the keepe?” he demanded, and gestured toward the gown. “Why didnae you wear that?”

  “The gown is for tomorrow, I never scamper, and that robe is very warm,” she chided.

  She picked up the stool and placed it in the center of the largest space in the room.

  “What are you about, lass?” He didn’t sound stern anymore.

  “You said that someday you hoped I would dance for you. Well I’m not waiting for someday. Come and sit.” She backed away as he did, and thought of the sexiest song she knew, and let it play in her memory. “I need you tonight…to watch me dance for you.”

  Feeling the beat of the song vibrating through her, Perrin let it flow out through her limbs, and let her spine slip into a slow curving undulation. Doing a slow-motion half-back flip made the shift float down around her shoulders. She caught the hem as she came back up, tugging it over her head. With a sultry saunter she approached him, draping the shift around his neck. He reached to touch her, but she glided away.

  “Last night was for me,” Perrin said as she stretched out one leg, bracing the ball of her foot on his thigh. “This is all for you.”

  She eased down the leg warmer, making a slow, sexy production of it, and then lifted her foot to let it fall in his lap. Now she understood the power of a striptease, the naughtiest dance of all time, because it held Kanyth utterly riveted. He’d already kissed and touched and caressed practically every inch of her body, yet now he looked at her as if he’d never seen her.

  Perrin relished each move she made, taking her time and adding drama to the slow shedding of what little she wore. She came close enough to rub her bottom against his upper arm, and whisper his name on the back of his neck. When she unclipped the front of her bra, she held the cups over her until she could pose her breasts just under his chin.

  “Take it off for me,” she breathed against his hair, and moaned as his fingers deftly peeled back the silky material to bare her nipples. She turned, extended her arms behind for him to slide the straps down, and then rolled into a tumble that she ended in a full split.

  Her high-cut panties she left on until the very end, when she straddled his lap and reached for the tiny seams on each hip. Splitting them took only two yanks. She captured his hand with hers and drew the torn swatch of gossamer fabric from between her thighs.

  “There.” Perrin drew the panties from his fingers to blot the new sweat away from his brow. “One more thing. Think of it as a lap dance.”

  She slid off his thighs and went down on her knees. Snaking her hands around to the back of his trousers, she tugged loose the laces and then eased down the front panel over the stupendous erection he’d grown.

  “Lass,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing. “I’d dance inside you now.”

  She smiled up at him. “Oh, you will.”

  Perrin loved this part of him. Aside from all the pleasure it gave her, it had its own rude, masculine beauty. She stroked the heavy shaft with her finger tips, tracing the thick veins and feeling him throb in response. A tiny pearl of his come formed a drop atop the swollen head, gleaming and tantalizing her. Last night he hadn’t given her a chance to taste him here. Last night she’d thought he would stay inside her forever.

  But there were other places for him to take.

  Looking up at him, she parted her lips over his cockhead and kissed him, lapping away the bead of semen. Kanyth’s eyelids drooped as he shuddered, and his hands came up to tangle in her hair.

  Perrin let her lips imprison him, capturing the thick plum of his tip and sucking it lightly. The scent of him, the taste, the feel of his cock as she took him in, all combined to fill her with more heat and lust. Slowly she worked her way down his broad length, finding the rhythm that matched what he did when he came into her. Using her tongue to rub and tease him as she made love to him with her mouth, she took him as deeply as she could. What simply wouldn’t fit she clasped with her fingers and gently squeezed as she tugged with her lips.

  The more she sucked Kanyth, the deeper he groaned. His thighs knotted under her forearms, and as his cock swelled he shook as if he might come apart.

  His torn emotions were telegraphed to her through his touch. He wanted to come, so badly it would happen any moment, but he’d never done this, and didn’t know how it ended. When he tried to lift her face, she held onto him and sucked his cock steadily, giving him the final push over the edge.

  Kanyth came like a fountain, his body jerking under her as his seed pulsed over her tongue. Perrin swallowed again and again that delicious gift, relishing the spicy-salt taste of him. On some level she felt as if she’d enslaved him, and yet on another she’d become his devoted servant. She wanted a hundred nights with him to do this again, a thousand. Knowing they might never get that chance made it all the more precious.

  Perrin used her tongue to caress him as she released him at last, and looked up to see the stunned pleasure glowing in his eyes.

  “I loved that,” she said. “I love you.” There went her mouth again, off and running on its own, but Perrin didn’t regret saying how she felt. She’d never been in love, but if it wasn’t this then she didn’t want to take the fall. “That would probably be more convincing if I hadn’t done all that yelling at you in front of the druid. I felt awful when you didn’t come back that first night. It hurt my pride. I got used and dumped before, and I flashed back to that, I guess. I never got to rip his face off so I probably took it out on you. Say something now before I tell you about all the things that don’t matter anymore.”

  Kanyth lifted her from the floor onto his thigh, and looked at her so sternly that for a second, she thought she’d said or done something wrong.

  “You’ll stay with me. In chains, if I must use them to keep you. You’re my wench now.” His eyes softened. “My lover.”

  “I don’t mind wench. Chains could be fun.” Delighted, she linked her hands behind his neck. “So, while it’s not a tradition yet, you’re supposed to give me a tip for dancing for you. It’s like a reward. I don’t think there are any dollar bills in the fourteenth century, though, and gold coins are so heavy.” She leaned in to give him an airy kiss. “Maybe we could work it out another way.”

  “I’ve something for you.” He swept her off his lap and into his arms, and carried her over to the pile of furs.

  The heat and light from the furnace spilled over Perrin, who stretched out as she watched Kanyth strip out of his boots and trousers. Despite her best efforts he’d grown hard again, and when he knelt over her, his thighs hard against the outside of hers, she reached for him.

  “No’ so fast, wench.” He caught her hands and reached for something over her.

  Perrin laughed as she felt him wrap a heavy chain around her wrists. “You’re a very bad man.”

  “Aye, and you’re no’ dancing away from me again.” Once he had her restrained he shifted back, moving his legs between hers now. His big hands went under her to lift her up so that her buttocks rested against his knees, and she lay open and bare to his gaze.

  Perrin felt even more sexy than she had stripping. “Still waiting for my reward here.”

  “’Tis coming.” He brought his hand to cup her sex, stirring the soft apricot curls over it. “I feel this against my cock when I fack you. So soft.” He found her clit, and parted her folds to study it. “And this.” He gave her a stroke with his thumb, and looked up when she shivered. “I’ve heard my brothers speak of this hiding jewel.” He kept caressing it as he watched her face. “They claim ’tis good to touch, for it brings a wench pleasure. ’Tis truth?”

  That he didn’t know made her happy and furious, all at once. To be the first woman he’d explored so thoroughly plea
sed her, but to think he’d been kept from doing so made her wish she could kick some ignorant druid ass.

  “Maybe you should try it, and find out,” she told him, her voice shaking a little.

  “I forget your tip.” He moved again, reaching down to guide his straining cockhead to her folds. He penetrated her with just his dome, moving it in and out while he rubbed her clit steadily. He began circling it with his thumb as it grew harder. “Or mayhap you wish more.”

  She tried to pull him inside her, but he kept teasing her with only short, shallow pumps. Frustrated and writhing with need, she begged him, “Ka, come on.”

  “I’ve come on your tongue, in your mouth.” He bent down and ravaged her with an almost brutal kiss. “I taste myself in you. ’Twas hotter than the forge, beholding you do that to me.” He pulled out of her, and took his hand from her pussy. “I’ll have you thus, wench.”

  Before Perrin could blink he had his head between her thighs and his mouth on her, his tongue licking from her clenching opening to the swollen nub of her clit. He held her hips down as he kissed her pussy, and she couldn’t work her hands out of the heavy chains. It added an element of helplessness that thrilled her until she was gasping. Like this, he really could do whatever he liked to her, and she couldn’t stop him.

  The way he loved her with his mouth felt so good she never wanted him to stop.

  He took to it like kissing her lips, as if he’d been born to do just that, and then went above and beyond. Perrin cried out as she felt him work two long, thick fingers into her opening, pumping them in and out as he suckled her clit. Then his thumb rubbed against her rosebud, pressing in as he fucked her with his fingers, and every nerve in her body went into overload.

  He brought her to a heart-bursting climax, making her come so hard her ears buzzed and her head spun. He brought her down by nuzzling her, and then back up to a second peak, so fast and hard it was as if the first had never happened. Only when she went limp did he kiss her still-tingling clit one last time, and lay down beside her to hold her close.

  “Perrin.” When she managed to open her eyes he kissed her, letting her taste herself on his mouth. “’Twas truth, then.”

  She nodded and kissed him back. “You should listen more to your brothers.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ORIANA EMBRY LISTENED to the muffled roar of the storm as she finished preparing her conjuring potion. During her brief service as Ana she’d spent much time exploring the many dark, cold cellar rooms deep below the McAra stronghold. The topmost level, crammed to the rafters with winter stores, provided ample food for her now. She’d also discovered that beyond that crowded warren of grains and smoked meats and salted fish lay other, older spaces reserved for less pleasing storage. That was where the laird had directed his men to put the washed and wrapped body of young Wynda, the maid found strangled in her bed. She would have been kept there, frozen until the thaw, when the earth softened and she could be buried.

  Oriana had not murdered the nosy wench, however, just to let her rot.

  She hummed under her breath as she finished her preparations for the night’s work. She had brought the herbs with her to the castle, and then carefully concealed them. She’d even made up the purge potion to sicken Lady McAra in the kitchens, right under Cook’s nose. But the conjuring bones and other necessities she’d had to slowly retrieve from the caches she’d hidden outside the stronghold. With but one afternoon to herself every sevenday that had taken far too long.

  Patience had always been her gift. Why now did it elude her?

  Now she had to skulk in the shadows, unable to move freely through the castle. Expecting Bhaltair Flen’s body to be brought down to join Wynda’s, Oriana had waited in vain too long. Last night she’d dared to leave the cellar, only to see the druid riding off in the direction of the Sky Thatch settlement. She’d nearly followed him, but on foot in the rising wind and bitter cold she knew she’d freeze long before she caught up with him. Still, she would find him again. The Gods had always delivered his wrinkled arse to her on a platter. The next time she would drive a dagger into the bastart’s heart while he slept.

  The old ways of killing were ever the best.

  “Yet I shoudnae have attacked the Skaraven, Gwyn,” she murmured to herself as she blended the last of the new potion’s makings. “’Twas selfish to take such pleasure, my love. I admit it freely. ’Twas only that I looked up and saw his eyes. He has his brother’s cursed, demon-black eyes. Eyes of the abyss.”

  Gwyn did not answer her, or ever once speak from the beyond. He could be very stubborn that way, her sweet lad. He feigned indifference when she knew he felt every beat of her heart. He denied her what he himself craved. All to punish her, of course, for he did not understand what they shared. She had tried to explain once, but he had been young, and could not accept such a love.

  “No matter, my darling.” Satisfied with the mixture, she picked up the bowl and carried it over to the corpse. “When ’tis finished, then you shall ken the depth of my devotion. You shall see into my heart at last, and find yourself there.”

  He would even forgive her alliance with Hendry and the famhairean. They were but tools, after all. Though they would have to die for what they had done to Gwyn, she would use them to the full. It only made her vengeance more complete.

  Oriana took hold of her ritual blade, and held it over Wynda’s remains as she allowed her power to envelop it. The spell took a long time to cast, and one word misspoke would ruin the magic, but she felt no concern. She had done this so many times now she might as well have engraved the enchantment on her own heart.

  “To this flesh return the spirit,” she said as she finished the spell. “Mine to command until I be done with it.”

  The blade grew cold and heavy as she thrust it through the wrappings into the maid’s still heart, and made the aperture. Into it she then poured the contents of the bowl, which disappeared into the dark hole. She then scored her wrist with the blade, and let her blood drip down to join the potion. Finally, she added a piece of the wench’s bone, cut from her smallest toe, to complete the seal.

  Oriana sat back on her heels, and watched as the aperture closed, and the body began to convulse. Curiously, when returned to the flesh, druid kind did not resist as mortals did. She wondered if that was due to the expectation of reincarnation. Her kind always returned, while few mortals ever did.

  Wynda opened her blood-red eyes and turned her head to regard Oriana. “Yours to command.”

  Her voice sounded almost as it had in life, a pleasing boon. If a mortal’s remains lay too long before resurrection they spoke as if through a throat filled with rocks. The worst-rotted could manage only liquid, hunking sounds. Oriana inspected her as she stood over the revenant, looking for any visible flaws. The pallor of her flesh would seem unremarkable, for Wynda had been pale before dying. Thanks to the cold she hadn’t swelled. Oriana might even keep her after she left the castle. The blood bloom in her eyes could be removed with clearing tincture, and her body would not begin to rot for tenday or more.

  “You’ll do very well. Rise, now.” Oriana did the same, and retrieved the other potion she had blended earlier. “You’re to go to the kitchens, Wynda, and use this.” Once she’d given her instructions, and had the maid repeat them, she put the bottle in her cold hands. “You mustnae be seen by anyone.”

  “Mustnae be seen,” Wynda said, her voice flat. “Gouge out their eyes.”

  Oriana sighed. “No.” Revenants obeyed every command so exactly that once seen Wynda would then go through the entire castle blinding everyone. “If you are seen, kill the one who beholds you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  KANYTH WOKE FEELING soft fur under his back, and a warm, naked weight curled half-over his body. They’d fallen asleep still joined after their last loving, both exhausted and replete. He knew his lady needed the rest, and while he’d been trained to remain awake for days he’d woken feeling renewed in body and spirit. Fo
r that he gave Perrin the due, however, for the pleasure she’d given him and the promise of more.

  She’d stay with him, and they’d remain lovers. He’d never allow the famhairean or anything else to take her from him. Only one more gift would make it perfect.

  He glanced down at the clan ring he wore. As young lads the Skaraven had carved them from sacred oak as a symbol of their brotherhood. Turned by twelve centuries into stone, the black rings had weathered much. After so many weeks working in the forge his own had developed some small cracks, but still gleamed with the magic of eternal life. Brennus, Cadeyrn and Ruadri had used their rings and brought back their ladies from death, and bestowed on them immortality. He hoped to use his to give Perrin the same, if she would accept it as his mate.

  She loves me. Why should she no’?

  He gently disentangled himself from her, covering her with her robe before rising and dressing. Once he’d pulled on his boots he went back to the furs to wake her.

  “Hey.” She gave him a drowsy smile. “You’re still here.”

  “Aye.” He bent to kiss her brow. “I would let you sleep on, but Alec shall soon arrive.” He didn’t want to remind her of the rest, and instead touched her slightly swollen lips. “You’ll wear the gown?”

  She rolled over. “What, you don’t want Alec to see me scampering around in that robe?’ She squealed as he gave her buttocks a gentle slap. “I’ll wear the gown.”

  Perrin yawned as she got up and dressed. To keep his hands away from her Kanyth checked the last of the window barriers to be installed. He went to unbolt the doors, and a moment later heard a terrible scream from the great hall.

  “That sounds like Elspeth,” Perrin said, and they both ran out into the passage.

  Kanyth found the laird’s wife standing in the center of the hall, her youngest daughter clasped to her breast and weeping. All around her lay the bodies of guards and sentries, and when she saw them she screamed again.