by Carmen Caine
“Oh God….” She bit her lip, but nodded.
“See me touch my tongue to your most sensitive place.” And he did, not taking his eyes off hers as he lowered his head and licked the tiny, pulsing bud he knew would send her sliding into ecstasy.
Again and again he circled his tongue across her special place, every few swirls easing back to lick down the length of her. He let his tongue glide and probe, then return again to flick at her little lust-spending nub.
And with each honeyed whirl, he envisioned another stranger’s brick or stone marring the face of his home.
One brick, one heated tongue swirl, as he imagined the defilers taking the brick from the pile. A new stone, another slow, lascivious lick down his lady’s center, tasting and relishing.
Sweat began dotting his forehead, so great was the strain, but he couldn’t stop if his life – or unlife – depended on it.
Truth was, he’d devour her till the end of time if he only could.
But before he’d gone through even half his imagined piles of bricks and stones, she arched her back and tossed her head, crying out her release.
“Agggghhhh…” She jerked and then fell back against the little chaise bed, gasping. “Hardwick…”
Seagrave….
A second voice also called for him. High-pitched, female, and cackle-ish, it came from the deep shadows near the undercroft’s stairwell.
Beneath the table, Leo snarled.
Hardwick’s blood chilled.
Not wanting to, but unable to do otherwise, he looked down at the little dog. Not surprisingly, the dachshund’s hackles were raised and his brown gaze was fixed in the exact direction Hardwick had suspected it would be.
Leo knew.
And, the ancients help him, so did he.
His gut clenching, he swiveled his head toward the stairs. But they were no longer there. A woman was – a hell hag – and she wasn’t alone.
She stood front and center in a great gaping hole where the softly-lit stairwell should have risen to Dunroamin’s kitchens. Uncountable look-alike crones crowded behind her, all of them jostling to peer and jeer at him.
“Seagrave…” The first hag lifted gnarled hands to rip open her cowled black robes, the withered flesh beneath curdling his innards. “We’re waiting for you…”
Another stepped forward. Baring her thin pendulous breasts, she lifted them in offering. “It’s been so long since we’ve had a man,” she trilled, her lips curling in a horrid, gap-toothed smile.
Then the vision was gone.
The warning.
Leo’s growls subsided, turning slowly back into snores.
Cilla’s hand was inching beneath his kilt, her questing fingers curling round his thighs and gliding provocatively upward.
“Nae!” He jerked back, leaping off the little blue bed. “Dinnae touch me.”
“What’s wrong?” She bolted up, eyes wide.
The worry on her face slammed into him. “Just stay there. Dinnae come near me. No’ now.”
He’d ne’er dreamed the hags would come so close. That they’d manifested so fully in the same room as Cilla – even if she hadn’t seen them – frightened him more than anything ever had, in both his earth life and the long centuries since.
“But why?” Confusion and hurt flashed across her face and, seeing it, Hardwick flinched. He dropped back down onto the bed and drew her into his arms, cradling her as best he could without letting himself truly feel her pressed against him.
A next to impossible feat but not near as difficult as what he must do.
“It has naught to do with you, sweetness.” He cupped her chin, risking a soft kiss.
He hoped she’d believe him.
“What we just shared was wondrous beyond telling.” He sat back, smoothed a hand down over her hair. “Were the world different or were my life, if we can call it such, others than it is, I would spend every hour loving you.”
She frowned. “But?”
“But” – this time he let the word go – “we should ne’er have gone so far. I should’ve known better. There are dangers greater than I thought and I cannae allow them to steal into Dunroamin more than they already have.”
“If you think I’m afraid, you’re wrong.” She slung a leg over his lap, scrambling onto his kilted thighs.
She wriggled on top of him, all hot, slippery woman. For one heart-stopping moment, he’d have sworn she lowered herself onto him. Slick burning heat, tight and wet throbbed around him, the glory of it almost blinding. But then he felt her sleekness glide across his naked thighs and he knew he’d been mistaken, his desire for her letting him imagine.
Much as he’d used his powers to let her feel his hand pleasuring her earlier.
“It doesnae matter how brave you are,” he said, the words breaking his heart. Frustration clawed him and he gritted his teeth, thinking again of bricks and stone. “It was wrong of me to do this. I should ne’er have touched you.”
“No! It was beautiful, all of it.” She shook her head, looking frantic. “I refuse to let you think otherwise. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.”
“Ach, lass.” He caught her arms when she tried to sling them around his neck. “You know of the curse. If you believe in me” – he lifted her off his lap – “and after what we just enjoyed, we both know that you do.”
He stood, needing distance. “Then you must also believe in the spell I’m under. In my day, druid-wizards were powerful men. So skilled, their magick so great, that their reach lives on, even into your time. Such a curse cannae be undone.
“Only by the Dark One,” he admitted, that truth sluicing his veins with ice. “He could twist the heads off an army of druids with a flick of his hand.
“What he’d do to me…” He didn’t finish, not wanting to alarm her more than already had.
“We can fight them together.” She pushed to her feet, coming after him. “I can-”
“I am no’ a piece of your broken china, sweetness.” He shoved a hand through his hair, almost wishing that he was. “You cannae put me together again with a bit of glue and molten silver.”
Her chin came up, her eyes glistening.
“If I’d like to try?”
“There is nothing you can do.” He looked at her, seeing so much love and despair on her face that it ripped his soul. So he began moving around the undercroft, scowling at the conjured bits of his world until they vanished one by one.
He left the candelabrum and the little blue bed till last.
Then they, too, were gone.
As before, Dunroamin’s modern spotlights blazed down onto her worktable. And little Leo once again slept curled on the naked stone flags of the floor.
Hardwick sighed, feeling all the weight of his centuries bearing down on him.
“I must go, lass.”
“Go?” Her eyes rounded.
The way she said the word gutted him.
She pressed her hands to her face, paling. “You can’t mean you’re leaving?”
“Aye, I am.” He took a great breath, knowing one of them needed to remain calm. “There is one chance that might help us. It’s a slim one, but I have to risk it.”
“By leaving?”
“Nae.” He shook his head slowly. “By pleading the Dark One’s mercy.”
She took a step backward, almost staggering. “You’re going there? To hell?”
Hardwick nodded. “To the Dark One’s corner of it, aye.”
He’d go there, demand entry, and state his piece. If he was met with refusal, he’d do more.
No matter the consequences.
***
“So you are not tired of women?”
The Dark One’s voice tore through the whirling gray mist of the Great Beyond. Though yet within the walls of his massive stone temple, he spoke with authority and power, his every word deep as rumbling thunder and edged with the crackling sizzle of lightning bolts.
Hardwick strode into the swirling gray, breeching t
he first rule of the Dark One’s inner sanctum by arriving at his own behest. As if personally affronted, the ever-present fog shimmied and thickened around him. Undaunted, he pressed on, his only concession the hand he kept on the hilt of his sword.
He could feel the Dark One’s displeasure at his boldness.
His hand stayed where it was.
He did stop a respectable distance from the ring of thick-growing guardian trees surrounding the temple. Blessedly, there weren’t any naked beauties tied to them, bound by their hair and ropes of shimmering, unbreakable mist.
“I wait, Seagrave.” The Dark One’s voice cracked like a whip. “Are you weary of women or not?”
“I am a Highlander. We ne’er tire of women.” Hardwick spoke at last, even though the trees and the mist kept much of the temple from view. “‘Twas the curse alone that plagued me.”
Silence followed.
He imagined the Dark One raising an annoyed black brow.
“Have you not found the peace you sought in your quiet Dunroamin, sequestered haven in Scotland’s far north?” The disembodied voice rose, booming loud enough to echo to infinity. “I see you do not carry your shield. Is it not enough to be rid of such a burden as you’ve suffered these centuries?”
“My shield is here if I need it.” Hardwick flicked his fingers and the shield appeared in his hand. “As for my burden” - he stood tall, willing to give thanks where it was due – “I am grateful it is done and by with.”
“So you should be.”
For a beat, Hardwick thought he caught a soft chuckle from inside the temple.
But if he had, the Dark One’s next words ruined the image. “Then what of the peace, Seagrave? Did you find your heart’s desire at Dunroamin?”
Hardwick’s ears sharpened. “My what?”
Again he heard the soft noise that might have passed for laughter.
“Why, your solitude and boredom, of course.” A rustling of robes and a gust of icy wind indicated the Dark One had moved nearer. “Your days must be empty and tedious, there in the great wilds of Sutherland.”
“They are anything but – as well you know!” Hardwick’s temper broke. “I have seen your minions scurrying about, watching me. I did no’ come here to dance around the fire with you. I want two boons and I’m no’ leaving until you grant them.”
“You dare?”
The Dark One’s voice thundered through the inner sanctum, followed almost immediately by a loud noise reminiscent of Mac slapping his knee.
Around the sentry-like trees, the maze of exposed roots swiftly shifted into a troop of crouching, hissing dragons. Pushing up on their scaly, long-clawed feet, they swung black-glittering heads in Hardwick’s direction. Their angry, red eyes and slashing tails left no doubt that they didn’t take kindly to boon-seekers.
“Have done, my beasts!” The Dark One showed himself briefly, his tall, imposing form appearing silhouetted in the open temple doorway as he flung a berobed arm at the root dragons. “Sleep until you are summoned!”
At once, the creatures vanished, leaving a tangle of harmless-looking roots in their wake.
“So, Seagrave!” The Dark One’s voice came again from within his sheltering temple.
The still-lit arch of his doorway loomed empty.
“What boons would you have? Now, after the generosity I showed you before?”
“I am a different man than when I last stood before you.” Hardwick folded his arms, unwilling to bend. “As such, I have different needs.”
“Needs great enough to bring you here?”
Hardwick squared his shoulders, prepared to give his all. “They are important enough for me to offer everything you required of me now, before the end of my testing period.”
He could almost see the Dark One’s brow arching again.
He wasn’t prepared for the long stretch of silence.
A quiet peppered with a noise that sounded very much like a man scratching his beard.
Almost as if he were mulling.
Hardwick frowned.
Good things weren’t known to come when the Dark One considered.
“Tell me, Seagrave, do these boons have aught to do with the maid?”
“You know that they do.”
The Dark One reappeared on the threshold, a silent wind whipping his robes. “There is naught I do not know.”
Anger flamed through Hardwick. With surety, the Dark One’s hags had extolled on all they’d witnessed in Dunroamin’s vaulted undercroft.
“Do not forget I was once a man.” The Dark One’s words proved the hags had spoken.
Hardwick set his jaw. He didn’t care if the fiend had once been ten flesh-and-blood men.
“We were all once men and still are. In whate’er form allowed us,” he snarled, curling one hand around his sword hilt and tightening the fingers of the other on the handgrip of his shield. “What I want from you is one night to lie with Cilla, to truly take her as befitting two who love.” He took a few steps closer, his gaze on the black silhouette in the temple doorway. “I want your word to leave Dunroamin in peace. I’ll no’ have your hags manifesting there again.”
“Indeed?” The Dark One appeared to study his knuckles. “You forget that you are not in a position to make such demands.” He paused as a gust of wind raced through the trees. “Still, I shall speak with the ladies.”
“Ladies?” Hardwick nearly choked. “They are as fiendish as you.”
The Dark One sent him a reproving stare.
He felt it to his bones.
“They were but overeager.” The Dark One took their side. “They, too, once knew love and have missed it.”
“And my boons?”
“Done.”
“What?” Hardwick’s eyes flew wide.
Relief washed over him. Triumph, hot and sweet, nearly buckled his knees.
Until the Dark One raised a quelling hand. “Done, that is, after you’ve mastered one last proving.”
Hardwick’s heart plummeted. “Is it no’ enough that I’m offering you my soul? Now, well before the year and a day you required?”
He wasn’t sure, but he’d swear the Dark One shrugged.
“‘Tis a grave matter, Seagrave.” His deep voice filled the inner sanctum. “You ask me to grant you a night of bliss with your lady and” – there came that soft chuckle again – “then deny my ladies their pleasure. Yet all can be arranged if you are willing.”
Hardwick crossed his arms. “Name your price.”
“Your lady’s soul.”
“That’s madness!” Hardwick stared into the mist, not surprised that it’d thickened again, blotting the Dark One and his temple from view.
“Your choice, Seagrave.” The voice came from within the temple walls. “One night of pleasure, Dunroamin left in its plaid-draped innocence, and – the price – Cilla Swanner’s soul.”
“Nae!” Hardwick roared the denial.
Then he was falling, twirling and tumbling through a deep black tunnel that seemed bottomless. Down and down he spiraled, cold winds tearing at his kilt and whipping his hair.
And as the darkness rushed to claim him, one word slid round his heart, giving him comfort.
Cilla.
Chapter Fifteen
Several evenings later, Cilla perched on the edge of a plaid-covered sofa in a back corner of Dunroamin’s heavily tartanized library. Flickering candles glowed everywhere, the only lighting Uncle Mac allowed in the room. Standing candelabrums, wall sconces, and table candles; each one cast golden pools of light, adding ambiance to the night’s event.
A ‘Meet and Greet the Author’ affair, featuring Wee Hughie MacSporran, the Highland Storyweaver.
Cilla watched and listened to him, trying to appear interested.
In truth, she was only surprised.
The tall, teddy bear-ish man lecturing at a podium near the library’s black marble fireplace was everything she hadn’t expected.
She leaned into Hardwick, sitting bes
ide her. “I thought he was a renowned ladies’ man?”
“So folk say.” Hardwick shrugged. “Whate’er he has, I do no’ see it. Or” - he cocked a wicked brow – “perhaps he is skilled at giving Highland kisses?”
Cilla bit back a smile. “Somehow I doubt that.”
Although at least six foot four, Wee Hughie appeared well-pudged rather than well-muscled. Even his scholarly high forehead and thinning auburn hair couldn’t keep his round, apple-red cheeks from giving him a jolly air. Unfortunately, his cheeriness was dimmed by his tendency to strut like a peacock.
“Time is of little importance in the Highlands,” he was saying, his burr well-buttered, almost a touch too smooth. The words rolled, as if he’d said them again and again. “Our hills are a magical place of picturesque beauty, languorous and seductive.”
He paused, casting a meaningful look at the little cluster of Australian women who made up his entourage and had claimed front-row seats.
“Scotland, the whole world knows, is a place where you can believe the distant past happened only yesterday, and the faraway and long ago is not lost at all but waiting to be discovered by those with eyes to see.”
He looked round, baiting his audience. “Do you have such eyes?”
A round of quiet nods from Dunroamin’s residents answered him, while his Aussies, all sporting Official Kilt Inspector jackets, oohed and aahed agreement.
Beside Cilla, Hardwick snorted.
She slid a glance at him. “You really don’t like him, do you?”
“I dinnae like windbags.” He folded his arms. “Such fools annoy me more than a pebble in my shoe.”
He glanced toward the windows, appearing to eye the approaching rain clouds. But not before Cilla caught a twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“I saw that.” She nudged him, relieved to see the recent harsh lines in his face soften, if only for a moment. “You think he’s funny?”
“I think his head is so swollen it’s a wonder he can walk through a door.” He kept his voice low, his gaze still on the windows.
His face was hard-set, almost expressionless. Much as it’d been ever since he’d returned from his mysterious visit to the Dark One and announced he’d met with failure.
