My Cursed Highlander

by Kimberly Killion

  “I suspect ‘twas a difficult birth as m’laird and his brother, Keegan, are twins. Ye cannae tell one from the other, save for the color of their eyes.”

  “I did not know.” Viviana shook her head, as if her ignorance of her husband’s past might excuse her from the way she treated him. “And the man who took a bride at the end of the song? He was Keegan?”

  “‘Tis a verse I’d not heard before,” Remi patted her hand, “but I suspect the bride is ye.”

  Viviana’s heart exploded. He thinks I hate him?

  She chewed on her bottom lip while her hands shook inside Remi’s. The ending lyrics played over in her head. Let me in her heart some day.

  What did that mean? Did he want her to let him into her heart when he was determined to keep her out of his? Viviana’s head spun with unanswered questions. Desperate to go to him, she took a step, but Remi grabbed her and redirected her around the fire. “I will take ye to him if ye like.”

  “No.” She changed her mind and spun a full circle, uncertain what to do. “Should I go to him? Would he want me to?”

  “Go to him,” Monroe said calmly. “Had m’laird not wanted ye to know about his past, he wouldnae have sung the song.”

  She dipped her head in agreement and removed the amulet from around her neck. She didn’t want to see herself this night. She wanted to see her husband. A single step put her in front of Monroe. “Can I trust you to take care of this?” She held out the amulet.

  “Aye.” Monroe took the stone from her trembling hand. “A bit of advice, m’lady, if I may?”

  Viviana nodded so aggressively her hair fell over her face.

  Monroe stood and pushed the strands back with a gentleness that surprised her. “Not all men are the same.”

  Viviana stepped out of their circle, thinking Monroe a wise man. It was true she judged men based on her experiences with Radolfo and Luciano, but something in her heart told her Laird Kraig was different, something that filled her with hope and scared her at the same time.

  “Come, Miocchi. Take me to him.” With one hand atop Miocchi’s head, she stepped into the wood. A low-hanging branch slapped her in the face. She ignored the sting against her cheek and cautiously followed Miocchi through the woodland. Her skirts tangled around her legs with the pace of her movements until her foot snagged on a gnarled tree root. She caught herself, preventing the fall. Did the man really feel the need to travel such a distance?

  She strained her ear to listen beyond the wind blowing through leaves.

  Plop.

  A rock made a skipping noise. Her eyes closed and she inhaled. Beneath the bitter smell of an elm tree hid the scent of pine and mist. It was a scent she’d become familiar with over the last few days. His scent.

  Plop.

  “Find him, Miocchi.”

  The dog led her down a hillock thick with damp grasses, and then Miocchi stopped abruptly and whined.

  He was there. He did not speak, but she heard his deep draws of breath.

  Viviana bent, rubbed Miocchi’s head, and pointed back into the woodland. “Go back.” Miocchi scurried away with this command, leaving her alone with her husband.

  The pressure in her chest grew stronger as she stood idle, waiting for words to come to her, but they never did. She reached out and found him sitting with his head bowed. Her fingers wove through his thick hair and forced his face upward. Although she couldn’t see him, she felt his gaze caress her skin and a thousand tingles rippled inside her.

  “Viviana—”

  She touched his lips, silencing him, then stepped between his knees and placed the pads of her fingertips over his eyes. Were they blue like she envisioned them inside her head? She’d wanted to know his image long before this moment and explored the contours of his face. Nicely arched brows sat above eyes thick with lashes. His forehead was high and lines creased the corners of his eyes. His features exuded strength; his nose, his sharply boned cheeks, his roughened jaw. He was everything she’d imagined, right down to the small dent in his chin.

  With the tips of two fingers, she traced the lines of his lips—soft, kissable lips. His breath tickled—‘twas hot when he exhaled, cool when he inhaled. Nervousness made her toes curl, and the desire to kiss him became impossible to ignore.

  “Viviana,” he whispered.

  She bent over him, slipped her hand behind his head, and breathed in his air. “I do not hate you.” She descended on his lips in a kiss so powerful she felt the world explode in her womb.

  His hands wrapped around her thighs and drew her closer, but he remained seated and let her guide the kiss. Her fingers tightened at his nape as she frolicked inside his mouth enjoying the contrasting taste of sweet warm wine and cool mint. Her lips trailed his jaw to the tender area below his ear. “You should have told me about your father.”

  “Would it have changed your opinion of me?” His words fell over her breasts like ribbons of silk, tightening her nipples into sensitive points.

  “Sì. It would have.” She wanted to embrace him, to be his strength. She wanted him to trust her with his secrets… and she desperately wanted him to touch her. She nigh ached for it to the marrow in her bones.

  With his nose, he brushed the underside of her breast in a slow sweeping motion while his hands glided over her thighs, around her buttocks to her waist. He pulled her close enough that her pelvis pressed against his muscled chest. “Why? Because suffering loss suddenly makes me human, makes me compassionate?” His words turned harsh, angry.

  Before she could respond, he picked her up and laid her atop a flat rock beneath him. His knee settled between her legs.

  She gasped, suddenly fearful of his aggression.

  He stilled atop her, as if sensing her tension. “Will you ever see me? Or will I always be a remnant of your first two husbands?”

  “They were horrible, and I hated them,” she said with conviction and reached out to touch him, but he pinned her wrists above her head with one hand and released the clasps of her bodice with the other.

  “And ye are determined to hate me in like.” His words pained her.

  “No. That is not true.”

  “Then let me in.” He kissed her neck, setting her heart to racing, and untied the laces of her undertunic to expose her breasts to cool night air. Ice crinkled her nipples into aching pulse points while desire whipped beneath her skin like a flash of fire. She swallowed and bit her lip, wanting more.

  “Your husbands are dead. Let them go.” He licked the outer ring of her nipple. “And let me in.”

  She desperately wanted that, wanted to be free of their memory. They’d ruined her in mind and body. They’d made her bitter and afraid, but mostly they destroyed her trust.

  “I am not Radolfo,” he said against her breast and blew over the bud.

  He was seducing her, and God save her, but she wanted to be seduced.

  His hair tickled her collarbone when he moved to her other breast. “Nor am I Luciano.” His tongue circled her areola and, again, he blew.

  A string of pleasure shot a path of white hot lightning from her breast to her core. She whimpered, impatience budding. Take me into your mouth. She squirmed and arched beneath him, rubbing herself against his knee.

  “I am Taveon. Say it,” he demanded, his tone unyielding.

  “Taveon,” she whispered and filled her lungs with air. A desire like none she’d ever known made her tremble just as he took the peak of her breast into the warm haven of his mouth. Nothing had ever felt so right, so wonderful. He drew on her nipple, again and again, pulling, tugging, teasing, making her want to cry out. Her eyes pinched together, her hips came up off the rock.

  He moved to her other breast and played over the nipple with the tip of his tongue. “Say it, again.”

  “Taveon. Oh, Taveon.” She fought the hold on her wrists, but he was relentless.

  “Trust me like ye never trusted them. I will not disappoint ye.” He feasted on her breasts in tantalizing bites until moist
ure pooled in her womanhood. Her nether lips swelled inside and out. She’d never been privy to such arousal, such sweet torment.

  Excitement raw and feral fluttered in her mons.

  She cried out. “Oh, cazzo!”

  He brought her thigh to his hip with a trembling hand just as a guttural scream echoed throughout the timber.

  He stilled and turned his head.

  She was slower to respond, thinking the pounding in her ears was her heart, but it was not. Hoof beats vibrated the ground.

  “Yap, yap, yap…”

  “Shite!” He leapt off her, pulling her forward by her wrists, then wrapped his hand around her neck. “Where is the amulet?”

  Her eyes went wide as lust shifted to terror. “I left it with Monroe.” She clutched the seams of her gown together in one hand.

  “Yap, yap—smack.” Whimpers followed the disturbing sound.

  Miocchi! Viviana jerked, her heart skipped.

  “We’re being attacked.” Taveon crawled from the rock, pulling her with him. He stepped away from her, but pivoted back, his fingers still tangled in hers.

  That slightest hesitation meant more to her than he could possibly know.

  The clash of steel erupted along with the sounds of battle.

  “Go,” she decided for him. As afraid as she might be, she couldn’t ask him to stay with her when Remi and Monroe might be in danger.

  He curled his arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head. “Hide, Viviana.” He ran up the knoll, and with every fading footstep the cold hands of isolation grasped at her.

  Hide, Vivi.

  She fisted her hands against her ears and tried to escape the memory those words instilled, but it crawled into her head like a disease. Viviana fell to her knees the same as she had in the Duomo all those years ago.

  Do not let them see you. Fioretta, round with child, reached for her. Viviana could still see the design in the marble floor, could still hear the stabbing sounds as she crawled toward the aisle.

  The same sounds echoed now through her ears; the sound of dying men crying out to their maker, the sound of bone-crushing punches. God help them, God help her. They would not find her. Not this time.

  Hide, Vivi, hide.

  Her heart pounded as she fumbled through the grasses and around the rock, feeling her way over the jagged edge until her slippered feet sank in water.

  Mannaggia! It was cold, so cold.

  She swallowed, and followed the reef’s curve. Water rose up her legs to her waist, seeping into her skin and stealing her air. Fingertips dug into the divots of the rock while her toes sank in silt. Her gown became a sponge, threatening to pull her under.

  He will not find me this time. Viviana secured her footing and held tight to a sliver of stone beneath the jutting rock. Eyes closed, she breathed, she prayed. “Come back for me.”

  Chapter 13

  Taveon raced through the woodland, torn between protecting his wife and protecting his men. The clash of steel and battle cries ripped through his ears the same as it had in Berwickshire. He’d lost a great many men in that war, and damned if he would lose the two finest friends a man could have to brigands.

  He jumped over a fallen log, his feet landing with a jarring thud, then ducked beneath a low-hanging branch. The fire came into view, interrupted by the scurrying shadows of fighting men. Miocchi’s persistent yelping only added to the cacophony of battle sounds.

  His heart excelled in rhythm as he forged his way through the brambles. Stinging nettles tore through his chausses and bit into his calves. He broke free of the thicket where they’d tethered their horses. Hidden by a mass of horseflesh, he tucked two dirks at his waist and unsheathed his broadsword. Peeking around the stallion’s neck, he took only a moment to size up his opponents.

  Monroe held his own, battling four men like a giant in a Greek tragedy. Two men already lie unconscious on the ground; one holding his gut and bellowing in pain while the other man lay unmoving with his foot in the fire. Taveon recognized his face. He was the same man who been quick to offer him congratulations at the inn, the same man who’d conversed quietly with the innkeeper.

  “Give us the Medici girl, and we’ll leave you gents to your journey,” a man commented just before Remi ran a dirk between the brigand’s ribs.

  Ye will have to kill me first.

  Taveon spurred into action, now realizing these men had tracked them from Turin with intentions of abducting his wife. No doubt, they thought her an heir to the Medici fortune. His defenses tripled, his grip tightened around the hilt.

  “Evil awaits you in the mountains.” The beggar woman’s warning hummed between his ears. “Your curse will steal away your woman.”

  Taveon shook his head in denial as he raised his broadsword and joined the battle with a roar of intent.

  No man would steal away his Venus nor would the curse.

  Two men came at him, swords drawn. Taveon blocked a downward thrust and stabbed one of his attackers in the gut while he wrapped his fingers around his dirk and punched the other brigand in the nose. Blood spurted at all angles, painting Taveon’s tunic with scarlet splatter.

  The biting smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils.

  “Behind you!” Remi yelled.

  Taveon spun as three more men came at him. He crouched and pivoted, swinging his dirk with deadly purpose, his skills far more superior to these peasant thieves. From the corner of his eye, Monroe opened a man’s throat with a blade already soaked in crimson, and Remi danced circles around two more vagrants to the tune of Miocchi’s barking. The beastie bared his teeth, and shook outside their ring of combat, as if awaiting the command that might spur him into action.

  When the fighting reduced to gurgles and moans, Taveon braced the heels of his hands on his knees. Sharp air burned his lungs and sweat stung his eyes as he surveyed the parameter.

  Remi slapped him on the back. “‘Tis good they fight worse than the English. Best we leave before—”

  A branch snapped.

  Slowly, Taveon turned. The darkened edge of the thicket waved with black shadows; men on foot, men on horseback.

  “Shite! There’s at least another dozen in the woodland, mayhap more.” Taveon swiped his brow and studied their opponents through the slits of his eyes.

  “They want your lady wife,” Remi supplied and cleaned the edge of his blade on a dead man’s doublet. A man Taveon recognized as the smithie from Turin.

  “Weel, they’ll not be getting her, now will they?” Taveon kicked the dead man’s leg out of the fire, no longer able to bear the acrid smell of burning flesh.

  “Nay, m’laird,” Monroe’s lips peeled over his teeth, revealing a wicked grin. “They fight like laddies with wooden swords.”

  A flaming arrow swished between Taveon and Remi and stuck in the blood-soaked ground. Out of the shadows emerged a rider on a chestnut-colored mare. Taveon met eyes with the lunger who’d made merry with the wench in the barroom. Black hair hung around his pasty skin as he dipped his head in mock salute. Archers stepped to the forefront and cocked their crossbows.

  “Guard yourselves, then we attack,” Taveon commanded and crouched down, pulling a body from the ground to act as a shield against the flying bolts. Monroe and Remi followed suit, draping their backs with corpses.

  While the arrows hissed through the air, Taveon prayed for Viviana’s safety. In his mind’s eye, he drew forth her image atop the flat rock; sprawled out beneath him, moonlight glistened over her creamy skin wet from his kisses. She’d been aroused to the point of mewling whimpers, and he’d been so close to setting her free. He’d broken through her resistance and known a taste of the passion they might share as husband and wife. No thief would take that from him, nor would Elise.

  His eyes snapped open. He prepared himself mentally for warfare and threw the dead man off his back.

  I’m coming, Venus.

  * * *

  Her eyelids slid shut. Viviana rest her forehead against th
e jagged rock, no longer able to feel her toes. The water’s frigid cold numbed her body from the neck down. Her fingers felt like sticks of ice frozen in place on the ridge, and the increasing clatter of her teeth was the only noise saving her from the horrid sounds of battle in the distance.

  Worry consumed her mind. Was her husband still alive? What of Remi, Monroe, and Miocchi? Her weariness set her imagination free to roam. Scenes of carnage filled the blackness inside her head. Taveon’s strong body lay in a pool of blood unmoving.

  No! She shook off the vision. He is not dead.

  A horse’s nicker sounded in her ears.

  Her eyes fluttered open.

  Taveon?

  She waited, her breath held. Heavy footsteps crunched over leaves. Too heavy. Booted feet stomped atop the flat rock just above her head.

  She bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. She wished with every morsel of her being the man above her was her husband, but part of her knew not to trust such whimsical fancies. She ground her teeth and inhaled a breath of mead and stale body odor. He was definitely not her husband.

  A whizzing sound made an arc over her head then splattered in the water behind her. The smell of piss made her stomach roll. Miscreant! She pulled herself closer to the rock and controlled her breathing, knowing the slightest ring in the water would give her away.

  “I know you be there, Signora Medici,” the man bellowed, jarring her insides, but she remained perfectly still. “Your escorts be dead.”

  No! It was a lie. All men lied.

  “I ne’er seen men fight with such skill. Fortunate for us, we outnumbered them by thirty.” The man fell into a coughing fit.

  No! Viviana pinched her eyes tight. A sob burned in her throat and pain clutched her heart like an iron claw. Why do You continue to punish me? She wanted to scream out her question to the Heavens and demand an answer from God.

  Her fingers slipped on the rock. Heartbeats later, the wretch above her filled his hands with her hair and hauled her out of the water.

  “Uffa!” She wrapped her fingers around his wrists to relieve the pressure burning her scalp. She struggled, banging her legs against the rock as he dragged her over the sharp edge. The pull at her waist came before she heard her gown tear, then all at once she was brought upright. Night’s cool air stabbed her frozen skin like a thousand tiny knives. She swayed and stood on unstable legs.