Seduction Of A Highland Warrior

by Welfonder Sue-Ellen

  “Never!” Marjory reared back, snatching the cup and dashing its contents into her tormenter’s face.

  “Gah!” The woman jumped, swiping at her eyes as the younger women lunged for her, arms outstretched, fingers curled into talons.

  It was then that the clanging worsened and the wind swung round, blowing spray from the surf into Marjory’s face. She lifted a hand, wiping her eyes and finding her cheeks damp with icy droplets.

  Rain.

  A storm that no longer buffeted the cliffs but drummed on Nought’s tower walls, also the rhythmic banging of a shutter blown open by the wind. Sitting up at once, she recognized her surroundings, relief sluicing her.

  She saw not spear shafts on shields but her bedchamber’s loose shutter. Just as the cold film of moisture on her cheeks was only windblown rain and not sea spray from a distant, foreign strand. She felt the brush of her bed curtains, tossing in the damp gusts coming through the window.

  Everything was as it should be.

  Even her tiny dog, Hercules, still slept at her feet, snoring softly. Across the room, all that remained of her earlier fire was a trace of soot and ash, a thin haze of peat smoke lingering in the air.

  Nought was as quiet as always in the small hours, the stronghold at rest.

  Marjory took a deep, steadying breath.

  She could still feel the fires heating her skin. And she couldn’t banish the feeling that Lady Sarina and the older woman and all the others had really been there, pushing and pulling her toward the burning longship.

  Or that Alasdair had come to save her.

  It’d been so real.

  Yet…

  Shaky, she eased her feet from beneath Hercules and slipped from her bed. Once she’d refastened the clanging shutter, she’d be able to sleep in peace. Forget the night’s strange and unsettling dream. But she’d taken only a few steps across the damp, rush-strewn floor before her foot collided with a small metal cup.

  Looking down, she saw that it was on its side. The darkening of the rushes around the cup indicated it’d been knocked over when full, its contents spilling out across the floor.

  The only problem was there hadn’t been a small metal cup in her room.

  She was sure of that.

  And—she blinked—there wasn’t one here now either. For when she bent to snatch the cup into her hand, her fingers closed around one of Hercules’s discarded toys. A crescent of smooth, well-chewed wood boasting two rounded balls on each end, carved for him by Grim, one of her brother’s most trusted warriors and a great animal lover.

  Marjory dropped the toy as if it’d bitten her.

  She turned in a circle, searching the room, where moonlight poured in through the open shutter, casting a silvered wedge across the floor. She also peered into the gloom of corners and beneath her bed where dark shadows might conceal a plain metal beaker.

  She saw nothing.

  The cup was gone.

  If it’d even been there, which she doubted.

  Her mind was playing tricks on her. Kendrew’s plan to see her wed to a Viking nobleman was wearing on her. She hoped that was the only reason for such a disturbing dream.

  She didn’t want to think about what would happen if such a dream was a portent.

  She’d been weaned on Norse folklore and custom.

  She knew fire burials existed.

  Blessedly, she also knew that Kendrew had exhausted his list of potential suitors. At least, she believed Groat’s overlord was the last Viking lord to offer for her. She’d paid dearly to avoid such a union, even sacrificing her grandmother’s heirloom sapphire ring.

  She was safe.

  Taking comfort in that knowledge, she went to the window and closed the shutter, securing its latch with a strip of hide. Then she pressed her hand to the small of her back and stretched, recalling the names of all possible husbands and how she’d successfully thwarted each bid for her hand.

  Isobel had helped her.

  Together, they’d cleared the path for Marjory’s seduction of Alasdair. He wasn’t exactly cooperating, but she was making headway. That he desired her stood without question. She only needed another opportunity to convince him that he could never have enough of her. That she was everything he could wish for in a lover, a wife.

  Soon, he’d come around.

  Her fearing dream meant nothing.

  Yet…

  Why did she feel a tingling in the back of her neck? Worse, why did the air in her room still hold a tinge of smoke? Not the earthy-sweet hint of cold peat ash from her bedchamber’s hearth but the sharp, acrid bite of burning wood and something else.

  Something she didn’t want to ponder.

  She did cross the room and fling back her bed curtains, tying them to a bedpost. If anything else came to her this night, in a dream or otherwise, she’d face the intrusion head-on and with her eyes wide open.

  She’d be ready.

  Chapter Five

  The devil ravening.” Alasdair snarled the curse, certain Marjory’s fresh, heathery scent still wafted beneath his nose. Would that he could grasp her face, let his gaze roam over her, then lean near until he could feel the soft warmth of her skin, breathe her in. Kiss her once more. Need clawed at him, hot and fierce. Resisting her in the wood had cost him all his strength. If she tempted him again, he wouldn’t have a shred of restraint left to summon.

  She should be glad the whole of the glen now stretched between them.

  He should also be pleased.

  Instead, he stood at one of the tall arched windows of his colorfully painted solar and tossed back the uisge beatha he’d poured himself. He needed the fiery Highland spirits, hoped its bite would curb his temper, keep him from smashing his fist into a wall. Here at his own Blackshore Castle, a proud loch-girt stronghold on the southernmost bounds of the Glen of Many Legends, he shouldn’t feel Marjory’s presence so strongly.

  Thinking of her so late at night was especially dangerous. But he didn’t trust Kendrew and wasn’t sure the bastard wouldn’t persist with his quest to find her a Norse nobleman as a husband.

  The possibility set his blood to boiling.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, his entire body tightening.

  He didn’t care if her prospective husband was a Viking or a Scot. He simply couldn’t bear the thought of her in the arms of another man.

  The notion gutted him, caused a sharp, stabbing pain in the region of his heart.

  Wishing that weren’t so, and damning her because it was, he almost reached to slosh more uisge beatha into his cup. Unfortunately, his head was already beginning to ache. So he slapped the cup onto the window ledge and took a long breath of the cold night air.

  It was a fine night.

  He shouldn’t spend it imagining how many ways he’d enjoy making love to the delectable, entirely too irresistible sister of his greatest enemy. The King might’ve pressed the glen clans into a truce, but he and Kendrew had a festering history of bad blood that went too deep to ever be forgotten. Forgiveness was beyond them both.

  The scar on his arm pulled then, as if the old wound—carved by Kendrew’s hand—agreed with his refusal to see Kendrew for anything but what he was: a true Highland scoundrel.

  Praise God he only lusted after the bastard’s sister.

  If he loved her—

  Alasdair pulled a hand down over his face, not about to even consider the possibility.

  He did lean against the edge of the window to glare out at Loch Moidart. His mind should be filled with clan pride in such moments, naught else. Dark mists curled across the water and chill wind whistled past the ramparts. It was a good night for sleeping and his men took advantage, most sprawled on pallets in the great hall. Only a few torches yet burned and the air still held a hint of the evening meal, roasted pork and rich onion gravy. Some might catch a waft of old dog and spilled ale. If so, no MacDonald would complain.

  Dogs were welcome at Blackshore, aging beasts being particularly honored.

>   And ale…

  MacDonalds were famed for serving up the finest.

  They were also known for the worthiness of their leaders. Proud men who didn’t just protect kith and kin, guarding the land through the skill of their sword arms, but who were also good, honest, and fair. Wits served them as well as arms, a truth that demanded respect from all who knew them, friend or foe.

  A shame his good sense had abandoned him.

  There could be no other reason he’d kept himself up so late when every muscle in his body ached from the sword vigil on Drangar’s Point. Why else would he allow his loose-tongued cousin Ewan and Malcolm, his uncle and the most querulous MacDonald of all, to invade the night peace of his solar?

  Peace that the other two men seemed determined to shatter.

  “I could’ve told you knuckle kissing would sour your mood. No’ that I believe you stopped at kissing Lady Marjory’s hand. I wouldn’t have.” Ewan shifted on Alasdair’s best chair, stretching his long legs to the remnants of the hearth fire. “A pity you didn’t ask me how to handle her. I know much of women.”

  “Did you sharpen your sword earlier?” Alasdair didn’t rise to the bait. “I ordered every man to do so. I don’t recall seeing you tend yours.”

  “My blade is aye ready.” Ewan grinned, winking broadly.

  Across the room, Malcolm snorted. “It’ll come back a stump if you’re for swinging it in the same direction thon laddie’s gazing so furiously.”

  “I’m watching the loch and the hills beyond.” Alasdair shot them both an annoyed glance. “The rain’s stopped and the mist is thinning, but it’s still too quiet for my liking.”

  “Humph.” Malcolm took a greedy bite of a pork rib. One of a large tray of ribs that he balanced on his knees as he sat on a three-legged stool, shunning the solar’s more comfortable furnishings.

  A great-uncle a time or two removed, Malcolm had been a formidable warrior in his youth, not even giving up his sword after a Mackintosh war ax had sliced deep into his hip. The blow also snatched two fingers from his left hand and spoiled his swagger, leaving him with a limp he refused to acknowledge to this day.

  A proud man, he sat so straight on his stool only those who knew him would know one of his legs was bent and his back would be crooked if he allowed. No one but Alasdair was aware that the floor of his fine-painted solar boasted a luxurious covering of sheep-and deerskins because Malcolm’s bad leg was less apt to slip on furred rugs than on the herb-strewn rushes that decked most of Blackshore’s flooring.

  The aged warrior enjoyed spending his hours in the little room with its dazzling colored walls, every inch and cranny filled with life-size murals of fanciful Celtic beasts and pagan deities.

  Just now, moon-silvered light from the windows lit his weathered profile, and not for the first time Alasdair wished for Malcolm’s dignity in age. He wore his gray hair pulled back into a thick plait that fell just below his still-broad shoulders and was fastidious about keeping his salt-and-pepper beard well-trimmed. Alasdair’s dog, Geordie, a beast surely as old as Malcolm in canine years, sat hopefully by his side, his milky eyes trained unerringly on the tray of thickly sauced pork ribs on Malcolm’s knees.

  It was a familiar sight and one that usually warmed Alasdair’s heart.

  This night, the cagey glint in the old man’s eyes was only irksome.

  “Coira Mackinnon would make you a good wife.” Malcolm tore off a bit of pork for Geordie, offering it to the dog on an outstretched hand. “She is known to be comely, has hips—”

  “Lady Coira’s hips do not interest me.” Alasdair clenched his fist against the window ledge.

  “They should.” Malcolm leaned forward, his expression turning even more annoying. “From what I hear, she carries a broad enough spread to not split apart the first time she slips a bairn for you.” Sitting back, he looked pleased by the prospect. “The same cannot be said for Marjory Mackintosh. She’s much too tall and lithe to breed well. And”—he gave Geordie another bit of rib meat—“Lady Coira doesn’t have tainted blood in her veins.”

  “Lady Coira’s bloodlines mean even less to me than her girth.” Alasdair shot a glare at Ewan, who was rubbing his chin to keep from laughing. “Lady Marjory’s is none of my concern either,” he lied. “And she has a fine, shapely form if you haven’t seen her lately. She’ll give strapping sons to the man lucky enough to wed her.”

  A man he’d love to tear apart with his hands.

  “As for Lady Coira, I thanked the Mackinnon for his generous offer and told him I am no’ looking for a wife.” Alasdair hoped the finality in his tone would dissuade his uncle from pursuing the matter.

  “Such a maid as the Mackinnon lass would bring high honor and great wealth with her dowry.” Malcolm proved his persistence. “You needn’t love her.”

  “We have riches and glory enough.” Alasdair turned fully to the window, splaying both hands on the cold stone of the ledge. “I needn’t wed to increase either.”

  Across the room, Malcolm mumbled something unintelligible. Any further grumblings were stayed as he munched noisily on another pork rib. Ewan shifted on his chair before the fire, for once knowing when to hold his tongue.

  Ignoring both men, Alasdair kept his gaze on the loch.

  The night was too still.

  And the same ill ease that sent him up to Drangar Point that morn plagued him still. The sensation sat deep, riding the back of his neck. Shrugging it off wasn’t easy.

  Nor did he think he should.

  He also didn’t care for the dark mist slipping down from the high moors to drift across the loch. It was an unholy mist, sure as his name was MacDonald. Stepping closer to the window, he trained his gaze on the hills edging the far side of the loch. He also watched the long curving strand at their base and the low stone causeway that ran from the shore to the castle gates, an access dependent on the tides.

  When the loch rose, the causeway vanished.

  Only a fool—or someone unaware of the speed and strength of the currents—would dare to cross to Blackshore until the waters receded.

  Just now, silver-glossed wavelets were beginning to lap at the causeway stones.

  Nothing else moved except the shifting tendrils of fog.

  It should’ve been a bright night. The moon had risen early, hanging full and clear over Drangar Point and the long, indented coastline that marked the Glen of Many Legends’ southern boundary. Still wet from the rains, the land had gleamed in shades of silver and black.

  Yet the mist came as swiftly, turning the night uncanny.

  Now, the shadows among the rocks on the foreshore were dark and deep. And they were worse atop the high moors. There, the rolling mist blurred the familiar landscape, giving innocent outcrops the look of crouching beasts and letting clusters of thorn and broom appear menacing, like a gathering of ghouls waiting to pounce.

  More like the Viking from the harvest fair, along with his bloodthirsty, grasping friends.

  Hoping he erred, Alasdair caught a whiff of the sea on the incoming tide. Soon the causeway would sink beneath the water. The moment wouldn’t come too soon.

  He was sure strange shapes moved in the mist.

  Forms that drifted rather than walked as a flesh-and-blood man would do.

  “Looking for Drangar, eh?” Ewan joined him at the window. “I knew this was a night he’d be about.”

  “He isn’t anywhere except in the songs of the storytellers.” Alasdair wasn’t about to admit he’d imagined black shapes floating along the cliffs. “Drangar the Strong is a fable.”

  “Say you.” Malcolm challenged him.

  “I do.” Alasdair met his belligerent stare.

  Malcolm made a great show of setting down his tray of pork ribs, leaving the remainder for Geordie. Straightening, he wiped his hands on the linen napkin he’d spread across his knees.

  “Say what you wish.” He leaned forward again, his eyes gleaming in the glow of the dying fire. “I say Drangar walks on nights
that are chill and damp.”

  “Then he’ll have no rest, for that’s how most nights are hereabouts.” Alasdair kept his gaze on the loch, the dark shoreline beyond.

  He knew what was coming.

  “I saw him myself when I was nine summers.” Malcolm didn’t disappoint. “Up in the high passes behind the Camerons’ Castle Haven, it was,” he began, telling the old story Alasdair had heard a thousand times. “I earned my first battle scar that day. I’d snuck into Cameron territory hoping to catch a glimpse of that clan’s Maker of Dreams, Grizel and Gorm. But instead of finding the legendary Bowing Stone said to mark the magical entry to that pair’s hidden moor, I found a band of rowdy Cameron lads several years my senior.” He paused, rubbing Geordie’s ears as the dog chewed a pork rib. “They were armed with dirks and short swords. And each one was double my size in muscle.”

  “Indeed?” Alasdair pretended he was hearing the tale for the first time.

  Ewan shot him an amused glance, proving he was still a bit too young to know when tact mattered more than denting an old man’s pride.

  “Aye, so it was.” Malcolm’s voice rang sage.

  Alasdair bit his tongue to keep from arguing that a Drangar the Strong visitation seemed to herald all MacDonald youths into manhood.

  Only he had been spared.

  It was a lacking that didn’t concern him.

  Malcolm appeared bitter earnest. Pushing to his feet, he crossed the solar, his gait as swift as any man three times younger than his own redoubtable age.

  Joining Alasdair and Ewan at the window arch, he rested a hand on each of their shoulders. “You’d be wise not to doubt me, laddies.”

  “No one does.” Ewan spoke for them both.

  Alasdair held back a denial.

  Appeased, Malcolm closed his eyes, reminiscing. “It’s so clear in my mind it could’ve been this morn.” He released his grip on them and opened his eyes. “I’d been foolish and paid the price. Standing my ground against the Cameron lads, I stepped into a rabbit hole, snapping my ankle. Thon devils could’ve ended me then and there.” He leaned in, indignation sparking. “They drew their blades, came in for the kill.”