Lachlan (Immortal Highlander Book 1): A Scottish Time Travel Romance

by Hazel Hunter

  Neac shrugged. “The laird wants her, and no’ just for those torch-hands of hers. She’s as comely as a princess. She has claim on him now, too, and I’ve never ken a McDonnel to ignore a life debt. The druids are proof of that, or we’d no’ be here in the Black Cuillin.”

  The potent, cloying taste of the spicy brew made Evander grimace, but he drank it down while he listened to the chieftain’s idle speculations. As more Uthars joined them Neac turned his attention to his tribesmen, and what weapons and armor they had that were in need of repair after the battle with the undead.

  Evander slipped away unnoticed, and spent some time pacing the long curtain wall walk between the promontory towers. Once he felt he had his temper properly confined, he headed for the stables.

  He found Lachlan in a stall with one of the clan’s muscular, gray Eriskay pack ponies. He and a mortal stable hand were examining a gash on the mare’s right flank. He gritted his teeth as he tried to be polite.

  “My lord, a word?”

  “Wash it gently, and then use that honey and stanch weed salve,” the laird told the mortal. “She’s no’ to be taken out again until she heals.” Lachlan regarded Evander. “Walk with me.”

  Evander accompanied the laird out of the stables and down to the loch, where they halted at a spot between two massive tribe stones by the hot spring vent. Standing in the place where their first lives had ended never seemed to disturb Lachlan. He often came to the spot to sit and look out over the dark waters that held so many secrets. Remembering his own brutal death was all that came to Evander here. Although he didn’t often agree with the laird, Evander respected the big man.

  “I’ve always wondered,” Evander said, “how does a war master like you come to ken so much about healing?”

  “As a boy that war master tended to the herds by day,” Lachlan said, “and mother and sister by night.” Lachlan searched the horizon. “My father had no patience for it, but white plague is maddening. The fevers and coughing never end. By the time they bring up dark blood you’re all but half-dead yourself.” Absently he ran his fingers along the swirls of the serpent carving in the tribe stone. “Have your word, Seneschal.”

  “I shouldnae have struck the woman. It grieves you that I did, and for that I am sorry.” He watched the laird’s expression. “But she can start fires with her hands. That alone makes her dangerous. I am charged with protecting Dun Aran, not only for you, my lord, but for the clan. If she were to set fire to the castle, while everyone was abed…cannae you see? She has to go, and go now.”

  “If she were a man with the same power, would you wish her gone?” Lachlan held up his hand before Evander could reply. “The truth.”

  Evander narrowed his eyes, but it was a time for truth. “No, my lord.” Insulting the wench would only annoy the laird, so he spoke of what he knew. “Men have discipline, and self-control. We ken our duty and keep our oaths. We are trained for battle. A man could be trusted.”

  “Women are no’ all trollops, Evander,” Lachlan told him. “When the lass was lost and terrified and alone, she protected me instead of herself. Without a reason in the world to, for she kens naught of me or the clan. If that matters no’ to you, then think on how she killed six undead—by herself—with a single blow. What McDonnel can say the same? No’ me or you.”

  “Then you mean to let her stay.”

  The prospect made Evander’s hands fist.

  “We’ll keep her close, and learn what we can of her and her power,” the laird said, and glanced back at the stronghold. “But if she truly wishes to go, I dinnae think any of us can stop her.”

  Evander would have to find another way to be rid of the wench. “As you say, my lord.”

  Chapter Seven

  AS LACHLAN STEPPED inside the tower chamber, Raen looked up from the blade hilt he was wrapping.

  “She stayed awake until I persuaded her to have some calming brew,” his bodyguard said. “It put her to slumber, and she hasnae moved since.”

  Lachlan nodded as he went to his bed, in which Kinley lay. “Go and get some sleep. I’ll stay with her.”

  When Raen reached the door he hesitated and looked back. “Cailean Lusk came at dawn asking to see her. Evander’s doing. I sent him away, but I’ve a notion he’ll be back.”

  Lachlan had underestimated the seneschal’s determination to rid Dun Aran of Kinley. “Put a guard downstairs before you find your bed. No one but you comes up.”

  “Aye, my lord.” Raen glanced at Kinley, shook his head a little and departed.

  Lachlan tugged off his shirt, which smelled of the stables, and dragged a hand over his crown. His orders would spawn all manner of new rumors among the clan, most casting Kinley as his bedmate. Yet he had never dallied with any of the serving women at the stronghold. When he needed release he went to one of the villages on the mainland, where he would spend the night with a willing widow. He knew they needed the gold he offered in exchange, and such brief encounters kept his life uncomplicated.

  He felt a knot in his groin, and glanced down to see the impressive stoner he’d gotten. He might have to make another trip soon, if he didn’t get his lust for Kinley under control.

  As he stood over the bed, he realized that Kinley’s first sight when she awoke would be his bulge. Gingerly he sat down on the edge of the bed. Sleep had smoothed away the lines of anger and fear from around her eyes and mouth. She looked almost angelic now. If not for the ripe curves of her breasts and hips she might have been a slumbering bairn.

  Lachlan glanced at her bonds. The lass had done naught but help him and his, and it wasn’t right to bind an ally. He untied the silk strips from the bed. Perhaps it would help her to sleep longer. As if in response, she turned over and a lock of her fine golden hair fell against Lachlan’s hand. He caressed the thin, bright strands, and marveled at how silky they felt against his fingertips.

  What would it be like, to have such tresses in his hands, or whispering across his chest? His mouth wanted more of hers, and that wild sweetness he’d tasted on the battlefield. Would she make love as ferociously as she fought?

  He might blame his rigid cock on the weeks he’d spent celibate while hunting the legion, but it wasn’t need for a wench that made him hard. He wanted this strange, fierce lass more than anything in his memory—and not only for her willowy beauty. She had roused something inside him he thought he’d left buried at the bottom of the loch.

  Long ago, when the Romans had invaded Caledonia, the Pritani had retreated to their highland settlements. At first it seemed the invaders would not chase them, but the word came that they had begun hunting and killing magic folk. When the druid conclave called upon the McDonnel tribe’s war master to help them escape annihilation, Lachlan agreed without hesitation. He appealed to other tribes to stand with him and his men, and so they came together as one great force.

  Under the banner of the druid’s protective dragon symbol, they carried out raids against the Romans, burning their camps and driving them south. What the invaders never realized was that Lachlan’s attacks were made to allow the conclave and the surviving settlements of magic folk to escape Caledonia. The druids left by boat under cover of darkness to sail to Hetlandensis, where they took shelter on one of the unsettled islands.

  Luring the Romans to Skye had been a strategic gamble. Lachlan knew the Black Cuillin mountains to be the perfect place for an ambush, but he hadn’t counted on the entire Ninth Legion being sent to pursue them. Out-numbered three to one, his men were quickly overrun and captured. The tribune had sneered at his captives.

  You were a fool to challenge us.

  While the Calendonian slave translated his words, the Roman tribune surveyed the defeated tribesmen. They knelt bound on the shore of Loch Sìorraidh, as he regarded Lachlan.

  Still, I can be generous. He tossed a handful of silver coins on the ground between them. Tell me where the druids have gone, and I will spare you, and one man out of every ten.

  Lachlan could ha
ve told him what he could do with his mercy, but spitting in his face had been far more satisfying. The tribune had ordered him beaten, and then stripped and bound between the tribe’s stones.

  He hadn’t understood why until the executions began.

  Lachlan’s men had died in silence, each looking at him and nodding their farewells in the moment before they fell beneath Roman blades. Some moved their lips in voiceless prayers to the gods. Many had prayed for him and his sanity, bless their souls.

  The centurions ordered the camp slaves to toss the bodies in the loch, until the inlet turned scarlet from their blood. When Lachlan alone remained alive, the tribune came to him and offered him life as a legion slave.

  He’d smiled at the Roman, just as he smiled now, remembering. His last act as a mortal man had been kicking that sadistic facker in the balls with such force that his testicles had ruptured.

  The last thing he remembered was a cold-eyed prefect swinging his blade at Lachlan’s neck, and then nothingness—until the awakening.

  You Pritani went willingly to your death, that we might live, the oldest Druid told Lachlan when he had walked out of the loch. Now you are reborn and you shall never die.

  Kinley grumbled in her sleep and drew her legs up.

  Lachlan stroked her silken hair and watched the gentle rise and fall of her breath, as a peculiar sensation jabbed his chest from within.

  Chapter Eight

  KINLEY WOKE FEELING as if she’d slept for a thousand years. For a moment she wondered if she had actually come out of the coma, and waited for the pain of her injuries to flare. Nothing but a dull throb at the base of her neck registered. She smelled wood smoke, and herbs, and something like cool, clear water. She felt like she had a headache building on top of the neck pain, but what she mostly felt was wonderfully warm. Slowly she opened her eyes to find a man sitting on her bed.

  One thing she knew immediately: she wasn’t at the VA hospital anymore.

  He wasn’t a fellow soldier, not with that long, dark hair. His deep tan hinted he’d been over in the Sand Pit, but she didn’t recognize his handsome face…or did she? She’d seen him somewhere before, in the rain…

  A rush of flashing, snapshot memories flooded Kinley’s mind, beginning from the moment she’d tried to kill herself in Horsethief Canyon, and ending when she’d fallen asleep while tied to the laird’s bed. She turned her head to see if the bodyguard (Rain?) was around, but it looked as if they were alone—and someone had untied her wrists.

  With her bare hands she’d burned six men to death last night, and they’d just tied her up? No, they were definitely not military.

  “Dinnae run again, faodail,” Lachlan said, his voice rumbling deep. “I’m too jeeked to chase after you. Go back to sleep.”

  She should have screamed, jumped from the bed, yelled for help—something—and she would have if she were awake. All of her injuries were gone, which meant she was dreaming, or still in that coma. Whichever it was that had landed her in the big highlander’s bed, it seemed pretty stupid to fight it. She might wake up on the psych ward at the VA hospital with Dr. Stevens hovering and wanting to know why she’d attempted suicide by cliff.

  Or Kinley had gone over the cliff, and this was some kind of very odd afterlife.

  “Dinnae be so quiet,” Lachlan said softly. “’Tis making me nervous.”

  Freaking out again would serve no purpose other than getting her tied to the bed again. She also felt none of the terror she had on the battlefield or when she’d tried to escape. On some level being in the big man’s bed even felt right. She let her eyes roam over the thick muscles of his broad, bare chest, as well as his chiseled biceps.

  She was imagining the whole thing. Had to be that.

  “All right,” she said, sitting up. “Let’s work this out.” She arranged her strange shirt as best as she could. “My grandmother was Scottish. You’ve got to be from one of the stories she told me. That means you’re going to, what? Turn into a seal and bite me or drag me into the sea?” That might explain the way he smelled, too.

  Now his dark brown eyes regarded her sternly and he frowned. “I’m no’ a selkie.”

  “That’s a relief. The seal thing would have been cool, though.” He reached to her wrist and began to untie the silk fabric. “So tell me where I am again.”

  “Dun Aran castle on the isle of Skye.” He rubbed a finger gently over a mark the knot had left. “Do you remember my name?”

  She frowned. “Ronald MacDonald, lord of something.”

  “Lachlan McDonnel, laird of the McDonnel clan,” he corrected.

  “That’s it,” she said, as her gaze shifted to the tattoo of a snake’s head on his right shoulder. It stretched across his upper torso to end with a tail that curled just above his left forearm. “I’ve never seen tribal ink like this.” Which suggested she hadn’t dreamed up the dream man. She lightly ran her fingertip over the tattoo, and was rewarded with a twitch of the big man’s pec. “Why did you go for the giant snake?”

  “As a lad I grew too fast,” he said. “My size made me clumsy, and it angered my Da. When my Choosing Day came, I asked for a serpent, that I might be as one.”

  She recalled how fluidly he moved, particularly in battle. “Worked like a charm.”

  “’Tis no’ a charm,” Lachlan assured her, very gravely, as if what she’d said meant something else to him. “I offered myself to the serpent spirit, and it chose to join with me. It doesnae always happen. Some ask too much, or they’re found unworthy.” He hesitated before he said, “You are no’ Pritani.”

  “My grandmother raised me Protestant, but I stopped going to church after she died. Kind of hard to thank god for killing off all your family.” He had no clue what that meant, Kinley realized, any more than she had about what he was saying. “Let’s try something easier. What day is it?”

  He thought for a moment. “Washday, I think, or baking day, mayhap.”

  “Okay.” So he wasn’t big on calendars. Neither was she. “Do you know what year it is?”

  “By mortal reckoning, ah…thirteen fourteen.” He paused. “Why do you laugh now?”

  It took her another moment to get her hilarity under control. “Okay. You’re telling me that I’m in the fourteenth century, on an island off the coast of Scotland, in the bed of a clan laird chosen by the snake spirit to fight vampires—sorry, the undead—and let’s not forget that I can throw fire out of my hands.” Yeah, she was definitely dreaming.

  “The serpent gifted me only my ability. I chose to fight the undead.” Lachlan studied her face. “But for the rest, aye, you’ve the right of it.”

  “Could be worse, I guess. I could be trapped serving pitchers in an endless beer commercial.” She stared up at the rough ceiling beams, which had been carved with more primitive symbols. “Maybe I saw all this on the History Channel. Gran loved watching shows about old Scotland. She never got to visit, you know?”

  His brows drew together as if he were trying to work out what she meant. “You dinnae believe me.”

  “Oh, no, I do,” she countered. “Why wouldn’t I? I invented you and this place.” She grimaced. “Didn’t you leave me with a bigger guy last night? I mean, after I interrupted all those men drinking in that cathedral? Where’s Lightning Face?”

  “I’m real, Kinley,” he said and took her hand. “Flesh, blood, bone, and no’ of your imagining.”

  “It’s so authentic, the way you talk. I love the no’ thing.” She patted his cheek. “All you need is a kilt, and you’ll be the perfect highlander.”

  He caught her hand and held it against his face. “What’s a kilt, then?”

  Kinley felt another, more serious tremor of doubt. “A guy skirt. Oh, but since this is the middle ages, they’re not fashionable yet.” She tried to remember what Bridget had told her about Scotland, but his warm hand over hers was distracting. “Maybe we should, ah, get up.”

  “I’m up already.” As his dark eyes searched her face, a shaft of s
unlight poured in from the window, gilding them both. “Kinley.”

  From the way he stared at her mouth she could guess what was about to happen. Then she saw how the light revealed all the colors of October in his eyes, from the amber starbursts around his pupils to the deep, rich bronze of his outer irises. His hair glinted as he bent down to her, falling in a dark curtain around her face.

  His breath whispered across her lips, and then the touch of his mouth made it all real. His lips felt firm and soft all at once, and caressed hers until she opened for him. His hand slid under the back of her skull as he slanted his mouth over hers, and gave her his tongue.

  Her imaginary Scottish laird tasted of cinnamon and herbs, and the way he kissed made everything from her collarbones to her thighs go liquid. When she kissed him back, he easily drew her onto his lap, and she straddled his massive thighs. She could feel his muscles tightening, and her own hips pulsed forward. The scent of cool water grew so intense it seemed to stream through her now. He moved, and the hard ridge of his erection fit against her, long and thick.

  Man, could she dream, or what?

  He caught her lower lip between his teeth, slowly releasing it to end the kiss.

  “What?” she breathed.

  He buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, and then moved to do the same thing to her neck. Finally he met her gaze. “The smell of your hair, your skin. ’Tis like you’ve been bathed in sunlight.”

  Kinley touched his mouth with her fingertips. “You like it?”

  Lachlan dragged her up with him until they knelt together on the bed. The small gaps between their bodies disappeared as he splayed his big hands over her back and urged her closer for another kiss. She ran her palms up his chest and clung to his shoulders, her fingernails digging in to his resilient flesh as their mouths grew hungrier.

  Yep. He liked it all right.

  If she could just kiss him like this for the rest of eternity, it would be enough. But no, in another moment she’d be tearing off whatever he’d dressed her in and offering him whatever he wanted. Because suddenly it wasn’t enough.