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

by Hazel Hunter

  “I don’t think so,” Kinley said, as much to the seneschal as to Raen and Lachlan when they would have stepped in. “You’re the one who hit me from behind, right? Evander Talorc.” After he glowered at her she cocked her head. “Yeah, you seem like the type to jump a girl from behind. Think you can knock me out while I’m looking at you?”

  The men hooted as they shuffled back to give them more room.

  When Lachlan would have snatched her away from the seneschal Neac put a big hand on his arm. “No’ yet, Laird,” the chieftain warned. “Respect cannae be ordered. It comes by earning. Let the lass have her go at him.”

  He wanted to clout Neac, but he knew he was right. “No weapons or injuring,” he told the seneschal. “Sparring moves only.”

  Evander unbelted his tartan and took off his tunic, revealing the hard-muscled grace of his long-limbed body, as well as his tattoo. Two large, tattooed discs with scrollwork were connected by a wide bar across his chest. But through the bar ran a diagonal line that was part of a giant backward ‘Z’ that overlay the whole design. One end of the Z was tipped with a point.

  Once Kinley had moved into position, the big man barreled directly at her. Lachlan’s hands balled into fists but Kinley landed a kick to the seneschals’ side that sent him staggering.

  “Evander was no’ watching her before this,” Raen muttered.

  It took all of Lachlan’s self-control to resist the urge to jump in and beat the seneschal into the ground. The Talorc tribe had always been the most devious and unrelenting of fighters, and Evander a legendary champion even during his mortal life. Kinley quickly learned this, taking several hard punches in the process, and had to rely on her more elusive moves to remain standing.

  “Do we fight, or do we dance?” Evander taunted as he struck a glancing blow to her shoulder.

  “Personally, I don’t dance with jerks,” Kinley assured him, dropping to avoid another punch and spinning around the seneschal. “Even when they’re pretty damn good-looking. You should walk around without a shirt all the time. All that eye candy makes up for your crappy personality.”

  He turned and grunted as he took a kick to the knee. “You sluts are good for only one thing.”

  Tormod huffed out a rude sound. “You’re thinking with your cock again, Talorc. Try employing the bigger head.”

  As the seneschal glared at the Norseman, Kinley took advantage of the distraction. She skittered around him, jumped on his back and locked her legs around his torso and her arms around his neck.

  “Why don’t you take a nap now?” she said through gritted teeth as she cut off his air. “You might be nicer when you wake up.”

  Evander choked and shook like a wet dog, but Kinley held on, and Lachlan saw how the match would end. If Kinley prevailed over the proud seneschal, he would never forgive her for humiliating him in front of the clan. That could lead to a much more lethal bout.

  “Choke holds are no ‘sparring moves,” Lachlan said as he wrenched Kinley off the seneschal’s back and handed her to Raen. As Evander bent over and gasped for air, he grabbed the front of his tunic and jerked him upright. “’Tis the last time you put hands on her, Talorc. Do you understand me, man?”

  The seneschal coughed before he replied. “I’d rather fack a diseased cow than touch that–”

  His head snapped back as Lachlan’s fist plowed into his jaw, and his body followed as he dropped like a stone.

  All of the men fell silent as they looked from Kinley to Evander to their laird.

  “Kinley is a warrior in her homeland,” Lachlan told his clan. “She has methods of fighting that we dinnae ken, but she is mortal, so she will spar only with Raen. Learn from her, show her our ways, but remember this.” He bent and hefted Evander over his shoulder. “She is under my protection.”

  As he carried the seneschal into the castle, Lachlan heard Kinley ask, “What does that mean, ‘under his protection?’”

  Neac was the one to answer her. “Any insult or harm to you will be answered directly by the laird. He’s declaring that you’re his woman now, lass.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “THERE YE ARE, milady,” Meg said as she carried a heavily-laden tray into the map room, where Kinley sat at the surveyor’s desk. “What do ye there now?”

  Kinley glanced down at the notes she had made while comparing the map scrolls of the region. That she had to do it with a feather on the thinly-scraped animal hide they called parchment mildly disgusted her.

  “Just writing up some things for the laird.”

  After two weeks at Dun Aran, Kinley had mostly settled into her new reality, which had proven surprisingly satisfying. Daily life in the fourteenth century required plenty of work from every member of the clan as well as their household staff, so she did her part by pitching in whenever and wherever she could. As for the modern conveniences she had always taken for granted, she didn’t miss much from her time. Now and then she thought she might kill for a cup of coffee, or a decent bottle of moisturizer, but that was all.

  The biggest step she’d taken to adjust was deciding that she couldn’t be dreaming or comatose. There were too many things at the castle that she’d never seen and couldn’t have imagined on her own, like the carved puzzle stones the clansmen used for some kind of speed-solving game, or how everyone seemed to know what faodail meant, except for her. She’d finally asked Meg why Lachlan would call her ‘foot-ill’, only to learn it meant something like a waif or a foundling or maybe a lucky find.

  Then there’d been the medieval version of a tooth brush.

  “We dinnae have such brushes,” Raen had told Kinley when she’d asked for one.

  He gave her instead a wide strip of rough cloth and a small box filled with a mixture of ashes, salt crystals and ground mint leaves.

  “What am I supposed to do with these?” she asked perplexed.

  “You clean your teeth.”

  He sprinkled some of the mixture in the center of the cloth, tied it into a bundle, dampened it and used it in a scrubbing motion in front of his teeth.

  She tried it, surprised by how well it worked. “What are the ashes made from?”

  “Burnt rosemary stalks,” Raen told her. “Sage works as well, but I cannae abide the taste.”

  Kinley had always assumed most medieval people had rotten teeth due to poor dental hygiene. Judging by the healthy smiles she saw around the stronghold, the reality was the exact opposite. Not knowing that simple fact ruled out dreaming or a coma, since both presented alternate realities based on her subconscious and memories.

  Then there was Lachlan, and the strange connection she felt to him. The laird was unlike any man she’d ever known, hands down. Whatever was going on between them had an almost magical feel to it, as if some mystical force was trying to shove them together. In her other life Kinley had been a pragmatist: clear-eyed, hard-headed and with both feet firmly planted on the ground. She had never believed in magic, and had always felt amused by anyone who did.

  Sometimes Kinley still wondered if she had died, and this was her afterlife. She wouldn’t have ever guessed that heaven would be a medieval castle filled with huge, inhumanly strong highland warriors. Even if she’d been a believer, she wouldn’t have fulfilled the entry requirements. She considered reincarnation, but if her soul had been reborn, why hadn’t she woken up in the future, or in a different body?

  “The laird said to tell ye to eat this,” the chatelaine said as she set down the tray, “or he’ll have the Viking spoon-feed ye.”

  “Thanks, Meg,” Kinley said as she glanced at the amount of food on the tray, which was rather more than she could eat in a week. “Tormod, you hungry?”

  “I’m a man. I’m never no’ hungry.” The brawny Norseman emerged from the racks containing hundreds of scrolls, clay tablets and etched hides, but when he spotted the dishes on the tray he scowled. “You’re feeding us flowers, Chatelaine?”

  “Fresh cider, bannocks with cloudberries, honey cakes, and my ve
ry best prymerose pudding.” Meg gave him an evil look. “’Tis for milady, no’ ye.”

  Kinley suppressed a sigh.

  Tormod plucked a primrose from the gooey sweet and sniffed it. “Gods forbid you bring her a tankard of ale and a trencher of rare beef.” He dropped the bloom as Meg curtseyed to Kinley and stomped out. “You’ve conquered another heart. The stingy old wench never makes such puddings for us.”

  “Meg thinks I’m too skinny. Fattening me up is her new mission in life. Unfortunately, I have the metabolism of a greyhound on crack.” Kinley rolled up the scrolls and secured them with their ribbons before returning them to the racks. “All right, so if everything we’ve looked at is accurate, then at this point our undead search grid is about the size of Vermont. We don’t want to go there.” She saw his expression and added, “That means it’s way too big. We need more intel—reports—about their attacks to narrow it down to a more manageable area.”

  “Mortals keep silent because they fear the vengeance of the legion,” the Norseman told her. “The undead are vicious when someone tries to stand against them. They torture them and their families in front of their entire village. Then they drag off the rest to serve as blood thralls, who are imprisoned and slowly drained until they die of it.”

  “If they’re all about payback, then why aren’t they force-projecting on you guys?”

  The Norseman yawned until his jaw cracked. “Your words confound me again, wench.”

  “Sorry,” she said, thinking of how to translate her slang into his medieval-speak. “If the legion is so vengeful, then why aren’t they on the island and sieging the castle?”

  “That you must ask the laird,” Tormod said and handed her a mug of cider. “Now drink, and eat, or Mistress Talley shall put fish bones and vetch in my pottage for the next moon.” He eyed the prymerose pudding. “Do you really no’ want that?”

  After Kinley returned the tray to the kitchen, she and Tormod went up to the laird’s tower with her notes to report to Lachlan. They found him talking with Neac, Raen and Seoc Talorc, the stable master.

  “Kinley,” Lachlan said and came to inspect her from head to toe before eyeing the roll of parchment she carried. “How do you fare with the new quill I cut for you?”

  “Better. I didn’t get any ink on my fingers this time.”

  She could smell him now, and felt a zing of desire ricochet through her lower belly. All she had to do was get within touching range and that delicious, cool water scent of his nailed her. They’d also both been implicitly avoiding each other since he’d moved her out of his chamber, which only seemed to make her more painfully aware of him when they did meet.

  She glanced at Neac, Raen, and Seoc. “Are we interrupting?”

  “No’ at all, my lady,” Seoc said. Tall and lanky like his cousin, the stable master was much more charming, and always made a point to smile before he bowed to her. “We were just speaking of you.”

  “Aye, that’s all anyone does when you’re no’ here,” Neac assured her. “’Tis Kinley this and Kinley that, from sunup to twilight. Where is she, what is she doing, can anyone make out what she says today? We’ve given up warbanding for gossiping on you, wench.”

  “This wouldn’t be because my idea to use two bellows instead of one to make your forge fire get hotter faster actually worked, would it?” When he grumbled something at his boots she grinned. “You’re welcome.”

  “’Twas a sensible notion,” the chieftain admitted. He crossed his arms, making his huge hammer tattoos look as though they were stacked. Then he glared at Tormod and Raen. “That doesnae mean I’ll be having the wee lass hammering iron in my armory. Look at her. My cross-peen weighs more.”

  “Dinnae be fooled by the fairy lass she appears,” Raen put in as he went to open the big cabinet where the laird stored his weapons. “She can carry two water buckets from the cistern to the stables without spilling a drop.”

  As the men debated Kinley’s potential as a smith’s apprentice, Lachlan asked her, “Do you ride horseback?”

  “It’s been a while, but I think I can manage.” She handed him her notes. “I’ll have to translate these for you, but basically if we don’t somehow reduce the search area, we’ll be looking for the undead for years. So where are we riding?”

  “Out to the glen. Red deer of late have been pillaging the villagers’ gardens, and since they belong to me, I must act.” He carefully tucked her notes into one of his hanging satchels. “Do you hunt as well as you fight, lass?”

  Kinley thought of how many times she’d watched Bambi as a girl, and her heart sank. “Probably not.” She looked up at him. “Can I maybe just watch while you and Raen hunt?”

  “You might, if he were riding with us.” Lachlan tossed his tartan over one broad shoulder and tucked the ends under his belt. “Today ’twill be just we two.”

  Kinley took the reins in her hands and squirmed a little in the four-horned saddle. Seoc had padded it until it felt comfortable.

  “Tama’s sweet-tempered,” Seoc said, as he stroked the sturdy brown mare’s nose, “and kens glen paths like an island-bred palfrey.” He glanced over at Lachlan, who had mounted a much larger, muscular gray stallion. “And she doesnae rile Selon. He’s the laird’s war horse, and a bit of an ill-tempered bugger, that one.”

  Kinley had never ridden without stirrups, but after a little practice walking her mount inside the stable, she felt more confident. The saddle clung to the mare’s broad back as if molded to it, and was flexible without having too much give where she didn’t need it.

  “Does she spook easily?” she asked.

  “No’ ever, my lady,” Seoc said and patted the mare’s neck. “We took her from the undead, and if there’s one thing those evil bastarts ken, ’tis how to train out the skittish from a mount.”

  “Great, I’m riding the vampire horse,” Kinley muttered as she walked Tama out to where Lachlan was waiting. “I hope we’re not going to head down the side of this mountain. I do better riding slowly, and horizontally.”

  He grinned. “We’ve fashioned many trails to and from Dun Aran. Or you could leave Tama and ride pillion with me.”

  Riding while pressed up against all that hard, beautiful muscle, and smelling him to boot? Kinley suspected she’d melt into a big puddle of prymerose pudding.

  “Thanks, but I’m good.”

  Lachlan held Selon to a slow walk as he led Kinley to the trail down from the mountain. From what she could see it appeared as if it had been chiseled directly out of the rock, and was wide enough to accommodate several riders. Since the McDonnels had only the most basic of hand tools, she marveled at the amount of sheer brute strength it must have taken to cut the trail.

  Upslope in the distance, a small grove of ancient oaks spread their green canopy. In their midst stood weathered rock sentinels, half-buried in the ground. Though Kinley couldn’t tell at this distance they seemed to form some sort of ring. Was it like the one on the mainland?

  That reminded Kinley of the question Tormod had dodged. He implied that the undead didn’t come after the McDonnels, but wouldn’t tell her why. She looked down at the trail again. It had been cut so deeply that the walls of rock on either side of them likely hid them from view. Just like the towering walls of the volcanic crater in which Dun Aran sat probably kept it out of sight from anyone traversing the ridges of the Black Cuillin.

  In Afghanistan the insurgents had used the extensive cave systems as base camps and supply caches. The natural cover had been so effective that not even the Russians had been able to find them while searching for more than a decade.

  “You are thinking so hard I can hear it,” Lachlan said, startling her. “Tormod and Raen have said you have many questions. Ask me what you will.”

  As they emerged from the trail into the upper slopes of the glen, she turned slightly to look back. “You can’t see the entrance to the trail at all, even from here.” Finally she put it all together. “It isn’t that the undead don’t co
me after you. It’s that they can’t. They don’t know where you are.”

  The laird reined in his stallion to look out over the brilliant green grasses carpeting the island’s rugged coast.

  “’Twas why the McDonnels came here to build our stronghold. Skye was home to many of our tribes, including my own. The people here are loyal to us because the Pritani are their ancestors, and we care for them. Some of their families have served my clan for more than a thousand years.”

  He was trying to tell her something in a roundabout way, and Kinley felt as if she were on the brink of understanding.

  “We didn’t come on this ride to hunt, did we?”

  “’Twould be a shame if we didnae,” Lachlan said and nodded toward a large herd of red-brown deer that were grazing through a broad field of grain stalks. He touched his heels to the stallion’s sides and took off at a fast run.

  Kinley followed at a slower lope for a few minutes, and then relaxed the reins to give the mare her head. Tama shot off after Lachlan and Selon, her shorter legs eating up the distance between them. The herd reacted by uttering calls that sounded like long, stuttering belches before rocketing off en masse toward the protection at the edge of the glen, where the trees, rocks and slopes formed a natural barrier.

  Lachlan drove the deer into the trees and went in after them, whistling as he did. Suddenly men stood up from grass blinds and released a hail of arrows. Deer began dropping as the remainder of the herd scrabbled up the slopes and poured into a narrow pass between two ridges.

  Kinley reined in Tama as she saw Lachlan dismount and pull a long, wide lattice made of branches out of the brush, which he used to block the pass. The men all around her shouldered their bows and took out clubs as they went to inspect the fallen deer.

  Kinley rode past them to Lachlan, who caught Tama’s bridle as he looked up at her.

  “I thought we were doing the hunting,” she said.