by Suz deMello
She discovered that the rugged informality of their situation created a deep intimacy that she’d felt only with her brother and his family. But her emotions toward her husband were anything but fraternal.
On one such night, they lay together snuggling for warmth, Lydia clad in her shift and heavy stockings, Kier in his shirt and trews.
“Look.” He pointed up. The stars shone numerous and bright in the moonless sky. Then a streak shot across the dark, velvety heavens.
“A shooting star! I’ve never seen one before.”
“They’re plentiful here, awa’ from the lights of the city. Next month we’ll see many, if the fog allows it.”
“Fog?”
“Aye. Kilborn Castle is on the coast, and there are times we dinnae see the sun for many days. But dinnae worry.” He wrapped his arm around her. “I’ll keep ye cozy and warm.”
Crawling atop him, she rubbed her face into his chest, enjoying the feel of his soft linen shirt against her cheek. He undid the two top buttons and, taking the unspoken invitation, she nuzzled his chest, seeking his nipples. She’d discovered that Kier’s were as sensitive as hers, and had also found that she enjoyed playing with them.
She sucked one into a hard nubbin, then softly licked it into quiescence. Hard, then soft, switching from one to the other, over and over again. Kier’s arousal nestled between her thighs, thickening with every pass of her tongue, every nip of her teeth, every twitch of her lips.
She slid lower down his body, relishing the play of his muscles against her skin. Raising her head, she said, “I’m shy about…” She looked at their companions, snoring lumps bundled in plaids around the campfire.
“Come wi’ me, lass.” He stood and took her hand.
She should have been frightened, walking in darkness so complete she couldn’t see her feet on the ground. But Kieran must have had a cat’s night vision, for he steered her around every obstacle until they reached the center of a thicket of trees.
He sprawled onto the grass. “Lie atop me, love.”
Instead, she knelt between his legs, fumbling for the laces of his trews.
“Och, so that’s the way of it tonight?” Delight infused his chuckle.
She nuzzled his cods, easily accessible beneath his rising cock, enjoying the soft scratchiness of his sex hair along with the aroma of midnight and potent male. His sigh of bliss encouraged her, so she ran her tongue up his length, then down as his pole lengthened.
“Ah, ye’re killing me.”
Lifting her head, she smiled. “A happy death, I hope.”
“Och, aye.” Another sigh as her husband lay back on the ground. She sensed his relaxation, his acceptance of her bold moves, and she was glad. He was hers—hers completely as she explored his member anew, licking softly before she plunged her mouth over his cock, taking him deep and fast.
His body jerked and every muscle that had relaxed snapped tight. He thrust into her mouth and she pulled back, her lips around his cockhead, her fist gripping his rod’s base. He pulsed in her hand and his hips pumped. A ragged cry of release tore from his throat when his seed spurted into her mouth.
What the bloody hell am I supposed to do with this?
Lacking other quick options, she swallowed as fast as she could as he continued coming. Salty and sweet…good, but… A pang of regret needled her. His seed should be inside her quim, giving her a baby.
Difficult, though, to feel unhappy because she’d pleased her husband so. The moon’s cool rays, broken by the trees surrounding them, dappled his body—a sculpted cheekbone, his chest, his cock flaccid but still remarkable in its male beauty and strength.
He hoisted himself up to a sitting position and reached for her, kissing first her forehead, then her cheek, ending with her lips before holding her close for a long, long time.
Chapter Seven
The procession made good progress through the clear summer mornings and the long afternoons. They passed deserted crofts and villages, with many burned out. “The clearances,” Kieran explained tersely, and for the first time Lydia was ashamed of her English heritage.
The days passed and she hoped they approached journey’s end. One misty morn, she fancied she scented the tang of salt air and sensed breezes from the sea fresh on her face. She knew she didn’t imagine a new tension in her husband and his men.
She urged her mount closer to Kieran’s. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
His shoulders set tight. “We draw close to home but must pass near MacReiver lands.” He raised his head, sniffed and frowned as though offended.
She remembered he had scented her, um…womanhood when they’d met. “What do you smell?”
“Nothing good. Cleanliness isn’t valued hereabouts.”
“Aren’t the reivers border thieves?”
“They’re here also. They dinnae grow much themselves, but steal from others. We’ve been at war for many a long year, they stealing our sheep while we attack and kill a few of them.” He offered a rueful smile. “’Twill probably continue ’til the end of time.”
The procession approached a group of shabby huts, p’raps ten in all, spread about haphazardly with no plan, rhyme or reason. Narrow tracks, just wide enough for a small cart, wound through the low, stinking crofts. The village exuded a stench that even Lydia could smell, an aroma compounded of animals, feces, urine and smoke. Both Kieran and Dugald covered the lower halves of their faces with handkerchiefs as they passed.
Skinny hens scratched in the dirt with even skinnier children, ill-clad, squatting. They toyed with rounded pebbles and sticks—some kind of game, Lydia imagined. A low, crumbling stone circle enclosed what looked like a well, for a stake leaning over it held a bucket.
An elderly woman with thinning white hair and a threadbare shawl came out of one of the huts. Her apron was gray with grime. Her feet were bare, black with filth and gnarled below a raggedly hemmed skirt. Spying them, she sucked in a breath. The shape of her grimace said that her gums lacked teeth. The wizened old woman crossed herself and shooed the children into the rude shelter. Crude symbols were drawn in whitewash on the door’s lintels, and the door itself was crowned with an ancient braid of what looked like garlic.
“What was that about?” Lydia asked Kieran.
He shrugged. “A superstitious fool. Sassenachs…well, your people have an unsavory reputation hereabouts. Unholy, even. And ye’ll hear many things about my family, lass.”
Her hands involuntarily clenched on her reins and her gelding shied.
“I imagine ye already have,” he said, his tone cynical. “The usual bunk about bloodthirsty wild Highlanders or, p’raps, mad berserker warriors?”
“Well, yes.”
“Ignore it all. Believe the truth of your own eyes, lassie. They’re not only beautiful but reliable.” He smiled at her.
She tried to put the incident out of her mind, but because it was repeated in every village, she couldn’t.
* * * * *
Early the next afternoon, they passed through a wooded glen. From behind her, Lydia heard the scream of an animal in pain followed by shouts. Swords clanged. Without hesitation, Kieran shouted, “Ride!” and whipped her gelding on the flank. He turned his horse toward the fight while Lydia clung to her galloping mount. She bent over his head to encourage him and heard, to her shock, a bang followed by a whizzing sound above her.
Good heavens. Had that been a pistol ball? Was someone shooting at her?
In front of her, a big man absurdly mounted on a Highland pony brandished a pistol. “Get off your horse, lady, or I’ll shoot ye where ye stand.”
“I’m not standing!” She spurred her horse directly at the brigand. Her gelding raced toward him, then deftly sidestepped the obstruction. She caught a glimpse of a grubby, torn shirt and dirtier trews on a greasy-haired, broken-toothed lout.
She heard a shout in Gaelic behind her—Kieran?—and slowed her mount, heading into a thicket to hide. Then she turned her horse to look.
Kieran galloped his bay straight at the bandit, who shouted, “A MacReiver! A MacReiver! Agin the diabhol!” and shot at her husband. Fear seized her as a bright patch of blood bloomed on his gelding’s chest.
Kier leaped from his falling mount and, sword high, swept it across the MacReiver’s torso. He dropped to one side, toppling off his pony. Kieran pursued, reaching for Lydia’s attacker and seizing his head. With a mighty twist, Kieran tore it off. Fountains of blood leaped from the MacReiver’s neck.
Lydia’s brain stammered to a stop while her heart tried to leap out of her chest.
Flinging the head aside, Kieran caught the red flowing tide in his mouth. Blood seeped into his black beard and the muscles in his throat flexed as he drank.
Her hold on the reins loosened as her world tilted, fell away and turned black. The last thing she remembered was her husband’s laughter.
* * * * *
She awoke stiff and sore, stretched on a cold verge, which she guessed was stony, based on the myriad jabbing pains in her back. Hearing the splash of water on her right, she turned her head to behold her husband, naked to the waist, kneeling near a shallow stream. Nearby, her gelding peacefully nibbled at the few stray blades of grass growing amongst the pebbles.
Kieran bent, thrust his head into the pool and, withdrawing it, shook so that water droplets flew off the ends of his hair.
Some splattered over Lydia and she sat up.
He rinsed his bloodstained shirt in the pond, then draped it over a nearby bush. The water floating away was tinged with red.
He seemed so ordinary, so…Kieran. She knew she hadn’t imagined what had happened, but…
She rubbed her hand over her damp cheeks, then on her skirt. Her fingers came away damp and…and reddish. Blood. Whose blood? Hers or someone else’s?
The memory of a geyser of thick red fluid gouting from the beheaded MacReiver tore across her mind. Her stomach roiled. She leaned to one side and heaved up her lunch. Wiping her lips with a shaky palm, she crawled over to the pool.
Kieran came to her side to help her rinse the sourness out of her mouth and wash her face. His gentleness seemed so at odds with the beast who’d…who’d…
Her mind shunted away from the awful truth before she forced it back. She shoved her fear and horror beneath anger. “What the bloody hell just happened?”
“Language, my lady wife. Keep it up and I’ll have to take steps.” The lightness in his voice sounded forced.
She’d have none of it. “Answer the question.”
He sighed. “What do ye remember?”
“I remember you ripping off someone’s head and drinking his blood.” She gave him a hard stare. “But that can’t be the case, can it?”
He winced. “Aye, I’m afeared that it can.”
“You told me those legends were false.”
“I never said that.” He stared back, holding her gaze with his dark, impenetrable eyes. Though frightened of the savage lurking within her normally kind husband, she didn’t move. “Look, lass, I’m as surprised as ye.”
“I greatly doubt that.” She now doubted a number of things, such as the wisdom of her marriage.
“Truly. I had thought that my father and brother were the violent ones.” He plopped onto the stony ground next to her.
“P’raps they were, but the same blood runs in your veins.”
Blood.
The word evoked the shocking memory. My husband tore off a man’s head and drank his blood.
She edged away.
“That’s so. I cannae explain it, lass, but when I turned and saw that brute fire at ye…” He shuddered. “I dinnae ken what happened! I felt a red mist pass over my eyes, and I simply…went for him.”
“You didn’t merely, um…go for him. You—”
“I ken what I did!” He dropped his head into his hands, scrubbing his pale cheeks with trembling knuckles before looking up. “Lassie, have ye ever witnessed a battle, or even a fight?”
She shook her head.
“’Tis a messy business. In Edinburgh, I’ve seen paintings of warfare, with neat rows of uniformed soldiers lined up, each on opposite sides of a field, firing at each other from a distance. ’Tisn’t that way, not here.” He turned an unsmiling face toward her. “Firearms are few, so fights are hand to hand, with claymore, sword or dirk, and are to the death. ’Tis ugly and brutal. I’m sorry ye had to see such brutality, but I’ll not apologize for protecting what’s mine.”
He reached out and touched her cheek.
“And I’m yours.”
“Aye, ye’re mine. And I’m yours, always.”
She couldn’t deny the truth of his possession. Since they’d met, she’d become more aware of her body than ever before. Awake or asleep, her quim always throbbed with an unstopping beat, juicy and alive with lust. Her breasts had become heavy and full, with puckered, sensitive nipples pressing against her shift, seeming to push against her stays in an impossible bid for freedom. She’d allowed him to take her in any way he pleased, and had enjoyed all. In her turn, she’d performed acts on his body she’d never before imagined.
Kieran kept her in a constant state of arousal. When they were in company, his stare lingered on her lips, breasts and backside, palpable as his touch. When they were alone, even if she was clothed, his hands often explored the places he stripped with his stare. He didn’t consider any part of her body off-limits to any part of his, often fondling the crease and rosette between her buttocks during those few times they found isolation enough for intimacy.
At first she’d resisted those caresses, both verbally and by her body’s reluctance. But his touch was so gentle, so skilled—everything William’s hadn’t been—that she soon became accustomed to intrusions she’d previously rejected during her first marriage. Even so, she wasn’t sure she could truly enjoy the sensation of her bottom being invaded by Kieran’s knowing hands.
She did not know who or what she was becoming. She recognized General Swann’s daughter in the way she’d managed the rigors of their travels and in the manner in which she’d confronted her husband’s ferocity—ferocity that had emerged in her defense.
But as for the womanliness she’d discovered in herself…that was another matter entirely. She was changing, blooming, blossoming into some exotic flower she’d never seen or even heard of.
Behind her, a man cleared his throat. She turned to see Dugald with Elsbeth bobbing behind him, concern on her round face.
“Aye, what is it?” Kieran asked.
“Milaird, the rest of the MacReivers have fled and our injured have been tended. We’re ready to move on and should reach home by nightfall if we dinnae tarry.” He handed Kieran a clean, dry shirt and retrieved the wet one.
Elsbeth whipped out a hairbrush and set to rearranging Lydia’s hair, then found her hat, which had rolled away when she’d fallen off her mount.
“Are ye ready? Let’s go, then.” Kieran stood and reached down for Lydia’s hand.
She took it, wondering at herself and at Dugald. Surely the man must know what had happened, yet he treated Kieran with even greater deference than he’d shown before…before…
“What about the bodies?” she asked tightly.
Both men looked at her. “We usually leave them,” Dugald said. “As a warning.”
He knew. Kieran’s men knew what their laird had done and accepted it. Welcomed it, p’raps.
“I’ll need a mount,” Kier said to Dugald. He thrust his arms into the clean shirt.
“I’ll bring mine.”
Kieran raised his brows. “Ye’ll allow me to ride Sentry? ’Tis an honor.”
“After yer deed this day, there is no honor ye dinnae deserve,” the other man said formally. He saluted. “Blood for the clan.”
“Blood for the clan.” Kieran’s repetition of the phrase seemed significant.
“Is that some sort of Kilborn motto?” she asked.
“Aye, exactly that.” He led her to her gelding and helpe
d her onto it.
Lydia remained in a pensive mood for the rest of the ride to Kilborn Castle, reliving the horrific event, worrying about what she’d seen and occasionally stealing glances at Kier’s calm face as he rode beside her.
If she hadn’t witnessed her husband killing the MacReiver in such a terrifying manner she would not have believed that such an act could take place. How much force did it require to tear off a person’s head? Kieran must be far stronger than an ordinary man, she mused.
She sneaked yet another peek at his serene profile as he easily managed Dugald’s gray, a restive mount, with ease, confidence and even a little humor as he talked to Sentry in a combination of English and Gaelic that the horse seemed to understand.
Kier was a puzzle, a man wrapped in mysteries and shadow, far more so than William had been. For that matter, marriage itself was a mystery, she realized, with its main part consisting of discovery following upon discovery, like opening a jewel box to find all manner of strange marvels within.
* * * * *
Lydia eyed a row of what she believed were Celtic crosses, massive stone sculptures elaborately carved. Beyond the division, a rolling meadow dotted with sheep ended abruptly with a flat gray expanse beyond.
Kieran drew his horse up next to hers. “These mark the boundary of our lands.”
She pointed at the dull gray mass, which was only occasionally dotted by shining patches. “Is that…the sea?”
“It is. Have ye never before seen it?”
“No.” She was curiously drawn to the water. And far to the north, still on the coast, she thought she could see a dark smudge perched high on a cliff. She pointed at it. “And what’s that?”
