“Not until I feel the slap. Such a fierce warrior like you should be able to make me feel something.”
He aggravated her. She would not play this game any longer. “Perhaps you’ll feel this,” she ground out, leaning over and biting him on the butt.
“Ow!” cried MacKay, unable to believe his new wife had just bitten him. He should be angry with her and reprimand her, but he didn’t. Oddly enough, the action excited him instead. He didn’t understand it at all. “Do it again,” he begged her, wanting to test it out. Perhaps something about this curse Ollie had mentioned was making him feel different after all.
“I won’t bite you again, now get off of me.”
“Nay, do it,” he insisted, but she slipped out from under him. He got to his knees and threw her down on the bed. His heart beat furiously, and the scar across his chest ached.
“What’s that scar from?” she asked, eyeing up his chest.
“I had a shard of a broken magical mirror stuck in my chest.”
“A magical mirror?” she asked.
“It was Hecuba, the old witch’s mirror. My squire is convinced I’ve been cursed because of it, but I think it has only made me randy.” He kissed her again so passionately that she seemed to forget all about being mad at him. Or at least he thought so until she dug her nails into his shoulders. He screamed out in pain.
“If you don’t get off of me, I’ll bite you again,” she warned him.
“Please do,” he said, feeling very excited by the thought.
“You are a sick man, MacKay. The more I hurt you, the more you seem to like it.”
“That’s not true,” he said, pondering the thought.
“It most certainly is true.”
“If you think so, stop fighting me and be kind to me and let’s see how much I like it.”
“All right, I will.” Her body became limp beneath him. He kissed her tenderly but long. He reached out to caress her, and she arched up off the bed. When he suckled her once again, her head fell back, and she moaned loudly.
“Nope, does nothing for me,” he said, looking down to see his erection quickly disappearing. “I guess we’re done here.” He got off of her and slipped off the bed.
“What?” She shot up with wide eyes and an open mouth. “You are leaving me hanging? I am so aroused I am about to shatter.”
“I’m sorry, Eira, but I’m just not feeling randy anymore. I don’t understand it.” He picked up his tunic and donned it.
“Like hell if you think you are leaving me before we consummate this marriage.” Her eyes bore fire as she stormed toward him. She gripped the front of his tunic and kissed him hard. Then she released him and looked into his eyes.
“Still nothing,” he said, nonchalantly. “Perhaps we can try it again tomorrow.” He reached down for his breeches, but she grabbed him by the tunic and flung him on the bed. She was very strong for a woman. She proceeded to straddle him, taking hold of his tunic and ripping it from his body.
He smiled. “Wife, what are you trying to do?”
“I’m going to make you feel as excited as I am right now, no matter what I have to do to make it happen.”
“I think that window of opportunity has already closed.”
“Then open a goddamn door,” she said. “One way or another, I am going to make you feel randy again. You are going nowhere until I am sated.”
Her anger seemed to arouse him. He felt himself beginning to stir. “Oooh, I like it when you talk that way to me,” he said with a smile. “Try it some more.”
“What?” She shook her head in confusion. “I will not.”
MacKay didn’t want to leave his new wife before she was satisfied from their coupling. However, he started to realize that, perhaps, Ollie was right. He was cursed somehow. And that meant the meaner Eira acted toward him, the more he liked it. If she were going to be sated, then he was going to have to get a little more aroused to please her. And if she wasn’t going to yell at him, then he would have to do something to make her angry instead. It hurt him to do this, but he closed his eyes and spoke the words he knew would make her mad.
“You couldn’t please me anyway. You are too much like a man. I need to couple with someone who is much more a full-fledged woman.”
“Like who?” she shouted. It was working. “I suppose you want to couple with someone who is much prettier than me, like Medea.”
“Medea?” His eyes shot open. The thought of it disgusted him. After all, the girl was his half-sister. “Nay, not her.”
“Then who?” she asked.
“I – I don’t know.” She had him so upset with that comment that he sat up shaking his head. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.” She pushed him down on the bed, and he fell on his back.
“Nay, I really don’t think –”
She slapped him across the cheek so hard his head turned to the side. Instantly, his lust was back, driving him out of his mind. He flipped her over on her back and mounted her, driving himself between her open thighs. She moaned and arched her back.
“Oh, this feels so good, MacKay,” she told him.
His thrusts started to slow. He needed more.
“Don’t stop,” she warned him.
“I am not sure I can continue.”
“Damn you, MacKay, stop playing your stupid games with me. You will couple with me and thrust into me until I scream with passion and you will not stop until it happens. Do you understand? Don’t make me hurt you again because if I have to do it, I will.”
That did it. He was lustier than ever now. “Tell me you’ll flog me and throw me in the dungeon again if I don’t do it.”
“What? Nay, I can’t say that.”
“Say it!” he yelled, frightened that he’d lose his erection when they were both so close to being sated.
“I’ll flog you. I’ll throw you in the dungeon,” she said, making his hips move faster and faster. “And then I’ll bite you again and slap you some more. Next time we make love, I will even chain you to the bed and whip you.”
“Arrrgh,” he cried out, dropping over the edge of his precipice, releasing his seed into her.
“Ah, oh, oh, aaaaah,” she screamed, digging her nails into his shoulders as they both found their releases. Trying to regain his breath, he fell next to her on the bed, holding his arm around her. His chest glowed, and her eyes fastened to it. Gently, she reached out and traced his scar with the tip of her finger. It felt like fire to him. He pushed her hand away.
“Y-your scar. It’s glowing,” she said.
“Yes, it is.” He pulled her closer into his arms and closed his eyes, drifting off to a world where good was good and bad was bad, and it was a hell of a lot easier to tell right from wrong.
Chapter 11
MacKay woke up with his head pounding. He opened his eyes, and it took him a minute to realize the pounding was really at the door. He swung his feet over the side of the bed, abruptly stopping when he discovered he wasn’t in his solar. This was Lady Eira’s room. His head snapped around to see if she was lying in bed next to him. Thankfully, she wasn’t. He rubbed his hands over his face in frustration. It all came back to him now. He was married to the Snow Queen.
“My lord, are you in there? It’s Ollie,” came his squire’s voice from the other side of the door.
“Aye, come in,” he said, reaching over to collect his breeches from the floor. He stood up and put them on.
The door opened and his squire stepped into the room but stopped in his tracks when he saw MacKay dressing.
“It’s too late. You’ve consummated the marriage, haven’t you?” asked Ollie.
“Aye, I have,” he said, walking over and pulling open the shutter. The cold winter air blew in, biting at his bare skin, making him feel alive. He liked it. Taking a deep breath, MacKay dragged the cold air into his lungs and then slowly released it.
“I wanted to stop you from making a mistake,” said Ollie, entering the room and closi
ng the door behind him.
MacKay saw Eira out the window. She was leaving the stable atop her horse. She headed toward the drawbridge, making him wonder where she was going.
“If you wanted to stop me, why did you wait until morning?” grumbled MacKay.
“Sorry about that,” apologized Ollie. “I tried to follow you to the solar last night, but Angus kept me from going. He watched me all night in the great hall, threatening to throw me back in the dungeon if I disturbed you and Lady Eira on your wedding night. Even when everyone in the great hall heard you crying out in pain, he wouldn’t let me leave. Did she hurt you, my lord?”
“That wasn’t pain, that was pleasure.” MacKay smiled and bent down to scoop up his ripped tunic. He winced and rubbed his chest. The scar was hurting again, and the bite mark on his butt stung like the dickens.
“My lord! It looks like you were scratched. Does it hurt?”
“Not as much as the bite mark on my arse,” he grumbled, throwing his tunic to the side. He spotted a trunk across the room. He walked over and dug through it until he found a tunic to wear. It was Eira’s tunic, but since she wore baggy clothes, he managed to squeeze into it. Even being a little tight, it was better than wearing one that was ripped to pieces.
“I never thought you were a rough kind of lover.” MacKay’s eyes fastened to the torn tunic in a heap on the floor.
“I wasn’t! Not until now,” MacKay answered. “I think you are right, Ollie. Something is happening to me because of that damned shard of glass in my chest. I swear it feels like it is still embedded in my heart.” He ran his hand over his chest and winced again.
“You are not in your right mind, my lord. We need help. Perhaps your father or brothers can assist us.”
“How are they going to help me when they don’t even know where I am?”
“Mayhap you can convince Medea to tell them. It’s the only chance we have.”
“Or I can get Medea to help me instead,” MacKay suggested.
“She’s working for her mother. Plus, she has darkness in her heart.”
“And I don’t?” MacKay sat down on the edge of the bed and donned his boots. “I can’t believe I married someone who I have no desire to be married to at all.”
“Are you sure you don’t desire Lady Eira?”
“Nay. Yes. God’s eyes, I don’t know anymore.” He leaned over and dragged a hand through his hair. “It sometimes seems I hate her. At other times, I am madly in love with her. This curse is driving me mad. I can no longer decipher between good and bad.”
“She only wants you to fight and lead her army against her enemies when they come to claim the island.”
“She does? What did I tell her?” He looked up in confusion, wracking his brain, trying his best to remember.
“You said yes, you would do it.”
“Bid the devil.” He shot off the bed and grabbed his weapon belt. “How am I going to get out of this one?”
“Getting out of fighting isn’t your main problem, my lord.”
“What do you mean?”
“I would think you would be more concerned with getting out of your marriage to the Snow Queen. Then again, mayhap you won’t want to if she is carrying your baby.”
He missed the hole on the belt, and his weapons went clattering to the ground. What if she were already pregnant? What would he do? He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with the aggressive woman, living in a frozen hell. Or did he? He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
“Find Medea,” MacKay commanded his squire, picking up the weapon belt and fastening it around him. “Tell her I want to talk to her right away.” He headed for the door.
“Where are you going, my lord?”
“I am headed to the stable to find a horse. Then I’m going to go after my wife.”
“Why? What are you going to say to her?”
“I’m going to tell her . . . I’m going to say . . . oh hell, I don’t know. All I know is that I feel the overwhelming urge to go after her and there is nothing I can do to stop it.”
Eira rode like the wind, headed for the cave at the far side of the island. After last night, she needed to get away from Mackay and think things over all by herself. Yesterday, she was queen of the island, and nothing was going to stop her from defending her throne when Ailbert came calling. Today she was MacKay’s wife, and possibly even carrying his unborn child. What if she were? How would that change her life?
She stopped at the cave and slipped off her horse, looking over her shoulder quickly before venturing forward. She had the feeling she was being watched. A chill ran up her spine. When Eira got to the entrance of the cave she stopped in her tracks. Drawing her sword, she spun around, holding the blade under the chin of the old healer.
“Healer,” she growled. “What are you doing here? Are you following me?”
The snow fell lightly, swirling around her as the wind picked up. It was a cold and crisp morning. Eira wasn’t bothered by the cold, but the old woman didn’t even wear a cloak. She had to be freezing.
“I wanted to talk with you,” said the healer named Hecuba. “It is about my daughter, Medea.”
Eira didn’t have time for this. She looked past her horse, wondering how long it would take for MacKay to come looking for her. She’d seen him watching her from the solar window as she left the stable.
“Oh, all right, but hurry. And let’s go inside out of the cold.” She led the way, and the old woman followed. Once inside, Eira stopped at the gravesites of her parents and brothers. The light coming in the cave shone upon the wooden crosses marking their burial spots.
Her heart ached, looking down to the stones that covered their bodies buried beneath the earth. Without her family, she felt so alone.
“Who is buried there?” asked Hecuba.
“My family,” she said. “I am all alone now.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I am old and only have one young child.”
“Young child? Medea is far from a child,” laughed Eira.
“She’s younger than you think.”
“What is it you want, old woman?”
“I want you to watch over Medea – if anything should happen to me.”
“Oh, you mean when you die.”
“I didn’t think it was possible, but lately I have my doubts.”
“Everyone is going to die someday,” said Eira. “Some faster than others.”
“Medea is alone and will need someone to guide her. You seem to be a fierce warrior. You could be her mentor.”
“Me?” asked Eira in surprise, feeling as if she’d lost some of her edge since she was now a married woman. “What about her brothers? Or her father? Surely they are better suited for something like that than I am.”
“Nay. She doesn’t have contact with her siblings, and I don’t want her father anywhere near her.”
“Why not?” asked Eira.
“Let’s just say I had a falling out with him and I don’t think it will ever be mended.”
“Oh, so he must be a ruthless, vile man.”
“If you say so,” the old woman answered in a crackly voice.
“Mayhap he can change. Or don’t you believe people can change?”
“Oh, they surely can,” she said, chuckling under her breath. “However, I am looking for someone outside of her family to live with her.”
“She is my lady-in-waiting. Medea is always welcome at Skol. However, I am not so certain MacKay will agree. At times, he seems mesmerized by Medea and other times he doesn’t seem to be very fond of her at all.”
“What do you care what MacKay thinks? This has nothing to do with him.”
“Of course, it does. He is my husband now, and will be living here with me.”
“You fool! As soon as he’s able, he will try to escape again.”
“Why would he do that? He’s happy here.”
“Is he? Tell me, how did your lovemaking go last night while consummating the
marriage?”
“It was wonderful,” she said, not wanting to divulge more information to this stranger.
“Don’t lie to me, Eira. I know it wasn’t wonderful the entire time, now was it?”
“Oh, all right, it wasn’t,” she admitted, walking over to a log and sitting down. The morning light streamed into the cave while the snow fell outside the entrance. “It started out where MacKay was very willing to couple with me, but I didn’t feel the same way. But then I did, and he changed his mind. After that, the oddest thing happened.”
“He wanted you to be mean to him?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised by the old woman’s words. “How did you know this?”
“Lady Eira, I have a confession to make.” Hecuba sat on the log next to her. “I am a witch, hundreds of years old.”
Eira chuckled. “Please, don’t make up stories. Now you are starting to sound like MacKay. He said something about having a shard of a magical mirror embedded in his heart.”
“He does. It is from my mirror.”
“Hecuba, I don’t believe in witches.”
“You should. Medea is a witch, too. We are very powerful. If you need help fighting off your enemy, don’t ask MacKay. He has the strength of only one man. Ask Medea instead. Her powers grow stronger every day.”
“You are addled, old woman. I don’t believe a word you say about anything. Now, go back to the castle before you freeze to death out here.”
She heard the neighing of a horse and stood up and walked over to the cave entrance. MacKay rode up, stopping at her horse and looking around for her from atop his steed.
“Nay, I don’t want to talk to him. Not yet,” she said, turning back to the old woman. “Hecuba?” She looked around the small cave, but the woman was gone. All she saw was a green mist in the air.
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