by Nina Mason
“Magic, fantasy, BDSM, mythology, and passion, all beautifully blended to create this unique tale of love and liberation.”
When Gwyndolen Darling, a sexual abuse survivor who lives in a fantasy world, travels to Scotland to meet her obsession, she soon finds herself in a dark faery tale of epic proportions. Sir Leith MacQuill, the object of her quest, isn't just a reclusive author who’s into BDSM, he also is a shapeshifting faery knight who carries a curse that will kill any woman who captures his heart.
When his usual methods fail to protect Gwyn, a dead ringer for the wife he tragically lost back in 1746, Sir Leith must find a way to break the curse or lose his One True Love a second time. Unfortunately, the article he needs to reverse the hex is in the otherworld land he was banished from by the ruthless faery queen who cursed him.
Gwyn must, therefore, undertake the dangerous mission alone. Will she find the courage within herself to fight for herself and her knight? Or will she choose to stay inside the imaginary tower she’s built to keep herself safe from the world?
Books by Nina Mason
Royal Pains
Devil in Duke’s Clothing
The Duke’s Bedeviled Bride
The Devil’s Masquerade
The Devils Who Would Be King (July 2016)
Sins Against the Sea
Knights of the Tarot
(Revision and re-release of former Knights of Avalon series)
Knight of Wands
Knight of Cups
Knight of Pentacles (June 13, 2016)
Knight of Swords (January 2017)
Out of Print
The Queen of Swords
The Tin Man
Starry Knight
Dark and Stormy Knight
Knight of Cups
Knights of the Tarot, Book Two
Nina Mason
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Nina Mason
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Dedication
To Elizabeth Burns, my Scottish friend who helps in more ways than she knows
PART ONE
The Curse of a Knight
Chapter 1
With a weight on my heart I had not felt since I watched my father die on the gallows, I pulled my plaid tighter around my shoulders. The bitter north wind blowing across the desolate heath burned my face and cut like a knife through my ice-encrusted tartan garments. Drumossie Moor had to be the worst possible place to challenge the Duke of Cumberland’s army.
What were our chances of winning this battle? Somewhere between slim and none, I would wager. The luck we enjoyed at Gladsmuir and Falkirk, it would seem, had finally run out.
The English enemy had canons, rifle-muskets affixed with bayonets, ammunition, horses, archers, and some nine thousand well-rested, well-fed soldiers trained and drilled for just this sort of line-to-line confrontation.
We Jacobites, in contrast, were a rag-tag bunch of frozen, starved, and exhausted volunteers. If the duke’s army stood firm in the face of our charge, we were doomed. Not that we stood much chance either way.
Even so, my father would have wanted me to fight for the rightful king and the One True Faith. Was he looking down from Heaven right now? Was he proud of his only son for taking up the cause for which he gave his life?
A braw man with a passionate heart, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered twenty-three years ago—when I was on the cusp of manhood—for his role in the Atterbury Plot, a Jacobite conspiracy to restore the House of Stuart to the throne of Great Britain.
His head, which I stole from its place of display atop Temple Bar, the ceremonial archway between London and Westminster, was buried in the walled garden of my castle, beside my gold, to prevent my most prized family treasures from falling into thieving Sassenach hands. I might not love the Stuarts as much as did my father, but I hate the heretic English even more.
If only I could have hidden my wife and unborn child from the enemy as easily.
Please, Father in Heaven, keep them safe.
Biting down to still my chattering teeth, I urged my mount onto the sodden field where the prince was doing his best to bolster morale. Some poor sods dozed where they stood; others lay along the road like plaid-shrouded corpses awaiting the death cart. Still more had abandoned their posts altogether—out of futility and hunger.
Our best fighters had yet to show up and the promised reinforcements from France were naught but a pipe dream, regrettably.
From the look of things, we were about to be handed our bollocks.
Feeling as if I were being forced to dig my own grave, I reined my horse into position beside the other mounted officers. The sun was at high noon now and the lines were drawn within cannon-shot of one another. Despite our dismal prospects, the clansmen took off their bonnets and gave a great whooping cheer. The enemy answered with a resounding huzzah.
Cannons boomed, one after the other, and I remembered those nights in my youth when I believed the thunder was God expressing his wrath for the sins I was too ashamed to confess. Fornication, impure thoughts, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, self-pleasuring, and covetousness, among them. I was far from an evil man, but neither was I a monk.
Heracles danced under me, champing at the bit to have his head. I kept the horse reined in and an eye out for the order to engage.
When it came, the front line charged, swords drawn, guns blazing. The English showered them with grapeshot and bullets. The sulphuric smoke of gunpowder clouded the air. Lord Murray’s regiment swung off to the right, leaving the MacDonalds wide open.
Drawing my sword with a surge of adrenaline and a whoosh of steel, I kicked my horse, ready to fill in the gap. Men and cannonballs fell all around me. I swiped and stabbed at anything rushing toward me in red. The onslaught seemed endless.
Bullets and grapeshot zinged past my ears. Smoke burned my eyes and throat. Somewhere in the din of screaming men, clashing blades, and popping gunfire, our bugler sounded the retreat.
Thank God for that. We might yet make it out of this melee with our lives.
My comrades fled, falling as they ran. My hope fell with them.
Cumberland’s cavalry rode us down, showing no mercy.
An English officer on a black horse headed straight for me, blade raised.
Bloody hell. I’d be gutted like a pike if I didn’t make a run for it. Jerking the reins around, I kicked hard. Heracles squealed, reared, and spun. I dug in my spurs, set my focus on the hills, and rode as if Lucifer himself was on my heels. He was, and hard.
My heart pounded and sweat leaked from every pore.
Something struck my shoulder with searing force, nearly unseating me. A lightning bolt of agony ripped through me. I held on, gritting my teeth against the pain.
Two strides farther, Heracles shrieked, stumbled, and went down. Mortal fear ensnared me. The same mortal fear I’d felt at Gladsmuir, my first real battle. Until then, I didn’t know what kind of damage a cannonball could inflict on the human body. Even now, I can’t close my eyes without seeing Geordie McLaren, my closest boyhood friend, lying on the field at Falkirk with his legs blown off.
I hit the ground and rolled out of the stallion’s way.
A redcoat was on me in an instant.
I swung my broadsword. The blade sliced through meat and bone. I shuddered involuntarily at the revolting sensation.
The soldier’s head, wearing a startled expression, fell one way whilst his body fell another. As images of my father’s execution stole across my mind, I shut my eyes
and concentrated on my current pain. My shoulder throbbed beneath the warm blood saturating my shirt. The metallic smell of it filled my nostrils. My stomach lurched. Rolling onto my side, I vomited what little I’d eaten that morning.
A tempest of hooves thundered past. Gunfire popped like a Beltane bonfire. Clashing steel and anguished screams echoed in my ears. To hell with the pain. If I didn’t move, I would die.
I looked about for anywhere I might take cover. Spotting a copse not far away, I dragged myself toward it, doing my best to traverse the grisly obstacle course of carnage strewn across the field. Under me, the ground was soaked with rain, piss, and blood. The vile stench rising from the grass made my stomach turn.
Upon reaching the trees, I was sick again. Only bile came up. I wrapped myself in my plaid and collapsed, drenched in sweat.
Clara. Would I ever see her face again? Or meet the child she carried? Would she bear me a son to carry on my name and bloodline? Or a sweet lass with her mother’s bonny smile? That smile had bewitched me the first moment I set eyes on her while accompanying my mother to Blair Castle to call upon her uncle, the Duke of Athol. We had gone there to petition for the return of my father’s confiscated lands. The petition was granted after I signed an oath of allegiance I knew was a lie.
Would Clara and I ever meet again on this earth? Would we meet in Heaven? I suddenly regretted not confessing the sins of my youth to Father Mackenzie. Was it too late to ask the Heavenly Father for forgiveness?
I struck my breast and tried hard to remember the prayer, but encroaching blackness wiped it away. Too fatigued to fight, I let the darkness claim me.
A touch as soft as the wings of a moth brought me back.
Opening my eyes, I turned, wincing as pain tore through me. I blinked, unable to believe what I beheld. Surely, God had sent one of his angels to fetch me home.
Her face was as white as milk and her hair was black, thick, and wavy.
“Am I dead…or dreaming?” My throat was so parched I had to force the words.
“Poor, poor man.” Her deep blue eyes gazed upon me with pity. “Poor, hurt Highlander. You are not dead—but soon will be.”
Her image shimmered like a reflection on the surface of a loch.
“Have you come to take me to meet my maker?”
Her expression grew puzzled. “I have come to heal you…and to take you to Avalon.”
Avalon was a myth. I must be delirious. From the folds of her diaphanous frock, she produced a golden chalice adorned with stones and Celtic engravings.
She pressed it to my lips.
Plagued by a terrible thirst, I drank deeply. Whatever was inside was as cloyingly sweet as honey mead, but also earthy. The pain eased almost at once. My strength returned with a surge. The fever passed. I stopped shivering.
A hand brushed my thigh.
Startled, I swallowed hard.
“What are you doing there, lass?”
“Appraising.”
Appraising? What do I look like, a cut of meat in a butcher’s stall?
Boldly, she took the measure of my manhood.
My blood answered the call of her touch. I did not believe I had strength enough to respond, but respond my body did. Desire ignited in my loins. My tarse swelled and stiffened. A potent mixture of lust and guilt bubbled in my gut. I thought of Clara with a knot in my gut. I might have been a rake in my bachelor days, but I had been a faithful husband, and wished to remain true to the woman I loved.
“I have a wife.”
Undeterred, she took my member into her mouth. My body welcomed the pleasure even as my heart and mind protested.
“Lass, please…”
Deaf to my objections, she twirled her tongue against the most sensitive part of my anatomy.
How could this be happening? What should I do? I had never been so brazenly seduced by any but my own dear Clara.
Something sharp pricked my inner thigh. I strained my neck to see the cause. The lass had done it, but what in the name of Old Nick was she about? When I demanded an explanation, she gave no answer. She was too busy sucking the blood from the bite she had inflicted on my upper leg...
“Oh, my stars!”
Gwyn turned to find her seatmate, an apple-cheeked, grandmotherly type, who’d been reading over her shoulder. Annoyed by the invasion of privacy, she shut the book.
Mrs. Dowd’s mouth and knitting needles had been going non-stop from the moment they boarded the tour bus that morning in Glasgow.
Hence, Gwyn’s retreat into the book she brought along, Knight of Cups by Leith MacQuill, which she had already devoured at least a dozen times.
She offered the meddlesome Englishwoman a disingenuous smile. “Haven’t you read Knight of Cups?”
“I can’t say that I have...”
“But you do know we’re spending the night at the author’s castle, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Dowd’s milky blue eyes twinkled behind the oversized, rhinestone-studded bifocals she wore on a lanyard. “Though I only signed up for the tour because I was…well, let’s just say I was in the mood for a little company.”
When Mrs. Dowd went back to her knitting, Gwyn wondered uneasily if she would use tours like this one when she was old to keep loneliness at bay the way she used books and roleplaying now.
Not that being all alone in the world didn’t have its advantages, like wearing the same yoga pants day after day because there was nobody there to notice or care and ordering pizza for dinner every night so she didn’t have to cook.
She loathed cooking almost as much as she detested going to the grocery store, mostly because she hated leaving the safety of her mobile home, which she had decorated so comfortably with her vast collection of dragons and unicorns.
Sometimes, though, she would stand over the sink in the kitchen, eating a flavorless slice of cold pizza, and wonder if anyone would notice if she suddenly dropped dead. She would think about her parents and the drunk driver who had plowed into their car when she was only eight. Why had she been spared, but not them? She liked to believe she had survived because she had a purpose to fulfill, even though her life seemed utterly pointless.
Then, she read Knight of Cups, and her purpose became clear. Well, maybe clear was too strong a word, but she definitely saw a glimmer.
Gwyn took a breath and started to read again.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing there, lass?”
She lifted her face. Her lips and chin dripped with my blood.
Horror shuddered through me.
“Queen Morgan will be most pleased with you, my lord,” she said, softly, sweetly. “You are both fair of face and well endowed.”
Revulsion tightened my throat as the faery went back to drinking my blood. I wanted to complain, but words escaped me. I had oft heard the stories of the White Women of the Highland forests, but, being educated and a good Catholic, had always dismissed them as superstitious nonsense.
Clearly, the stories were true. I searched my mind for the details, but found only particles floating in haze. Iron. They didn’t like it and couldn’t touch a man on a shod horse.
The thought of Hercules lying dead on the field tore me in two. The stallion was a wedding present from the Duke of Athol, the best of his colts born that year. The loss of so fine an animal was egregious indeed. I had hoped to breed the beast to some of my mares come spring, but now…
Mental haze covered the tail of the thought. The creature, whatever she was, went on drinking. My limbs were growing weak. I could no longer wiggle my toes or make a fist.
I felt no pain. Euphoria had replaced my discomforts and concerns. Had I died and gone to heaven? While it felt like heaven, the stench of death and distant wailing aroused concerns I might be in hell instead. Fear sluiced through me. If I went to hell, I would not meet my father in Heaven. Nor my wife and child, when their ends came.
Mother Mary knelt beside my head and pulled me into her arms. Her breasts—large, firm, high,
and as pale as fresh cream—were exposed.
Oh, aye. I was in Heaven, all right, but I would not blame God if he booted me out for gazing upon his sainted mother with lustful thoughts.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed art thy beautiful paps
She took hold of my face and pulled me against her, coaxing me onto one of her wee rosy teat as if I were a drowsy bairn. I closed my lips round her nipple and sucked with all the zeal I could summon. A sea of black ink rose inside my mind and carried me away.
When I returned to myself, it was night. I was still under the tree, lying on a bed of pine straw. Cold air touched every part of me. I lifted my head to have a look around.
The White Woman was gone.
Had I imagined her? If so, how the devil had I ended up naked? My plaid, shirt, and coat were nowhere to be seen. Had looters stripped me, believing me dead? Maybe, but if scavengers had found me, why had they not taken my broadsword as well? The weapon was worth a vast deal more than my sorry garments.
Bewildered, I scratched my chin. Smooth skin rather than coarse whiskers greeted my fingertips, surprising me. Who had shaved my face? Not scavengers, surely. I sniffed my armpits, detecting none of their usual stink. My body, too, felt clean; and, saints be praised, my hair was louse-free for the first time in months.
Sitting up, I reached around to my back. There was no wound, no swelling, and no pain.
I blinked several times. Was I hallucinating?
The crunch of footsteps on dry leaves raised my inner shield. I started to scramble for cover, but abandoned the effort when I saw the raven-haired lass coming through the trees.
My missing clothing was draped over both her arms like a priest’s holy vestments.
“We have little time.” She knelt beside me. “Once you are the queen’s knight, you will be forbidden other partners.”
