Ruadri (Immortal Highlander, Clan Skaraven Book 3): A Scottish Time Travel Romance

by Hazel Hunter

  Doubt tried to bite her again as she began tugging down his trousers, but covering his belly with more kisses chased it away. When she turned around to work off his boots, she arched her hips so he could see all the curves of her bottom. Slipping his trousers off made her stretch down, and she let the tight peaks of her breasts graze over his knees. As she drew back up she caressed his long, powerful legs, admiring the heavy contours of the muscle and sinew that made them so strong. Atlas, who the Greeks thought had been condemned to hold up the weight of the sky forever, could not have had more beautiful legs.

  “All mine,” she murmured. “I can hardly believe it.”

  “I shall convince you,” Ruadri offered, starting to sit up.

  “Stay there. This is my night to have you.” Emeline wanted to see all of him, so she stood and took him in. The mightiness of the warrior had been refined by his druid blood, turning a man who might have been a hulking brute into a masculine masterpiece. That such a superb being looked at her now as if she were just as magnificent obliterated every trace of doubt. “Where do I start?”

  “Anywhere,” he said, smiling up at her. “’Tis much of me to have. Too much, mayhap.”

  “Never. You’re so grand I could just stare at you for the rest of the night,” Emeline told him as she knelt between his knees and rested her hands on his thighs. “But the moon didn’t choose me to be your admirer. I’m your mate, Ruadri. That means my body is yours to enjoy, and yours is mine.”

  She glided her hands up to the base of his straining erection, encircling it with her fingers. Here he was primal male, full and thick and throbbing, hard as stone, smooth as polished wood. The distended veins and swollen head made evident his lust, but the subtle curve of his shaft made her feel acutely the emptiness between her thighs. They had been made to lock together, to give to and take from each other. When they did, they solved the ultimate puzzle of man and woman.

  Ruadri reached down to pull back her hair, but otherwise watched her in silence now. She glanced up to see his expression shifting between soft wonder and hard need.

  The molten gold wildfire of his arousal blazed through Emeline as she bent to kiss a bead of his cream, set like a pearl in the eye of his cock. The taste of him proved just as fiery-sweet as his scent, and ignited an edgy curiosity in her. She parted her lips to draw him into her mouth.

  “Lass.” He breathed out the word on a deep groan.

  Emeline sucked gently, exploring all the shapes and textures of him. What she’d heard other nurses bemoan as a tiresome chore was nothing like that at all. She pleasured him with the glide of her tongue and the tug of her mouth, and through her ability knew it made him ache to thrust deeper. No magic could have put him under her spell like this.

  Having such a hold over him brought with it a sense of power that immediately became addictive. How much of him could she take? Did the sight of his cock in her mouth please him as much as her licking and sucking? Would she make him come this way? It excited her to think of him jerking under her as she swallowed each jet, if she could do that for him. He was so big, and her mouth so small.

  “Emeline, please.” He shook now as his thighs tensed, and the heavy sac of his balls tightened under her palm. “’Tis too good.”

  He’d never done this with a woman, either, Emeline sensed, and that decided the matter. She wrapped her fingers around his shaft, sucking steadily on as much as she could take, and working her hand up and down on the rest. Sounds of her own delight came up to hum against his cock, which twitched and swelled in response.

  She knew the moment before he came, feeling it in the explosions of heat and light inside her and the surging tremors that poured up through his shaft. She drank him down as easily as she’d sucked him, every pulse of his seed warming her mouth and throat as she swallowed.

  Gently Emeline released him and crawled up to lay on his chest. The staccato thrum of his heartbeat applauded her, and the sheen of his sweat soothed her heated face.

  “That was lovely,” she murmured.

  Ruadri folded his arms over her. “You didnae need do such for my pleasure.”

  “Maybe I needed that for mine.” She raised her head and rested her chin on her hands. “You didn’t like it?” The look he gave her made her blush. “If I was clumsy I’ll keep practicing until I get better. I want to be a good lover.”

  He touched her mouth, studying it before he met her gaze. “’Tis no’ about facking, this bond between us. To look upon you brings me joy. You need never bed me for it.”

  “I don’t have to do anything. I want you. I love you.” The moon had been right about that, she thought as she kissed his fingers. “And you can’t say that you’re unloved anymore, because I’ll never stop.”

  He gripped the hair at the back of her head. “You do this for me, when I’ve said naught a word of love to you.”

  Emeline shrugged. “It’s not about words. I’ve tried to love my parents, my work, my patients, and even a friend that I knew didn’t care for me. I don’t regret it, but love can’t happen when it’s one-sided. So you don’t have to tell me anything. I know what you feel for me. Every time you touch me you tell me.”

  “I said naught because I reckoned you’d think me mad.” He brought her hand to his mouth, opening it so he could kiss her palm. “I saw you first in a dream, and in it I ran to you, Emeline. I didnae think or consider or hold back my heart. I ran to you no’ because I dreamt you mine, but that you’ve always been my dream.”

  In her mind snapshots of her outside the wedding shop flashed, showing this time the shaman trying to save her. “Oh, Ruadri. You were there that day?”

  “In spirit, aye, and I’ve longed for you every moment since. In that dream I fell in love with you, my beautiful lady.” He sat up with her and tipped up her chin. “I loved you before I saw you in truth. I’ve loved you each moment since. I’ll love you until I’m no more.” He touched his brow to hers. “Wife.”

  No wedding vows could have been lovelier than his promises, and Ruadri sealed them with a kiss as he lifted her in his powerful arms. He carried her over to the pile of fleeces he’d dropped. He kept kissing her as he used his foot to spread them out, and then lowered her onto their fluffy softness.

  Emeline hardly had time to catch her breath before Ruadri parted her thighs and lifted her legs over his shoulders. His mouth found her swollen and slick, and then he pushed his tongue into her. As his lip grazed her pearl he penetrated her over and over, pressing as deeply as he could. Now she lay at his mercy, and whimpered and writhed as he laved her with hungry strokes of his ravishing tongue.

  Seeing his face between her legs and feeling the brute force of his need as he made love to her with his mouth drove Emeline from shocked arousal to flooding pleasure. When the sensual storm broke inside her, he drew back and pinned her down, guiding his cockhead to her spasming pussy.

  “Wife,” he said again, grunting as he plowed into her.

  His ravenous need and relentless shaft fucked her to a second climax, one that made her body bow beneath him. He swallowed her cries before he pushed a hand under her and lifted her breasts to his mouth. His teeth grazed her pulsing nipples as he sucked each one. Clamping his hand around the curves of one mound, he pressed his fingers into her, weighing her, playing with her.

  Emeline pushed her breast against his tongue, her whole body thrumming with the jolts of his plunging cock. Now she had to take instead of give, and she took every inch he pumped into her, hard and thick and demanding her surrender. His feelings saturated her with his earthy lust, the rampant need to invade her body like an earthquake destroying everything in its path. He needed her to come apart for him, to give her body as completely as her heart.

  Emeline wrapped her legs around him and clamped down on him, gripping him as she exploded again. He held her and watched her and fucked her, and only when she gasped out the last of her breath did his shoulders shake and his cock go impossibly deep. She felt him jerk over her and insid
e her as his seed shot again and again into her clenching softness.

  Ruadri rolled over, holding her pressed to him, and let his head fall back as he splayed his hand over her buttocks. “I shallnae ask forgiveness for that, my lady.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. Which should make me suspicious now that I think about it.” Emeline turned her head to kiss his chest and sighed. “Are you sure they kept you in chains every time?”

  His deep chuckle shook her. “Aye, ’twas the practice, I promise you.” He threaded his fingers through her hair before he paused and went still. “When this is done, will you go back to your time?”

  She thought of the work-filled, lonely life she had led as a nurse. “My family’s all gone. There are plenty of people to take my place at the hospital. I’ve nothing else to go back to.” She lifted her head. “Isn’t it strange that we’re all like that? I think all five of us are unmarried, childless orphans, with only our work filling our lives in the future.”

  “When Brennus becomes confounded he says he feels the hand of the Gods at work,” Ruadri said, smiling. “Will you stay?”

  Emeline didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I will. But in which time?”

  “Here, until we learn how to return to mine.” He groaned as she lifted herself from him and reached for his tartan. “In the morning we’ll seek shelter in the highlands with Ara’s tribe. That should give us more time to reckon.”

  “All the Romans are dead now,” she said as she shook out the tartan and used it to cover both of them as she lay back down. “Ara’s tribe is safe.”

  “I think no’, lass,” Ruadri said. “Two centuriae attacked the Wood Dream, with but one hundred sixty soldiers. They came from a legion that numbers in many thousands. When they dinnae return, more shall be sent in search of them. They’ll no’ find their bodies.”

  Emeline remembered feeling the first Roman being devoured a moment before she blacked out. While the horror of it still scarred her heart, she wouldn’t retreat from it again.

  “I know what happened to the soldiers, Ru. What will the Romans do when they can’t find the missing centuriae?”

  He pulled her closer, warming her with his body heat. “Raid every Pritani village in this territory to search them. They’ll torture the tribes until they tell them what they wish to ken. As only we saw what happened in the glen, many shall die.”

  She thought of the little girl she had kept from sliding into the stream. “Maybe we should convince Ara to move his tribe to another part of Scotland, to be safer.” She felt him stiffen and looked up at him. “What is it?”

  “When we arrived here, Drest said he didnae ken the name of my clan. Nor did Ara.” Ruadri stared at her as if he’d never seen her before now. “Emeline, your tribe hasnae made their pact with Brennus.”

  Emeline listened as he told her of the bargain made between Ara’s tribe and the Skaraven in return for defending them against the invaders, which in twelve centuries would lead to the alliance of the clan with the McAra, but she still couldn’t make the connection.

  “What happens if they don’t make this pact with your clan?”

  “The Romans shall find them, and the tribe has no chance of surviving the fury of the legion,” Ruadri said, his voice bleak. “’Twill alter history. Ara shallnae found the bloodline of the McAra.”

  She went still as the implication sank in. If Ara and his tribe were killed, then every one of their descendants would never be born. Thousands of people would never be born.

  “That’s why we were brought back to this time.”

  “’Twas to save your bloodline,” Ruadri said, and kissed her brow. “To save you, Emeline.”

  “Then the solution is very simple,” she said firmly. “We find Ara and tell him what happened in the glen. We convince him to make the pact with your chieftain.”

  “Ara never summoned Brennus.” His voice went flat. “’Twas my sire, Galan. I always wondered why he had intervened. In this time, he lives in seclusion, and doesnae have any dealings with the Pritani.”

  “Ruadri, everything we do here now has already happened, and we’re the only ones in this time who know what will happen.” She bit her lip. “It has to be you who persuades him to send for your clan.”

  “Aye.” He met her gaze. “But ’tis no one Galan despises or wishes to suffer more than me.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  INSIDE THE TULLACHS’ cottage, Brennus warily accepted some hot brew from the headman’s wife. “My thanks, Mistress.”

  Cadeyrn stopped his inspection of the cozy front room and shifted slightly to eye the contents of the mug.

  “’Tis no’ poisoned,” the old druidess advised him drily before she regarded her mate. Fingal sat speaking in low tones with Bhaltair but looked up when she called his name. “The chieftain and his second await your counsel, Husband. Since their clan awaits them, and feel no fondness for druid kind, I should hurry things along.”

  Bhaltair exchanged a look with Fingal before he said, “From what you’ve said, Chieftain, we think my acolyte Oriana lured you to the inn.”

  Brennus came to stand by the table, and deliberately took a drink from the mug before setting it down. “That young lass who blames the Skaraven for her grandfather’s killing?”

  The old druid nodded, and related her disappearance and the grim items found in her belongings. “The lass has a powerful ability to commune with the dead. ’Tis possible through her gift she has been brought under the sway of Barra Omey, a bone-conjurer seeking vengeance on me.”

  “Barra may yet live,” Fingal added. “By now she would be too old to act herself.”

  “Alive or dead, ’twould be a canny move to use the lass,” Cadeyrn said. “None would suspect an untrained druidess capable of slaying a chieftain.”

  Brennus’s patience was thinning. “So, this Barra seeks vengeance by sending Oriana to burn me and blame you for it. What did you do to her?”

  “I dinnae ken,” Bhaltair said. “I never crossed paths with Barra Omey, nor was I part of the conclave that judged her. Of course, we shall make inquiries of the archivists–”

  Brennus made a cutting gesture. “What of Ruadri and the McAra healer?” At the druid’s blank stare, he added, “They’ve gone from Dun Mor. Did you lure Ruadri somewhere with the promise of healing her?”

  “’Tis the first I’ve heard of them missing.” Bhaltair looked genuinely shocked now. “In her condition ’twould be too dangerous to move her. Had I some aid or cure to offer, I’d send it to Ruadri.”

  Cadeyrn studied the old druid’s features a moment longer before he murmured, “Truth.”

  “Mayhap he took her through…but what can I ken of it,” Bhaltair added quickly. “He doesnae, ah, confide in me.”

  Brennus didn’t need his war master to read the druid’s deception. “Lie again to me, old man, and I shall gut you.”

  He raised a gnarled hand to his brow before meeting the chieftain’s gaze. “’Tis likely the lad brought the lady to a sacred grove. Taking her through would heal her affliction.”

  “As it did Lily’s broken neck,” Cadeyrn said, nodding. “But Emeline wasnae in any state to open the portal for our shaman.”

  “She didnae have to. Ruadri’s druid kind.” Under their stares Bhaltair seemed to shrink. “’Twas Galan who sired the lad in secret. After his Pritani mother died in childbirth, he treated him very harshly. Galan also used the threat of killing all the Skaraven to compel the lad to watch and report on your clan during your mortal lives. Had I been aware, I assure you, I’d have put an end to it.”

  Brennus’s temper was close to boiling over, but forced it back by recalling how faithfully Ruadri had served the clan—every hour of both his lives. Whatever he had been made to do, he knew the fault lay with the druids.

  “I shall deal with my shaman when we find him. Because of you, we face a clan war with Maddock McAra.” Brennus glowered at Bhaltair. “You’ll be the remedy.”

  Instead of blusterin
g the old man nodded and rose to his feet. “I put myself wholly in your hands, Chieftain. However I may aid you, ’twill be done.”

  “I think that unwise,” Fingal said at once. “Oriana wishes you both dead, and when she learns she has failed she shall try again. Chieftain, Bhaltair isnae a warrior like you. He will be safer with us.”

  Cora came and rested her hand on his shoulder. “One cannae hide from evil, Husband. ’Tis our duty to fight it.”

  “No harm shall come to Flen from me or mine,” Brennus told the headman. “More than that I cannae vow.”

  The old druid eyed Fingal. “I maynae be a warrior, old friend, but I’m no’ helpless.”

  “Nor we.” Fingal glanced up at his wife before he said, “The Sky Thatch shall take up the search for Oriana, and call on our neighboring tribes to aid us. When she’s found, she’ll be placed under spell guard and held until her master returns to decide on her fate.”

  Bhaltair murmured his thanks before he regarded the chieftain. “What would you have me do?”

  “Ride with us to the McAra stronghold, and act as negotiator,” Brennus said. “Tell Maddock all that you ken, and forge a truce until we find your acolyte and my healers.”

  Cora made a concerned sound. “You think it wise, Chieftain, to reveal so much to your mortal allies?”

  “’Tis that, Mistress, or clan war.” He nodded to her and her husband, and then left the cottage with Cadeyrn to retrieve their mounts.

  “Say what you will of the tree-knowers,” his war master mused as they entered the druids’ stables. “They’ve curious troubles and mountains of secrets.”

  “Aye, bone-conjurers and vengeance schemes,” Brennus muttered as he stalked to the stalls. “And Ruadri born druid kind. Next, we shall be invaded by the Finfolk, and told they sired the rest of the clan.”

  “I doubt it. No’ one of us sports gills.” His war master went into one stall and came out again. “Flen spoke another truth. His pony’s no’ fit to ride.”