LACHLAN TOOK KINLEY back to the stronghold, where they looked after the horses before retreating to his tower. Word must have gotten around that the laird wanted some alone time with her, for the great hall was deserted, as was Lachlan’s chamber. She saw that Raen had left out a bottle and two cups for them, as if he’d known they would need a drink.

Kinley didn’t want whiskey. She wanted answers, and to get them she needed a clear head.

“You said you weren’t a selkie or a kelpie, and I know you’re not the Loch Ness monster, so how does a big, cold lake bring you back from the dead?”

Lachlan peered at her. “There’s a monster in Loch Ness?”

“Probably not,” she admitted, shivering. “Forget I said that. Tell me about this loch.”

Lachlan leaned against a wall and watched her as she crouched down to feed some splits to the fire.

“It happened when the Roman legions first came to our lands,” he said. “I will tell you, but first give us a taste of that bottle, lass.”

Kinley poured some whiskey for him, and then perched on the chair by the fire.

The laird described the Roman invasion of Scotland, then known as Caledonia. Ruthless and unstoppable, the legions had quickly conquered Britannia and marched north to claim the highlands. They called Lachlan and his people “Picts” for their tattoos, which the invaders considered barbaric and uncivilized.

“They sneered at us when our ancestors came here from an ancient land of powerful, learned peoples,” Lachlan said. “In the time before the Great Flood, the Pritani ruled half the world, long before Rome was so much as a croft by a river.”

Kinley felt enchanted now. “Half the world. Impressive. So did you teach the Romans not to sneer?”

His smile faded. “Naught could stop that, or them.” He told her how the southern tribes had marauded the Romans with blitz attacks on their columns by day, and stealthy raids on their encampments by night. “They did well,” he said, “but the legion had no’ come for the Pritani. They hunted the magic folk called druids.”

An odd chapter in a history textbook from school came back to Kinley, probably because she’d always loved telling her grandmother whatever she learned about Scotland. During their invasion the Romans had gone after the druids, as they were believed to be bloodthirsty primitives who performed human sacrifice. One of the Roman Emperors had even ordered that the entire druid race be wiped off the face of the earth. His legions did their best by attacking any druid settlement they found, massacring the inhabitants, and burning their homes and fields.

“Were the druids members of your tribes?” she asked.

He shook his head. “They lived among us, and traded with us, but they were no’ like the Pritani. Druids didnae believe in fighting, and refused to use their powerful magics against others. They go a different way, and I admire that. They couldnae defend themselves against so many. I summoned the war masters of all the other Pritani tribes, and convinced them to help me hide them away from the Romans. When I had gathered two thousand warriors, we began to raid the legion’s camps. That allowed the Druids to escape.” He took a swallow from his cup. “I should have ended it there, but I wanted them gone from our lands, so I lured them here, to Skye.”

The rasp of pain in his voice made Kinley reach out to touch his arm. “Listen, we don’t have to talk about this tonight.”

“’Twill always be the wound that cannae be healed.” Lachlan folded his hand over hers. “I thought we could prevail on our own land, but I had never fought against a legion. They came and came and kept coming, Kinley, as if the world were filled with naught but Romans. So many of them landed their boats and marched on Skye that we soon saw how it would be.”

She rubbed her thumb against his palm in a soothing caress. “I’m guessing you didn’t run.”

He smiled a little. “Pritani warriors dinnae run or surrender. We fight until we prevail, or we die. It didnae take long for them to overrun our front lines, and swarm over us like hungry rats. They bound us, and dragged us to the loch, and offered us freedom if we would tell them where to find the druids. No’ a single man would betray our friends, so there we died. They tossed our bodies in the water.”

If any other man had told her such a story Kinley wouldn’t have believed it. But she’d seen his wounds vanish.

“So being in the water brought you and the clan back from the dead?”

“No, faodail. After the Romans left the island, the druids came back.” Absently he rubbed the thin scar around his neck. “When they knew what we had done, they surrounded the loch, and cast a spell to awaken us, and change us. When we came out of the waters, we were whole and healed. Since that day of awakening we dinnae age or suffer sickness. We cannae die as mortal men do. But being reborn in the loch gave us more than eternal life. The magic bonded our spirits to its water. It heals us, and protects us, and takes us wherever we wish.”

“That must have been some spell,” she said, and saw his shoulders stiffen. “Did something else happen to you?”

“No’ to the clan.” He finished his whiskey. “When the druids awakened us back to life, they cast our deaths on the legion. The conclave intended the curse to change them into living corpses, the undead, so they would all burn like torches at daybreak. But as soon as the Romans learned that sunlight would kill them, somehow they found a place to hide from it. They learned to live by night, drinking the blood of mortals.”

“Gruesome bastards,” Kinley muttered, and then scowled. “Didn’t the druids know that cursing six thousand, highly-adaptable men might not turn out so well?”

“They do now,” he said and started to say something else. But then he shook his head and went to his wash basin, where he tugged off his damp tunic. “You should go to bed. ’Tis late.”

She got up and started for the door, and then stopped. Since moving into her own room Kinley hadn’t slept very well at all. Even when she worked herself to exhaustion during the day, she usually spent half the night staring at the curving ceiling above her bed while she thought about Lachlan, and what he was doing, and if he lay awake thinking about her.

Kinley had been trained to evaluate and solve crisis situations. Lachlan might be big, strong, handsome, and tempting as all hell, but he was still an unknown. Unsure what to make of his history, and concealing from him her own, didn’t put much in the Let’s Do This column. Oh, she wanted him—wanted him until it gnawed at her insides with hot, sharp teeth—but sex rarely made things less complicated. Since she’d pledged her loyalty to the clan, in a sense that made him her commanding officer. It was never a good idea to sleep with the brass.

No, she had plenty of good reasons not to do this. Yet the one thing she couldn’t get out of her head was that moment on the battlefield, and what he’d said just before snatching her up in his arms: Come here to me.

She had come here to him. It didn’t feel accidental. Everything about him made her hot and crazy and almost tearful, especially now that she knew what he’d gone through on the other side of becoming immortal. Could he really be twelve hundred years old? Did it matter?

He wanted her, she wanted him. That was what mattered. She bent down to remove her boots.

As if he knew what she was thinking, the laird stopped splashing his face with water and turned around.

“I’m no’ sleeping in the hayloft again, Kinley lass.”

“Yeah, you told me that.” She reached to unlace her trousers.

He came to her so fast she jumped under the hands he put on her shoulders. “My own bed isnae all I want.” He looked over her head, as if meeting her gaze might be too much for him. “If you stay, I’ll have you.”

Kinley glanced down. The bulge in his pants suggested magnitude on an astronomical scale. There was a slight tremor in both of his hands. When she looked up she saw that his eyes had gone as dark as ink, and glittered with something about to snap its leash.

“Well, then.” She skimmed her hand up his chest and pressed it against his lean, hard cheek. “I think we should get to it.”

Lachlan turned his head into Kinley’s hand, pressing his mouth against her palm as he reached between them. She felt him tug loose her laces before he slid her trousers down over her bottom to her knees. He knelt to remove them, and then remained on his knees as he pressed his face against her belly and nuzzled her.

Threading her fingers through his thick, heavy mane, she drew his hair back so she could see his mouth on her skin. He looked up at her while he grazed the edge of her navel with his teeth. She felt the curve of his smile before he laved her there with his tongue. Had she ever thought of her stomach as an erogenous zone? What he was doing to her set off little quakes of sensation that shot through her like crackling sparks, and made her go completely, utterly wet between her thighs.

“My knees are turning to prymerose pudding,” she told him.

Lachlan made a tortured sound and stood, his hands catching the edge of her shirt and tugging it up over her head. The last of her clothing went sailing behind him to float down onto the floor. Then he held her at arm’s length, not inspecting or ogling, but admiring her.

His silence unnerved her a little. “Stop staring. I know you’ve already seen all the goodies.”

“Aye, but you’ve no’ goodies,” he said, his voice so deep now it seemed to pour through her like dark honey. “You’ve lovelies.” His fingertips trailed over the contours of her breast, the touch whispering all her nerves to life. The sensation felt so exquisite a rush of reaction flashed through her, saturating her flesh with aching heat. He pressed the backs of his fingers against her swelling curves. “And they blush for me.”

“That’s because you’re teasing them,” Kinley said and pushed one puckered nipple against his palm. “I’m not a virgin, Lachlan. I know that’s an issue in this, ah, culture, but…does it count that you’re making me feel like one?”

“This is our first time,” he said, and circled her peak with the pad of his thumb. “So you are maiden to me.”

Without warning he grabbed her and dropped with her on the bed, his mouth muffling the low cry she released.

His scent rolled over her, cool and crisp despite his intense body heat. Like the loch where he died. Finally making the connection made Kinley dizzy on top of what he was doing to her. It was as if she were back in the oak grove, back in the rain, helpless as he thrilled and terrified her. There was so much of him, erasing every space, every gap, and Kinley struggled not to panic. As if he knew how she felt he rolled away from her and stood by the bed.

“If you’ve doubt, Kinley,” he warned as he unfastened his trousers, “say to me now, for when I am naked with you I fear I willnae hear it.”

The man had a Mt. Everest erection, a chest silvered by sweat, and every muscle on him looked knotted. And yet still he was offering her an out. If she didn’t take it now, she’d have no right to bitch later.

Kinley let her desire for him crush her fear into dust. Feeling like a real woman for the first time in years, she stretched her arms up to make her breasts lift higher, and parted her legs just enough for him to see what she had waiting for him.

“No doubt,” she said, “but lots of aching, and wanting, and needing. Help me out with them?”

Lachlan was naked and on top of her a heartbeat later, his big body dwarfing hers again, his mouth hard and hungry as he kissed her breathless. He tasted of whiskey and man, a combination that made Kinley feel drunk and soft and almost helpless. She braced herself as he clamped one hand around her wrists to pin them over her head. He wedged his hips between her thighs, but he didn’t penetrate her. Instead Lachlan nestled against her, notching his hard shaft like an arrow in the ellipse of her folds.

“I’m your man now, my lass.” He moved his hips, rubbing his length against her so gently that she could feel the veins lacing the heavy column of his cock. “All night, every night.” He lowered his mouth to hers again.

His ravishing kisses and the maddening friction between her thighs went on until Kinley’s thoughts dwindled away. She gave herself over to what he was doing to her mouth and her pussy.

Slowly Lachlan raised his head, watching her eyes as he shifted, and pressed the satin-smooth dome of his penis against the pulsing nub of her clit.

“So sweet you are, all spiced apples and warm cream and new clover flower.” He nudged her clit, smiling a little as she shivered, and reached down to fist his shaft and work the flared ridge of his glans against her bared nub. “Shhh,” he said as she whimpered in protest. “Does that no’ please you, my golden goddess?”

“I think you like to tease rather than please,” Kinley said and curled her leg around his. She tilted her hips so that his cockhead slid down into the drenched seam of her sex. “Come inside me, my beautiful man, before you make me scream and the guards break down the door.”

Lachlan worked an arm under her, and closed his eyes briefly before he began to press in. His broad girth stretched Kinley to the brink of pain, but she was so aroused her wetness soon engulfed him. She could feel every inch of him sinking deep inside her, so thick and hard he felt like satin-wrapped iron. Then their body hair tangled, and the root of his shaft sealed him inside her. His cool scent blended with her heat, swamping her as if they were swimming in a lake of light. Time went away with the rest of the world. All Kinley knew was him, inside her and holding her, and looking at her with the same stunned wonder she felt.

“You are…” Lachlan’s chest heaved and his shoulders shook as he bowed his head, and touched his brow to hers. “Gods, Kinley.”

“Yeah. You, too,” she managed to say as she squeezed him with her inner muscles. She worked them around his shaft until he groaned something in Pritani. “What does that mean?”

“This. I must. Kinley.” He drew out of her, almost completely, and then plowed back in as he gave her a hard, deep fucking.

He’d been holding back for her, but no longer. Kinley cried out, her body writhing beneath his as he plunged into her, his cock filling her and stroking her and destroying her. She’d never been invaded so deeply. She could feel his cockhead colliding with her cervix over and over, relentless and unstoppable.

Could she bear much more of this?

Something bloomed inside her, a dark and fiery answer that exploded through her as she flung her arms around him and dragged his head to her breast. She needed to feel him on her there, and then he was sucking her, his hot mouth almost brutal as he clamped on and lashed her with his tongue.

The bed began thudding against the wall. She could hear it and yet she didn’t care, she couldn’t care. All that mattered was Lachlan and this maddening, boiling wanting that was going to scald her from the inside out.

The laird wrenched his mouth from her breast and stared down at her, his eyes narrow and intent as he pounded his cock into her pussy.

“Your pleasure, Kinley. Give it to me. I want it. I want to feel it when I spill in you. Give it, lass.”

Darkness crowded in on her, and then splintered as Kinley arched under him, wailing wildly as she came. Lachlan kept stroking in and out of her, riding her through the incredible, soul-shaking bliss, his cock drawing it out until she thought the pleasure would drown her. Then she felt him go deep with one final, impossibly powerful stroke, and a low, animal grunt escaped him. Inside her his cock swelled and erupted, pumping his come into her. It went on for so long she felt it crest around his shaft and flow out of her.

Lachlan kept himself braced above her, his lips parted and his eyes half-closed as he jerked through the last of his pulsing jets. He almost collapsed on her as he bent to kiss her lips, and then rolled until he was on his back and she lay draped over him.

“Dinnae move,” he whispered. His big hands splayed over her bottom, holding her so their bodies remained joined. “Never move again. Die with me thus.”

“I’ll die but, sorry, you’re immortal.” She found a comfortable spot for her cheek on his shoulder, but she didn’t feel tired at all. If anything she felt dazzled, a little bewildered, and brimming with so much energy she could run five miles double-time. “Is it always like this for you?” His chest lifted and fell as he made a growling sound. “Yeah, me neither.”

She couldn’t resist running her hand over the expanse of his chest to feel the contours of his muscles. But as she did she felt something ripple under her touch. She pushed herself up, and thought she saw his ink actually moving. He was flexing his muscles to make the serpent move.

“Nice trick–” Suddenly his shaft swelled again inside her. “Oh.”

* * *

Lachlan had always been gentle with women. A man of his size and strength had to be, or risk injuring instead of pleasuring. He’d meant to be the same with Kinley. She might be a quick, clever fighter but her slender limbs and soft skin were not fashioned for rough play. Yet the moment he’d pushed full into her, and felt the clasp of her on him, he’d lost himself and all notion of tenderness. A ravening madness followed, a beastly claiming and ravaging that she’d somehow endured.

And now this. She’d moved. Not only moved, but come astride him, driving him deeper into her tight, wet quim. He gripped her hips as his cock hardened inside her, watching her lovely face as she felt him grow.

“Be still, lass.”

“I don’t think I can,” she said, and rolled her hips, just enough to caress him from within.

Lachlan felt a familiar burn of power across his chest and shoulders. Any challenge stirred his serpent spirit, and since it was joined with him it felt the same desires. He groaned as it moved inside him, as hungry for her as he was.

“No, Kinley, no.”

Quickly he lifted her off his shaft and put her beside him. Seeing the state of his glistening, rampant penis decided it. He would have to leave her or risk–

“Mmmm,” she hummed.

Golden hair brushed his belly as she curled her fingers around his thick root. Then she pressed her lips to his engorged head, as bold as a king’s courtesan.

“Lass,” he hissed. He gripped the linens beneath him as she tasted him with her tongue. Sweat beaded above his lip and brow as he watched her, and fabric tore when she wrapped her lips around his cockhead. “You need no’ do this. ’Tis unseemly.”

She ignored him as she sucked lightly, bobbing her head as she took more and more of him into her mouth. Seeing her lips on his shaft and feeling the working of her tongue made Lachlan groan. It also pleased the serpent, now fully awake and slipping down from his ink into his groin.

Neglecting his own needs had become habit, and now Lachlan was about to pay for them. But so was his adorable, unknowing lover.

“Please,” he groaned. “I beg you, stop.”

Kinley released him, and frowned. “Don’t you like it?” Before he could answer her eyes went wide. “Lachlan, your tattoo. It’s– Oh my god.”

“The serpent desires you,” Lachlan said through clenched teeth. “It wants to take you.” The ink moved across his belly to wrap itself around his shaft. “You should go to your room now. You should run.”

“You know, I’d rather stay.” A tenderness softened her eyes. She gently touched the ink as it crested on his penis, tracing the serpent’s scales with her fingertip. “I want all of you, Lachlan.”

Her hand stroked him and the serpent as she leaned over him and kissed the hard line of his mouth.

He could hold it off no more, and seized her, dragging her over onto her belly and yanking her hips up in the air. Kneeling behind her, he watched as the serpent found her clenching opening with his cock, its ink lines shimmering with power as it entered her. He wrapped his arms around her writhing body as he impaled her, his hips churning as the serpent used him to fill her. His thoughts tangled with the spirit’s, and spilled from him, raw and hungry and desperate.

“So long I have wanted to touch you.” He punctuated the words with heavy, powerful thrusts. “And come into you.” He drove himself and the serpent deeper into her clenching softness. “And fack your lovely golden quim. Your pretty lips parted for my tongue. Your tits ached for my hands.” He slid his fingers to her bobbing breasts, capturing them and squeezing them as he plunged in and out. “Never again will you sleep without my seed painting your thighs.”

Lachlan pulled out of her, flipping her onto her back. As he shouldered her legs, the serpent guided him back to her. Now when he stroked into her he could see her face, and all the emotions that danced over it. Her gasping mouth and darkened eyes told him that he possessed her completely. The hard beads of her nipples and the clutch of her hands assured him that she wanted what he did to her.

“I can never have enough of you,” he said, his voice rasping out the words. “Part your legs and I am there. My cock inside you. My hands on you. My mouth catching your cries.”

Kinley’s back bowed, her willowy form shaking as she came on him, and Lachlan felt the serpent coil and stretch as it thrashed with bliss. He needed to mark her now, mark her in the way of the tribe, as a man taking a woman on her maiden night. When he felt his balls tighten, he jerked out of her, spattering her belly and folds with the long, thick spurts of his seed.

But on her hip, where they had been no ink, a new design sizzled to life beneath his cream. His fingers shook as he smoothed it away to reveal a small serpent tattoo that was an echo of his own.

“You are truly my woman now, Kinley Chandler.”

When he dropped down beside her his ink slithered from his cock across his torso and draped itself over his shoulders and chest, wriggling back into place.

Lachlan stared up at the roof beams, his body still shuddering from the intense sensations, and his heart shriveling to a husk. He had facked his woman as if she were a Pritani wife, open and understanding of her husband’s wants. Only tribeswomen could call a man’s ink spirit into his cock. Yet he had done this to Kinley without warning or explanation.

But she was not Pritani. She would be outraged, or frightened, or repulsed. She would never forgive him. She would certainly never bed him again—and that alone made him want to howl like a beaten dog.

Kinley raised her head and looked at her new skinwork. “Oh,” she gasped between heaving breaths. “A snake.” Her head flopped back down to the pillow. “Matching tattoos. That’s nice.” When he didn’t reply, she turned to look at him, her face flushed and her eyes slumberous. “You all right?”

“I didnae mean to–” he said but stopped, furious with himself for even beginning such a lie. “I did mean to do that, but no’ our first night together. No’ until you knew before what would happen.”

“Did I just have sex with you and your tattoo?” When he nodded she clambered onto him and pressed her lips to his ink before she rested her chin on his chest. “How does your ink do that?”

She was not screaming, or running away, or even frowning.

“As mortals the spirit of our skinwork could compel us,” he said, feeling bemused now as he stroked his hand over her rumpled hair. “We would be driven to great courage, or fierce passion. Since the immortal awakening, the spirits somehow came alive within us. When they are stirred now they join with us to share what we ken, mark our mates, and move on our skins.”

“Okay,” Kinley said quietly and smiled a little. “Just in case we don’t work out, I’m never going to bed with Neac.”

Lachlan laughed.