AS LACHLAN STEPPED inside the tower chamber, Raen looked up from the blade hilt he was wrapping.

“She stayed awake until I persuaded her to have some calming brew,” his bodyguard said. “It put her to slumber, and she hasnae moved since.”

Lachlan nodded as he went to his bed, in which Kinley lay. “Go and get some sleep. I’ll stay with her.”

When Raen reached the door he hesitated and looked back. “Cailean Lusk came at dawn asking to see her. Evander’s doing. I sent him away, but I’ve a notion he’ll be back.”

Lachlan had underestimated the seneschal’s determination to rid Dun Aran of Kinley. “Put a guard downstairs before you find your bed. No one but you comes up.”

“Aye, my lord.” Raen glanced at Kinley, shook his head a little and departed.

Lachlan tugged off his shirt, which smelled of the stables, and dragged a hand over his crown. His orders would spawn all manner of new rumors among the clan, most casting Kinley as his bedmate. Yet he had never dallied with any of the serving women at the stronghold. When he needed release he went to one of the villages on the mainland, where he would spend the night with a willing widow. He knew they needed the gold he offered in exchange, and such brief encounters kept his life uncomplicated.

He felt a knot in his groin, and glanced down to see the impressive stoner he’d gotten. He might have to make another trip soon, if he didn’t get his lust for Kinley under control.

As he stood over the bed, he realized that Kinley’s first sight when she awoke would be his bulge. Gingerly he sat down on the edge of the bed. Sleep had smoothed away the lines of anger and fear from around her eyes and mouth. She looked almost angelic now. If not for the ripe curves of her breasts and hips she might have been a slumbering bairn.

Lachlan glanced at her bonds. The lass had done naught but help him and his, and it wasn’t right to bind an ally. He untied the silk strips from the bed. Perhaps it would help her to sleep longer. As if in response, she turned over and a lock of her fine golden hair fell against Lachlan’s hand. He caressed the thin, bright strands, and marveled at how silky they felt against his fingertips.

What would it be like, to have such tresses in his hands, or whispering across his chest? His mouth wanted more of hers, and that wild sweetness he’d tasted on the battlefield. Would she make love as ferociously as she fought?

He might blame his rigid cock on the weeks he’d spent celibate while hunting the legion, but it wasn’t need for a wench that made him hard. He wanted this strange, fierce lass more than anything in his memory—and not only for her willowy beauty. She had roused something inside him he thought he’d left buried at the bottom of the loch.

Long ago, when the Romans had invaded Caledonia, the Pritani had retreated to their highland settlements. At first it seemed the invaders would not chase them, but the word came that they had begun hunting and killing magic folk. When the druid conclave called upon the McDonnel tribe’s war master to help them escape annihilation, Lachlan agreed without hesitation. He appealed to other tribes to stand with him and his men, and so they came together as one great force.

Under the banner of the druid’s protective dragon symbol, they carried out raids against the Romans, burning their camps and driving them south. What the invaders never realized was that Lachlan’s attacks were made to allow the conclave and the surviving settlements of magic folk to escape Caledonia. The druids left by boat under cover of darkness to sail to Hetlandensis, where they took shelter on one of the unsettled islands.

Luring the Romans to Skye had been a strategic gamble. Lachlan knew the Black Cuillin mountains to be the perfect place for an ambush, but he hadn’t counted on the entire Ninth Legion being sent to pursue them. Out-numbered three to one, his men were quickly overrun and captured. The tribune had sneered at his captives.

You were a fool to challenge us.

While the Calendonian slave translated his words, the Roman tribune surveyed the defeated tribesmen. They knelt bound on the shore of Loch Sìorraidh, as he regarded Lachlan.

Still, I can be generous. He tossed a handful of silver coins on the ground between them. Tell me where the druids have gone, and I will spare you, and one man out of every ten.

Lachlan could have told him what he could do with his mercy, but spitting in his face had been far more satisfying. The tribune had ordered him beaten, and then stripped and bound between the tribe’s stones.

He hadn’t understood why until the executions began.

Lachlan’s men had died in silence, each looking at him and nodding their farewells in the moment before they fell beneath Roman blades. Some moved their lips in voiceless prayers to the gods. Many had prayed for him and his sanity, bless their souls.

The centurions ordered the camp slaves to toss the bodies in the loch, until the inlet turned scarlet from their blood. When Lachlan alone remained alive, the tribune came to him and offered him life as a legion slave.

He’d smiled at the Roman, just as he smiled now, remembering. His last act as a mortal man had been kicking that sadistic facker in the balls with such force that his testicles had ruptured.

The last thing he remembered was a cold-eyed prefect swinging his blade at Lachlan’s neck, and then nothingness—until the awakening.

You Pritani went willingly to your death, that we might live, the oldest Druid told Lachlan when he had walked out of the loch. Now you are reborn and you shall never die.

Kinley grumbled in her sleep and drew her legs up.

Lachlan stroked her silken hair and watched the gentle rise and fall of her breath, as a peculiar sensation jabbed his chest from within.