Insolent: The Moray Druids #1 (Highland Historical) (3 page)

Bael returned to consciousness with the aimless drift of a feather upon a breeze. To fall was inevitable, but the journey was unhurried. Small perceptions permeated his senses one at a time. His nose twitched at the smell of earth and moss and clean water. Though, something else drifted upon his breath. The aroma of ripe fruit and exotic spices. Cinnamon, maybe. He filled his lungs to the brim, catching the unmistakable scent of a woman.

A maiden of Valhalla, perhaps? Or a Valkyrie come to lead him to his eternal glory in the halls of Freya?

His hearing returned second, pricking to the tranquil sound of a stream and the wind rustling through trees and across blades of summer grass. A soft song harmonized with the soothing sounds, the voice achingly sweet and dripping with innocence. Bael didn’t recognize any of the words, but then he had not yet learned the language of angels.

Awareness of his body came next. He was on his back, pillowed by soft ground and moss. His skin bared and roughened by a gentle, yet chilly breeze. Though his thoughts were sluggish and muddled, he felt clean and vital and—powerful. Coursing with more magick than his usual fledgling abilities, he felt as though he could run until he ran out of earth.

Opening his eyes, he found a blanket of stars winking through a canopy of trees. Night in Valhalla? Did the Gods sleep? Or did they use the darkness as his body obviously wanted to now? For fucking.

His dark vision was unchanged in this place, honed to shades and shadows, but just as sharp as in the daytime. A moon hung heavy in the sky and painted the night an eerie blue.

How could this be?

He turned toward the sound of the brook and the chanting sing-song voice, and knew he must be dead, because his heart stalled and his breath froze for long enough to kill any man.

The bathing woman knelt in the shallow brook, her back to him, cupping water and splashing it over her shoulders. Her skin looked soft and luminous in the moonlight, and Bael’s eyes couldn’t help but follow the glistening rivulets as they ran down the column of her spine. She was the culmination of every warrior’s desire. Nothing but soft curves and pale skin. The opposite of his own utilitarian body, her every lush dip and round flare was meant to please, entice and satisfy.

Bael stood. His mouth flooded and his sex pulsed impossibly harder, fuller, and more insistent than ever before in his life.

At last. This bathing siren was
his
for the taking. His reward for a century of loneliness, war and bloodshed. He’d done everything asked of him by the Berserker elders, even those younger than himself. He’d endured the censure and disgust of those who cursed his tainted blood, and stood as a dark stain among a horde of fair-skinned, light-eyed warriors.

There was a myth among the Berserker temple, one that promised the most fearsome, and most valiant warriors would be led into Valhalla by one of Freya’s handmaidens. Before being welcomed into the hall of the All Father, Odin, the handmaiden would first bathe him while he rested his battle-weary bones, and then fulfill his every sexual desire, no matter how dark or inconceivable.

Now that he’d died in battle, fighting for the survival of his Nordic kin who would never truly accept him as one of their own, Freya had granted him the gift of her handmaiden.

Bael could hardly believe it. For a long time he’d yearned for death, for a release from his empty prison. If he’d have known heaven would be so sweet, he would have invaded England by himself to ensure his demise decades ago.

His desires were neither dark nor devious, they were simple and they were few. He had no use for exotic rituals or the increasingly shameful pleasures sought by the men in his army. He merely yearned for the feel of a woman’s flesh so long denied him. For a touch of softness in this hard and brutal existence. To feel her lie beneath him and cradle him inside her warmth until he lost himself. He craved both acceptance and release. And here was the woman who would grant him a taste of that, if only for a night.  

Mine.

Bael’s beast growled a claim so strong, a dawning stroke of need and elation lanced through him, followed by a crippling wave of lust and possession.

No
, Bael thought. Things were different here in Valhalla. He wouldn’t have to worry about mating.

The woman’s song died on a gasp, and she blindly turned toward him, the tips of her full, luxuriant breasts covered by wet and heavy hair.

He’d never been driven to his knees by any living soul, no matter how hard they tried, but the eruption of frenzy those full breasts released nearly buckled his legs from beneath him.

Staggering forward, Bael splashed into the stream, yanked her up from where she knelt, and stole the protest from her mouth by sealing it with his own. She tensed against him at first, but then melted with a sound of surrender. Her body was cool and damp from the stream against his heated flesh. She felt good. Invigorating. Her lips seemed soft and familiar, as though he’d kissed them before, sampled their sweetness, and reveled in their pliant warmth.

It had been decades since he’d felt the touch of another. Fifty years since a woman had pressed herself against him as she did now. Bael had almost forgotten what a woman felt like, but he knew without a doubt that no other woman he’d ever touched came close to the sensual perfection of the one in his arms.

The scent of her, ripe fruits and spices, frayed the edges of his sanity.

With a moan, equal parts pleasure and torture, Bael ran his hands down the dramatic slope of her back as it dipped into a narrow waist and flared into an ass that overflowed his kneading palms. Gods, she couldn’t
be
any more perfect than this. He cared little to feel bones beneath a woman’s flesh. He wanted substance and softness. To fill his big hands and feast his eyes on every inch. He much preferred the luscious shape of her body to the hard, muscled shield maidens of the north, or the skin-and-bone whores his men paid for.

The way her flesh slid along his as she drew her hands up his arms and across the span of his shoulders to twine about his neck, unstitched the last fibers of his self-control. Digging his fingers into her ass, he hefted her against him and split her legs to wrap around his trunk.

Bael even liked the way she gasped in shock and clung to him with her arms and knees as though his actions surprised her.

Yes
. Her long legs would be wrapped around parts of him until morning dawned in Valhalla. His waist. His head. Bael planned to feast on her flesh and her sex. To feed her his own. To take pleasure in the sweetness of her voice as she came for him and spill his release inside her again and again.

Gods, it had been
so
long. A lifetime.

Carrying her to the soft mossy bank without separating their fused mouths, he lowered them both to the ground and covered her body with his.

Tonight was his gift from the Gods, and after a century of sacrifice and denial, he was going to take full advantage of his reward.

***

Morgana had felt the Berserker awaken, could sense him even in darkness. But she’d been unaware that he’d moved until he’d snatched her from her bath and lay claim to her mouth.

Now she lay beneath this fiercely masculine creature, his pulsating erection hot and hard against her belly, her knees clutching at his flanks as though inviting him inside her.

She was aware of the danger of their precarious position, but couldn’t seem to tear her mouth away from those magical lips of his. It wasn’t their contrast to the unmitigated hardness of the rest of him, nor was it the arousal that flooded her the moment their flesh had connected.

Not entirely, anyway.

What kept her latched to him was the pure and raw emotion emitting from his every pore. She’d fallaciously assumed he was a beast of rage, need, and impulse. But the signature his aura blanketed about them proved her wrong. He bled a lonely sort of anger that hid within it a longing born of deprivation.

Morgana had never before touched someone so—alone. She could read his almost reverent awe as he explored her. Was charmed by his elated joy when she’d wrapped her legs around him. And was seduced by the dominant strength of his arousal mixed with the careful way in which he avoided using that strength to harm or subdue her.

Not that she’d
needed
to be restrained.

For some alarming reason, her body responded to him with the same kind of violent intensity. In his arms, she became a creature of primeval desires and pure instinct. Thoughts of consequence and reason flowed away from her like driftwood in a strong current.  

He was nothing but a large mass of shadows and angles backlit by a blue moon. Some silvery light shredded against the sharp slash of his cheekbone, or caught the sheen of his dark hair, but his eyes remained a mystery to her. His expressions hidden. She didn’t need to see them to understand what she needed to know.

The Berserker meant to make her his mate, in the most fundamental sense of the word.

Unless she stopped him. And she should—stop him—any moment now. There was too much she didn’t know. The man drawing his lips down to worship the sensitive hollow of her neck had only just yesterday slaughtered a hundred men. He was dangerous, nay, lethal. And she couldn’t afford another enemy right now. Not one as powerful as this.

But, oh, those lips. Those wicked, mesmerizing lips. How could she stop them when they left a trail of devastating desire in their wake? Every inch of skin he explored came alive as if for the first time.

His hands didn’t remain passive, either. They spanned her naked flesh with the exuberance of a novice and the skill of an incubus, summoning storms that drenched her with desire and drowned her in sensation.

Feminine muscles clenched as long, venturing fingers reached between their bodies and stroked along the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. Thrills danced along her nerves and jolted up her legs to settle into moist folds of her sex.

Morgana had been aroused before. Had explored her passions with bold lads in her highland clan, but never had the threat of a touch affected her so intensely. Her blood sang for it. Her body vibrated with need. Her skin flushed with anticipation.

A sound of pure masculine delight rumbled from his throat as his probing fingers slid through the slick cleft of her sex to brush along the quivering place that shot pure bliss to the most miniscule fibers that comprised her very being.

Her arousal was such that he didn’t even need to manipulate the soft aperture of flesh to elicit pleasure. But he did. With a possessive nibble at her shoulder, he worked his strong fingers in a circular motion, his lips branding their way down her chest to nuzzle at her trembling breasts.

Morgana’s breath ebbed and flowed with the sure movements of his hand. Her beast touched her as though he found as much pleasure in the act as she. His cock became hotter and fuller against her thigh, but he didn’t move to claim her, seeming content in the slick unhurried movements of his strong fingers against her.

Pressure built quickly, and her hips jerked and bucked beneath him. That pressure dissolving into a pleasure so intense, she couldn’t hold in her panting cries of release as it crested and crashed like the tidal waves of a gale storm. When Morgana wound so tight she thought she might break, the Berserker slid a finger inside her, his thumb remaining to thrum at the nub of pliant flesh.

Stars exploded behind her closed eyes. The intrusion was just a finger, but his hand was big, his fingers long. She climaxed on a pulsating quiver that caused her legs to clench around his hips as though to imprison her to him. Her cries must have rung through the night and scared any lurking creatures away, so transcendent was the sensation.

“Yes,” she gasped in a strained whisper, feeling the sensations begin to ebb, not ready to be through with it yet. “Don’t stop! Don’t ever stop,” she begged.

He stopped. Rearing back as though she attacked him, his shadow loomed over her like the devil’s own angel of wrath.

“
Hvorfor snakker du i den engelske tungen
?” he demanded in a voice as sharp as the blades of his axe.

Perplexed and drugged soporific by the pleasure he’d just given her, she could only stare up at his shadow in puzzlement. How could she answer him in a language she’d never learned? Oh dear, this just became way more complicated. What did he want? What had angered him?

“I’m sorry, warrior,” she ventured, her chest fluttering with panting breaths. “Do you not speak English?” It was almost certain he didn’t speak in her native Gaelic tongue.

“This heaven is for the Northmen,” he growled back at her in perfect English. “You sound like a Pict and speak in the English tongue.”

Brows drawing together, she lifted herself up on her elbows. “I
am
a Pict,” she confirmed. “And, while Yorkshire is a lovely place, I’d hardly call it
heaven
.”

“Yorkshire.” He tested the word as though it were alien to him. Then sprang off her with a feral curse, and snatched up his axe and swung it toward her. The blade came to a halt in the valley between her breasts, kissing her sternum but not breaking the skin.

“What are you?” he demanded. “And if you lie to me, I’ll spill your blood.”

“You can’t spill my blood, Berserker.” Morgana said calmly, trying to maintain composure while she gathered her wits and clenched her thighs together. “I am your mate.”

“
Nie
,” Bael’s nostrils flared on a breath of pure desolation. “I’ll
not
do this again,” he snarled, tempted to press the axe deeper into the quivering flesh of the temptress sprawled on the moss, and end them both. This wasn’t happening. He was supposed to be dead. He’d
earned
it.

“What do you mean, again?” she asked softly. “We’ve not met before this day.”

Bael’s eyes widened. He’d heard that voice before. He
knew
that face. Would kill for it. Die for it. For
her
. He’d left his army behind for her, and they’d likely been slaughtered by the Saxons and claimed their reward in the afterlife.

“Nie!” he groaned, flinging his axe to the ground. “Nie, Nie,
Nie
!” Bael’s punch felled a tree, and the woman leapt to her feet, blindly trying to find him in the dark.

“Please, don’t be upset,” she begged. “I didn’t
mean
to kiss you. It’s just that—you were dying, you see, and my hands were bound so the only way I could save your life was to breathe magick into your lungs. I had no
idea
at the time you were a Berserker.”

“You had no right!” Bael roared, furious enough to shake the woman. Rattle her teeth. He dare not touch her, though. He wouldn’t be responsible for his actions if he caught sight of those tempting breasts bouncing with movement. “My life was not your responsibility to save. There is glory in death.
Release
. You have stolen that from me,
witch
.” He thrust his finger at her.

“We prefer the term
Druid
,” she corrected, then squeaked when irritation flared and he took a threatening step toward her. Covering the noise with false bravado, she distracted him by planting her hands on those generous hips. “And do forgive me for
saving your life
.” Her sweet voice dripped with sarcasm. “But I needed you.”

Of course that was why. This wasn’t even a misguided attempt at kindness, she was just another woman wanting to use him, make demands of him.

Bael hated that he couldn’t stop drinking in the sight of her like a doomed man drank mead. She would be just as honey-sweet on his tongue. “What do you want from me?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“I need your help… saving the world,” she ventured.

Bael retrieved his axe. “Did you not hear me, Woman? I am
done
with this world!” He thrust his axe into her hand and used his own to shackle her fingers around it before pressing the blade against his skin. “This is your mistake, now fix it.”

“What do you mean?” she eyed the weapon skeptically.

“I was dying when you found me. Send me to Valhalla.”

“Nay!” she cried, struggling in vain to break his grip.

“Do it!” he goaded through clenched teeth, desperate to be free of yet another hellish lifetime of loneliness and rejection. He couldn’t face it, not again. “Do not shackle me to you. It is too cruel.”

Hurt flared in her wide, clear eyes and anger followed it. “You seemed to want me plenty only moments ago, and after I healed you.”

Memory returned to him as his beast rippled beneath his skin, closer to the surface now. He’d been mated. That first kiss, the one that had breathed life back into his body had bound him to her for the entirety of her life. Bael shuddered. There was nothing in the world as sweet as her lips. He still wanted her plenty. So much it was physically painful. “That wasn’t me,” he said irritably, trying to push the memory out of his mind. “I mean—it was—my Berserker beast.”

The witch didn’t stop her struggling against his grip. “I rather liked
him
,” she muttered.

He’d liked her too, Bael thought bitterly. Liked her enough to mate with her.

Gods be damned.

“Hold still, witch,” he said more gently.

“Druid,” she corrected again, still tugging against his hold.

“Listen to me,” he demanded. And she paused, blinking up at him. “I am old—”

“Oh, you can’t be more than forty,” she interrupted him.

He tossed her an irate glare of warning before realizing she likely couldn’t see him very well in the dark, despite the moonlight. “I have raided and warred for more than a century. I’m done. And this world is well rid of me. I think you are a woman with a gentle heart. I beg you, end my life. Send me to my reward. The Gods know I’ve earned it.”

Her eyes softened, mirroring an alarming amount of his own bleak emotion back at him.

“I-I can’t,” she whispered, her chin wobbling precariously. “I’m sorry, warrior.”

“You
can
.” he stepped into the blade, shoving it beneath his neck. “It’s sharp, and if you strike fast, I’ll feel no pain.”

“You don’t understand.” She shook her head side to side in little horrified jerks.

“No
you
don’t understand,” he gritted out. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be tied to a woman who doesn’t want you. You don’t understand what it’s like to have no other purpose than to spill blood and take life. You can’t know how many terrified screams echo in my head on a silent night like this. Men. Women—”

“Stop!” she cried. Pulling at the axe with enough strength to startle him into letting it go. It fell to the moss with a great
whump
. The witch brought her hands up against her heart, and clutched at her chest as though it was breaking. “Stop remembering,” she begged, sudden tears staining her face. “I can feel your pain. It’s tearing me apart.
Please
!”

Stabbed with a dagger of guilt, Bael reached for her and she jerked away from him.

“I’m empathic,” she moaned, wrapping her arms around her naked waist and bending beneath the hurt. “I
do
understand.”

Bael had been carrying this weight with him for so long, he’d adjusted to it. If his broad shoulders still felt like bowing beneath it, he could only imagine how it could crush a soft creature like her. With great effort, he thrust it down in that deep, dark place within himself where it resided, knowing it wouldn’t stay locked away for long.

“Do you see now?” he murmured. “It would be better for us both if you ended it. I cannot do it myself. Such a dishonor would keep me from the halls of Freya.”

She straightened and nodded, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I am an Autumn Druid,” she said tearfully. “My element is
water
. Blood is comprised mostly of water, and blood magick is strong and dark in the hands of one with my power.” Her eyes were earnest pools in her luminous face. “So you see, warrior, I have taken a vow never to spill even one drop of another’s blood. Not by weapon or with my magick.”

Bael’s shoulders fell. “Then I will go back to the Saxons, and take as many of them to the afterlife with me as I can.”

Her eyes suddenly brightened as though she had an idea. “Or, perhaps you can take me home to Loch Fyne. My brother, Malcolm,
hates
Vikings. He’d probably kill you soon as look at you. Especially if I tell him that we’ve…that we’re… What we did just now.” Even in the near-darkness, her eyes flickered down toward the mossy earth.

Bael longed for the pleasant illusion of before. More than tempted to pull that lush, naked body close and drag her back to the moss beneath him, he clenched his fists at his sides as recognition jolted through him.

“You are a Pict.” He took a step toward her, repeating her last words. “Your brother is named Malcolm.” She retreated from his next step. “And you hie from Loch Fyne.”

“Aye,” she nodded, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering in the chilly autumn night.

Bael snarled, trying to ignore his instinct to warm her. “Is your brother not the prodigal King of the Picts, Malcolm, The Mormaer of Moray? The last of the Highland Druids?”

His little mate snorted and tossed her head, her eyes flashing with their first bit of temper. “He was never prodigal, our father, Duncan, was betrayed and Malcolm was taken captive. And, I’ll have you know, Malcolm is most definitely not the last of the Druids, there are three of us in the de Moray family alone.” Her imperious posture was a bit ruined by her nudity. “And yes, while he is one of last
male
Druids left on this earth; there are more than a few females left. Though our numbers are quickly dwindling.”

“You mean to tell me you’re a Pictish Princess?”

“A bit,” she winced, obviously correctly reading the disapproval in his voice. “I am Morgana de Moray. Malcolm is my older brother.” She dipped her head in a polite gesture, as though from habit.

“Everyone knows only men of your people are Druids.” Bael crossed his arms over his chest.

She scoffed again, flipping her hair over one shoulder uncovering a globe of pink-tipped perfection, obviously unaware that he could see her.

Bael’s mouth watered at the memory of her breast in his mouth and bit back a frustrated groan at the unfairness of it all.

“Everyone
knows
that because it is what the Druid men
wanted
everyone to think. It is how they protected the Druid women from the Romans and the Vikings.” She glanced up at him, though Bael knew she only saw shadows. “When Malcolm was captured, my cousin Kenna and I were protected no longer, and that is how I find myself so far from Loch Fyne. That is why I saved you, warrior, because I knew when I saw you take that bridge on your own, that you were the only man alive who could get me home.”

“You were wrong.” Bael informed her, stooping to gather his axe and looking around for his trews. He found them stretched out by the river, clean and dry.

Just how long
had
he been asleep? He went to them, turning his back on the woman whose glowing nakedness was becoming more and more difficult to ignore. “Put some fucking clothes on,” he ordered.

“But… it’s dark,” she pointed out needlessly. “Why does it matter?”

“I can
see
in the dark,” he growled. “I can see
everything
.”

“Oh,” she gasped, sounding less distressed than she should. “Oh my.”

Bael heard her soft foot falls as she tiptoed next to him and snatched her shift and kirtle from the moss. Shaking it out, she pulled it over her head in an adorable sort of hurry.

My mate
.

Bael shook his head, helpless frustration gathering in his soul.
No
. Never again. He’d been cursed with a mate before. And she’d made the second half of his life more miserable than the first.

There was only one way to free himself from this damnable curse.

And that was to die.