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Chapter Four

S erving as head chambermaid at Dun Talamh, Elspeth had the duty of making ready the guest chamber whenever an outsider arrived. Since the laird and his lady had presently locked themselves in their bed chamber, she went on to dust and change the bed linens for the newcomer.

Och, ’tis never enough.

She wished she could do more than simply tidy the room. The first days one spent inside the spell trap could be terrifying; she had nearly gone mad after coming here herself seven centuries past. Once the laird had explained that he and his clan had been alive in the trap for two hundred years, that had convinced her that she was losing her mind. Secretly she had tried again and again to escape, to no avail. Word had it this new woman had been grievously beaten before being pushed into the trap’s entry, and that she had swooned the moment she’d seen the laird’s wife, whom she believed had been killed in her world.

Poor lass. We must console her however we may.

From the pocket of her apron Elspeth took out some sachets she stitched from scraps of linen before stuffing them with aromatic herbs, which she tucked under the bed pillows. The soothing scent of the lavender would help calm the outsider during the lonely nights. That was when the fear had been the worst for Elspeth just after her arrival, and why she still disliked sleeping alone. Since Ava Travars had moved in with the laird nearly a month past, the guest quarters hadn’t been aired or cleaned, so she decided to do that on the morrow. A bright and clean chamber might also offer some solace to the lass.

The soft sounds of pleasure Elspeth had heard earlier through the door to the laird’s bed chamber came back to her, making her wish she had time to dally with her own swain. Sharing a bed with Kelso had not been the wisest of choices, but he had proven a vigorous lover. He didn’t mind the darkness of her skin, and often would spend the whole of the night giving her pleasure.

I cannae tell him the truth about what comes next moon.

The sound of wood sliding against wood made Elspeth frown and look around the room, at which point the doors to the standing cabinet opened and a fair-haired man stepped out. Only a little taller than her, he had such broad shoulders and muscular arms he appeared like a blonde miniature of one of the McKeran.

Elspeth ignored the little leap of joy her heart made at the sight of him. “Hunter Ulf, what do you in there?”

“Darro bid me make a map of all the passages hidden inside the stronghold for Lady Ava.” Born to Norse parents but raised by a highland clan, the hunter considered himself as Scottish as she did. “When I spied you making up the bed, I could not resist slipping out to offer my aid. Shall we muss it again together?”

His jest made her sigh; he always joked with female vassals as if he desired each of them as his lover. It was an odd way to charm women, but it always worked on Elspeth—not that she ever showed her fondness for him.

“You should join the binding ceremony next week, kind sir,” she suggested. “’Tis many a maid who should love to rumple your linens.”

Elspeth wasn’t looking forward to the gathering, held once every year to free all of the clan’s vassals from their current matches. They had two chances to make a different match, one by ladies’ choice and the other by lottery. Each pair would be wed for a year, and were expected to remain faithful to each other. It seemed harder on the males than the females, as the ladies could take any willing clansman to be their lovers at any time, as Elspeth had always done.

“I should if you’d be among those who choose.” He came over to watch her shovel the ashes from the hearth into a lidded dust bin. “You never join in, Els. Why no’? Surely you tire of bedding the McKeran men.”

Els, he called her—as if she were his favorite among the maids. If only, if only.

“I’m too dark. The male vassals desire fair-skinned lasses.” She couldn’t change the dark bronze color of her skin; her parents had been runaway slaves who had sought refuge in Scotland, which did not shame her in the slightest. “’Tisnae a hardship. The clansmen dinnae mind that I’m so brown.”

“They wouldnae care if you were purple, lass. None of them shall love you.” Ulf crouched down and took the shovel from her hand. “No’ as you desire, by men who ken what you need most.”

Men.

How could he know anything about what she wanted? She’d never spoken a word to anyone about her secret desires .

“You’re mistaken, Maister Ulf.” Elspeth turned to ask and found herself in his arms. “Och, what do you now? Release me, sir.”

“I shallnae.” Boldly he gripped her buttocks with both hands, squeezing her curves hard enough to make her gasp. “You’ve tempted me with this lovely arse one too many times, wench. Today I shall have what I want.”

Without another word he covered her full lips with his mouth, his tongue pushing inside to taste her.

Elspeth should have shoved him away, but her longing got the better of her. She had always wondered what it would be like to kiss the hunter, and her head spun as he dragged her down to the cold stone floor. There he pinned her under his surprisingly heavy body, yanking up her skirts as he wedged himself between her thighs.

“I’ll have you here before I drag you to my chamber,” he muttered, leaning over to nip the curve of her ear. “And there I’ll chain you to my bed. I shall fack you whenever I desire my cock in this sweet wee quim. Mayhap I’ll ask another to join us, and have you suck him as I plow you.”

She cried out as he came into her, his cock as hard and thick as she had ever dreamed it might be–

“Wake, lass. ”

The sound of a low voice and touch of a gentle hand made Elspeth’s eyes fly open. She found herself naked and straddling Kelso, the guard with whom she had been lovers since winterfall. Sweat streaked her body from throat to hips, and her thighs ached from being clamped tightly on either side of his. One of her hands had seized hold of his shaft, the head of which she held pressed against the opening of her quim.

Dreams in the spell trap could be uncomfortably strange and vivid, but never had such a thing happened to Elspeth in her long life.

“Forgive me.” Utterly mortified, she released him and tried to climb off, only to be held in place by his big hands. “I didnae mean to force myself on you, Kel. ’Twas…’twas a dream of us doing thus.”

Why had she lied to him? She nearly squirmed with embarrassment. Yet she couldn’t tell him she’d believed she was swiving the hunter while she sat naked atop him.

“You cannae ravish the willing, sweeting.” He lifted her as if she were fashioned from feathers and settled her atop his thickening cock.

Kelso had an earthy side to him that had always appealed to her, Elspeth thought, relieved. “I still beg your pardon.”

“I like that you dream of having me again after I fack you in truth,” he said, smiling up at her. “Do as you wish.”

Elspeth knew it was wrong to close her eyes and imagine Ulf beneath her instead of Kelso. She also knew the guard could appreciate the wetness of her excitement as she slid down on him, her softness engulfing his thick girth with all the silky heat her dream had wrought inside her. Then her own desires welled up, a torrid fountain of fire made liquid, and she worked herself over him, taking his full length into her time and again. He brought up his big hands to cup her little breasts, pinching her nipples and tugging on them until she thought she might shriek with the painful pleasure of it.

“You should wake me when I do such,” she said, panting the words.

“You moaned in your sleep, and I reckoned you dreaming,” Kelso told her, his hips arching up to meet her next downward thrust. “When I put my arms around you, you came atop me and shivered with delight. Did you desire me at your mercy, lass?”

“Aye.” She would not hurt him by admitting the truth, that she had been dreaming of one of the lovers she knew she’d never have. “I’d chain you to my bed, Kel, and put you inside me whenever I wish.”

He watched her face, his eyes glowing as she gave herself up to the pleasure bursting inside her, and only when she drooped and shook with the force of it did he utter a soft groan and pump her quim full of his seed. He then cradled her against his chest, his hands stroking her back and hips as they both calmed. A tender and thoughtful man, Kelso liked holding her after they finished.

Gods, but it shamed her.

Elspeth knew she should end it with him, and she dreaded that conversation. He was a good and kind lover, and generous to a fault with her. She should never have bedded such a decent man. She could never tell him anything about her true desires. Still, when she had come to him that first night she had told him that she would only share his bed for a short time, so he could not be surprised or hurt.

“I suspect ’tis time for you to turn to another of my brothers, aye?” Kelso murmured as if he’d heard all the thoughts in her head. “Dinnae fret, sweeting. Ever I ken ’twas how it should go. Or shall you seek the one you truly desire?”

Miserable now, she lifted her head and looked into his kind eyes. The laird had forbidden all the vassals from speaking on the time cycle they endured each year; she had to choose her words carefully now, as if she didn’t know what was to come. “I darenae, lad.”

He nodded. “Then come to me when you dinnae wish sleep alone. You’re ever and always welcome in my bed.”

Although exhaustion dragged at her, she rose and dressed, kissing him goodbye before she slipped out of his chamber. For seven hundred years she had been sharing her body with various men of the clan, and like Kelso all of the McKeran had treated her well. They tended to be passionate but gentle lovers, and always appreciated her attention, as they could not choose a lover from among the vassals, but had to wait to be chosen. Many had agreed to take her to their bed more than once, so she must have pleased them as well. She could not fault any of them for how they had regarded her. None of them tried to keep her as their lover, however, or ever uttered a single word of love to her.

Even before they had been cursed, McKeran men had not fallen in love with mortals. Their half-Fae blood made them unsuitable as husbands, and they could not sire bairns.

Sometimes Elspeth had resented the clansmen for being so stoic about matters of the heart. If not for women like her they would endure eternity in the trap as celibates like their war master. Until Ava Travars had arrived, not a single McKeran had fallen in love. Then the woman from the future and the clan’s laird had turned everything upside down .

She and Tasgall married. Why cannae the other McKeran join in the binding ceremony?

Her thoughts so engrossed her that Elspeth nearly walked into a tall, lean male body before she realized it, and skittered out of the way, her boot slipping out from under her.

“Easy there.” Ben Miller caught her arm and braced her against his side. “You can’t daydream and walk at the same time, Ms. Elspeth.”

The clan’s healer always spoke kindly to her, as if she were a younger, wayward sister. He had sharp senses that seemed to catch everything, so she knew he saw her rumpled curls, and smelled Kelso’s sweat on her skin. Yet the bland smile he gave her was exactly the same as he offered every female in the stronghold. Since his arrival he had never taken a lover, either, which had fueled much gossip.

He fancies men, I swear it, Brigid, one of the kitchen maids, had said after the healer had rejected her offer to sleep with him. He doesnae even glance at a lass’s chebs—and ever he’s alone with that wicked Norse hunter.

Una, another maid known to regularly cheat on her husband with any male she fancied, smirked. Mayhap they share a woman in bed. ’Tis a disgusting debauchery.

Since overhearing that conversation, a terrible longing had seized Elspeth, one that made her go to the garrison hall nearly every night to seek relief. She did not have to choose between the two mortal men she desired if they shared her, and imagining such roused her more than any other fancy she’d ever had. Did Ben or Ulf suspect that she desired to bed them both? That if they shared women, she wished to be one? Even thinking of it should have shamed her for the rest of forever, but her heart had always been defiant.

“Is everything all right?” Ben asked, drawing her attention back to him.

For a moment she wanted to thump him for being so oblivious, but of course she wouldn’t. Ben liked everyone at Dun Talamh, and was so friendly and helpful he had become adored by all. She loved his bright red curls, which gave him a charming boyish look, and the depths of his vivid green eyes, which always seemed so full of secrets. He’d even saved her life during the attack of the monstrous caterpillars by taking her from one before it could cocoon her entirely. She owed him much, and it wasn’t her place to judge him. It could be that he didn’t have the same needs as other mortals.

And me, the lump in her chest muttered sullenly. But how could she ever ask if Ben desired a man and a woman as his lovers?

“Thank you, Healer.” She stepped back and tried to wriggle free from his grasp, but he wouldn’t let go. “I’m quite steady now, thank you.”

Ben glanced over his shoulder. “You’ve been spending a lot of time in the garrison hall lately. Didn’t your clansman ask you to stay the night with him?”

Elspeth couldn’t believe how easily he asked such an intimate question—and why had he noticed where she spent her nights? He had no claim on her.

“My lover must rise earlier than me.” She should take this opportunity to teach him about such matters, and pretended to be offended. “’Tis unseemly to ask an unbound lass about whom she beds, Healer. Surely the lads told you that we never speak on such matters, especially when such concerns the McKeran.”

“I know, I’m just...worried about you. You seem so distracted lately.” He finally let go of her. “You should consider joining the ceremony next week.”

First Kelso, now Benedict. Did everyone expect her to wed?

“I wouldnae be chosen by anyone I desire. Fair night, Healer.” There, let him ponder that, she thought, and strode off.

Just before she reached the bed chamber she shared with Inga, the clan’s chatelaine, Elspeth saw something on the floor glitter. It resembled a round chunk of ice, but before she could pick it up it slid under another door, leaving a trail of marks that resembled scratches made of snow.

She rubbed her eyes. “Och, ’tis high time I end things with Kelso. I need more sleep.”

A lec watched Olivia as she slept cradled against him. For a time, she had lain awake, judging by the tension in her back and limbs, but gradually she’d drifted off again. A few moments after she began to sleep she had turned toward him, her hands slipping under his arms. He so relished the softness of her body against him and the whisper of her breathing on his neck that he never again wished to rise from his shabby bed. Those urges troubled him deeply as well.

Once she’s rested I must release her into Lady Ava’s care.

He didn’t want to let Olivia out of his sight. No female had ever mattered to him, and since Tasgall and Darro had freed him from his squalid life on his grandsire’s farm he’d gone out of his way to avoid them. The way females regarded him, however, had never changed. Alec knew only too well what they had wanted, what every girl, woman and crone desired when they looked upon him. He could see their lust in their unblinking eyes, how they licked their lips, and the excuses they used to try and touch him.

No’ Olivia.

Perhaps that was the reason he had been instantly drawn to this outsider woman. Not once had he noticed her regarding him with desire, envy or greed in her eyes. Her hands only held onto him with the white-knuckled desperation of the terrified. Something had happened to her that seemed so familiar to him, as if he not only knew her, but had always known her.

How? Why? Why now, after ten lifetimes of living without such?

He could take her as a lover, of course—he’d always been capable. She wasn’t a bairn but a woman grown. Thanks to his half-Fae blood he could never become a sire, so she would be safe from pregnancy. He didn’t understand why the enchantment would make her larger and shapelier as a manner of healing, but he was glad of it. Even now holding her stirred his blood, the yielding softness of her body making his heart pound faster. Then there was the perfection of her, from her glorious hair right down to her small feet.

In nearly every way she embodied his dreòlan , the imaginary lover he’d invented for himself, the sweetly yielding wren of his fantasies.

Like his dream woman, Olivia was both delicate and shapely, and her hair was touched with the brown and red of autumn-turned leaves. She had gray eyes rather than the blue-green he’d given his dream lover, and no freckles on her fair skin, but she possessed several dark brown moles he could well imagine kissing and stroking with his tongue. Her voice had been every bit as low and dulcet as he’d desired. She smelled of lilies instead of cream and peaches, aye, but the sweetness lingered in his head, as intoxicating as ten goblets of whiskey. If her nature proved as timid as he suspected, he would have to go carefully with her. Then someday soon she might offer him what he most desired.

Or she may suggest I go fack myself.

Alec closed his eyes, shifting onto his back so that he would not give in to this new and unfamiliar urge to press his body against Olivia’s. Never had his body betrayed him like this in the presence of a female, but that prospect didn’t trouble him. Indeed, it only seemed to confirm everything that his senses were telling him about the lass beside him. Whether he liked it or not, she was his ideal woman. She also stirred other, older emotions in him that he’d nearly forgotten; emotions his grandsire had taken great pleasure in beating out of him.

I shallnae inflict myself on her.

Daylight filtered into the chamber, brightening the thin darkness with the curious yellow-green glow that came with what passed as dawn here.

Leaving her took all his self-discipline, but so had every day of Alec’s life among the clan. He silently washed and dressed before he retrieved a clean tartan from his trunk. Holding the plaid reminded him of the first time Tasgall had offered it to him. He and Darro and a dozen other McKeran had come for him, and after seeing how he had lived had taken him away to their highland home. They must have learned what had been done to him as well, for later the chieftain told him that Tasgall had returned to his grandsire’s farm and set fire to the house and all the outbuildings, so that no one could ever again use them. Darro had offered him a jug of whiskey, which Alec had drained dry.

Since that day Alec had buried every memory of what had happened to him on the farm, and swore to devote the rest of his life to the laird and his brothers.

“It isn’t a dream,” Olivia said in a low voice that sent a wave of heat through him. “You’re real. It’s all real. ”

“Of course, ’tis real.” He turned around to look at her. “You ken the difference between waking and dreaming.” He went over and sat down beside her, and admired the pretty rosiness that came into her cheeks. She made him wish he had the right to kiss those pretty lips. “Do you wish to accompany me to the morning meal, or shall I send a maid with a tray so you may remain abed?”

“Oh, no, I’ll get up.” She threw back the bed linens and nearly fell in her haste to stand. She then stared wide-eyed at him. “Oh, my gosh. You heard what I said? I thought you were deaf.”

“No’ during the day.” Alec caught her elbow and held it until she steadied herself, and then brought his tartan and wrapped it around her so it covered her inadequate jacket and the front of her too-small shirt. “Those born half-Fae like me and my brothers possess different mortal weaknesses. I grow deaf at sunset, but my hearing, ’tis restored at dawn.”

“That must be horrible for you.” She moved away from him to the chair by the fire, where she sat down to put on her heeled slippers with the split seams. “Thank you for letting me stay with you last night.”

Why was she putting distance between them? He’d never had a female do that before now, and then he understood. She’s shy of me. How charming.

“You may use my room any time you wish, lass.” When she stared at him he gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ve quarters in the garrison hall as well as here, so you may have my wretched bed all to yourself.”

“It’s not wretched, exactly.” She eyed the ticking. “It’s just, ah, very low and thin. Don’t you find it uncomfortable?”

“No.” He thought of all the nights he’d flung himself onto the stone floor in the throes of a nightmare. “I sleep restless. No’ as far to fall from that.”

After banking the coals in the hearth Alec escorted her to the great hall. Every guard they passed gave him a respectful nod and then smiled at Olivia. He could also sense their stares on her back, doubtless as they tried to fathom why he walked beside her. He didn’t think she was aware of the same until she spoke.

“I’m not a dwarf,” she said, glancing up at him. “In case you were wondering. I’m just small. I mean, I was small. Now I guess I’m like ordinary women.”

Alec noted the worry in her eyes. “No one should call you ordinary, lass,” he assured her.

“Actually, that is one thing I’ve never been called. Dwarf, midget, runt—there are so many unkind words for little people.” She looked down at herself. “I’d better find out if I can borrow some clothes. These don’t fit me anymore, and everyone is staring at me.”

She must have grown accustomed to being gawked at in her time, something he’d had to tolerate since boyhood. “’Tis of no consequence.”

“In my time people judge others on their appearance. It’s always bothered me to be stared at because I knew what others thought of me.” She didn’t sound resentful, only resigned. “Before this happened, when I met them for the first time they mistook me for a child, or assumed I had a medical or genetic condition. They found it awkward to talk to me, too.”

Alec recalled how he’d instantly assumed her to be a child. “Why? Your size truly matters naught.”

“Says a man who is at least six-foot-four.” She gave him a rueful look. “I never minded being different, you know. I just wished people wouldn’t judge me by my appearance. Being small didn’t make me less of a person.” She held out her arms. “And having the body of an average woman doesn’t make me better than I was, either.”

“Many make similar judgements of me, only they say too much within my hearing.” Alec gestured at his face. “How can a man have such girlish features? None among the McKeran share the same. He’s too beauteous. ’Tis unnatural. Must be a lass attempting to pass as a lad. ”

“That’s ridiculous,” Olivia said. “You’re very attractive, of course, but you don’t look like a woman at all.”

“My thanks.” His heart swelled so much in that moment he would have hugged her, only they had reached the archway leading into the great hall. “Here are some of my brothers.”

Instead of leading her inside he halted and gave her a moment to survey the cavernous room, in which hundreds of clansmen had gathered to have their first meal of the day. Beyond them the laird, his lady and some of the clan’s senior chieftains occupied the great table on the raised dais.

“You certainly have a lot of them,” Olivia murmured.

Alec folded his hand over hers. “They’re good lads.” When she didn’t move he wondered if he had rushed her too quickly into this. “If you wish I’d be glad to fetch a tray for us, so we may break our fast in a quieter spot.”

“Do I look that scared?” She took a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. I’m still not used to being around a lot of people. All the voices are hard to get used to.”

Before he could ask why, she led him into the hall, her hand trembling slightly in his as she made her way through the crowded trestle tables. His brothers collectively regarded her with a little more attention than they usually gave a newly arrived outsider, but as he glared at them they returned their attention to their meals. It reminded him, however, that Olivia would soon be able to take her pick of the men at Dun Talamh.

She thinks me attractive, Alec told himself. Very attractive, she said. Perhaps he could endear himself to her; she had shown some attachment to him already. Then he realized what he was thinking and wanted to swear at himself. I’ve no time to trifle with a female, even one who suits me so well.

“Good morning, Miz Gibson.” Ava gestured to the laird. “This is Tasgall McKeran, my husband and head of the clan. Next to him is Darro, his younger brother and our senior chieftain.”

As the laird’s wife continued making introductions, Alec saw Farlan coming out of the kitchens with Rory, the clan’s armorer. The latter took one look at Olivia, turned on his heel and departed, while the seneschal came over with more platters of food and a frown.

“Why did Rory go?” Alec muttered to him.

“Fack if I ken. He’s in another mood.” Farlan put the platters on the table, smiling as Ava introduced him, and then made a subtle hand signal to Alec indicating he’d speak to him later before striding out of the hall.

Something was amiss with their armorer, and had been since the time cycle of the trap had restarted this year.

Alec suspected it might have something to do with Rory being caught and cocooned by the enchanted creatures that someone had sent into the trap. According to Farlan the armorer had been even more silent and reclusive since being freed by the laird. Darro claimed Rory had stopped sleeping and spent much of his time pacing along the outer curtain wall as would a restless, caged animal—similar to what Alec had been doing since the clan had been cursed.

He could have told his younger brother not to bother, for he had tried every method he could fathom to force his way out through the stone wall. What little damage Alec managed to do to the ten-foot-thick structure reverted in a few seconds back to its original state. Ava believed the perimeter of the trap, as she called it, contained the perennial magic that kept Dun Talamh separated from the mortal realm and trapped in a time loop that replayed the events of the terrible year before the clan had been cursed .

A hand touched his sleeve. “Do you need to leave?”

Alec looked down at Olivia’s solemn face. Before he broke his fast he’d made it his habit to hear reports from the night watch commanders and the patrols that encircled the stronghold after dark. He also needed to speak with Farlan about Rory, and in the garrison hall a dozen tasks awaited him. The laird would wish to hear how preparations for the next visit by the MacBren and his thugs had progressed, and issue orders for the day.

None of that meant anything to him when he saw the dread in her eyes. She’d drawn on all her courage to come and join him and his brothers for the meal. He also needed to work on further endearing himself to her, so she would come to depend on him. It was supremely selfish, since he couldn’t take her to his bed. Yet, he couldn’t abide the notion of her in another man’s arms.

“No’ now, lass,” Alec told her, keeping his tone mild. “Do you favor a hot or cold drink with your morning meals?”