Page 6 of Farlan (Immortal Highlander Clan McKeran #3)

A sheen like white lace lightened her gaze, and then her fingers tightened around his. The dim memory of cracked stone tumbling down on both of them suddenly filled Farlan’s head.

No’ a dream. We’re trapped in a collapse.

“There’s no escape,” she said, her tone slightly higher. “Save me, please.”

“Dinnae move,” he told her.

If she had been buried by the collapsing wall, Farlan thought, it would be hours before the spell trap reset and restored the passage to how it had been before the disaster, or so he hoped.

Over the last three moons strange changes had happened to the enchantment that kept the McKeran Clan and their vassals imprisoned in a place out of time.

Although for nine hundred years they had been forced to relieve the same year over and again, now the events of that terrible time had begun shifting.

“I won’t leave you,” the woman said, touching his cheek. “All that matters is that we’re together. I want to go with you into the afterlife.”

“We shallnae die.” Her affection prompted him to turn his head and kiss her palm. Heat bloomed inside him the moment he did, and he knew then he would do anything to have her as his. “You’ll live forever here, with me, aye?”

Her beautiful lips curved for the first time. “Do you promise me you’ll never leave me?”

Darkness plunged down around them, and time lost its meaning. Then, with an abruptness that startled him, he came awake .

“I can’t believe this,” a low, husky voice grumbled as more rock shifted and tumbled.

The signs of a new collapse made Farlan jolt upright, which created a cloud of dust that made him cough as he struggled to his feet. He blinked a few times before his eyes adjusted to the lack of light.

“My lady?” He shook off the debris and looked all around him.

No one answered him, but he heard a scraping sound and saw a flicker of light coming from one side of the pile of collapsed stone in front of him.

He could also smell fire and ice again, and followed the scent, stopping just in time to prevent colliding with a figure that emerged from the side of the rubble.

The woman who had appeared in his dream held a dying torch in one hand and his dagger in the other.

“We’re trapped.” She wedged the end of the torch between two broken stones on the pile of rubble and then tucked his dagger back into the sheath on his belt. “Do you have a phone? My bag is buried under all that debris, I think.”

Perhaps it had been a trick of the shared dream, only everything about the lady confounded him.

Although dust covered her from head to toe, and her garments had been torn in several places, she seemed at first as tranquil as she had in the cottage garden.

Dark as it was in the pocket of space they shared, she seemed to give off a faint, white glow, which along with her remarkable beauty suggested she might not be entirely mortal.

Farlan moved closer to her when he saw how she was shivering, but when he reached for his tartan she retreated, her eyes going wide.

That hurt him, but he had no notion as to why. She had every right to be afraid of a big man when she had no manner in which to escape him.

“I shallnae hurt you, my lady,” he told her as he looked around for his torch. “How may I help?”

“Unless you have a bulldozer, I don’t think you can. I’ve been trying to dig through the rubble, but the stones keep falling from the other side.” She sounded frustrated. “What’s your name?”

“Farlan McKeran.” He saw the gleam of metal, and retrieved his extinguished torch from where it had fallen. “And yours, my lady?”

She turned away. “Grace Johansen.”

He propped the torch between two cracked stones and relit it with his fire steel.

Because they had been cut off from the rest of Dun Talamh he knew she remained unaware of the spell trap and how it worked.

The bastart who had cursed the clan would not have sent in someone ignorant of the enchantment—unless he wanted her to be convincing.

Och, he was becoming as suspicious as Alec, the clan’s war master—and how could such a beauty be involved in such evil?

“Do you have a phone?” Grace asked.

“No, I dinnae.” The torch suddenly went out and the passage went dark again as the air instantly grew icy. Farlan drew his dagger and stepped in front of the woman to shield her. “Show yourself.”

O n the road leading to McKeran’s Castle, Bodach paced the shoulder as his mortal minion hunched inside an abandoned rental car.

“Just leave it somewhere the authorities can find it easily,” he told Rona Dickens as he peered in to inspect the interior one last time.

“You’re certain you didn’t find anything she might have left in there?

I can’t send this one to the chop shop. There can’t be anything that connects the nosy bimbo to me. ”

She finished hot-wiring the car and sat up to beam at him, her plain, pinched face filled with adoration.

“I’ll look through it again before I leave it near the water, Master.” She tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear, her thin fingers looking white and spidery against the stringy locks. “Is there anything else I should do? ”

Rona would never be called a beauty, but she had proven incredibly helpful to Bodach.

She’d been serving him since he’d freed her by killing her dark Fae mistress and her halfling lover, both of whom had intended to murder him.

The woman possessed all manner of useful talents, many of them criminal, and in her adoration of him would also perform any intimate act he demanded.

Although he hadn’t bespelled her, she obeyed him without hesitation.

Now he wondered why he’d never before taken a human love slave.

“Just do it someplace they have no cameras, then call a taxi.” He handed her the cash for the cab she’d have to take back and noticed her cheeks turning pink. “I’ve been bedding you for a month now. How can you still be shy of me?”

“I’m not, Master.” Her eyelashes swept down. “It’s just that you’re so good to me.”

Rona’s life had brought her to him, as she had been ill-treated since early childhood.

She had escaped her abusive family only by marrying a brute who had nearly beaten her to death.

After running away and changing her name to hide from her husband, she’d gone to work for the dark Fae, who had bespelled and used her for nefarious purposes while feeding on her life energy.

Bodach, who had been reviled by his parents and all other Fae since his birth, knew only too well how maltreatment could shape a soul.

The progeny of two dark Fae goblins who had been expressly forbidden from mating, his birth had horrified his parents’ tribes, as their portents predicted he would bring disaster and ruin wherever he went.

His own mother had left him chained in a cavern filled with ravenous vampiric red Fae crystals, which should have sucked the life out of him.

Instead they had become the foundation of his power, and had protected and nurtured him since he’d been exiled by the dark Fae queen to the mortal realm.

“Would you kiss me goodbye, Master?” Rona asked timidly.

Her shy request infuriated him, and he jerked open the door and dragged her out, thrusting her against the side of the car. “Do you believe you command me, mortal?”

Fear filled her gaze, but with it glittered a strange excitement. “No, Master. I serve you.”

He flipped her around, gripping her by the neck as he reached under her skirt and yanked down her panties.

“Don’t move.” Wedging himself against her made him aware of how aroused she had grown, which gratified him.

“The fact that I allow you to keep breathing is your only reward. You ask for nothing from me. Nothing, do you understand? ”

“Of course, as you say, Master.” She nodded frantically.

A car passing by them slowed, and a young man gawked at them.

Bodach tossed out a tendril of power to snare the mortal male’s mind and compelled him to park on the shoulder just ahead of the rental.

He got out of his car and trudged over to them, his face filled with the lust he was no longer concealing.

Knowing this would be the perfect punishment, Bodach put his hand on the back of Rona’s neck.

“Watch us,” he told the mortal male, and then shoved her legs wider apart.

Rona made several sounds of distress as Bodach penetrated her, but she soon abandoned her pretense, forgot their audience and moaned with pleasure.

The male grew slack-jawed, and absently rubbed his bulging crotch as he watched them couple.

Being observed seemed to arouse Rona even more than harsh handling.

Perhaps he would make a habit of taking her in front of any passing mortal.

The young male panted along with Rona as she shuddered with her orgasm, and kept muttering something under his breath.

“Give it to her,” was what the man was saying, over and over, until he, too, jerked and a large wet stain spread on the front of his trousers.

Bodach waved the mortal away, compelling him to drive off, and then drew out of his mortal minion. Rona caught his gaze, dropped to her knees and bowed her head.

“Thank you, Master,” she said breathlessly.

Properly appeased, Bodach gestured for her to stand. “After you complete your task you will go to the hotel, bathe, and prepare yourself for more. Now go, and do not make any more mistakes.”