Page 5 of To Wed a Highlander (A Highland Magic Collection #3)

Chapter 5

“N ie ,” 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.