Indecent: The Moray Druids #2 (Highland Historical) (2 page)

But what flared at him from her eyes the color of smelted amber slowed time and tightened his skin as all the world receded from his heightened notice.
Fire.
The figurative kind, at first. Defiance and strength, licked by a sensual flicker that stunned him in light of their present circumstance.

Instant sensation took Niall in its thrall. The rivulets of rain running down his forearm to drip from his elbow became a physical caress. The rasp of his clothing against his burning skin an unexpected irritation he needed to be rid of. The muscles along his spine clenched and rolled with the need to be rhythmically thrusting.

Mine
.

He’d thought such an instinct would belong to his Berserker, but the thought echoed from his head, not from within the cage of his ribs where the beast resided, dormant for the present moment.

Along with the unexpected sensual heat coiling through him, softer warmth began to glow through his veins as well, alarming him more than the uncontrolled lust. It was foreign, gentle, and damned unsettling.

“What are your crimes, priestess?” he murmured through lips aching for a taste of her.

“Not so many as yours, Berserker,” she answered in a voice comprised entirely of smoke and sex.

Niall had to close his eyes for a moment to hide from her beauty like a coward he’d never been. Even in her wretched state, the startling perfection of her features burned themselves into his vision as though he’d been staring at the sun. When he looked away, the shadow was still branded into his eyes, blinding him to all but her radiance.

Fuck.
What was happening to him
?

“Are you going to try and kill me?” she asked, motioning to the dagger in his other hand with her eyes.

Niall had to blink again to stop from watching the way water slid along her proud, high cheekbones to collect in the corners of her sensuous mouth. “I am not your enemy,” he insisted, and proved it by lifting his dagger and slicing through the ropes at her wrists.

With a weak sound, she collapsed, and Niall caught her before she fell to the mud, pulling her against him. The strength he’d seen in her eyes must not have existed in her legs.

Stepping into her, Niall pressed his body fully against hers, hiding her breasts from the unrepentantly hungry eyes of his men, hating the thickness of his leather armor as it hid their softness from his touch.

She hissed when his hands pressed against her back, and he drew them away instantly, not realizing the extent of her wounds until it was too late.

Blood.

Niall stared at it as though he’d never seen it before, watching the rainwater turn the crimson into a lighter pink in his palm. A familiar stirring radiated through him. Rage. Mayhem.

Panic?

Nie
. He couldn’t have saved this wounded nun only to be forced to violently take her life. She was different. He wanted her. Not only that, he wanted to
know
her. To see her. To save her. Not just from the pain of her wounds, but from himself.

“Run,” he growled the last word his sharpening teeth would be able to utter before the beast completely overtook him in a voice darkened with animal rage. He could feel it mount. Feel his veins pulse with fury, bloodlust, and strength.

Niall pulled away from the woman as the vibrancy of the evening turned to predatory shadows of silver and grey. As usual all color disappeared, leaving only the shapes of his victims.

All color, but for the very real flames igniting
her
eyes.

“Everyone get back. Bar the door.” Ingmar’s voice was deadly serious, which underscored the danger of the situation. “Better start praying, ladies,” he warned. “Make peace with your God, because you are about to meet him.”

To Kenna de Moray, watching a Berserker with the golden visage of a Norse God turn into a demon with eyes the color of charred coals had to be one of the most defining moments of her short life.

She’d known what he was, even when his clear, ice-blue gaze had heated from one of arrogant dispassion, to branding possession. It was as though she could feel the beast that lay dormant inside of him. Could sense the frenzy that was capable of bursting forth from the cold and capable leader.

She just hadn’t known she would see that beast so soon.

Berserkers killed. It was all they did. They had no mercy. No control. Once the bloodlust took them, they indiscriminately slaughtered whatever life they could reach.

A flash of magick burned before her, bringing images of the near future. The stones of the courtyard painted with rivers of blood. The folds of habits, once lily-white, stained crimson. Rain washing gore and carnage into the gardens. The victorious roar of a Berserker beast, and then the tortured roar of a man…

Kenna and the Berserker would be the only two left standing.

What would happen then
?

There was no time to think. No time to philosophically consider the good of the many versus the good of the few. She needed to live in order to keep the Doomsday Grimoire safe. In order to stay hidden, she couldn’t use her magick. Not on purpose. But, could she allow this Berserker to be unleashed upon this cloistered order of nuns? Women who thought the worst of her, who stood by while she was beaten and berated?

Pain and weakness wrought by the lashes of hatred and the cold of the rain dissipated behind a surge of fear, and then of her fire.
Nay
. She couldn’t let this man, who was turning into a creature more fearsome and beautiful than she’d ever seen, lay waste to the convent that had become her home.

These women weren’t evil. They were afraid. Ignorant. They didn’t deserve to be slaughtered like beasts.

The Berserker still held her, his grip becoming stronger, his teeth sharper, his eyes impossibly darker. Of all the abbey’s in the world, why did this warrior have to pick
hers
?

When a terrified scream from a young novice drew his attention, Kenna knew she had to act now and live with the consequences.

Feeding on the anger of Mother Superior, the terror of her sisters, and the heat burning from the warrior before her, she drew the flames from the torches beneath the awning and created a wall of fire.

Battle-hewn Viking warriors jumped away from the blaze, lest it claim their flesh, and then their lives. Pagans had an innate fear of fire these days, as so many were sentenced to suffer a Christian death within walls just like these.

But this inferno couldn’t be extinguished by the rain, could not be breached by the brave. And it cut Kenna and this frenzied creature of death from the rest of the world, from men now desperate to reach their leader, and from women desperate to escape him.

Kenna and the beast were truly alone.

And now that he was trapped with her between a wall of stone and a wall of flames, his soulless eyes promised retribution.

 “You don’t know what you’ve done,” she told the terrifyingly handsome monster staring down at her with those fathomless eyes.

Nor did he seem to care.

Still caught in his clutches, she gasped when he swept her up and over one massive shoulder, his arms avoiding the raw lashes on her back. He carried her away from the comforting heat of the fire wall. Away from the frantic cacophony of whimpering women, and bellowing Vikings.

Where did he plan on taking her?

Ducking beneath the awning, he stopped and took in two quick breaths before selecting the door that led to the kitchens and then the chambers above.  He none-too-gently climbed the back stone stairs of the abbey and stalked down two dank and narrow halls—hardly wide enough for his shoulders—before he kicked open a chamber door three down on the left.

Her
chamber door.

His nose, it seemed, had led him here.

Choosing to ignore those implications, Kenna couldn’t suppress a wince as the Viking lowered her to her feet, still taking care with her wounded back.

Beneath her weight, her legs buckled as though her muscles were made of bread dough, and the beast caught her by the shoulders, propping her up.

They shared a curious moment of investigation.

Kenna had to tilt her neck back at an alarming angle to meet eyes as perceptive as time and yet opaque as a moonless night. They could have belonged to the devil. Hadn’t the Bible called Lucifer the
Star of the Morning
? Wouldn’t a creator’s favorite son be blessed with features such as these?

Golden-hued perfection. Skin like amber glass cut and shaped by raw bones and thick sinew. This warrior was a stoic mystery. Only a few weathered lines branching from his eyes hinted at age, or maybe just a restless spirit. His mouth, set with ruthless ferocity, called to her with an erotic challenge.

For a man emulating violence, he also seemed relaxed.

She wished she could step out of his grasp. It seethed with power, and power was something she needed at the moment. It called to her as though begging to be a part of her.

And, though it should have been impossible, her body answered that call.

Kenna considered her options, which weren’t many. She’d saved the nuns of Westmire Abbey from a violent death at the hands of this Berserker, and in doing so, she may have brought about the end of days.

Goddess help her, but she was impetuous. Always had been. Acted with little regard and spoke with even less thought. She was supposed to be protecting the Doomsday Grimoire in this most unlikely of places. The only way she could stay hidden from the evil witches searching for it was to refrain from using her fire magick.

Now she’d not only used it, but drained the rest of the powers she’d been working so hard to suppress. Not only was her magick weak, but her body was also. Not just weak, but wounded, and she hadn’t the gift for healing like her cousin Morgana did.

Kenna’s element was fire. And, though it was one of the more powerful and dangerous elements, it wasn’t among the earth’s most abundant resources like air or water. It needed fuel. Ignition. Something upon which to burn. Those druids who were evil or lazy used powerful and plentiful resources upon which to feed their fire. Fear, anger, and hatred.

But those who were actual practitioners of elemental magick, who understood from where true power could be found, drew theirs from the well of the less profuse, but ultimately infinite. The potency of passion overcame fear and anger. The intensity of love always conquered hatred. It was from sensations such as these that Kenna knew she could revitalize her strength in order to face the dangers that lie ahead.

She thought of the nuns in the courtyard, most of whom were generous, pious women. Of her cousins Malcom and Morgana with whom she shared the bond of blood, duty, and magick. Of the book hidden in the walls of her room that contained the secrets of the Goddess and the workings of the cosmos. Of all the souls who were and are and would ever be, who needed this earth upon which to live out their incarnations.

She thought of extraordinary men, like the one supporting her weight and staring at her as though she held his universe in her hands.

She did, after a fashion, and it was heavy.

He was supposed to be attempting to tear her limbs from her body in true Berserker form. The fact that he didn’t only meant one thing.

Their eyes met and held. Hers heating with fire. His cold with a fathomless abyss, but unmistakable intent.

The Berserker wanted her, and that was just as well, because he was a powerful being with magick of his own. And his magick was
just
what she was after, and there was only one way to get it.

“Take off your clothes, warrior,” she whispered.  “I need you inside me.”

Heat raced through Kenna’s veins, settling as a familiar and insistent throb between her legs. If her own reaction to the very idea of lying with this man was so powerful, she could only imagine how the act would feel.

The Berserker made a low sound, half warning, and half disbelief. Then another sound permeated the air, this one a rip, and the rest of her soiled dress slid to the floor.

“Nay,” she whispered softly, trying to think beyond the haze of pain and lust and heat now permeating the chill left by the rainstorm. “’Tis
you
who should disrobe.” She gestured to his layers of woven linen and leather armor belted and strapped with sharp-looking studs.

He didn’t speak. Not once. And Kenna got the impression that it was impossible for him to do so in this form. But the look he gave her as he tore through the buckles of his armor—not stopping to undo them—could have steamed the rainwater from her skin.

She’d done this before, shared her passions with a man, taken his sex, his essence, to feed her power, but never with a man
this
potent. Never with one this lethal.

The skin of her back felt shredded and swollen and it protested movement, but as the beast in front of her peeled his armor from his body, the pain faded beneath a surge of heat.

His light hair, darkened with rain, streamed glittering rivulets of water into the deep tracks of muscle he uncovered. He hissed great lung-fulls of air through his bared teeth, his abysmal gaze devouring the sight of her bared, chilly flesh. His long, water-spiked lashes lowered, those midnight eyes snagging on her nipples, puckered tight with the cold.

His muscles were not only large, but long, stretching over his bones as though holding together a frame as big and potent as his took a great deal of strength.

Unable to help herself, Kenna reached for him, enjoying the way his pectoral jumped and flinched beneath her hand as though even the lightest touch caused him pleasure. His skin was warm, burning, despite the chilly water, and the heat drew her forward.  His armor hit the floor with a loud noise as she pressed her body against his hardness. The tension radiating from his body was hungry, predatory.

He bent to drag his mouth against the curve of her neck, drinking in the salt and rainwater he found there. The noise he made could have come from the throat of a wolf. A growl of need. A gentle threat.

Hurry
, it warned,
I’ll not be leashed for long
.

Right
, Kenna thought.
To business
.  

But
this
wasn’t business, this wasn’t just duty and magick and the cost of regaining her druid power. In the past, she’d been able to separate the fire of her passions from those few men she’d shared it with. Her emotions remained locked behind cold stone, and only her flesh and theirs were used as a conduit of pleasure, heat, and magick.

That would be nigh impossible tonight. Not only was her flesh raw and bruised, but her soul seemed to be, as well. And the fact that this big and lethal warrior—a deities’ instrument of death—was now lavishing her skin with his tongue instead of spilling her blood was beginning to mean more with each passing moment they spent alone. She felt… exceptional, cherished somehow, by this man whose name and intent remained unknown. Indeed, his sense of honor was very much in question.

And she was about to take him into her body.

Kenna drew in a deep breath as excitement and lust flared beneath her misgivings. She’d just need to make sure to keep him
out
of her heart.

The delectable movement of his lips against her throat became more insistent, demanding, his teeth finding places to nip and gnaw that left her breathless. His hands bypassed her back to find her ass, pulling her in tighter against him to thrust the incomprehensibly sized erection burning from behind his trews against her belly.

The sound he made this time was no longer a gentle threat, but a savage one. And then his trews were gone, and Kenna knew they weren’t going to make it to her small bed.

Suddenly she had difficulty breathing, the air in her cramped, spare room turned so hot, it scorched her lungs. To say he was magnificent would be as ridiculous as calling the Highland seascape beautiful. It applied, of course, but any of the descriptions she tried to conjure sounded trite and inadequate.

The effect was eerily similar. That rare moment a vision overwhelmed the eyes with its incredible, almost
impossible
perfection. When beauty stole the breath and quieted the mind, making one wish they could experience the sight with all the senses they possessed.

Laying both her hands on his powerful shoulders, she pressed him down. The thought of this hard, lethal beast on his knees before her caused a rush of desire to expel from between her thighs. She was slick and ready for him.

And well he knew it.

Allowing the gentle pressure of her hands to guide him down, he trailed his hot mouth over her rain-soaked skin, pausing to fill his hands with her breasts, to press a hot lick and a gentle tug against her nipple before leaving them with obvious reluctance. Before he could nuzzle at her sex, as it looked as though he wanted to do, Kenna sank down with him, splitting her legs over his hips and pushing him to the floor.

The heat radiating from him was alternately incredible and unbearable. His hips scalded her thighs. His chest burned her hands. His cock branded her belly as she slid it between their bodies.

Kenna almost felt sorry for what she was about to do to him. She felt guilty for taking power from a man so indescribably powerful.

But what choice had he left her?

Above that, how could she pass a man like this, with a body like his, without sampling the pleasure he could give her, and the bliss she could give him back?

They needed each other. The refugee and the marauder. The future held something for them, something they had to attain together. Kenna knew this with the certainty that she knew all things. And the exhilaration of the knowledge drove her to the brink of sanity.

“Lie still, Berserker,” she rasped, lust lowering her voice by entire octaves. “Do not thrust.” She had to control this, to make sure she knew exactly how much power she siphoned from him. Not too little, and not too much. The former would be useless, the latter, dangerous.

To them both.

His cold eyes speared her, reminding her he was not one to take orders, and yet he complied.

“You, who are so used to taking from others will know what it is to be taken,” she drawled, caressing the heat of his flesh with the slickness of hers. “And you will be a willing victim of the flames. I will use what I take from you to save you and your men.”

His lips parted as he began to pant, his big hands curled against her thighs in silent but insistent demand. She didn’t think he heard her, or maybe he didn’t mark her words, so intent was he on her breasts. Long, rough fingers ventured higher, seeking intimate flesh, but Kenna didn’t wait long enough to let him find her sex.

Her back ached and stung as she rose above him. So to block out the pain, she focused on the feel of his hot, blunt sex stretching her slick passage as she impaled herself inch by agonizing inch on his cock.

His bold fingers didn’t stop their questing just because she’d willed them to. Instead, they found the thin skin at the juncture of her thighs, so delicate and sensitive, and then reached even higher, to part the satin folds of her penetrated body.

She jerked with the shock of pleasure that thrilled through her at his touch. The muscles of her sex tightened with the movement, pulling a strangled sound from the Berserker’s throat.

If she’d thought she’d been aroused before, she’d been lying to herself.

As the pad of his thumb brushed the sensitive, swelling nub of sensation, her sex drenched his with an embarrassment of slick moisture as she encompassed the pulsating column of his manhood with delicious difficulty.

Her body stretched to accommodate him, the pain a sharp burn that dulled to a pleasurable ache.

Goddess, but she’d never been so aroused. Her body never so eager to take a man. All of him.

His eyes were no longer cold, but burned with black fire as he bared his teeth in a hiss of pleasure. Though his gaze was lost, his clever fingers knew exactly what they were doing, drawing the moisture of her body toward the tight nub of sensation above where their bodies joined.

It took two lifts of her thighs and a few flicks of his thumb before Kenna was seized by a climax so quelling and unexpected all she could do was jerk and shudder on top of his cock. Her every movement was involuntary, her every breath a sob, as frantic pleasure coiled and broke upon her in relentless waves.

Somewhere, a dim part of her noted with some tingles and itches, a stitch and a burn, her back knitted itself together. The rent flesh and welts cauterized and mended until it was as though they had never been.

It had begun. She drew on him like a vampire, feeding on his passion, his need, and his brutality. His magick. It wasn’t like her Druid magick. It was different, more of an ability, really, but it fed her like a gluttonous royal, filling the cracks and fissures in her body and soul.

The orgasm didn’t ebb until she was red-faced and dazed with shock and repletion.

Beneath her, black-eyed and perfect, a sheen of moisture gave the Berserker an almost metallic patina in the fading light. The evening drew shadows along the paths carved by thick veins beneath his skin, gilding his frame with strength and vitality. As though he could feel her healing, he lifted himself until he could test the new, smooth skin of her back.

With a victorious snarl, he pulled her more tightly down over him, angling up in a demanding thrust.

How foolish she’d been to think he’d let her have control.

Before she could form a coherent thought, she was beneath him. He drew her knees up and thrust forward in strong, angled strokes.

Kenna panicked for a moment, feeling the force of his power surge within her. She was losing control of this quickly, but somehow, the delicious feel of his masculine weight pressing her hot flesh into the cold, clean floor seduced her as nothing else had.

He didn’t hold back, didn’t take care, but pounded all his desire, need, and passion into her body with fast, driving command.

Kenna didn’t want him to stop. Couldn’t allow him to continue. It was too much, too soon. He would give her more of his power than he could stand. She would take from him what he was not willing to part with.

“I can’t,” she whimpered, then cried out, pushing up against him with her hips and her arms. Her intimate flesh gripped at his cock in spasms that she fought, but they came upon her with hot, crushing inevitability.

He gave no quarter, his rhythm increasing. His brows drew together as though he was in pain, his eyes disappearing behind his lids. His muscles trembled, and still he took her.

And she took him.

She had to stop this, before she took
everything
from him.

Digging her foot into the floor, she bucked up with her hips and twisted, using the strength she’d siphoned. Rolling, she gained the top once again, barely breaking their rhythm as the sensations igniting in her core and flaring in her limbs burst into an inferno.

She groaned as her very soul caught fire and the searing bliss singed its way along her nerves like she’d never before experienced, or even imagined.

He shuddered beneath her, his hips arching, his hands grasping and finding nothing. His roar that of a beast facing immolation and giving into it. One last time, he shoved deep and held there.

She could feel the heat of his seed deep against her womb. The burn of his power deep within her soul.

And right as they culminated into a rush so intense it could have lit the night ablaze, a fire burst to life in the fireplace. The first to have warmed her since she’d arrived at the abbey.

***

Niall shuddered with a pleasure so deep, it seemed to brand itself into his bones, leaving the runic markings of magick and fate in their wake. But that pleasure replaced power and vigor that he could feel ebbing away the longer he stayed locked within the velvet sweetness of the witche’s body.

Lifting arms that felt as though they were bound to the floor by invisible cords, he reached to push at the succubus riding him, but couldn’t summon the strength. His mind screamed that he was in danger, but his body demanded he stay right where he was. That the sheath of her body now was his home.

Mine
.

The witch’s skin glowed in the firelight like the gossamer wings of a dragonfly. Creamy and iridescent with tiny veins visible at the places where her skin was most delicate and thin. Her wrists, the undersides of those lush breasts, the insides of her thighs, her neck.

A neck that should be encircled by his hands while he demanded that she return his—his—whatever it was she’d stolen from him that had weakened him so. Honey had replaced the blood in his veins. His bones had turned iron, anchoring his heavy body to the ground. His thoughts were sluggish and disturbingly…untroubled.

Her pulsating sex was a sweet prison, pulling the life from him, caging his Berserker beast, and turning him into a willing participant in his own death.

And what a glorious way to die
, he thought watching the firelight set her hair aflame with embers of russet and copper as she gazed down at him through eyes drugged with pleasure and power.

His power. Power she’d stolen from him.

A sharp noise against the door and a familiar voice permeated the silken haze of Niall’s thoughts. “Niall! Niall Halvard Thorsen, are you behind this door?” Ingmar’s panicked question drove the witch off of his body with a gasp of pure feminine shock and mortification.

Niall wanted to call out to his general, but he couldn’t seem to find his voice in order to do so.

The witch threw her tiny form against the door as another great succession of knocks caused the hinges and lock to tremble.

“Niall, you berserk bastard, answer me, or I’m coming in there, and you’ll have to live with the guilt if you eat me alive,” Ingmar called. “Is that what you want? To have to explain to my mother how you killed me? Who’s going to talk you off the ledge for killing that poor nun if I die?”