Page 6 of Highland Warlord
Again, he complied, a whisper of hurt furling his brow before he suddenly crashed to his knees with a hard grunt of unmistakable pain. A pool of blood had gathered around him, and Morgana noticed the bronze of his skin had taken on a pale tinge.
Only then did she remember his leg.
“Ohno,” she cried. Her healing breath would not have reached the spear wound in his thigh. Only his lungs. He’d run with her as his burden all this way with such a deep and painful wound.
His torso swayed, his lids fluttering as though they battled consciousness. Morgana caught him as he fell forward, and did her best to lower his heavy trunk to the ground.
“I’ll heal you,” she promised, pillowing his head upon the moss before moving to tug at his trews. The wet animal skin clung to his boulder-sized thighs as though it had claws, but she didn’t stop wrestling with them, using her powers to pull the water from the material.
In order to save his life, she needed to get him naked.
Chapter 4
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 washisfor 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 handmaidenwould 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 hermouth 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.
