Celtic Seduction by Oona West

Broden the thief lay on the hill, shivering against the damp cold that was rising from the ground. A blustering wind rustled through the grass around him. In another two months, it would be sharp knives splitting open the sky, letting loose torrents of snow and hail. Considering the way the trees leaned, he knew the wind must howl over the hill all winter, rising up along the soft peak and storming across the open lands in the distance. But for now, as summer gave way to fall, the weather only threatened and postured, a dull blade dragging across the fleshy lines of Broden’s heavy face and spearing him from the soil below, all the way through his tunic and breeches. He shifted, keeping his eyes on the village, as he tightened the neck of his woolen cape.

Smoke curled through the thatched roofs of the roundhouses. He scanned the area, watching the villagers bringing in livestock and hauling water from the spring before the last light of day disappeared completely. He tracked the movements of the women, desire stirring whenever he spotted the trailing skirt of a dress or the gleam of a hair clasp. He licked his thick lips. Maybe he’d take one of them with him, when he left. It didn’t matter which one; he’d look for a young one with broad hips. That’s the way he liked a woman. He’d find one with some fight in her, too. The ones who were just old enough to marry fought like wild cats. Sadly, they didn’t last as long in his rough company as older ones did because they tended to panic and do something foolish, like trying to escape. Then he had to catch them and punish them, and the aftermath of that that never went well. Still, he was in the mood for a big girl with a pretty mouth.

A group of farmers strode into the village below, from the direction of the fields. The thief’s lurid fantasies fizzled. These men might look like simple farmers, but the bronze and silver torcs they wore around their necks were forged for men with wealth and power. And they didn’t achieve those heavily muscled physiques just from working a hoe or swinging a scythe; they were renowned swordsmen and spearmen, warriors who’d spent hundreds of hours honing their fighting skills. Those men down there would take him apart, piece by piece, for laying a finger on one of their women. It was best to keep that in mind, and keep his cock in his pants until he was safely off of Cathal land.

He snorted softly at the way they were dressed. Their plaid breeches were garish to his way of thinking, but there was no accounting for taste; the Caledonians were fond of their tartans and apparently the more stripes and checks they could weave in all directions, the better. Coming from Briton, himself, he preferred something a little more subdued. Some of the men were bare-chested despite the evening chill, and some were in loose leather tunics. All were carrying farm implements across their shoulders, and a few had swords at their sides. Broden knew they’d spent the better part of the day working up the last of the harvest and laying the fields to rest for winter. He’d watched them, trying to figure out when he might slip down to the village unnoticed.

The thief sifted through the stories he’d heard about the Cathal. They made few alliances, but fought to the death for kin, clan and land. Apparently, there was little else they valued. He’d seen them in battle once, along with their allies, the Vacomagi. Unfortunately, he’d hired on with the wrong side in that skirmish. He remembered how the Cathal and Vacomagi warriors had looked like demons foaming up out of the bowels of the earth, their bodies and faces painted and tattooed in elaborate blue patterns, and their hair spiked into stiff wildness with chalky lime paste. Broden’s employers in the fiasco had fallen back almost immediately, stumbling over themselves in their haste to retreat before the combined wrath of the allied clans. In the ensuing chaos, Broden had managed to slip away, without his pay, but at least with his skin still attached.

He sighed in frustration. In all likelihood, this was a fool’s errand, stealing from the Cathal. But for whatever reason, his employer wanted the clan’s trihorn. The horn didn’t come into any of the stories about the Cathal, at least, so far as Broden had heard. And why should it? It was just a ceremonial instrument, sounded at births, marriages, deaths—all the usual rituals. Made from ram horns, it emitted a deep, reverberating sound when blown. Most clans had something similar. Why anyone would want an old instrument was beyond him, but if his boss was willing to pay a small fortune for it in land and cattle, far be it from a professional thief to dissuade him. For enough payoff, Broden would steal his own granny’s teeth.

The only problem, of course, was that he couldn’t find the damned horn. As far as he could determine, no one had seen it in fifteen years, not since Cormac was made chieftain. His employer assured him it wasn’t lost or destroyed; the clever man somehow knew—and it was best not to ask how he’d acquired the information—that the Cathal still had the horn, somewhere. But only the gods knew where they’d put it. Hence, the thief’s presence on this frigid hill overlooking the village, spying on men who might look like farmers today, but were some of the fiercest warriors in Caledonia. They would gladly separate him from his head or his genitals for trespassing, and none too gently, either.

He surveyed the lay of the Cathal village one more time, taking in the raised storage house, the smith’s forge, and the smokehouse. Any of the buildings might be the one he was looking for, he supposed. He considered the options. He couldn’t imagine that the clan would store their ritual horn in the forge or the smokehouse. It was probably hidden in the chieftain’s house or the big, central roundhouse with the enormous bell in front.

He lay on the cold ground and watched. People came and went. A dog barked in the distance. A woman called from her front stoop and several children came running. She shooed them into the house. A mob of crows rose up from a tree, cawing as they lifted in flight and spiraled into the sky. A figure came over the creek bank, a dark, faceless man in the dwindling light. Broden peered across the distance, straining to see this newcomer. The man headed for the large roundhouse at the furthest end of the village. He walked with long, ground-eating strides. The thief pursed his heavy lips, considering. Keir Mór, the chieftain’s oldest son, had that combination of rangy height and powerful build. When the man reached the front of the big roundhouse and threw open the door, a rectangle of light cut through the growing dim and Broden caught a glimpse of red hair tangling over the man’s shoulders. He grunted in satisfaction. That was definitely Keir Mór, which meant that was most likely the chieftain’s roundhouse.

The thief eased back from the hill, crawling on his belly until he was out of sight of the village, and then he ran, keeping his body hunkered as low to the ground as possible. Making his way to the grove of trees where his men were hidden, he went over his plan one more time. There was nothing they could do until first light. If the chieftain’s house and the council hall turned up nothing, he’d have to widen his search. There were several small farmsteads nearby, families that lived outside the village and, as unlikely as it seemed, might be the keepers of the horn.

His men appeared seamlessly from the shadows and gathered silently, restlessly, around him. They were thugs and highwaymen and cutthroats, lost souls and outcasts with no allegiances beyond themselves. They served whoever paid them the most and, unlike Broden, weren’t interested in land. They wanted their reward in portable valuables because they were men who moved on when the easy money ran out. But, Broden had bigger plans.

He spoke quietly. “I’ll need a distraction to draw some of the men away from the village, so I can get in unnoticed.”

Broden rubbed his stubbly chin. “We’ll sleep in the forest tonight. At first light, I want you in the upper fields. Drive off the cattle, and don’t make any mistakes about it. If the Cathal get word that you’re stealing their herds, you’ll all be trying to breathe with swords down your throats by midday. Take the animals through the valley and along the river as far as you can. Stay close to the hills until you can’t any longer. If you can make it around those hills, yon, you’ll have a good day’s start. They’ll be close behind you, though; there’s no doubt about that. Leave the cattle in the low valleys and slip away. That’s all the time I’ll need. Don’t come back here. Go to Tavish’s broch. Stay there until I send for you.”

“What if we want to keep the cattle and sell them further south?” one of the men asked.

“That’s right,” another grunted, “the Cathal’s beasts are sure to be fat for market now.”

The night was getting thick; Broden could no longer make out the features of the speakers. “Don’t try it,” he hissed. “You don’t want the Cathal against you. It’s a good way to get yourselves hurt.” He could feel the men tense around him. “Get some sleep,” he snorted. “You’ll need to be at this business before first light.”

He heard the men turn, seeking places to lie down beneath the trees. “I meant what I said,” he warned them. “There won’t be anything left of you, if you take those cattle beyond the low valleys. Because even if the Cathal don’t catch you, I will. I want no war with this clan.”

The sound of the men’s voices faded as they hunkered into the warmth of their capes.

Broden stood in the dusk, considering for a moment whether or not he could trust them. At last, he stepped further into the trees, in search of a place to sleep. The men would do what he told them; they knew what he did to thieves who reached the end of their usefulness. Running a sword through any one of this mangy lot wouldn’t trouble his conscience.

He catnapped uncomfortably on the hard ground, one ear alert for noises from the slumbering village, and the other always tuned to the thieves who shifted and grumbled around him in the dark.

Keir Mór, the chieftain’s oldest son, lay in his bed and stared into the passion-filled face of the blond beauty above him. Her body convulsed a last time and her voluptuous hips finally slowed their rocking. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on the woman’s skin. It reflected the firelight and cast a honey glow over her body. The flickering light sparked across her cheekbones and along the thrust of her jaw. It shimmered on her stunning, pendulous breasts, and disappeared between her legs where their bodies joined. Her long flaxen hair clung to her damp shoulders and tangled over one breast.

Keir slid his hands from where he’d clutched her haunches during their lovemaking, up to her waist, around to the soft planes of her back. He pulled her down to lie on his chest, letting her rest with her legs curled along his sides, her head cradled against his shoulder. Her bottom was still hot and glowing from the spanking he’d given her earlier, but he gave her glorious buttocks another hard smack. She rolled her hips in exhausted pleasure. Gods, she was so perfect when she was being spanked. He’d roasted her gorgeous buttocks and every time he thought she must be at her limits, she’d lifted her hips for more. She’d writhed over his lap and arched up into his hand, with tears streaming down her beautiful face, and her silken hair plastered to her cheeks. Even now, satiated and boneless, she rose up to receive whatever he wanted to give her.

He reveled in the gusting warmth of her breath pooling at his neck and trickling through his beard. She was weightless on top of him, but the heat from her body seemed to permeate his whole being. He closed his eyes, slowly tracing the hillocks of her spine with his fingertips. “What’s your name?” he whispered. He’d asked her before, in fact, he’d demanded that she tell him; he’d spanked her until her buttocks were aflame, but the woman still kept her secret. No amount of punishment had forced it out of her.

He was equally mystified about her origins. He’d walked into his house this evening, and there she’d been, waiting for him, stunningly voluptuous and naked, smiling at him invitingly from his own bed.

“I rode the wind,” she said softly. It was a curious statement and left him no closer to the truth. Keir was on the verge of probing further, a dozen more questions already on his lips, but suddenly the woman in his arms began to shimmer. Her edges blurred and faded before his eyes. She pushed herself upright, her head rocking forward and her vivid blue eyes wide with alarm as she stared down at her body. It was growing ever fainter. “No,” she breathed. “Please, not yet.”

He grabbed at her hips. “No, don’t leave. Don’t go. I need you.” There were so many things he didn’t know yet. And, he needed to tell her the way back; what if he never saw her again? He had to tell her about the trihorn.

A wind rose around the bed, pulling at the woman, lifting her hair and streaming it out behind her. She faded to a ghost of herself even as she stretched her hand out to him, as if she wanted to touch his face one last time before she was spirited away. “I can’t reach you from here,” she sobbed. “Keir, they’ve taken me too far; I can’t get back.”

He was talking to thin air; she’d already disappeared. The ache of her absence slammed him in the chest, and he couldn’t breathe.

Keir lurched up in bed, his heart hammering. He swore silently and vehemently; it was nothing but a dream.

He groaned and slumped back onto the bed, painfully aware that he was hard as a rock. Every fiber of his being ached to touch her. He felt as if he were on fire, burning to plunge into the dream woman once more.

He rolled onto his side, his back to the roundhouse where his father and brother still snored, and closed his eyes. He pictured the woman with the blond hair, remembering her full round hips, the heft of her breasts in his palms, the fierce burning core at her center. Remembering her bouncing buttocks glowing red beneath his hand.

Elana felt her body shudder and open like a sail, unfurling in the wind over the warrior beneath her. She pressed her hands to his broad chest, steadying herself as the tremors of her fading orgasm slowly subsided. She was momentarily lost in the tattoos along the man’s collarbones and shoulders. They spiraled down his biceps, accentuating the bulging lines of his muscles and tendons. He was of an age long gone, a Celt from Iron Age Scotland, if the tattoos were any clue. A Caledonian.

The man’s face was lost in the shadows that fell across the bed, his features vague and hidden. But his thick, auburn chest hair was vivid as it curled enticingly over her fingers. She languorously circled his nipples, pinching them lightly.

He caught her hands in his, “I can’t take much more of your torture,” he laughed. “Come here, rest on me.” He pulled her down over his chest and stomach, fitting her legs snugly against his hips.

She let her body sink onto his, feeling utterly relaxed, slipping irretrievably closer to a blissful slumber in his arms. Her wet heat still pulsed around his cock, and her bottom cheeks burned like fury. She was deliciously satiated.

Sleep was drawing her into its dark velvet ease, and although she knew she muttered something, she wasn’t sure what she said, lost to the bliss of his cradling arms. She felt his hands working their way along her spine, pressing her vertebrae gently between his long fingers.

A tingling electric wave whispered over her skin. It rose along her legs, moving upward and radiating out across her back and chest. And then came the sound of a ferocious wind howling around her ears. It made her feel desperate, as if she must grab every last bit of pleasure from this man before everything was swept away from them. She clutched at him, but the tingling increased and her entire body began to dissolve; her flesh and bones were no longer solid, but turned to a fine mist. The wind raged and tore at her, and plucked her out of her lover’s arms, up into its whirling chaos. “No,” she pleaded, “Please, not yet.”

The warrior made a frantic grab for her hips. “Don’t leave,” he begged. “Don’t go. I need you.”

But there was no stopping it. The wind was pulling her away. “I can’t reach you from here,” she sobbed. “Keir, they’ve taken me too far, I can’t get back.”

Elana tumbled through dark space, a groan of dismay trembling on her lips. She opened her eyes. Her bedside clock flashed ‘2:00’ a.m. It was just a dream. Her bedroom was silent except for the sound of a lone car passing on the rain-slicked street outside. Its headlights illuminated her room for one moment, sweeping over her bed. The faceless warrior was only an illusion. She pulled her knees to her breasts and buried her face against them. She curled into a tight ball and tried to remember his name. She’d said it, she was sure, but it had already faded from her conscious mind. Damn!

Why couldn’t she remember his name or his face, when she could remember every detail of their lovemaking with agonizing clarity? If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel him inside her again. And, God knows, she remembered the horrible spanking. She was surprised her butt wasn’t black and blue; it had been so real.

In her dream, she’d been fearless and unashamed, wrapping her arms around her lover’s neck. “I’ve been a bad, bad girl,” she’d whispered in his ear. And because it was a dream, he’d lifted her naked body in his massive arms and carried her to a chair by the fire. The dream had shifted then, and while he sat in the chair, fully clothed, she’d stood before him, naked and squirming under his stern gaze. Suddenly, she felt as if she really was in trouble, although she wasn’t sure what for. She fidgeted with her hair, wrapping it round and round her finger, as he demanded, “Where the hell have you been? I’ve spent my entire life looking for you. Where were you hiding?”

She couldn’t answer him. She wanted to say there must be some mistake. She’d been at home in Portland, same as always. Just this morning, she’d gone to work at the theatre. It’d been raining, as usual. At the end of the day, she’d come home on the bus and had had a hot bath. She’d had chicken pizza with feta and marinated artichoke hearts for dinner, and two glasses of red wine. She wasn’t hiding; she’d been living her normal life. She should tell the big Celt that she wasn’t real. She was just a figment, a dream from a future place, like Glenda the Good Witch. She was nothing more than make-believe. But somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to say that, and to say anything else would be a lie, so she stared at the floor, not saying anything at all and nervously scuffing her feet as he glared at her, obviously expecting her to give him an answer.

She eyed his huge, callused hands with trepidation. She could feel a flutter of panic around her heart, and took a step back, wondering if she might make it out of the roundhouse before he could catch her.

But, he was at the end of his patience. “You won’t make it out the door.” He smiled grimly. “And if I have to chase you, it’s only going to be worse. Then, you’ll really get your bottom blistered.” He beckoned again with that enormous hand. “Either way, you’re going over my knee. Come on. Let’s get it done with.”

In the dream, Elana chewed her lip and tears welled in her eyes, but she somehow managed to shuffle the distance to the chair on shaky, uncooperative legs. Her warrior nodded toward his lap, and with a resigned sigh, she lowered herself into spanking position. He lifted one knee so that her big, naked butt was angled high. His leather breeches were soft on her skin, and she could smell the comforting aromas of outdoors, and cattle and cooking fires clinging to him. She held some of her weight on her toes, but she knew that as soon as she started kicking and writhing, his powerful thighs would be all that supported her naked flesh.

His bare hand came down to lovingly caress one buttock. “I’ve missed you for so long,” he breathed.

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