Mated By The Demon Collections: Paranormal Romance Page 29
The project had taken a while, because he couldn’t take the chance of being gone too long. However, there was one time he had been so relaxed and into the building of the cabin, he hadn’t paid attention. So that one of his brothers had the time and found him. The fight had been quite bad. But Catan had gotten it through his brother’s head to leave, and to never come back.
“Only if you hear about me in town, or see me. Then you can talk to me. But besides that I don’t want to see a single one of you out here. Never again, do you understand me?” Catan had been in a rage.
His brother had simply nodded his head and went off.
“Make sure you tell everyone about what happened. Also tell them don’t even test me in this. If I see any of you, you will pay dearly.” Catan had spat out as his brother got on his horse.
He knew he had taken a chance of bring the wrath of one of his older brothers on him. But oddly enough they simply accepted it. None of them would ever say a single word to him about the cabin. They almost seemed to have gained a new respect for Catan in the overall time.
But the one thing that worried him was that someone might have seen him in town. If one of his brothers found out they would surely come and visit. He couldn’t take the chance, they might recognize Rose as who she was, what family she was from. This scared him more than just about anything had in his life.
“We can’t stay very long. I’m sorry, but just trust me on this.” Catan said to Rose.
She saw the seriousness in his eyes and simply nodded her head. “Just let me know when we have to go.” Rose said.
“Let’s eat then we’ll go, I have the wagon. You’ll stay a lot warmer. We can stop in the middle of the night if need be for me to warm up. But I should be able to go for hours before stopping.” Catan explained as he got a faraway look in his eyes.
He was planning the trip out in his mind. He had bought a map and was looking at it right now. Studying the various decisions that he had to make for the journey, one wrong move would mean the end.
There was nothing more in his mind then the safety of Rose and his baby. If something happened to him along the way he would be okay. He knew without a doubt that Rose would keep their baby safe, and she would be able to go on. After the birth of the baby he knew that she wouldn’t be able to ever leave their child.
“What are you smiling about?” Rose asked as she noticed the look on Catan’s face.
“I was just thinking of you holding our child in your arms.” He smiled at her.
Rose smiled too. “It is a nice thought. That and you holding our child too, I can’t wait to see that either.”
Catan shook his head and thought about the smile creation as it lay in his hands. It would look so small, and their child would be fragile. At that point he knew he had to make sure they all made it safely. He couldn’t miss out on this amazing event. Plus he really wanted to spend a long life with Rose.
“Alright we need to make sure that you stay warm in the back of the wagon. I’m sorry I couldn’t get a carriage on driver on such short notice.” Catan commented.
That was what he had set out to do when he had left her in the room. But he shortly found out there was no way it would happen. Instead they would have to get a covered wagon and he would drive them the way down south. He had barely enough on him to convince the man to let him trade his horse and an unseen cabin to the man who had the wagon.
“We’ll make it.” Rose said and patted his arm.
It had been like she could see his inner thoughts. Catan had been afraid that he would make one little mistake. Take them somewhere that they might get caught.
“I do have some good news though. It may not take us but a few days to get somewhere safe.” Catan smiled as he delivered the news to Rose.
“Oh that’s nice.” Rose smiled. They had discussed this trip many times in the cabin and knew that the shorter the trip the better it would be. The more chance that they would get out of McCloud territory unscathed and to start their new life together.
They ate as he finished the planning of the trip. “You ready?” He said looking up at Rose.
Rose knew just how nervous he was at that moment; it had barely been any time since he had come back to the room. “Yes sure.” She stated.
“Let’s go then. Keep covered up for sure. If I tell you to hurry up, you do just that. I might have to tell a few quick little lies.” Catan stated.
Rose wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she could feel the vibrations coming off of him. She just hoped it went smoothly for them. All she really wanted was to have a nice quiet life with Catan and their child, or children she thought and smiled.
They hurried out the door and Catan guided her to where the wagon was being kept. “Get in and cover up with the blankets I got for you.” Catan said.
Rose did as she was told and hoped with all her heart the next time she saw him they were out of town and far away. The blankets were nice and warm and soon she let the comfort of sleep take over her body.
“Hey Rose wake up, come on get up.”
She opened her eyes to what looked like a panicked Catan. “I’m awake, what’s wrong?” She got up quickly. Fearing the worst after registering his face when she first opened her eyes, it had been the look of utter fear.
He gave her a huge hug. “It just took me a while to wake you; I feared you passed away in your sleep. Maybe your body got too cold and I had lost you.” He stated his eyes full of seriousness.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t even feel you calling me. I was in the middle of a dream where we were talking and playing with our kids.” Rose smiled.
“That sounds great; some come on and get out. We’re in our new home and we are getting married right now.” Catan swept her out of the wagon.
Rose didn’t know what to say, she hadn’t even realized they had been on the road that long. It had only seemed like she was asleep for a little bit. “I’ve been asleep for how long?” She asked, knowing he had no way to know.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know I just know I pushed as far as I could. When I saw how far we had gone I was shocked. I looked at the map again and realized it must be wrong. They did something wrong with it, I’m not sure. But we are safe; we are far enough out of that area.” He said with a knowing look.
She realized he would take a while to adjust to a life with no fear, well so would she as a fact. But it was something she was more than willing to enjoy with Catan.
They walked to a little building and Catan took her inside. “Hello again, here is my soon to be wife.” Catan said to the man.
“Hello I’m Judge Willis; I’ll be marrying you today ma’am.” He reached out and shook her hand.
“Hi, it is nice to meet you sir.” Rose said to the man.
The ceremony was short and not at all like the wedding she had desired as a little girl. But when she really thought about it she wasn’t upset. She could have stayed behind and had that big wedding with all the people, but she didn’t want it. That would have meant marrying a man her brother didn’t even know. Someone who would touch her body like Catan had now done. The thought of it made her cry in joy.
“Is everything okay?” Catan asked her.
“I’m fine, I’m just so happy to be your wife now!” Rose smiled.
Catan kissed her and thanked the Judge once more for his services. They walked out and Catan said. “I love you Mrs. McCloud.”
Rose sighed and smiled.
“Let’s go to our room.” Catan led the way to their room in the best looking place in town.
When they got to their room she knew what was already on her mind. She wanted this man to touch her and make love to her. She wanted to experience their love for the first time as a couple who had been legally married. Not that she expected it would be much different. Besides the fact they were now wed. Rose and Catan had already professed their love at the cabin. As far as they had been concerned they had been married the first time they made love.
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He had a hungry look in his eyes and she knew he was thinking the same thing.
“Please make love to me my husband.” She said.
Catan swept in and grabbed her off the floor, taking her to the bed. He laid her on the covers and undressed her. He possessed her fully with his member and made her scream in orgasm after orgasm.
Falling apart they sleep wrapped up together under the covers he put on top of them.
Epilogue
Catan and Rose had been in this town for around 10 years now. They had one little boy, he was 7 years old, who looked just like him. They had named him Ailean Broc in honor of both of their fathers. Plus a little girl who was just a new born, about a month old now. Her name had been chosen as Alexina Coria to honor their mothers.
Catan was in the other room playing with Ailean and Rose had just grabbed her young girl and was walking to the room. Watching her two men she smiled.
The End.
FIRE IN THE HIGHLANDS
Highlander Romance
Riley Moreno
It is 14th century Scotland, and the whole land is threatened by the Black Plague as it spreads across the British Isles. Annie is a healer by trade, but she is also a young widow, haunted by the ghost of the man she loved, who died in battle against the English. In a desperate bid both move on from her past and to find a cure to this terrible epidemic, she causes an accident in which she loses everything.
However, sometimes with disaster comes opportunity – and this opportunity comes in the form of a rich, powerful and handsome stranger from the far north of Scotland. But the plague is not the only trouble brewing in the land – there is also a spate of witch-burnings, and any woman, innocent or guilty, could be the next victim of the dreaded witch-finder. Will Annie survive this storm of uncertainty and terror to form a relationship with the dashing nobleman from the north? Find out in Fire In The Highlands.
CHAPTER 1
Campbell Village, East Scotland, 1347
Annie peered intently at the old scroll, saying the words out loud as she read. She paused, looked out of the window, and then repeated the words to herself one more time. The scroll was in Latin, a language she could speak fluently, but what she was reading didn't seem to make sense. The words described a formula for a special type of medicine said to help fight off the plague – and this was especially relevant at the present, as word was that the Black Plague had begun to reach Northern England in recent weeks.
The previous year the Black Plague had killed tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people in Southern England. The thought of it reaching her beloved Scotland and similarly decimating the population there horrified Annie. That was why she had just made a journey across the country, visiting a number of knowledgeable healers and alchemists, gathering ideas and wisdom, so that if the plague arrived here, she would be prepared to fight it. This scroll was a particularly unusual scroll, given to her by an old acquaintance, a grey, shriveled man who had been dabbling in alchemy for nigh on eighty years now. Some folks said that he wasn't quite all there upstairs any more – and thinking of the crazed look she had sometimes seen flashing in his eyes, that could certainly be a possibility. Still, Annie thought, she was willing to try anything to prepare an effective medicine against the plague. It would be the most challenging foe she would face in all of her twenty-five years.
She repeated the formula once more to herself, then stood up and walked outside. It always helped to step back from the desk and the library and get some fresh air in order to clear one's head. She took a leisurely stroll down to the little brook than ran past her cottage, which was on the outskirts of the village. When she reached the edge of the brook, she took off her shoes and stepped into the icy water. The shock of the chill sent a shiver running across the surface of her body, but also served to wake her up and focus her thoughts. She had been reading and researching all day, and her mind felt more than a little muddled.
She glanced down at her reflection in the water. She saw looking back at her a woman who was pretty in a very unique way; she had two different colored eyes – one green, one gray. These two eyes sat beneath finely-arched brows, and burned from deep sockets in a soft-featured, oval face, crowned by long, jet-black hair that spilled over her shoulders. She couldn't help but grin; she had always been happy with how she looked. Her lips looked especially luscious when she smiled, and deep dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth. Andrew had always told her that her dimples had been his favorite feature of her face.
Andrew.
She bit her lip and looked away from her reflection. It was impossible not to think of him, even now when her mind was so occupied with other things. He still visited her dreams every night, as he had said he would.
Andrew, the one patient she had not been able to save – and the only one she would truly have given her own life for, if it had meant saving him.
They had only been married for a year when it had happened. Andrew had been a soldier, a warrior who had taken his great claymore sword and joined his friends and brothers against the invading English hordes who came from the south. He had marched off to battle with a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eye, his broad shoulders held erect and proud. With that cheeky grin of his and those strong arms wrapped around her, he had promised her that he would be fine. He had promised that he would return unscathed.
It had been a promise he had not been able to keep.
They had brought him home on a stretcher. His deeply tanned skin had turned as white as that of a corpse, and his eyes had been dull and his face sallow. Two deep sword cuts had inflicted terrible damage on that body of his; as strong as his muscles were, they could not stop the sharpened steel of that English knight's sword.
Annie had tried everything, every medicine and every formula she knew of to try to bring him back from the edge. He had lain in their bed, moaning and half-conscious for two days, before his eyes had closed for a final time and never opened again.
That had been three years ago. Annie shook her head; three whole years, yet sometimes it felt like just yesterday. Sometimes she could swear that she heard his voice, or felt his presence just behind her – and she would turn around only to find that, as always, she was still alone, and that cottage that they had built together, stone by stone, was empty and quiet.
She knelt down next to the stream and splashed some cold water on her face, hoping that the chill of the water would not only invigorate her, but also remove the residue of the painful memories now lingering in her mind.
It worked – kind of. She never could get Andrew off her mind entirely. And that was alright; there was nobody else she was interested in, and not having a man in her life meant that she could devote herself entirely to the business of medicine making and healing.
She walked back into the cottage and went back to her desk. With fresh eyes, she once again read the formula on this scroll that the old man had given her. He had sworn that it would be the most effective plague remedy around, although to her the ingredients didn't seem to make much sense. Still, with age came wisdom, that was the traditional adage, and who was she to question it?
Annie took the required chemicals and elements off of her shelves and began to mix them in the required quantities in a large glass beaker. She started to stir the chemicals together – but immediately noticed that something wasn't quite right. The mixture was starting to bubble and hiss, and a black, acrid-smelling smoke was beginning to rise from the beaker. Suddenly, sparks started to fly. Annie stepped back in alarm – everything was happening very quickly here.
Then, it exploded.
A great fireball tore through the space, knocking Annie back off her feet onto her back. The flames, which were an intense, bright pink color, began roaring and hissing and showering everything with sparks – including the roof, which was made of dry thatch, which caught alight quickly. Annie jumped up and screamed as she saw the fire spreading. Her entire life, all her possessions and everything she was
, was in this cottage, which was now on fire. A bucket of water was on the floor, and in desperation she flung it at the flames, but the water only seemed to intensify the fire.
Then other chemicals in the jars around the desk began catching fire and exploding. The inside of the cottage began to seem like a portal to hell itself, with roaring flames, booming explosions and noxious smoke billowing everywhere. There was nothing to do but run. As her heart pounded with terror, Annie scrambled over to the desk, grabbed what she could of her precious scrolls and books, and dashed out of the cottage as the entirety of the thatched roof caught alight and started burning with a furious fire.
Outside, she ran to the stream and dropped her scrolls, books and papers near the water. She then began screaming for help as she grabbed a pail, began filling it with water from the brook, and rushed over to her house to throw bucketful of water at the burning building.
The nearest houses were a few hundred yards down the road. People soon heard her shouts and saw the flames and smoke billowing into the late afternoon sky, and they came rushing to help. Annie and her neighbors tried valiantly to fight the fire, but their little pails of water could do nothing against the raging inferno.
After three hours, they gave up. The water seemed to do nothing against the flames, however much they flung at them, and they were all exhausted.
Annie, with a soot-blackened face and coughing relentlessly from the smoke in her lungs, collapsed into a sobbing heap as she watched her entire life go up in smoke, burning into the night.
CHAPTER 2
The next morning all that remained of the cottage was a set of blackened stone walls. Everything inside it had been burned to chunks of black, smoldering charcoal. Nothing had survived but the few scrolls and books she had taken out in her flight from the cottage.