Prologue
Kilmartin Glen, Scottish Highlands
December 1718
Desire. Lust. Sex.
In the dream, he was drowning in it, sinking deeper and deeper into a sea of desperate, tempestuous need. Soft, searching hands teased and stroked his chest and shoulders while warm, wet mouths licked at his stomach.
He was Lachlan MacDonald, Kinloch Castle’s Laird of War, battle-seasoned warrior, and Scotland’s most infamous seducer of women. Yet he loved only one, who was nothing but a vague, shifting memory in his mind.
Where was she in this dream? Was she even here? And was it truly a dream? It felt more like death. But if that were the case, he would be with her again, would he not?
The current began to churn faster around him. No, she was not here. Not in this place. He did not know any of these women. They were all strangers. Suddenly he found he couldn’t breathe.
Lachlan woke with a start, sucking cold air into his lungs. He tried to sit up but couldn’t. His arms were stretched over his head, each wrist bound by a rope. His legs were spread wide, his ankles tethered. He was outdoors in some sort of pit, staring up at the clear night sky.
A throbbing agony exploded in his skull. It was worse than death, and he shouted with rage, his muscles straining as he tugged and jerked at the bonds. But it was pointless to struggle. They were secure and his body was weak. Nausea burned in his gut. He went still and looked around through the gloom. Vertical walls of stone surrounded him. He was lying on a bed of cold gravel.
This was no pit. It was an open grave. An ancient burial cist.
Lachlan balled his hands into fists and shouted with fury, but that only caused the grave to spin in dizzying circles.
Had he been drugged? If so, by whom? And how in God’s name did he get here?
Groping through a dense haze of incomprehension, he strove to remember his last steps. He had traveled alone to Kilmartin Glen on an errand for his cousin and chief, Angus MacDonald, Laird of Kinloch Castle. He had stopped for a midday meal at the alehouse.…
His labored breaths came faster, puffing rapid clouds of steam into the cold night air.
Images slowly came back to him. There was a woman. He had gone with her to the haystacks in the field. She’d giggled and laughed when he slid his hands up her skirts and blew into her ear. But nothing existed for him after that. It was as if he had simply fallen into the dream.
Footsteps approached; then a figure appeared overhead, at the foot of the grave. A woman. He watched her move like a shadow in front of the moon. She bent forward to retrieve something on the ground—a wooden pail with a rope handle—then straightened and fixed her eyes on him.
He was disoriented, but by God, he recognized that silhouette. It was Raonaid, the oracle. One month ago, she had vowed to make him rue the day he banished her from Kinloch Castle.
“Raonaid…”
Lachlan had never feared death before, but this woman stirred a hellish dread inside him. She worked with ancient powers from beyond, and from the first moment, he had sensed her venom. It was why he had encouraged Angus to cast her out of Kinloch.
She stepped forward and dumped a bucketful of bones on top of him, and he winced with disgust as they clattered onto his kilt.
“What are these?” he asked. “The bones of all your ex-lovers?”
Raonaid gathered her skirts in her fists and hopped down into the grave. Straddling her legs around him, she sat down and wiggled her skirted bottom over his hips.
“If you’re hoping to ride me,” he growled through gritted teeth, “you’re going to be disappointed when I don’t rise to the occasion.”
She was a beautiful woman—one of the most desirable in Scotland—with thick red hair and a buxom figure, huge, lavish breasts, and a face like an angel, but he despised her.
“I don’t wantyou,” she said, her eyes on fire with antagonism and loathing. “I never did. But I wanted Angus, and he was my lover for more than a year—untilyoucame and took him away.”
It was a struggle for Lachlan to think straight through the pounding agony in his brain.
“Angus was not put on this earth to be your bed partner,” he replied thickly. “He was born to lead the MacDonalds, to be Chief and Laird of Kinloch Castle, and I helped him reclaim that right. If you truly cared for him, you would never have denied him his destiny. You would have let him go.”
She leaned forward and whispered maliciously in Lachlan’s ear, “But Angus was forced to wed his enemy’s daughter. Nay, Lachlan—youare the one who dragged him back to a world and a life he had forsaken, and you poisoned his mind against me.”
Raonaid sat back and withdrew a small dirk from her boot. Slowly, tauntingly, she waved the blade back and forth in front of his eyes, then reached down and sliced a lock of his hair. “I’ll need this for the curse,” she said, “in order to keep it going.” Then she nicked him fast across the cheek with the sharp point of the knife. “And this drop of blood.”
