Shifters, Beasts, and Monsters (9 page)

Also, you will remain at Mallochbirn. You are mine.
You cannot leave. Now lie down in the sand. Lie down and go to sleep.

His voice echoing through the crystal cavern made her
feel lightheaded, as if she had consumed too many glasses of champagne. The
sand felt warm and soft against her skin. The crystals danced with color. Her
eyelids grew heavy, and she knew no more.

Chapter Six

Kate dreamed she was lying naked on a sandy beach. The
sun sparkled on the waves. Palm fronds and other lush vegetation gave her
shelter from the tropical heat. A soft breeze scented with the aromas of bright
colored flowers, fruits and spices drifted over her skin. This, surely, was
Paradise.

The noise from the sea did not startle or scare her.
Even as it grew, she remained calm and content. Lifting her head, she shaded
her eyes with her hand. Yes. He was coming. Her lover. A thrill ran through her
body and the tropical heat settled in between her thighs. She could feel the
petals of her sex swelling and moistening. He was coming for her at last.

The sea was encroaching on her, too. Where before she
had been lying beyond the water line, now the waves tickled her toes as they
broke. They rose and broke higher, quickly reaching her knees and her thighs.
The water was cool but not too cold. It felt refreshing.

Soon the waves were lapping at her between her thighs,
cresting on the mound of her sex in a way that made her breathe more quickly
and churn her hips to meet the teasing lash of the salty water. Beneath her butt,
the wet sand collapsed a little, sucking at her as the waves slid back out. It
was as if the sea itself were caressing her.

She lay quite still as she heard him splashing in the
shallows toward her. Huge and magnificent, he shouldered up from the clear
green sea. Water sluiced down over his tough, gnarly hide, making him shine in
the sun. She wanted to run her hands over that rough hide, pressing firmly so
he could feel her caresses.

The water heaved as he stepped toward her on his giant
haunches. He was graceful, even when partially out of his element. He glided
forward smoothly. The closer he came, the more upright he stood, and his
features shifted until he was more man than monster.

He grinned at the sight of her lying naked, awaiting
him. He released a thunderous roar of approval.

She sighed and spread her thighs. They would have to
stretch very far apart for him, she knew, but this did not alarm her. She felt
lazy and hazy as he came upon her, his enormous shadow blotting out the sun.

Somewhere in the distance, she heard a pounding like a
drum beat. She wasn’t sure whether there were indeed drummers present, or if it
was just the beating of her blood. She moved her pelvis to the rhythm. The
motion added to her building lust.

He was all she could see now—his silvery eyes,
his crushing jaws, his seven-fingered hands, his muscular chest and belly,
against which she had been cradled. He had tentacles crisscrossing his torso.
As she watched, her soul on fire, they uncrossed and slithered over her body.

All six of them slid to different spots, where they
stroked her burning flesh. Two took her breasts. They probed, encircled and
swirled. There were suction cups on the inner sides of them, which clamped down
and pulled away rhythmically, sucking at her. She cried out at the sweet
intensity of the stimulation. Her thighs thrashed, causing splashes in the
shallow water where she lay. When one of the tentacles applied its suction to
the lips of her pussy, she screamed. The tendrils darted around, moving,
exploring, driving her mad with the strangest and wildest pleasure she had ever
known.

One tentacle, bigger than its fellows, slipped to the
threshold of her vagina. The tip probed her. It slid easily into her hot wetness.
It moved sinuously inside her, penetrating more deeply, its thickness
increasing. She was not sure if she was arching to the stimulation or if the
increasingly thick appendage was lifting her hips from the inside as it writhed
deliciously within her.

As her bottom came off the sand, she felt another
probe being inserted into her ass, pushing past the muscle there and twisting snake-like
in time with its mate in her pussy. Then there was intense suction from the one
on her clit. She screamed again in wild abandon, probed and massaged all over
with her lover’s mighty tentacles.

She was coming violently when the probes withdrew and
a spiked cock pressed against her pussy. The tentacles had opened her, and she was
ready. She felt a sharp, startling pain beginning in her core as something
unbelievably huge tried to force itself inside her. But it seemed to be making
headway. It was even starting to feel good...

Kate came awake with her heart pounding, her body
sweating, and... Whoa. There were pulses of pleasure reverberating between her
thighs. She realized with some amusement that she had just had a vivid erotic
dream. She pressed her hand to her mound, which was still throbbing with
aftershocks. She groaned. A man-monster with tentacles?

She didn’t think she’d ever had
that
dream
before. It had been pretty damn good though, she admitted, squeezing her thighs
together and laughing. Too bad there were no warm waters and shady palm trees
on the northwest coast of Scotland!

Wait. She jerked upright to a sitting position. She
looked around the unfamiliar room. The sensual aftermath of pleasure fled as
she struggled to recall how she had gotten here. And where the hell
here
was.

She was in a warm bed in an
old-fashioned bedchamber, tucked up among silky sheets and wool blankets with
clan colors. The soft light filtering in the windows from outside told her it
was morning. There had been an inn in Mallochbirn village, she remembered. But
they’d told her they had no rooms available.

She sat up and pushed the
covers down. She was clad in a cotton nightgown that was not her own.
Underneath it, she was naked.

As she moved one leg from
under the covers, fragments of the dream came back to her. The entirety of it
was already fading. She shook her head, confused. She’d been pleasured by a sea
monster. She blinked, trying to clear her mind. It ought to feel like a
nightmare, but it had been delicious. Jeez. She must have drunk too much last
night.

She rose and crossed the cold
floor of the room on bare feet. Brrr! She reached back for a blanket from the
bed and wrapped it around her. It might officially be summer, but this chamber
was hardly what she would call warm.

She opened the first door she
saw, which led to a small bathroom. Shutting it again, she surveyed the rest of
the room. There was a window in slightly the rounded wall. Was she in some kind
of tower? She looked out and saw nothing but sea and rocks. She must be on Mallochbirn
Isle, in the castle itself. The castle that had supposedly been off limits yesterday.

How had she gotten here? She
focused, trying to remember. Never having been a big drinker, Kate had never
before woken up in the morning with no memory of how she’d spent the previous
night. She hoped she hadn’t been drugged. Did they even have date rape drugs in
this remote area of Scotland? At least she hadn’t awakened naked in bed with
some stranger.

She had a brief image of
waking naked in bed with the hot Scot. That wouldn’t be such an awful fate.

Now what? Was she some kind
of prisoner? She crossed to the other door in the room and tugged at it. It opened
into a short corridor with a winding stone stairway leading down. She could
leave her room, at least. She remembered Effie, the excited girl who had been
waiting for her demon lover to rise from the sea. Such nonsense. Had she missed
the entire ceremony? Damn that whiskey! She hoped the girl was okay.

First order, clothes. Kate couldn’t
recall what she had been wearing last night. But a dress and a sweater that
belonged to her were neatly folded on a chest standing at the bottom of her
large bedstead. Underwear, too. She shed her blanket and dressed. Her backpack
was there. She examined it quickly and found the rest of her things intact.

She dug for her cell phone.
There was still some battery power left, but it wasn’t picking up a signal.
Figures. This part of Scotland seemed to be stuck in a former century.

Ten minutes later, Kate was
downstairs, exploring the castle. It must have been renovated at some point,
although not entirely. There was a central area that had been brought up to
modern standards, but other parts of the keep had been left to rusticate in
medieval splendor. She followed her nose to a huge kitchen, where a round-cheeked
woman was bending over a gas range stirring a cast-iron pot. Kate stopped on the
threshold, enjoying the smell of fresh bread baking. “Hullo? Excuse me for
disturbing you.”

The woman turned, holding up her
wooden spoon, and beamed at her. “Good morning to you, Miss. You needn’t have
come down. I was going to bring up a tray.”

“Oh no, that’s not necessary.
I like to be active in the mornings. My name is Kate.”

“And I’m Irene Dumfries,
dear. I have some water boiling for tea, if that suits you?”

“Yes, please, that would be
wonderful.”

While the tea was brewing,
Kate asked, “Mrs. Dumfries, did you notice what time I got here last night? I
must have been sleepy from my journey, since I don’t remember my arrival too
clearly.”

“Oh no. I understand from the
Master that it was quite late. I have to be up to get the bread baking, you
see, so I’m in bed early. Did you have a long journey? No wonder you look a
little peaked. Never you mind. My cooking will fix you up in no time. How about
a nice bowl of oat porridge?”

Fortunately, she liked oats. The
grain figured in many of the dishes she had tried in the Highlands.

“Where is the Master? I would
like to have a chat with him this morning.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.
Indeed, he asked that you be brought to his study as soon as you were up and
about and finished with breakfast.”

She was tempted to chug her
tea and bolt. She had a lot of questions. But the porridge smelled so good that
she ate it in a leisurely manner and sipped her tea. The Master could damn well
wait.

* * *

When Ross heard Kate’s voice
outside his study door, his body reacted. His dick, which was being damned obstreperous
this morning, rose aggressively. He was grateful he hadn’t donned tight
pants. 

She knocked on the wide oaken
door. He waited a moment to try to compose himself, and then shouted for her to
enter.

Kate did so. She was wearing
a light summer dress and a cardigan. They must have been in the pack that he
had ordered retrieved from her car. Her car was still in the village at the
inn, where he had arranged for parking.

“Good morning,” he said.

She approached his desk. She regarded
him with her head tilted slightly to one side. “What am I doing here? Did I
drink too much or did you drug me? LSD, perhaps? I hear that causes trippy
hallucinations.”

He had considered blaming the
whole thing on hallucinogens. Or even an excess of single malt and a lively imagination.
But he’d hoped she wouldn’t remember.

He gestured to the chair
across from his desk. “Please sit.” He had placed the desk between them
deliberately. It was a barrier. Without it, he was afraid he might grab her. He
might even shift to the sea dragon right here, out of the water. Never had he
felt less in control.

“I prefer to stand.”

Contrary woman. But he loved
her spirit, her courage. He remembered the way she had squared her shoulders
and bravely confronted the monster, even though she must have been terrified.
No one had ever done that before.

 
She was his. It
seemed impossible, yet it must be true. He had bonded with her mentally. She
had not made any attempt to resist his invasion of her deepest and most private
self. In fact, she had initiated their mental bond. Her connection with the
untamed sea dragon had been powerful. She had violated the annual Midsummer’s
Eve ritual, and the Zrakon could have killed her for that. Instead, he had
gazed upon her in awe.

The hunger that had swept him last night was stronger
than anything he had ever experienced. His extra-acute senses had sensed her
heartbeat, her breathing, every slight movement she made. He had been inside
her.
Inside her.
He wanted to explore her again, mind, body and soul. He
wanted to be inside her in every possible way.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“No kidding. I woke up a
little while ago in a bedroom where I don’t recall going to sleep. I’ll confess
to being embarrassed. I must have taken too much of that delicious whiskey. I
don’t remember much about last night. But I do know that the last time we met,
you were swearing at me and threatening to have me arrested if I didn’t leave
your forbidden island.”

She had the most pleasant, musical
voice. He could listen to her talk all day. Even when she was annoyed with him.

Focus
, he ordered himself.

She didn’t remember. Thank
the gods for that. He hadn’t been certain the command to forget would work on
her. He didn’t understand all the aspects of his magic, which he didn’t use
often. Never before had he found himself in a predicament like this one.

He couldn’t stop staring at
her. Even if he’d tried, he didn’t think he could have dreamed her up. She was
exactly the sort of woman he pictured in some of his most outrageous fantasies.
Her hair was such a deep black-brown that it had a sheen, as if complete darkness
produced an aura of color. In contrast, her skin was ivory pale and flawless.
When she blushed or grew angry, as she had been yesterday morning when he’d
ordered her off the isle, rosy pink suffused her cheeks, making her face and
throat look like roses over silk. Her eyes were sea green. Even without
lipstick, her lips were a deep luscious pink.