Winter Solstice: An Immortal Highlander Novella (Druid Series)

By

Mandy
M. Roth

Winter Solstice (Sacred Places)
©
Copyright 2011, Mandy M. Roth

Cover art by
Natalie Winters, © Copyright 2011

First Electronic Printing December 2011, The Raven Books

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

All books copyrighted to
the author and may not be resold or given away without written permission from
the author, Mandy M. Roth.

This novel is a work of fiction.
Any and all characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and
should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead,
or events or places is merely coincidence.

The Raven Books

Published by The
Raven Books

www.ravenhappyhour.com
~ www.theravenbooks.com

Raven Books and
all affiliate sites and projects are © Copyrighted
2004-2011

Mandy
M. Roth

Table
of Contents

Winter Solstice (Sacred Places)
1

Chapter One
.
5

Chapter Two
.
13

Chapter Three
.
20

Chapter Four
27

Chapter Five
.
30

Chapter Six
.
33

Sacred Places Series
.
34

About the Author, Mandy M. Roth
.
35

Mandy on Amazon
.
35

The Raven Books’ Complimentary
Material
36

Trust in the Season by Mandy M.
Roth
.
36

Christmas Curse by Michelle M.
Pillow
..
40

Sacred Places Book Three

Powerful, immortal,
magikal
and
cursed to the shadows of the night. Gordon
O’Caha
, a
seven-hundred-year-old druid sorcerer, fell in battle centuries ago. When he
recovered, he found he wasn’t as he’d once been, purely
magik
.
He was much, much more. Now, he shares his body with darkness—a demon gifted to
him by the blood drinkers he’d been attacked by. His family and clan haven’t
turned their back on him. It’s Gordon who has shut himself away from them. This
hardened man does what he has to in order to survive—he drinks blood, feeds his
sexual lust and exists. Nothing more. That is, until a sassy slip of a woman
careens into him on the street, spilling her hot coco all over his groin. It’s
literally hotter than he can handle. The minx isn’t what she appears to be and
when her secrets are revealed, so is a dangerous plot.

Chelsy
Riley is doing her best to
get by. Her grandmother’s passing left her without family and with a tiny used bookstore
to run. She thinks it’s as hectic as it can get. When she slams into a sexy,
gruff man who seems oddly out of time and place, she learns what secrets her
past holds and that her future is full of endless possibilities. That is, only
if she doesn’t become a sacrifice for dark mages.

Sacred
Places

Goddess
of the Grove

Winter
Solstice

The night
air was bitter but the fresh blood pumping through Gordon O’Caha’s body warmed
him. His cheeks were even slightly flushed—something that didn’t happen often.
The man he’d fed from had been fat and jolly, stuffed in a Father Christmas
suit and wreaking of whiskey. A second glance back at his “dinner” showed him
the man was still slumped in the darkened alleyway. The man was propped
haphazardly against an old building. Exactly where he’d left him after feeding
from him.

Gordon
adjusted the collar of his long, black leather coat and slipped on his gloves.
He smoothed the front of his black Prada dress shirt. It matched his slacks. He
had a thing for all black and cared not what others thought on the matter. He
also had a taste for the finer things in life.

Freshly
fallen snow crunched beneath his designer dress shoes as he stepped out from
the alley. He worried not about his tracks. They’d never be linked to him.
 

The sounds
of Christmas music, playing from loud speakers, carefully hidden away on lamp
posts with wreaths, filled the air. With only a few days left until Christmas,
the streets were busier than normal for this time of night. Last minute
shoppers weaved paths past one another, each too absorbed in their own personal
matters to notice that of any others.

A
policeman stood waving several older women across the street. Gordon stared at
the man,
willing
him to look in his direction. The man did. Once eye
contact was made, Gordon simply drew upon the gifts of his kind, using nothing
more than his mind, to instruct the man on how best to handle the situation of
the drunken man in the alley.

The
policeman would call for help. It would arrive. The drunken man would sober up
in the hospital with a warm bed and food in his stomach. No one would remember
the presence of the mysterious man—Gordon—because he simply willed it so. With
a mix of ancient druid magik and the power of the blood drinkers running
through him, he was a force to be reckoned with. None could deny him that much.

“Och, it’s
almost too easy,” he muttered, partially under his breath as he strolled out
and onto the busy sidewalk. Life lacked surprise anymore, not that what he did
counted as living. He existed. Plain and simple. And this was his night. Yule.
The longest night of the year. The day when the Celtic myths of old tell of the
Oak King killing his brother the Holly King. All Gordon was fully sure of anymore
was on this night he was afforded more darkness, allowing him greater freedoms.

His cell
rang and he ignored it, already knowing who was calling. One of his cousins.
Probably Coyle. The O’Cahas were fiercely loyal to their family and they alone,
in the world of magiks, refused to abandon him to the darkness. After the
attack, they tried their best to get him to see reason—to return with them and
continue to fight the good fight, but he couldn’t. He was no longer a good man.
A full-blooded druid. Now he was tainted with the blood of demons.

His phone
rang once more and he knew it was Coyle again. Coyle liked to try to reconnect
with him during the holidays. The Winter Solstice was a favorite of his
cousin’s.

“I do nae
need family. I need no one,” Gordon said partially under his breath.
 

Something
slammed into Gordon and suddenly liquid fire ignited against his groin, drawing
with it a groan from him.

“By
Dagda!” Blinking in surprise, he reached out quickly, catching hold of the
pixie before him. The woman, coming only to his mid chest, was tiny in his
arms. She wiggled, almost managing to break free of his barely there hold. Eyes
as green as the grass near the bog at the base of the land he played on as a
child stared up at him through a shroud of thick lashes. Long wisps of blonde,
unruly, curly hair fought to be free of the clips holding it up. There was a
bit of the old country in her. No doubt about it.

The darker
side of him—the side that should be sated for weeks to come—thrummed with
hunger. His ears pounded with the sound of her beating heart. The blood raced
through her veins, taunting him. His resolve nearly broke as he focused in on
her neck. For a split second, he was sure his fangs had exploded through his
gums. A quick roll of his tongue over his teeth proved otherwise. He knew he
should release her and flee or risk being her end, yet he couldn’t get his
fingers to unfurl from her upper arms.

With a
sharp intake of breath, she stared at his groin. “Ohmygod, I’m so sorry.”

Fog coated
his mind, making it difficult to form a thought. He had to focus, harnessing
both his manly urges and the darkness he harbored. The woman shouldn’t have had
that effect on him. Others hadn’t in his hundreds upon hundreds of years
roaming the earth. Why would this one prove different?

“Are you
all right?” she asked, her voice as demure as she appeared to be.

Am I
all right? I want to rip the clothes from her body, feed from her and fuck her
into the otherworld, and she’s wonderin’ if I’m all right?

Gordon shook
his head slightly and cleared his throat, following her gaze. His eyes widened
as he found the front of his black slacks covered in a large wet spot.

I’ve
embarrassed myself?

Nae.

He looked
again.

Aye.

“I, well,
I…” he stammered, only then noting the crushed paper cup and plastic lid laying
near his feet in the snow. Brown liquid was splattered on the ground around
them.

“That coco
was scalding hot,” she said, reaching for him. “Did it burn you?”

Her
delicate fingers connected with the front of his crotch and Gordon knew then
he’d not yet come in his pants. If she kept touching him, he would. Grabbing
her wrist gently, he eased her fingers from him, instantly mourning the loss of
her touch.

Chelsy
Riley stared in horror at the large wet spot on the man in front of her. She’d
been so wrapped up in thoughts about errands that she’d never seen him there.
She’d careened into him, spilling her cup of steaming hot coco all over him.
The strange way he watched her made her wonder if he was in shock. Something as
hot as the liquid all over his groin had to be painful.

Her gaze
flickered to his pants once more. She tipped her head, her mouth forming an “O”
as she took note of the size of his erection pressed firmly against the wet
material. Men didn’t come packaged like that. It had to be a sock or something
other than his cock. If it was the real deal, the man was carrying around a
battering ram in his pants.

Pink
stained her upper chest as she realized she was checking him out. She ripped
her gaze from his groin, drawing it up his broad chest. Sadly, that did nothing
in the way of breaking her wanton thoughts of him. If the man was half as built
as she was guessing he was under all those layers, he was amazing. She chewed
at her lower lip, hoping to keep from moaning.

When her
gaze met his dark blue one, she took another tiny step back. He was at least
six and a half feet tall. Had there been any sun out, he’d have surely eclipsed
it. As it stood, he already did a fine number of blocking out the moon’s pale light.
Long jet black hair hung past his shoulders. Pieces of it were braided in tiny
braids, the ends secured with black bands. The rest lay about his shoulders,
untouched. There was a fierceness about him. It was as if he were out of place.
Like he belonged somewhere else. In another time perhaps.

“Lass, can
you nae see? How is it you can miss one such as me?” he snapped, his brogue
evident. “I’m hardly a small man.”

No. Small
certainly wasn’t the word she’d use to describe him.
 

It was
then she pictured him standing in a field of heather, somewhere in Scotland,
dressed in full Highlander regal. The image was so vivid she had to force
herself away from it.

Her lips
turned upwards. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spill my coco on you.”

“Well, you
did,” he said harshly, his hands tightening on her forearms.

She hissed
and pulled, trying to get loose. “You’re hurting me.”

His eyes
widened and he released her at once. His gaze locked upon her arms and he
reached out tentatively. She flinched and his hardened expression softened in
an instant. “I’ll nae harm you. I only wish to assure yer well. My strength got
away from me, lass.”

Genuine
concern rode not only his voice but his face as well. Chelsy had no choice but
to drop her guard somewhat. “I’m fine. How about you?” She motioned to his
groin. “How badly are you burned?”

Before he
could respond, sirens sounded throughout the night, piercing the Christmas
music. The man in front of her never bothered to so much as glance at the
ambulance that sped to a stop just behind them. Nor did he pay any mind to the
commotion as what appeared to be a homeless man dressed in a Santa suit was
brought out on a stretcher. The only thing the man seemed concerned with was
her.

She
gulped. With a shaky finger, she pointed towards the paramedics. “Look. They
have Santa. I wonder what happened to the man. I hope he’s okay.”

“Father
Christmas is fine,” the man said, stepping closer. “And you do nae see him.”

Confused,
she lifted a brow, still pointing. “But I do see him. He’s right there.”

A stunned
expression came over the handsome stranger. “Did you nae hear me? I said,
you
do nae see him
.”

Again, she
remained in place. “Are you mental or something, mister?”

“The name
is Gordon O’Caha and I’m nae touched in the head, though you seem to be
resistant to such a thing.”

His words
were odd, as was the man, but there was something about him that drew her in.
She lowered her arm and settled slightly when the hustle and bustle on the
street began to clear. The ambulance pulled away and everything seemed to go
back to normal or as normal as it could be in the height of the Christmas
happenings.

“Well,
Gordon, I’m Chelsy. My shop is just up the street here. If you want, I have
some paper towels and a sink you can use to clean up in.”

He watched
her for what felt like forever before finally responding. “Aye. I’d like that
verra much.”

It was
impossible to hold back a smile. The way the man phrased things and his accent
was too much for her. She stepped past him, her body brushing against his. Fire
ignited within her, and she undid the three buttons that held her long, thick
wool sweater duster together in the front.

Gordon
invaded her space, his powerful body making contact with her once more. “Lass,
you look warm. Somethin’ a matter?”

Yeah,
I’m suffering from hormone overload.

“N-no, I’m
good,” she said, straightening her shoulders and heading in the direction of
her shop. If she kept staring at him, she might very well beg the man to do
naughty things to her and she wasn’t that type of girl. Her grandmother had
raised her better than that.

Gordon
followed closely behind Chelsy. Her bottom was rounded. Not too plump and not
too skinny. Just the way he liked them. So many women in this day and age
prided themselves on being skin and bones. A man had to have something to grab
hold of at night. Something to pound into. It was his job to be hard and the
woman’s job to be soft and welcoming. Chelsy looked like she was precisely
that.

Soft.

Warm.

Welcoming.

His cock
throbbed with need. He adjusted it, taking a moment to palm his erection as he
thought about sinking between the globes of her ass. There was a certain fire
about her. Her will was strong. So strong that he’d been unable to compel her
with his voice. Humans always obeyed his will be it spoken or not. Having one
who so easily stood in opposition to his influence was refreshing. He’d see
where she led him and then use her to sate the burning in his loins. Already he
felt the need to feed his bloodlust once more and she’d do nicely for that as
well. He’d be careful about how he fed from her though as to not alert her it
was occurring.

I’ll
get in, fuck her, drink and then go.

He huffed.

Okay,
mayhap I’ll fuck, drink from her and then stick around a wee bit longer to fuck
her again.

A large
iron sign hung outside a tiny corner store.

The
Cobbler’s Bookstore
.

He arched
a brow. Someone did shoe repair and sold books?

Chelsy
turned, a grin on her face. “Used to be a shoe repair shop before my
grandmother bought it and made it a used bookstore.”

“Ah, I
see.” Or so he claimed until he entered the store and noted the abundance of
books on druids and magiks scattered about, displayed in various ways. What was
odd was some of the books looked to be ancient, and while she had them within
glass cases, she had them all the same. They were to be passed down within
druid lines, never for public consumption. Sadly, history firmly believed
little to no written accounts of druids existed when in reality many did, but
they remained within the druid lines, never to be shared with the general
public. Seeing them on display set his teeth on edge.