A Scot's Resolve (The MacLomain Series: End of an Era, #3)

by Purington, Sky

  For the first time in her life beyond numbers, science, and the cold hard truth, someone said something that truly translated. Everything clicked into place in a way she would have never thought possible. It was as if they'd pulled back a curtain and allowed her to see. She’d never know if it was because of what had just been said or because of the women themselves, but she suddenly felt different.

  More accepting of something she had long thought was her imagination.

  Long thought impossible.

  Could it be the whisky at work? No, definitely not. This was real.

  She was real.

  “I am a dragon, aren’t I?” she whispered, looking from Jessie to Erin and back. “A real live...dragon?”

  “Very much so, sweetheart.” Erin rested her hand over Madison’s. “Just like Jessie and me. All three of us are.” She shook her head. “So, you’re not alone.”

  Truly? Because she had felt so very alone most of her life.

  “What do you think of that?” Jessie’s eyes were as kind and strong as Erin’s when they met Madison’s. “What do you think of being such a magnificent creature?”

  She had no idea. What did a dragon truly look like? She glanced back and forth between them. They were so dainty and beautiful yet quite clearly exceptionally strong. She was none of those things.

  “I guess I don’t know,” she finally managed. “If you two are examples of how female dragons look, then I can’t imagine how I could be one. I clearly don’t compare.”

  Erin squeezed her shoulder gently. “Well, aren’t you sweet.”

  “And far more beautiful than you know,” Jessie added, eyeing her with a look fairly similar to the one Marek had. As though she saw something Madison didn’t. “While my sons and I clearly find you utterly captivating as is, let’s get you dressed appropriately and see if we can’t show you what they see.”

  “That’s fine, I suppose.” If not impossible. “But what about the rest of me?”

  Darn it, had she just said that?

  Erin perked her brows. “The rest of you?”

  “Well, yeah, what’s on the inside.” If the cat was out of the bag, she might as well go with it. “My obsession with numbers, dry personality, and OCD for starters.”

  “Oh my,” Erin said softly, compassion in her eyes. “You really aren’t very easy on yourself, are you?”

  “I’m honest with myself.”

  “You’re also shrouded from yourself.” Jessie urged her to stand. “Critical when you shouldn’t be.” She shook her head as she walked around Madison, evidently taking visual measurements. “What you think are flaws are anything but. They’re part of you and your dragon.” Her eyes met Madison’s. “A very, very repressed dragon who might be trying to get through to you any way she can.”

  “I don’t get it.” She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean everything about you is part of not being completely whole yet,” she said gently. “As you embrace your dragon and allow her to flourish, everything will become clear. From your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to what you consider a dry personality. Which, by the way, based on what I saw of you with Cray today, is anything but.”

  “I really am so sorry about that,” she said, wishing she could undo it all.

  “Don’t be.” Jessie chuckled. “It’s about time somebody gave it back to him a little. That it was the woman meant for him makes it all that much better.” Her eyes leveled with Madison’s, her demeanor suddenly very serious. “Because you are meant for my youngest son, Madison. You have been since long before you were born.”

  Only then, staring into Jessie’s eyes, did she understand just how powerful Cray’s mother really was. How powerful both she and Erin were. Yet they weren’t overbearing mother hens or dragons in this case, but welcoming in a way she could never have imagined. In a way she could have only hoped for when it came to in-laws.

  No, not in-laws.

  What was she thinking?

  That would mean she believed what Jessie had just said.

  “I’m not sure how I could be meant for Cray,” she began only to trail off when her conservative pantsuit vanished only to be replaced with a simple, stream-lined but amazingly flattering gray-blue dress. While still reserved enough to appease her nature, it plumped her cleavage up just enough to draw the eye. Never in a million years would she normally wear something like this, but she could admit it felt rather...good. Great, honestly. Feminine. Attractive.

  “Ahh, well done, Jessie,” Erin praised. She stood and looked over Madison as well. “This is the perfect cut for her figure.”

  “Any cut would be perfect,” Jessie said absently, her attention now focused on Madison’s hair.

  More pointedly, her clip.

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head, already knowing where Jessie was going with this. “Not the clip. I need the clip.”

  “And you’ll still have the clip.” Jessie flicked her wrist. “But try it there. See if you can handle it.”

  She touched her hair gingerly, sort of surprised by how less tense she already felt with it holding her hair back loosely rather than so tightly.

  “Then, there are those.” Jessie considered her glasses. “When did you start wearing them?” She cocked her head. “Was it around the time the ‘devil’ first appeared in your eyes?”

  She thought about it, amazed. “Yeah, actually. How did you know?”

  “Just a feeling.” Jessie touched either side of her glasses and met Madison’s eyes. “May I remove them?”

  “Sure, but I won’t be able to see a thing.”

  “Maybe,” Jessie whispered, removing them slowly.

  “No, not maybe but definitely,” she began only to trail off again once the glasses were removed.

  Everything was still crystal clear.

  She swallowed hard, terrified at first until Erin laid a gentle hand on her arm and calmed her.

  “It’s okay,” Erin assured. “You’ve just accepted your dragon enough to see clearly again.” She tilted her head in question. “You can see just fine, can’t you?” Erin stared at her eyes with as much awe as Jessie before she whispered, “I got it before, but now I really get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “Why my sons, especially Cray, have trouble looking away from your eyes.” Jessie flicked her wrist, manifesting a full-length mirror. “Why any man, let alone dragon, has trouble looking away from you, period.”

  She had to blink a few times to make sure the woman in the mirror was really her. It couldn’t be. But it was. From head to toe, she looked...beautiful. Like someone else entirely.

  “But you’re not someone else entirely,” Jessie said softly, smiling at her in the mirror. “This has always been you, Madison. You just couldn’t see it.”

  “Trust me, neither could anyone else in my time,” she murmured, shocked that her body wasn’t as bony and awkwardly shaped as she thought but lithe and sculptured. Her hair, where usually not relevant or exceptional, became the opposite when relaxed around her face rather than pulled back tautly.

  “I suspect most didn’t see you clearly because of your dragon.” Erin smiled at her in the mirror, as well. “As a rule, human men instinctively steer clear of dragons, and you, so very repressed, did little to change that.”

  “Oh,” she whispered, touching her cheek, amazed this face was hers. These lips. Not grotesquely large like she last remembered but wide and full like the magazine models she so envied. And her eyes. They startled her the most. It was hard to believe she was in there. That she looked back at herself through them.

  “When’s the last time you looked at yourself in a mirror, Madison?” Jessie asked. “Really, truly looked at yourself?”

  “Not for a long time.” There had been no point. She knew what was there and wasn’t vain by nature, so she didn’t pay much attention. She kept touching her face, trying to get used to the image in the mirror being her own. “There was no need. I was never going to change, so why bother?�
�� She shrugged. “Besides, there are far more important things to worry about than looks.”

  “Now that I agree with,” Erin replied. “Yet, there’s no harm in embracing your natural beauty a little.” She rested her hand on Madison’s shoulder and closed her eyes as if seeking something out. Better yet, sensing something. “Especially when not just Scottish, but many nationalities contribute to your beauty.” She fingered a tendril of hair that had come loose. “This, your hair, comes from an oriental bloodline.”

  “Oriental?” she whispered, having never bothered with a DNA test.

  “Yes, you have several ethnicities in you.” She rested her other hand on Madison’s shoulder. “But none as strong as your Scottish.” Her eyes changed a little, as though she saw something other than Madison. “And your Irish.” Pain flashed in her eyes when they met Madison’s. “Most definitely, your Irish.”

  A blink later, she was no longer standing with Erin and Jessie but someplace else.

  A Stonehenge not steeped in fog but blazing with fire.

  So very much fire.

  Not only that, she realized moments later, the hard truth.

  Chapter Eight

  “YOU ARE SURE ‘twas dragon fire at the Irish Stonehenge, Madison?” his grandfather asked. “Dragon fire that assisted the evil brotherhood?”

  “Positive.” Madison nodded. “I know I’m new to the whole dragon thing, but I’m right. I’m sure of it. My inner dragon showed me.” Emotion churned in her eyes. “This time, it didn’t hurt but felt familiar. As if the fire itself were a sixth sense I was finally using. I finally saw clearly...in more ways than one.”

  Ethyn was being ‘courteous’ enough not to stare—gawk—at her, anymore, but Cray was doing no such thing. While he’d most certainly desired her before, now he wondered how the bloody hell he was going to survive one more hour, let alone a day without having her. Between her low cut gown finally giving him a glimpse of her delicious cleavage, and seeing her stunning face without those blasted spectacles, he was so aroused it hurt.

  If it weren’t for the warning looks his ma and grandma kept shooting him, he would have already had her in his bed. It was just up the stairs and down the hall, and he was eager to have her sprawled across it. He wouldn’t bother removing her clothing the first time but force her on hands and knees, hike up her skirt and have her then and there.

  “You won’t be forcing me to do anything,” she spat into his mind, not for the first time since she came downstairs fighting his intentions. And there had been quite a few of those. All sorts of tantalizing positions that were by no means limited to his bed.

  She wasn’t there repaying her debt, yet, though, was she?

  No, instead, she sat irritatingly close to Ethyn.

  “You’re not having me any which way, ever,” she kept on. “Not after what you pulled.”

  He had known the minute her thickly lashed glorious eyes met his, that his kin were absolutely right. She was mad at him about the lasses. Furious, actually. While one part of him remained baffled by it, a larger, far more irritating part was pleased by her jealousy. Because it was very much that, and he reminded her of such.

  “I didnae pull anything,” he rebuffed, sitting across the table from her as they ate. His kin had insisted they eat before they were whisked away by another ley-line. “I cannae help it if you wished it were you.” While he should leave it at that, he couldn’t help himself. “Besides, if you took such issue with it, why remain so silent? ‘Tis verra unlike you.”

  “Because I wanted nothing to do with it any more than I did before!” She scowled at him then smiled at his family, absently straightening her ring. “Thankfully, this time, I was able to steer clear of your depravity.”

  “Depravity is it?” She had a lot to learn if she thought him taking two lasses into a cottage for a quick romp was depravity. “I can only imagine what you will call what I intend to do to you.”

  Because it would be wicked. Again and again, over and over, until she was exhausted with pleasure and he’d had his fill.

  If he had his fill.

  He cursed the thought, but it persisted. The driving need not to love her but to most certainly claim her. Keep her. Never let anyone else between her thighs but him.

  When he realized she had become a little bit harder to bait since her transformation upstairs, he continued on, curious.

  “Why do you suppose that is?” How had she been able to control her intrusive nature this time? Not that he was complaining. Not really. In truth, he was vaguely relieved she didn’t know what had happened in that cottage. “Why do you suppose you were able to stay out of my mind this time when every other time ‘twas impossible? Or so you said.”

  Before she could reply, his da pulled them back into the ongoing conversation about what had happened to her above stairs. The otherworldly experience she’d had at the Irish stones. Something that, he was surprised to discover, bothered him more than expected.

  He didn’t like her being magically whisked away without him. He’d seen and felt the fire that had transported them here, and something was off about it. She should not be dealing with it alone. She was too inexperienced. Or so he kept telling himself. Because he wasn’t ready to admit he simply wanted to protect her.

  “So somehow the brotherhood harnessed dragon fire to manipulate the stones,” his da said. “Bringing the count from five to nine?”

  “That’s right,” Madison confirmed. “I'm fairly certain the original Irish Stonehenge had five. Four on the outside, one in the center, matching Tiernan’s tattoo. The one your ancestors, Erc, the Irish King, and his Druidess, Chiomara, came together at, had nine. Three sets of three, evenly spaced in a circle. Not to mention a slab of rock the brotherhood must have used to sacrifice the unicorn.”

  “Aye,” came a welcome voice as Grant materialized nearby, introducing himself to Madison. “’Twas a sacrificial table not all that different from the one at the Salem Stonehenge, aye?”

  “That’s right.” Though her eyes widened at his great uncle’s ethereal appearance, she recovered from the oddity in no time, which told Cray either her ring was at work or her dragon. Either way, she accepted all of this far faster than she might have otherwise. “Though it’s safe to say the sacrificial stone in Ireland was substantially larger.”

  Grant nodded, pondering that. “So, the monks had access to dragon magic.” He frowned, troubled. “Which means they likely had access to a dragon.” He shook his head. “No doubt one of the more evil beasties.”

  Because not all dragons were like the MacLeod’s and their Viking ancestors.

  “Or maybe not evil but imprisoned,” his ma theorized. “We know this brotherhood was very powerful, so there’s always a chance they utilized the dragon much like they did the unicorn, harnessing its power to achieve their dark goals.”

  “Aye,” Grant agreed. He focused on Madison, clearly caught up telepathically about what he’d missed. “Whilst I ken there was a lot of fire, what else did you see? More importantly, what did you feel?”

  “Detached,” she said without hesitation. “Like I was on the outside looking in.” She shook her head. “It was frustrating because I sense there’s so much more to my vision. So much more my dragon’s trying to tell me.” She tapped her fingers on the table methodically. “That the count really is very important.”

  He was somewhat shocked how readily she accepted she was dragon now, wondering what his grandmother and mother had said to her. How had they accomplished so much in so little time. But then they were powerful in their own right.

  “Aye, no doubt there is much more to your vision, Madison,” Grant concurred. His knowing gaze flickered between her and Cray. “And ‘twill verra likely be revealed as you find your way to the power of your Claddagh ring.”

  “You mean as she and my brother do,” Marek said, setting things straight. Making his perspective clear. “Not her and Ethyn.”

  Grant’s brows shot up in surprise. “Ethyn
?”

  “Yes,” Ethyn and Madison said at the same time, tossing each other a small smile Cray wanted to wipe off their faces.

  “I just assumed,” Grant began before he realized how volatile the situation was. So he played it safe. “I cannae say who is meant for who but ‘twill likely become obvious in no time.”

  Where Grant was diplomatic, his immediate kin was the opposite, making it obvious they saw her with Cray and Cray alone. His mother rolled her eyes, and Marek shook his head. Da and granda merely chuckled, finding the whole thing amusing.

  Cray, however, found it anything but and said so.

  Just not in a way that translated all that well.

  “The lass is mine,” he grunted. “Then, mayhap Ethyn’s afterward.”

  Grant’s brows shot up, but he knew better than to say anything. Especially when Madison was more than ready to stop telepathically bickering and fight out loud.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized to his family before launching a fresh assault on Cray. Her eyes didn’t merely flicker with sizzling anger like they had before but outright blazed with her inner dragon. A glorious sight to behold. If that weren't enough, her words were as bold as the striking fiery blue of her whiplash gaze. “I am not yours or anyone else’s for that matter.”

  She stood and balled her fists in fury. “But know this, if I’m to be with anyone, it sure as the unholy-at-my-back, will not be you! In fact, if there’s any order to be had in this, and for some cursed reason, I have no choice but to end up with you, I’ll be with Ethyn first, not second.”

  “Bloody hell if ye will!” He stood as well, suddenly just as angry. She would take Ethyn to bed first over his dead body. “’Twas ye and I who connected first telepathically.” He started around the table, set to take her upstairs now, and be done with it. “So ‘twill be ye and I who lay together first!”

  “’Tis an odd thing to say,” Grant murmured absently. Though not solid, he stepped out of Madison’s way when she scrambled in the opposite direction. “The ‘unholy at your back.’”