by Donna Grant
Yet he had kissed her. What a kiss it had been, too. Even two months later her lips still tingled when she thought about the masterful way he had seduced with one kiss.
What she didn’t understand is why Phelan kissed her. He’d acted as though he liked it as well. How could that be when he had to have felt her drough magic? She was the enemy.
Was he teasing her before he killed her? Aisley turned around and sat on the edge of the building with a loud exhale.
For just a moment during their kiss, she had forgotten the person she was. For the briefest second in time, she had been just a woman kissing a gorgeous man in a darkened hallway of a nightclub.
Reality had come crashing down on her all too soon. She had been given a reprieve from Jason during the battle with the Warriors, a battle in which she had left Jason to his own defenses. If he was alive, he would never forgive her. Jason’s retribution would be swift and horrible.
But neither was she about to find herself killed because she liked Phelan’s kisses.
Two different men, two different reasons, but both had her on the run.
All she could think about was saving her own hide when she should be delving into what she knew of Jason to make sure he was dead—and remained that way.
Aisley lifted her face as a gust of wind whipped through the buildings. Dark clouds, heavy with moisture had moved over the city a few hours earlier. They hid the moon from view, and it wouldn’t be long before the rain came.
The seasons were shifting, and with it the daylight hours were growing shorter. Soon, there would be just a few hours of daylight.
Everything changed. Perhaps it was time Aisley had a change as well. At dawn she would leave Scotland and travel to England.
London was big enough for her to get lost in for a while. After that, maybe Paris. And then … who knew?
Being away from the place where so much disaster had befallen her could be just what she needed to free her from the past.
Aisley stood and walked to the door she’d left ajar that would take her into the four-story building, down back stairs, and to the door whose lock she had picked to get inside.
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms when she was on the streets once again. Her head was down, but she kept her eyes open as she hurried to her car, which she parked six blocks away.
No one bothered her, thankfully. After she was in her car, she leaned her head back against the seat and let her eyes drift shut. There was time for a few hours of sleep before dawn.
She should drive now, but she was too exhausted. All she needed was a little rest. That didn’t involve dreams about Phelan kissing her, caressing her … making slow, sweet love to her.
Aisley could feel herself falling fast as sleep claimed her. She welcomed it, only to find herself jerked awake when the rain began to pelt her window with fat drops loud enough to wake the dead.
“Damn,” she murmured and blew out a frustrated breath.
Without sleep, she was cranky and her temper had a short fuse. Even when she found sleep, she woke with her body on fire, needy and aching for release from the desire that was drowning her thanks to that one damn kiss from Phelan.
She peered through the window as the rain poured in sheets too thick to see anything more than a few feet in front of her. Aisley reached for her iPod. With the earbuds secure in her ears, she selected a playlist, and then reached for the map.
Her route into England was set. She would take the M74 south out of Scotland. It was a pretty easy road, but there were others she could detour to if she needed it.
But just in case—and she learned how important a backup plan was thanks to Jason—Aisley had a second strategy. She touched her finger to the dot where Glasgow was marked on the map.
Her next option would be to take the A82 north until she reached Crianlarich where she would head west on A85 toward the coast. From there, she would get on a ferry to Ireland.
It wasn’t the best backup stratagem she had, but Jason would never expect her to go to Ireland. In order to get as far from Jason as she could, she would have to outwit him.
What if he really is dead? I could be doing this for nothing.
“But what if he’s not?” she answered her own question. “Besides, Jason won’t stay dead. He’s too evil for that.”
Jason had already begun to doubt her loyalty before the battle. As he had told her, she was expendable. If she was going to make a new life for herself, she was going to have to guarantee that Jason would never return to the land of the living.
Aisley looked at the map again. She should have already been out of Scotland, but it had taken her this long to get to all the places she’d stashed the money she’d stolen from Jason and scout to make sure the asshole wasn’t waiting for her.
Jason provided her with everything after he had welcomed her into his home. She might have been out of her mind with grief and self-loathing, but at least she had been smart enough to take what little savings she’d stolen and scatter it around Scotland.
She had called it her “Just in Case” scenario. But Aisley knew that even then she had realized going with Jason had been the wrong thing to do.
There hadn’t been much of a choice, however. Her days had been numbered, and then Jason found her and gave her a new home. Sleeping in a bed with clean linens and eating freshly cooked meals had been heavenly.
No matter how she might say he forced her to come live in his home, she had been the one to undergo the drough ceremony and give her soul to Satan.
There was nothing she could do to reverse the ceremony. Her soul was no longer her own.
A tear slipped out of her eye. Aisley held her hand out, palm up, and let her magic consume her until a ball of bright light filled her hand.
Magic swirled in a beautiful dance of light. As stunning as it was, it was black magic—evil—that allowed her to do that, not the pure magic she once had.
Aisley dropped her hand, and the magic instantly vanished.
“Aissssssley.”
She squeezed her eyes shut as the voice sounded in her head. It wasn’t the first time she had heard it. It began after she left Jason at the battle.
The voice frightened her. She could feel the malevolence of it, but what terrified her more than anything was that she didn’t know if that evil was inside her.
She briefly remembered thinking to betray Jason by contacting Satan herself and gaining more power that way. It had been a hasty thought, yet every time she heard that voice she thought of her intended duplicity to Jason.
“No,” she whispered. Then she slammed her hands on the steering wheel. “No!”
The voice retreated once more. But she knew it would return.
It always did.
CHAPTER
THREE
Phelan stood on the street outside the hotel in the pouring rain and looked first one way, then the other. Just ten minutes before he had doubled over in the shower by the force of Aisley’s magic slamming into him.
She was much nearer than he first realized.
Where was she? And why in all that was holy did she continue to run from him?
Phelan walked to his Ducati motorbike and threw a leg over the seat. He sat down and put his helmet on before starting the engine.
The residue of Aisley’s magic made his cock throb with need, but it had been the quick—and sharp—spike of fear he felt in her magic that left him cold.
She might be afraid of him, but there was nothing he wouldn’t do to destroy whatever it was that terrified her.
Phelan revved the engine before he pulled out onto the street. He drove slowly to the first intersection, but as soon as Aisley’s magic began to weaken, he quickly turned around.
Slowly, street by street, he got closer and closer to her. He’d only dared this once before. It had been five weeks ago when he’d tracked her to a nightclub.
It was the sheer strength of her magic that led him to her. He had kept to the shadows in the club, which
had been easy to do. It hadn’t been until he reached the second level that he’d looked down on the dance floor and seen her.
She stood amidst a group of people dancing to some song blaring through the speakers. Men tried to get her attention by dancing close to her, but Aisley didn’t notice them. It was the music that pulled her, called to her.
Phelan saw it in the way she moved, in how each note of the music infused her. Her magic seemed to grow and expand until it swallowed him.
He had been rooted to the spot watching the erotic sight of her body twisting, her hips rotating in her skimpy shirt and too-tight jeans, and her black hair pulled away from her face into a braid.
It was then Phelan comprehended how much the music meant to her. The louder it was, the better. When she danced the worry lines on her forehead disappeared, and a smile began to show.
Phelan stopped at a red light and put his foot down to keep the motorbike upright. He recalled that night at the club several times a day.
It hadn’t just been the sight of Aisley that was imbedded in his memory. It was the realization that he had nothing in his life he cared about as much as Aisley loved her music.
Was his life so dull?
Three months ago he wouldn’t have thought so. He had his bike, his favorite pair of boots, and the open road. He had as many women as he wanted with no one to tie him down.
And on occasion, he found himself helping out those from MacLeod Castle fight evil.
It was a good life.
Why then did it suddenly seem … less?
Did this unexpected misery have anything to do with Charon finding the love of his life? Phelan wasn’t sure. Charon had always protected his village, but now he had Laura as well, and Phelan saw the difference.
It had been easy to ignore all the Warriors who had found love with the Druids at MacLeod Castle because he was rarely there, but he couldn’t disregard it with Charon.
Phelan gunned his bike when the light turned green. This early in the morning with the rain, there were few people about. He swerved his bike around two twentysomething men as they stumbled drunk out of a pub.
“Idiots,” he muttered, but looked back to make sure they made it across the street.
He thought of Charon and Laura once again. Charon had nearly lost Laura to Wallace and his crusade to rule the world. Phelan always thought Charon’s life was one of the best.
Charon had done what no other Warrior did after escaping Deirdre—he returned to the village he’d grown up in. It had been decades after he was taken and no one knew Charon, but it was his home.
Charon had set about buying up land and property and protecting those who called Ferness home from any evil.
Many times Phelan had found whatever road he’d been traveling leading him back to Ferness. Not because he thought of it as home, but because he was welcome.
The MacLeods welcomed him at the castle as well, yet it wasn’t the same. There was Isla who was responsible for tricking him as a young lad and taking him away from his family, to be chained deep in Deirdre’s mountain.
No matter what, Phelan couldn’t forgive what Isla had done, not even when he learned she had done it to save her own family. Isla thought she was the reason he didn’t go to the castle. The truth was, he didn’t know how to fit in.
Those who stayed at the castle considered themselves one big family. He didn’t remember his mother’s or father’s face, much less what it meant to be in a family. He had no idea how to act.
So he stayed away.
Phelan pulled his thoughts away from the other Warriors and the Druids as Aisley’s magic grew stronger. He slowed the Ducati and pulled over when he found an open parking spot on the side of the road.
He glanced at the buildings around him, trying to determine which one she was in. Four were businesses, one a pub, two restaurants, and one abandoned.
With a flick of his foot, he put the kickstand down and shut off his bike. That’s when he heard the music. Even over the din of the rain, with his enhanced senses—thanks to the god inside him—he could hear the telltale dance music.
There must be a nightclub nearby. He fought the urge to find it and go inside to see Aisley, but then he remembered her horrified expression when she’d seen him the last time.
It had been like a knife in his chest, her look saying he had intruded on something private and personal.
So Phelan stayed seated on his bike as the rain fell around him, blurring the visor of his helmet. He could picture Aisley dancing, her arms above her head, her eyes closed as she swayed.
It was enough. For now.
He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on as he was. If he could just get her in his bed, he’d purge this unending yearning, this hunger to have her in his arms once and for all.
Then he could get back to the life he had.
He stood and swung his leg over the bike before he blended into the shadows. Phelan might want Aisley in his bed, but he was going to have to approach her carefully.
There would be wooing. First, he would have to earn her trust. Just as he had with the wounded kitten three years ago. It had taken Phelan three days, but eventually he had the kitten curled in his lap. After that, the kitten allowed him to clean the injured paw.
So all he had to do was think of Aisley as that kitten.
Phelan gave a snort. Aisley had claws like a kitten. He’d seen that when a man grabbed her butt while she was dancing. But Phelan knew it was going to take a great effort on his part to have her purring in his arms.
She would purr. And scream in pleasure.
He settled under an awning out of the rain so he had only to turn his head to see both the right and left sides of the street. With his helmet in the crook of his arm, he settled back to wait.
A handful of minutes passed before the sound of a car door opening caught his attention. Phelan turned his head to the right and spotted a small car on the opposite side of the street three blocks up.
A figure got out of the car and ran to the covered sidewalk. Phelan would know Aisley anywhere, even without his enhanced eyesight.
Those few seconds in the rain plastered her black hair to her head. She pushed aside the strands sticking to her oval face, her eyes darting about as she walked into a café.
Phelan stayed on the opposite side of the street as he kept watch through the café window. She stopped at the counter and took a seat on a stool while she placed her order.
He started walking, needing to be closer to her. Just before he reached the café, he stopped and faded into the shadows again. He had the advantage over Aisley since she had no idea he was there. Phelan could sense her magic, but Druids didn’t have the same abilities as Warriors.
A few minutes later Aisley was handed a large mug of something steaming, which Phelan assumed was coffee, and a pastry.
Aisley smothered a yawn while she wrapped both hands around the mug. He shifted to the right and saw there was a table hidden by a large poster in the window where two men were seated. Both staring at her.
Unease rippled through Phelan. He knew what those men wanted, and it wasn’t going to happen.
For the next seventeen and a half minutes he was content to watch her eat and drink. As soon as Aisley was done, she paid and left the café.
Just as Phelan expected, she wasn’t alone.
Three steps behind her were the two men. With his speed, Phelan came up directly behind the men without them even knowing it. Their attention was focused on Aisley so they never suspected someone might be watching them.
“Hey!” one of the men called out to Aisley.
She turned around, her magic already gathering around her. Phelan hissed in a breath, startled by the way his body continued to burn with pleasure at the feel of her magic.
Her fawn-colored eyes widened for a split second as she caught sight of him. Phelan didn’t give her or the men time to say anything else. He moved his arms up and out between the two men as he stepped between t
hem.
They paused in surprise, and Phelan elbowed them in the face simultaneously. The two men hit the ground with a thud.
“I suppose you want a thank you,” Aisley replied saucily.
Phelan opened his mouth to respond when movement behind her caught his eye. “Duck,” he said as a man lunged for her.
Despite his warning, Aisley didn’t move quickly enough and the brute’s fist caught on the back of the head, sending her out into the rain and down on her knees off the sidewalk.
Inside him, Phelan’s god, Zelfor, bellowed for battle. And Phelan wanted nothing more than to give in. But humans didn’t know of the Warriors.
Instead of releasing his god, Phelan peeled back his lips and growled as he advanced on Aisley’s attacker. He reared back his fist to send a punch to the man’s jaw to knock him out, when the brute pulled a gun from his jacket.
Phelan grunted as the impact of the bullet crashed into his chest. He looked down at the gaping hole in his leather biker’s jacket and then up at the man.
“This was my favorite jacket.”
“What the bloody hell are you, mate?” the man stammered before he turned and ran away.
Phelan glanced at the two unconscious men before he reached for Aisley. She held the back of her head with one hand and braced the other on the sidewalk. He gently lifted her to her feet, but as soon as she was up, she pulled out of his grasp.
“Why did you stop them?”
Phelan frowned. “Do I really need to explain it, lass?”
“Yes,” she said and gave a jerk of her head. She winced and leaned against a store window.
“You need to lie down. Let me take you somewhere.”
With her face pale, she opened her eyes to stare at him. He wanted to touch her, to run his hands down her face, over her high cheekbones, and across her full lips. He yearned to hold her luscious body against his again, but somehow held himself in check. Instead, he let his gaze feast on her beauty.
From her oval face and midnight hair slicked to her head to her defiant chin. Delicate ebony brows arched slightly over large eyes tilted up at the corners. She had a small nose and a high forehead. It was her lips, full and wide, that were made for sin.
