by Ann Gimpel
“Grandma. I need you.” Maggie waited. Sometimes it took a while for telepathic communication to work, particularly with the Atlantic Ocean in between. If the two of them hadn’t been linked by blood, she doubted they’d be able to converse at all so far away.
She was nearly at the hospital, when, “Yes, child, I see some of what is troubling you,” sounded in her mind.
“Tell me about the man,” Maggie demanded without preamble.
“He is old, and his magic is strong.”
“Do you know what kind of magician he is?”
A hesitation and then, “Yes.” The single word held a universe of meaning.
Maggie waited, but her paternal grandmother, Mary Elma Hibbins, remained silent. Maggie could picture the older woman, with her ageless face and waist-length black hair pulled into its usual braid. That hair had a few strands of silver, but not many. Right now, her grandmother’s finely arched brows were probably drawn together and her dark brown eyes pinched with worry.
Maggie pulled into the hospital’s lot and parked in the physicians’ parking area. She started to tell her grandmother they’d have to save the rest of this conversation for another day, when Mary Elma said, “I will be on the first plane I can. I’ll text you so you know when my flight arrives in Glasgow.”
“What? Why?” Alarm sluiced through Maggie. It wasn’t that her grandmother never traveled, quite the contrary, but to embark on an impromptu trip that would land her by Maggie’s side meant she was worried. Scratch worried; her grandmother must be frantic. Maggie’s heartbeat sounded loud in her ears. Something had frightened Mary Elma—badly—and her grandmother didn’t scare easily.
“I’ll answer your questions once I get there, child. Do not let the man leave your side. Be extremely careful. I see darkness around him. He is in mortal peril, yet you can help. He is…one of a special breed. I’d thought them all long since dead. That he still lives is, perhaps important, in ways I have yet to discover. I must confer with the Coven Council.”
Mary Elma’s voice faded. Without being told, Maggie knew her grandmother had severed the connection. “What the fuck?” she muttered as she got out of her car, went round to the trunk, and hefted her medical bag. For the first time, she wished she’d shown more interest when her grandmother and aunts had tried to teach her about her witch heritage.
Her parents had died when she was only six, fighting a rival coven over rights to a special, arcane magic that slowed the aging process radically. At the time, no one had explained much of anything to her because she was too young to understand, which left her free to form her own conclusions. When she’d begun to menstruate, the coven women had taken her under their wing—and been shocked she had absolutely no interest in her magical heritage. The way Maggie saw things, magic had killed both her parents and robbed her of being raised by them. She wanted nothing to do with such a lethal, unpredictable entity.
Despite many lectures from various relatives, she’d never changed her mind. It wasn’t accidental she’d chosen a career path in science. At the time, she’d thought medicine was about as far away from witchcraft as anything could be. Maggie winced. She could still see the shrewd smile on her grandmother’s face when she’d pointed out that some of the most famous witches of all had been healers.
Maggie punched in a code and pushed through the hospital’s back door into the emergency room. A brisk head shake, and she forced herself to focus on the reason she was here, not ghosts from her distant past. The sting of antiseptic overpowered Lachlan’s scent. She hadn’t realized it still lingered around her. White walls and linoleum floors whizzed past as she jogged to the nurses’ station.
Before she could open her mouth to say a word, Chris loped over to her, hospital gown flapping. “And ye finally got here, eh. What did I interrupt? Some hot little love fest?”
Maggie couldn’t stop the heat that raced from her chest to her face. “Where I was is no business of yours,” she said brusquely. “Why aren’t you in your room?”
“Because I want to leave.” His tone switched from aggressive to plaintive. “They said ye’re the only one who can spring me.”
“That’s true.”
“Well, it’s not fair.” He pouted. “They give shrinks too damn much power.”
“That may be. How about if you lead me back to your room, and you can tell me what happened.”
Bright blue eyes snapped dangerously. He shoved a hank of red hair shot with gray out of his eyes. At over six feet, Chris’ muscled frame was intimidating. As a younger man, he’d probably been attractive. At fifty, his face was deeply lined; broken blood vessels suggested a too-intimate relationship with alcohol. “Aye, ye’re wanting to follow me back to my room. Sounds like sexual harassment to me.”
Maggie shrugged. “If you’d be more comfortable, we can talk in the patient lounge.” She glanced meaningfully at him. “You need your clothes for that.”
“That’s just it. They took them away.”
Of course they did. She made her tone soft and non-confrontational. “It’s your call, Chris. What do you want to do? The sooner we talk, the sooner I can make a decision about where you need to be right now.”
He grabbed her arm. “Home,” he screeched. “I need to be home, you goddamnned—”
“That will be enough. Take your hand off me.” Maggie squared her shoulders and met Chris’ gaze. If she let him bully her, she’d be dead in the water. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw orderlies and nurses race toward them. In moments, they had Chris well in hand.
“Are you all right, Doctor?” Berta hustled to her side, gray hair escaping its pins. Green eyes were screwed up in concern. Her ample curves strained against the fabric of her white uniform.
“Yes, yes. I’m fine. Let’s get him back to his room. Physical restraints until I can talk with him, then chemical ones until we get him past this current break.”
An hour later, Maggie rounded up her purse and medical bag. It had taken far longer than she’d anticipated to deal with Chris, who’d taken a mixture of prescription drugs, followed by a healthy jot of whiskey, and become hostile and belligerent when his sister interrupted his drinking. Good thing she’d happened along. If Chris had continued to drink, he’d probably be dead, what with all the other drugs he had on board.
Maggie sighed. She’d signed orders to keep him in-house until he stabilized. After that, he really needed a board-and-care placement to make certain he took medications for his bipolar disorder and stayed away from other mind-altering substances. She pursed her lips and strode down the corridor, heading for the parking lot. What were the odds of Chris being even marginally compliant? Less than fifty-fifty, for sure. While he may have dulled his mental processes from years of boozing, he was far from stupid. The drugs she prescribed made him feel like crap, while the ones he procured on the street amped his mania.
“Why didn’t I go into ophthalmology or dermatology—or even plastic surgery?” she muttered and got into her car. Maggie started for home, remembered clothes for Lachlan, and navigated to a shopping center where the stores stayed open late.
By the time she left a menswear shop laden with bags, Maggie felt much better. The shopkeeper had been a hoot as Maggie described Lachlan’s build. “Och, aye, lassie,” she’d crowed, “and ’tis a fair brawny lad ye’re shopping for. With those broad shoulders and long legs, how’s the rest of him equipped, eh?”
Maybe to defuse the tension from her truncated conversation with her grandmother and the drama at the hospital, Maggie had laughed so hard with the shopkeeper tears rolled down her face. She’d just dumped Lachlan’s jeans, sweaters, and jacket in the backseat of her car when her phone trilled its text tone.
Grannie! Maggie dug the phone out of her bag. Sure enough, it was indeed a text from Mary Elma informing her she’d be arriving day after tomorrow at six in the morning. Maggie’s nostrils quivered with annoyance. Why the hell did all trans-Atlantic flights to Glasgow have to show up at some ungodly h
our?
Maggie drove automatically as she mentally rearranged her schedule so she could meet her grandmother’s flight. Maybe I’ll bring Lachlan with me. Sounds as if the two of them will be kindred spirits… Still running on autopilot, she pulled into the parking lot adjacent to her house and glanced up at her apartment. Days were long in June, yet it seemed odd he hadn’t turned on any of the lights. Her flat didn’t have all that many windows and tended to feel dark and shut-in once light faded from the day.
Perhaps he doesn’t understand how the switches work.
Balancing her purse and purchases, she locked her medical bag in her car, and trudged up the steps to her flat. Maggie knocked softly, expecting Lachlan to open the door. He didn’t. Her heart suddenly beat much too fast; her throat felt thick. She pushed her fragile magic outward. It didn’t tell her a thing. Big surprise. I never embraced it, so why should it help me now?
Maggie set the bags down in the carpeted hall and fished her key out of her purse with none-too-steady hands. She twisted it in the lock and pushed the door open. Knowledge struck her like a blow to the gut. Lachlan wasn’t there; she didn’t bother calling his name. Her flat felt empty without him in it. He had a vibrant energy, almost like a force field, and it was definitely absent.
Don’t panic. Maybe he left me a note like I told him.
Sure. That’s probably it. He got restless. Went out to stretch his legs.
Oh, bullshit. Who am I kidding here?
She kicked the bags of clothes inside, pulled the door shut, and flipped on a light. Sure enough, a single sheet of paper sat atop her desk. She dropped her purse onto a chair and hurried over to it. In strong script, with many flourishes, he’d written an almost indecipherable note. After trying to figure out what was, in essence, an archaic form of English, she finally grabbed another piece of paper and wrote out the parts she knew. At length, she thought she had the gist of things.
He’d told her that he was sorry, but he had to leave because danger nipped at his heels. He couldn’t give her details because it might put her at risk. Lachlan had gone on to say he hoped they’d meet again and that she was pretty. On a separate line near the bottom, just above his signature, Lachlan Moncrieffe, Laird of Clan Moncrieffe, he’d told her not to trust strangers, and that he’d return if he could.
Maggie clutched the paper close. A tear snaked down one cheek. Why am I crying? I barely knew him. Her attempt to reason with herself was futile. In defiance of logic, a sad, slow tide washed through her and made her heart ache. She picked up her car keys, ready to head out and look for him, but forced herself to sit. In her heart of hearts, she knew she’d never be able to find him if he didn’t wish to be found.
Chapter Five
Lachlan had watched Maggie walk out the door. It took all his considerable self-discipline not to race after her, drag her back inside, and rip those ridiculous clothes off her. If ever there were a lass made for loving, it was her. For long moments, he visualized her without clothes. It wasn’t difficult since she’d scarcely been wearing any when he’d first laid eyes on her.
He shook his head, rose, and slid the deadbolt into place before making a transit of the room. He picked up books at random and paged through a few. They looked like scientific works with full-color depictions of bits and pieces of the human body. At first he marveled that someone had so fine a hand as to pen such drawings; closer inspection told him the illustrations couldn’t possibly have been hand drawn.
He blew out a heavy breath. Mankind had obviously come a long way in three hundred years, much further than they’d come in the previous three hundred. A stranger displaced from 1300 to 1600 would have noticed a few differences but nothing like this. He polished the rest of his food and carried their plates to the kitchen, setting them on a sideboard.
“No kitchen wenches,” he muttered. “Probably no more servants of any kind.” He pulled open cupboards and drawers, inspecting an array of pottery and cutlery. A few items had long, black tails attached to them. Some of the tails had been cunningly shoved into holes in the wall. He flicked a silver knob, and the item in front of him buzzed loudly. Lachlan started, returned the knob to its original position, and shook his head. What in the hell did I turn loose? He stared at tiny blades whirling in a circle at the base of a glass cylinder until they came to a stop. Try as he might, he couldn’t fathom a use for such a thing.
Careful not to move any other knobs or buttons, he settled in front of the cold box; it held an intriguing array of fruit and vegetables, cheese and meat. He tasted a few items, surprised that things he recognized—like blackberries—were so bland.
“What are we doing here?” Kheladin’s voice was annoyed, sharp, as he repeated a variant of his question from earlier.
“Waiting for the lass to return.”
“We canna risk remaining in one place for long until we determine if Rhukon yet lives.”
“We havena been here verra long. I wish to bathe. Then if the lass hasna returned, we can pick up this conversation.”
Something like a slow twisting in his midsection told Lachlan the dragon was restless and near to rebellion. “Bedding her was a good idea when we dinna have to wait. I doona have a good feeling about remaining here. In fact,” the dragon hesitated for emphasis, “I sense a trap.”
Have I grown so soft and unobservant? Lachlan sent his mage senses spinning outward and waited for information to flow back to him. He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Things feel…strange to me, mayhap because everything has changed. I do not sense Rhukon’s presence, though. Do ye?”
“Not exactly,” Kheladin admitted grudgingly. “But we canna be too careful.”
“Agreed.” Lachlan fired his mage light and walked down the hall to the bathroom. On a whim, he opened the door across the hall. Her bedchamber. The scraps of clothing she’d been wearing were tossed on the end of a rumpled bed. Maggie’s scent hit him like a wall. Sensual and enticing, it stopped him in his tracks. He inhaled deeply and his cock, never far from hard since he’d met Maggie, thumped against his belly.
He tried to back out of the bedroom, but it was as if his feet had grown roots into the carpeted floor. All he could think about was sex: bouncing breasts and hot, slick cunnies. His balls ached for release. He shoved a hand beneath his kilt and wrapped it around himself. What would it take? Surely not more than a few strokes. He pumped his swollen member into his hand and groaned. The lass wakened something primal in him. He couldn’t remember being this aroused—ever.
An image of her tall, well-muscled form danced before his closed lids. He imagined suckling her full breasts with their generous nipples that had been visible beneath what passed for clothing. In his fantasy, she threw herself on the bed in front of him and opened her long legs in invitation. Before he could enter her, he exploded into his hand.
A feral shriek split the stillness of Maggie’s bedroom. Lachlan almost couldn’t believe the primitive sound had come from him. He caught what he could of his seed in his hand and stood gasping for air, heart hammering. Semen dripping from his fisted hand tugged him back to the present. He hastened into the bathroom, rinsed himself at the sink, and then bent to fill the tub.
An hour later, he emerged clean and scrubbed. Lachlan took a last look around the bathroom, marveling at its modern plumbing. He’d let the hot water run until it turned cold. What warmed it was still a mystery, but one he was sure could be easily solved once Maggie returned, and he asked her about it. He picked up his shirt and wove his plaid around himself before returning to the front room. He thought about passing more time in the lass’s bedchamber, but it felt perverse to surround himself with her bedclothes and work himself until he spent, again and again.
Nay, better to wait till I have the real thing. Lachlan laughed, pleased with how things were going. The lass was just as besotted with him as he was with her. He’d scented her arousal, seen heat-lust mist her eyes. His cock swelled, and Lachlan forced his mind to other thi
ngs.
He’d just settled into a softly padded chair, mage light suspended off to one side and a book in his lap, when a chill marched down his spine. Lachlan straightened. He hadn’t liked the feel of the stray bolt of power, almost as if someone were searching for him. He held himself very still, shrouding his energy. Ach, there it was again, a slow, cautious questing from a well-shielded source that was likely Rhukon. He strengthened his warding.
“I told you we should have left.”
“Quiet. The dragon energy is a dead giveaway.”
Lachlan cast a subtle don’t look here spell, gratified when the alien tendrils withdrew. He sat dead still for long minutes to make certain whatever he’d felt was truly gone. Did Rhukon find me? He had no way of knowing.
Kheladin jostled him, radiating displeasure. Smoke curled from Lachlan’s mouth. Talons pressed against the ends of his fingers and toes. “Stop that. I have to think.”
“Ye can think once we have left. I have no desire to be trapped within a space that wouldna hold me if we shift.”
Lachlan’s gaze drifted around Maggie’s home. Kheladin had a point. The rooms were much smaller than what he was used to, sized more like a peasant’s hovel than a proper house.
Maggie. He blew out a sad breath, not fully understanding why the prospect of abandoning her left him so desolate. Maybe it was because she was the first person he’d met upon wakening, yet it felt much deeper than that. Almost as if they’d known one another in a previous life.
No matter. ’Tisn’t fair to remain if I bring danger into her life. A fierce protectiveness stirred in his breast at the thought of anyone harming the lass. He’d pit himself against anything that harmed so much as an eyelash or frightened her or made her feel uneasy.
“That is all fine and well. We must leave while we can,” Kheladin insisted.
”I agree. I would use magic to transport us back to the cave. What think ye?”
