To Love a Highland Dragon

by Ann Gimpel

  She opened her mouth to talk with Lachlan and then clacked it shut. He appeared to be concentrating—intensely. She didn’t want to sabotage their chances of escape by diverting his attention. Rocks showered down from above. A sensation of drowning, of being buried beneath tons of earth, nearly undid her.

  So she wouldn’t start screaming, Maggie forced herself to breathe. One steadying breath in, followed by an equally deep exhale. As she repeated the cycle, she took stock of her body. Aware of every synapse, every nerve ending, Maggie felt intensely, vibrantly alive. She swallowed hard; the life she’d been living was a mere parody of what being alive could mean. She’d emerged from a long sleep into bright, searing daylight. Her body thrummed with dazzling energy, but lust for the man standing a foot away with magic churning around him trumped everything.

  Though far from a virgin, she’d never felt such an intense physical connection with her other lovers. In fact, sex had been so blasé, it hadn’t felt like a sacrifice to do without it. The men who’d wandered through her life had never truly interested her. There’d been points when she’d wondered if she were gay, but women didn’t ring her chimes either. In her worst moments, she’d seen herself as asexual.

  Mid-breath, she bit back a chortle. If today were any marker, asexual wasn’t anywhere on the table. Despite danger blossoming about them, if Lachlan dragged her to the cave’s sandy floor and pressed his glorious cock against her pussy lips, she’d welcome him back inside. Desire knifed through her at the thought of him. He had a physical magnetism that literally took her breath away. Was that what had been wrong with her twenty-first century lovers? Had they been too…domesticated? Too tame?

  Or maybe I was waiting for him all my life and just didn’t know it.

  Grannie knew.

  Maggie considered that. Her grandmother had known…something. When Maggie had walked away from the coven and their training, she’d walled herself off from magics that were only taught to acolytes who signed the coven’s pact with their blood.

  “Lass.”

  Though she’d never taken her gaze from him, Lachlan’s voice startled her. “Yes?”

  “Take my hand. Gather what power ye have, and imagine it streaming into me.” His voice held a desperate edge.

  Maggie closed the short distance between them; she grasped his outstretched hand. Contact with him jolted her like an electric charge and reinforced her earlier impression that her other life seemed like a photographic negative. She imagined her essence flowing into him.

  “Aye, beloved,” he murmured. “Give it all to me. Imagine our bodies joined, and send the energy into me.”

  She tried hard to do what he asked. Once she touched him, her consciousness of the doom surrounding them escalated dramatically, as did her sense of the dragon’s burning core. Kheladin was furious they were under attack. He wanted to lay waste to the world with fire, but Lachlan held him back.

  The peril they faced came into sharp focus and scared the living shit out of her. Her gut tightened. She wanted to shriek her fury and her fear, to rake her nails down Rhukon’s tawdry beauty and mar him for life. Her gaze swept the cave. Her eyes said they were alone, but her other senses, the more arcane ones, told her otherwise.

  “Ye’re not concentrating.” Lachlan closed his other hand over hers, sandwiching it. Thunderous booming sounded above them. More dirt drifted down, mingled with thick, choking dust and small rocks.

  Truth rammed home. Maggie’s teeth chattered. Talking took gargantuan effort, as if by giving voice to her terror, it might be one step closer to coming true. “Rhukon’s trying to bury us alive.”

  “If ye help me, he willna succeed. Ye’ve power within you. Throw the floodgates open. Doona worry, I can channel all ye have.”

  A chant from her childhood rose from some forgotten pit in her psyche. Maggie mouthed the words and felt power coil upward from the base of her spine. “Aye, lass. There’s my bonny lass. Keep it coming. Goddess’s tits, but ye’re strong. I knew it.” Exultant laughter rose from him; smoke and fire spewed from his mouth.

  Maggie sensed Kheladin’s magic. It was deep, eldritch, and different from Lachlan’s. She opened her mind to their three powers. It was like watching three waterfalls, pouring multi-hued water down a rocky cliff. The water braided together. Once joined, it exploded, showering everything in its path with destructive force. No stranger to focusing the power of her mind on outcomes, she imagined Rhukon dead. Dead, goddammit.

  Hell, I’ll take dismantled, disemboweled, imprisoned by the Celts. Anything. She dug deeper within herself. The cave walls flickered and dimmed, then reformed. Understanding at an instinctual level that they’d nearly escaped, she dragged every last ounce of strength from her psyche.

  This time, they fairly shot from the cave. When the world stopped spinning, they were in the circle of beech and ash where they’d started. Maggie’s gut seized. She flipped over onto her belly in time to vomit what little was in her stomach into the dirt. Dry heaves shook her, but she couldn’t stop them. Strong hands rubbed her back and shoulders. “Naught to be ashamed of, lass. ’Tis the magic. It always exerts a price, but ’tis higher when ye’re untrained.”

  “I— I’m all right,” she managed through chattering teeth. “Adrenaline overload.” She pushed herself away from where she’d been sick and rolled into a cross-legged sit. Maggie dragged her sleeve across her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, gratified the bower of trees was still there. “We got out.” Tears pricked behind her lids. “Christ! I wouldn’t let myself think about it, but I was afraid I was going to die down there, crushed under tons of rocks.”

  “Aye, lass.” He moved next to her and gathered her shaking body against his. “’Twas your magic made the difference. Ye should be proud.” He hesitated, and then added, “Your grandmother will most certainly be. I have never seen such an impressive display of power from one so untrained as ye are.”

  She pulled away and sat straight. “Grandma. Shit! What time is it?” Maggie scrabbled through her bag, which she’d miraculously held onto, and got her iPhone. She blew out a breath. “Only eleven-thirty. Thank God. We still have plenty of time.”

  “Are ye sound enough to drive that contraption ye call a car?”

  Maggie snorted. “I like being taken care of, but if the options are me driving or you, I’ll take me any day.”

  “I could learn.”

  “Yes, but not between now and when we need to be in Glasgow.” A soft smile curved the ends of her mouth. “Help me up. I hate to admit it, but I still feel like I got run down by a train.”

  He pushed to his feet and held out his hands to help her. “I’m not familiar with the word, but I assume ’tis equivalent to being tied to four horses and having them all run in different directions.”

  “Maybe not quite so bad as being drawn and quartered,” she murmured and let herself be coaxed back into his arms. There was a soothing quality to his hands and voice that steadied her nerves.

  He laughed quietly. “Aye, and ye’re familiar with the concept.”

  She nodded. “I have an advantage. I studied history. While I don’t know everything about the time you lived in, I know far more about it than you know about the world I come from. Walk with me.” She headed for her car. “I’d like to rinse my mouth out with some of the tea in my trunk and maybe eat the sandwiches I made.”

  Maggie led the way across the deserted street. It seemed like another lifetime when she’d made those sandwiches in her kitchen. Maybe they could find a pub and get something more substantial. Her belly felt hollow; she had the shaky feeling she got when she overdid it exercising, and her blood sugar got too low.

  There’d been a pub on their way out of Inverness. Because they’d inhaled the peanut butter sandwiches and were still half-starved, Maggie had run in and gotten the bartender to make them up a couple of ham sandwiches with all the trimmings. They ate as they drove, with Lachlan breaking off small bites and handing them to her. The
y had plenty of time, so she stopped frequently, even pulled off onto a back road to give Lachlan a chance to see what it felt like behind the wheel. As she’d expected, his first few attempts to coordinate the gas and clutch were laughable, but by the end of forty minutes, she was confident he could drive in a pinch—if he had to. At least he’d be able to move the vehicle in a straight line and turn it. Traffic signs, and understanding how to operate in an environment with other cars was a whole different story.

  Mmph. If it comes down to him having to drive, I’ll just hope he gets us to where we need to be before the cops pull him over and haul him off to jail…

  Questions swirled through her mind, but she forced herself to sit on all of them, at least until they were done eating. She needed energy and didn’t want information that would twist her stomach into burning knots of tension.

  The darkened highway stretched before them. At a hundred kilometers an hour, her Fiat ate the distance as if it wasn’t there. “Do ye wish for any more?”

  Maggie shook her head and then said. “I’ve had enough. You can finish whatever’s left.”

  “How did ye guess I was still hungry?”

  “You’re a man, aren’t you?”

  He laughed long and hard. The rough edges of his mirth warmed her heart. “Aye, if ye doona watch us, we’ll eat whatever’s not tacked down.”

  Maggie stared at the stars visible through the windshield. A quarter moon sat low on the horizon. The countryside smelled damp and green through the window she’d cracked to get a bit of fresh air into the car. She considered how to organize the questions she had for Lachlan. Her mind recoiled; the knowledge would change her irrevocably. She’d never again be able to walk away from the power simmering inside her.

  What the hell? I can’t do that now.

  Years ago she’d established what felt like détente with her latent abilities. Sort of an I’ll-leave-you-alone-if-you-don’t-nag-me agreement. Hmph. Blew the lid right off that arrangement, didn’t I? She girded herself. There really were things she had to know—before Rhukon struck again.

  “My stomach’s full. The next thing I need is a few answers.” Maggie listened to the words as they rolled out of her mouth and sat between them in the darkened car. If she didn’t know better, she could have sworn they were written against the gray of the console, glittering a challenge.

  “Aye, I figured ye’d get around to asking a question or two. I’d have volunteered information but thought it best if ye came to wanting it on your own.” He crumpled the paper the sandwiches had been wrapped in and shoved it back into the paper sack. Lachlan fingered the bag. “In my day, all such things were woven from cloth.”

  “Probably better. Less waste.” She licked her lips and took a slug of tea from the bottle balanced in the car’s console. “Ecology’s the last thing on my mind right now. My mind’s still jumbled, but could you tell me what happened in your cave? Just hit the high points, and keep it simple.”

  “What do ye think happened?” His voice was soft, soothing. She could almost feel him infuse a calming spell into his words.

  “Rhukon attacked us and tried to trap us. Damn near succeeded from what I could tell.”

  “’Twasn’t just Rhukon.”

  The short sentence settled in her stomach like a lead weight. For a moment, she fought nausea, but then her head cleared and her gut quieted, likely a result of Lachlan’s spell. “So it was those other ones you told me about? The battle crow, uh, Morrigan, and the other bad dragon?” Maggie held her breath, not really wanting him to answer, but needing to hear the truth.

  “Aye, but Connor would laugh himself sick to be called a bad dragon, right afore he ripped the eyes from your skull. ’Tisn’t a game we play, Maggie. This is deadly serious.”

  Anger raced through her, bright, brittle, and hot as dragon’s fire. She signaled, pulled to the side of the expressway, brought the car to a stop in a flurry of squealing brakes, and then turned to Lachlan. “Don’t you dare patronize me. As if I need reminding. I lost my parents to magic. I know how quickly—and irrevocably—it can destroy everything.” To her horror, a great, choking sob escaped, followed by another. She shook her head hard and tears flew from her eyes.

  “Lass. ’Tis sorry I am. I had no mind to be upsetting you.”

  “Never mind. It’s me. I’m on edge and kicking myself for not learning about magic when the coven offered me the chance. Tell me what happened in the cave. I’ll try not to take your head off.” With a glance in both mirrors, she ferried the car back onto the highway and brought it up to cruising speed.

  “I doona know for certain, lass, but my best guess is Rhukon, Connor, and the Morrigan presumed I’d brought you to Kheladin’s lair to consummate our relationship. The first thing they did was try to convince me, and with such a degree of subtlety I dinna recognize it for sorcery, that we needed to be married afore we bedded one another.”

  “Yes. I got that part. Kheladin and I disabused you of that notion.”

  “Aye, and I must admit I’m anxious for a repeat performance, but that is off the topic to hand.”

  Her left hand snaked across the console. He tucked it between one of his and the warmth of his body. “Thanks. Making love with you was so unlike anything else I’ve done, it should have a different name. I’m up for a repeat just as soon as we find a wall I can lean up against and—”

  “Och, lass, we’ve barely begun in that department, but I get your drift.” He chuckled. “Doona say aught more. When I get hard in these breeks, it pains me something fierce.”

  “The airport has lots of shops. I’m sure we can find you a pair of sweatpants.” Reassured by the warmth of him and his solid energy radiating confidence, she prodded. “Is there more I need to know about the attack?”

  “Ye’ve figured out they were trying to kill us. I am immortal, but they can spin webs to immobilize me for long years. Rather like the net I just escaped from.”

  Maggie’s hand tightened on the steering wheel. What he hadn’t said was she was far from immortal. A major cave-in, with its concomitant loss of oxygen, would have killed her. “Since they couldn’t stop us from fucking, is doing away with me the next thing they’ll try?”

  “Smart lass. I have been thinking along much the same lines. Ye need a crash course in controlling your magic. I am hoping your kin will help with that. I am not as familiar with witch magic as I am with my own.”

  “I can help,” Kheladin said. “We must teach her to ride me. An aerial position is a defensible one.”

  “I heard that,” Maggie murmured. “Thank you for the offer.”

  “Och aye,” Lachlan cut in. “’Tis much more than an offer. ’Tis a concession. No one has ever ridden Kheladin. Of course, I am within him when he takes to the skies, but I am not astride his back.” He squeezed her hand. “The dragon likes you.”

  “How could I not? She is ours.” Kheladin reiterated his earlier statement.

  Warmth simmered in her heart and created a comforting shroud. In its layers, she found acceptance and approval. Maggie tried to send reciprocating energy back to Kheladin. It was hard to tell if she succeeded at first, but then she was certain the dragon recognized her offering. “He has ways to talk that transcend words,” she murmured.

  “That he does,” Lachlan concurred. “How much farther to Glasgow?”

  Maggie glanced at a passing road sign. “Maybe another hour. Despite how late it is, we’ll run into traffic when we get closer to the metropolitan area. Fortunately, the airport is a few miles out of town. I’ve only driven in the downtown area once, and it was hideous. I got caught in a traffic jam that lasted so long, I was afraid I’d run out of fuel.”

  “A traffic jam being many cars stuck together somehow?”

  “You have the general idea. There’s usually an accident, where one car’s run into another. Sometimes there are even multi-car pileups. Anyway, they block lanes so the other cars can’t move.”

  “I feel as if I should be talking
with you of love and a bright future together, not metal tubes with no life in them that run into one another.”

  Something deep inside her got warm and fluttery. It felt right and good, but she pushed it aside. “If we make it through this in one piece, you can sing me all the love songs you want.”

  “A practical lass.”

  “No. One who’s scared half to death. I’m afraid if I let my guard down for even a moment or two, I’ll miss something and end up dead.”

  “A wise lass.”

  “I don’t know what I am. Would you mind if I turned on the radio for a few minutes? It’s closing on four-thirty a.m., and I’d like to hear the news.”

  “I doona mind, though I have no idea what ye’re talking about.”

  Maggie fiddled with the dial until she got a news station. She listened to the weather forecast. The broadcast crackled. “This just in,” the DJ said, his voice shifting from jovial to worried. “An inbound flight from Chicago to Glasgow disappeared off air traffic control’s radar half an hour ago. All inquiries should be routed to the carrier, Air Blue Sky. I repeat. Call the airlines at,” he rattled off a number, “if you had friends or family arriving on Flight 427. They will have up-to-the-minute information.” A breathy sigh came through the car’s speakers. “May God protect those three hundred passengers. I hope to hell He and all His saints take good care of them.”

  Maggie felt as if she was about to pass out. She didn’t remember pulling the car off the highway to the shoulder. She didn’t hear Lachlan until his anxious voice finally penetrated the fog around her brain.

  “Lass, lass.” He shook her arm. “Whatever is the matter? Was that your grandmother’s airplane the fellow was nattering on about?”

  She dropped her forehead onto her hands clutching the top of the steering wheel. “Yes,” she managed, just before anger so violent she wanted to kill whatever crossed her path ripped through her. “That was Mary Elma’s plane.”