Dark Victory

by Brenda Joyce

  Tabby knew she’d never really understand Sam, who had never been friends with a lover and didn’t seem to ever want friendship from a lover. “That is a relief.” Tabby ran to their building’s door, ripping off her gloves to find her keys. Her sister simply stood behind her, so she said, “Call me the moment you hear something.”

  “Yeah. Any news about your Highlander, I’ll call.”

  Tabby hesitated, aware of how Sam had used the word your. She almost sounded unhappy. Something was wrong, and for the first time in her life, she simply couldn’t deal with it. She hugged her sister. “Thanks.”

  “Sure,” Sam said, and when Tabby was safely inside, she strode off.

  SHIVERING, TABBY hurried into the elevator. A moment later, she was safely inside her loft.

  She was chilled to the bone and before she even took her coat off, she put on a pot of water to boil. Then she began to tremble, partly in exhaustion, partly from the cold, and partly because she was worried about the Highlander. Her mind knew better, but her heart wouldn’t listen. It never had.

  The fire in the classroom had raised all those feelings related to An Tùir-Tara. She did not like that. She had never had any odd reaction to the sight of fire before. Even thinking about it now made her stomach churn. Was she picking up on his emotions? She was doubtful. She was certain he was not capable of the love she’d felt.

  The kettle began to sing and as it did, someone knocked on her living-area window.

  Tabby started and cried out. He was standing on her fire escape!

  She froze. In the night, through the glass pane, their gazes locked.

  He knocked again. Tabby came to her senses. He was wearing a thin linen tunic and a wool plaid; he was bare-legged in his boots. She rushed across the room, unlocked and opened the window. He climbed inside and with him came a frigid burst of air. She slammed it closed and turned, stunned. “You followed me home?” she cried breathlessly.

  He towered over her. His face was hard and set, his shockingly intense blue eyes unwavering upon her. “Ye summoned me. Why?”

  He was angry—and he reeked of male power. And they were alone in her loft. She was alone with a medieval warrior, one capable of beheading a man in a single second. Worse, she was suddenly aware of his huge, muscular body and his proximity to her. She didn’t like it! “What? What are you talking about?” She backed up. She looked at his arm and the blood crusted there. “Are you hurt?”

  He stepped forward, closing the distance between them, not allowing her to escape. “No one commands me, Tabitha.”

  She felt dread. “I still don’t know what you are talking about!”

  “Your power,” he snapped. “Ye brought me to ye…Why?”

  Tabby went still, dazed by his powerful presence and trying to make sense of what he was telling her. “My spell worked?”

  “Aye. I ken ye’re a witch. I felt yer powers strongly in the school, an’ now. Why did ye bring me here?” he demanded.

  Tabby began shaking her head. It was really hard to speak. “To help you,” she managed to say, a hoarse whisper. “I wanted to help you!”

  He cursed and strode away.

  Tabby felt her knees buckle. He made every recollection of every bad romance novel she’d ever read about the Vikings and other conquerors return, full force. She could picture him dragging women off to his bed by their hair!

  Then she went still. Her spell had worked?

  He turned, hands fisted on his hips. “Aye, yer magic brought me here.”

  She was amazed and even excited. He stood across the loft from her, and damn it, as daunting as he was, the distance between them allowed her to really look at those high cheekbones, that square jaw and those stunningly dark blue eyes.

  Her pulse escalated wildly. He was pure male.

  His hard expression eased fractionally. Tabby had the unhappy notion that he was aware of her interest—except, she wasn’t interested, not that way. But how could she not notice that face and that body? His attire was skimpy! The tunic clung to his huge frame, and the two belts he wore helped delineate his anatomy. The plaid pinned to one shoulder highlighted his broad shoulders and equally broad and muscular chest. The short sleeves of his tunic and his current posture revealed his huge, bulging biceps, but of course he was built—he wielded heavy, huge swords on a daily basis. The belts made it clear that he had a six-pack—no, a twelve-pack. Worse, she was pretty certain a huge amount of muscle was beneath that oddly drifting short skirt.

  She decided not to look at his legs. She didn’t have to. They’d been impossible to miss, bare between the top of his boots and the skirt and entirely corded with muscle. That man wasn’t the product of the Zone Diet and steroids; he ran hills and rode horses.

  What was she doing? Why couldn’t she breathe? Why was he angry? She backed up. Putting more distance between them seemed to be a really good idea.

  “Do ye fear me now?” He almost seemed amused. “Ye should fear me. I dinna take orders, not from anyone.”

  She thought of Angel. “Got it. No more orders!” Then she choked. This was not the time to be incoherent. “I wasn’t summoning you. I thought you were hurt. I wanted to find you to help you.”

  His face changed. His eyes blazed, but with interest, not anger. He strode rapidly forward. Tabby cried out, backed up and hit the couch. “What are you doing?” she gasped.

  “I willna drag ye off by yer hair,” he said. When he halted, he had her trapped against the sofa.

  He was telepathic. Great!

  “I can’t breathe,” she said somehow. “Not with you standing over me like this.”

  He suddenly tilted up her chin.

  Tabby went still. Her heart thundered. Pulse points she’d never known she had began firing off all over her body, one by one, and a very definite throbbing began as desire suddenly reared up in her body.

  For one moment, his blue gaze changed, searching hers, and Tabby had the definite feeling that he knew and was pleased. Then he said tersely, “Ye’ve haunted me fer a century. Why? Did my enemies send ye?”

  Tabby gasped. “Now what are you talking about?”

  “Ye heard. I first saw ye when I was a boy. Ye wanted to help me. Then ye bothered me in my dreams. Sometimes ye even bothered me after battle. An’ I saw ye yesterday, on the beach where I buried my family.”

  Tabby began to tremble. As unnerving as his touch was, this was stunning information. “Please don’t touch me,” she said.

  His eyes widened. He dropped his hand.

  Tabby had no choice. To get away from him, she had to slip past his big body and the sofa. It would be absurd to climb on the couch to avoid his body, even if that was what she wanted to do. So she brushed past him, escaping into the rest of the living area. As she did so, something she didn’t want to think about bumped her.

  He was aroused. She felt her cheeks flame, felt that surprising throbbing again. Before facing him, she hugged herself. How was she going to handle that? But her mind had just shut down.

  “Tell me why ye continued to haunt me.”

  Slowly she pulled herself together and turned to face him, aware that she was still blushing. “I don’t know anything about a haunting. First of all, I thought one had to be a ghost to haunt someone. Clearly, I am not dead.”

  He made a harsh sound but he was very still now, listening intently to her.

  Tabby hugged herself harder. She decided not think about the two of them being alone in her loft, not now. “Are you sure it was me?”

  He laughed without mirth. Even his laughter was frightening—no, disturbing. “Woman, t’was ye.”

  He was certain. He believed he’d seen her over the years, from the time he was a small boy. She’d felt that he was familiar the moment she’d seen him at the Met—and when she’d envisioned him as a boy, reading that plaque, she had felt that she’d known him, too. “I can’t explain this. But I saw you yesterday, at a museum. There was an exhibit there, related to Melvaig, Scotland. And wh
en I saw you, you seemed familiar and I wanted to help you.”

  His eyes were wide but hard. “Melvaig is the stronghold of my enemies.”

  “I know.” Tabby knew better than to elaborate. This man hadn’t been in a fire, which meant that An Tùir-Tara was in his future. She didn’t need a Wisdom from the Book of Roses to tell her not to reveal his future to him. That was strictly forbidden. “At the museum, they mention a massacre in 1201. Only a fourteen-year-old boy survived. Was that you?”

  His face became so hard she was frightened and alarmed. His expression seemed ready to crack—or explode? It was a moment before he spoke. “Aye. They have written about my family in yer time? About me?”

  Tabby nodded. That boy had been devastated by the loss of his family. She almost wanted to go up to him and touch his hand, which was absurd. He wasn’t that grieving boy now. Oh, no. He was the antithesis of that boy—he was the antithesis of just about everything good and proper with the world!

  He cursed and suddenly her couch-side lamps shattered, a bowl and the vase of roses sliding off the coffee table.

  Tabby froze. Clearly getting him angry was not a good idea.

  “Why do they write about me?” he demanded.

  “Historians write about history—anyone’s history,” she said helplessly.

  He looked at her destroyed lamps. Only the shades were intact.

  This wasn’t going to work, Tabby thought. He had a temper; he was angry with her. He had to go back to wherever it was that he came from—immediately! Clearly, she wasn’t the one to help him. She was simply not up to the task.

  Carefully, she said, “What time, exactly, did you come from?”

  “Ye dinna ken?” When she shook her head, he said, “Yer magic took me from Blayde in the middle of the night, on June the tenth, 1298.”

  Tabby tried to keep her shock from showing. He had come from the late thirteenth century—which wasn’t even close to 1550! No wonder he was such a ruthless barbarian.

  His gaze narrowed. “Tabitha, I dinna like being judged. I am the Macleod, an’ those who judge me rarely live to tell of it.”

  Tabby trembled. Had he just threatened her?

  “I saved ye. I willna harm ye. But heed my warnings.”

  Tabby somehow nodded. “Do not get me wrong, because I’m grateful for what you did today, but I’m not sure why you’re here. The police want you dead. You really need to go back to Blayde in 1298.”

  A funny, small smile changed his expression.

  Tabby tensed. What did that look mean?

  “But ye want to help me.”

  She instantly knew they had entered extremely dangerous territory. “You clearly do not need my help right now.”

  His voice dropped to a murmur. He said, “But ye’re grateful, aye?”

  Tabby went still. “Wh-what?”

  “Ye’re a grateful woman. Ye owe me now.”

  Her mind went blank. Then, as comprehension came, her pulse exploded. He meant to seduce her! She was aghast—but her body was thrumming.

  “Ye want me. I want ye. Ye owe me. I will gladly accept a night in yer bed.”

  She choked.

  He simply looked at her, staring, his eyes distinctly smoldering now.

  Tabby whirled, starting for the kitchen, tripping as she did so. She was grateful, true, but he expected her to pay him back with her body! She would never do such a thing! And what was wrong with her damned body, anyway? Why was she breathless, too warm…aroused?

  How was she going to get him to leave?

  She paused at the kitchen counter, clinging to it. Then she felt him as he approached, coming up behind her. “Ye dinna need to fear me.”

  She made an entirely incoherent sound. “You beheaded Angel while I was in his arms!” She twisted around to face him—a mistake.

  She was almost in his embrace, and now, gods damn it, he was amused.

  “I am a master with a sword.”

  “You could have beheaded me,” she accused.

  He lifted up a hank of her hair. “Never.”

  She went still. Their gazes locked. His was dark blue smoke. “You need to go back to your time, Macleod. Immediately!”

  He smiled. It was seductive and sexy, but most of all, it revealed how shockingly handsome he was. And it made him seem almost human. “Why do ye fear my bed so much?”

  “We don’t know each other!”

  “In my time,” he said softly, “when a woman is as hot as ye, she takes her pleasure an’ enjoys it.”

  Tabby was speechless. She felt dazed, and her body was doing all kinds of crazy and inappropriate things.

  She closed her eyes to avoid that smoldering gaze. He was coming onto her, and she couldn’t handle either him or her own reaction to him. Everything was wrong! “Just go,” she said hoarsely, opening her eyes. “Just go back to Blayde, back to your time, because this will never work!”

  His stare became searching, intent. It was as if he was trying to figure her out. She knew he was reading her mind.

  “I made a mistake,” she added desperately. “You were supposed to come from 1550, not 1298!”

  “I canna return,” he finally said. “I dinna have the power to leap. Ye’ll have to send me back.” He smiled now, cool and confident. “When I am ready to leave.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  TABBY KNEW SHE had misheard. “What did you just say?”

  “I canna return.”

  He was joking, wasn’t he?

  “Ye look the way ye did when I took off Angel’s head.”

  “Of course you can return!”

  His expression hardened. “I dinna have the power to leap.”

  Tabby choked in disbelief. “You’re a Master of Time…aren’t you?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “I havena taken my vows.”

  Dread began. “Why not?”

  He didn’t bother with an answer.

  And it struck her then. Macleod was not your everyday mortal, but he wasn’t a Master—he hadn’t taken his vows. Her spell had brought a very violent, very ruthless, very powerful medieval Highlander to her, one who could kill with a broad-sword or a blast of otherworldly power. One who did not have much respect for life and, maybe, not much of a conscience.

  A superpowered barbarian was standing there in her loft with her!

  And he could not get back to his time—she was stuck with him.

  Tabby studied his terribly beautiful blue eyes, set in an equally gorgeous but incredibly hard and definitely frightening face. Her gaze dropped. His Highland garb could not hide an equally beautiful, equally hard body. But that body posed a huge threat, because she was so impossibly aware of him.

  He tilted up her chin. “Ye want me gone because ye fear being in my bed.”

  “Let go,” she said uneasily. She did not want to provoke him in any way, and she did not want to continue the subject he seemed intent upon. She had no wish to be dragged off to his bed, and that was undoubtedly his MO. “How can this be happening?”

  He did not release her. “If I wished to drag ye to my bed by yer hair, I would have already done so.”

  Tabby grasped his wrist to protest, hardly reassured. As she did so, he clasped her waist with his other hand, and the sensation of holding him, the feel of him holding her, was shocking.

  For one instant, she knew she’d gripped him this way before. In that second, she saw herself on her back, grasping his arms as he moved over her, smiling in triumph, filling her. She was climaxing; he was controlling her—and enjoying her rapture.

  No, she thought, shocked. Tabby somehow wrenched away from him. She was imagining their being lovers—it was not déjà vu. She would never take this medieval man to bed! He was the antithesis of her type—he was worse than Randall—more powerful, more controlling, more macho. There wouldn’t be love, because there couldn’t be love. She was too intellectual to get involved with him, which meant there wouldn’t be sex.

  But so much heat sizzled betw
een them that she saw the red-hot current in the air.

  He slowly shook his head. “I think ye want to be dragged to bed—an’ I think ye want me to drag ye there.”

  Tabby backed away, trembling. “You are so wrong. I like gentle men.”

  He began to smile. “I dinna think so. But mayhap, ye believe so.”

  He was wrong, but she wouldn’t argue. A long, heated moment passed. Tension was coursing through her body. This was untenable. But even as she decided that, she envisioned him as he’d been at the Met, bloody and burned, enraged and anguished.

  He crossed his arms and stared coolly at her.

  What was she going to do? He had insinuated that he wasn’t ready to go back. She prayed that was not because he wanted her favors first. Her spell had backfired—she’d brought him from the wrong time. If she tried to send him to his home, was there any chance she could succeed?

  She suddenly imagined his winding up in the middle of a Regency ball, with the guests screaming and fleeing. Then she imagined him winding up fighting a lion bare-handed in the Roman Colosseum. She trembled, suddenly at her emotional limit.

  The man who’d been in that fire was very different from the man standing before her. Centuries separated them. The former might need her one day, although she was no longer certain if she was up to the task of helping him. The man standing before her didn’t need her at all. But he was here because of her spell.

  And he’d seen her for a century.

  Tabby didn’t want to try to figure that one out—it was too scary.

  “Why would you want to stay here?” she asked, her mouth so dry now she had to wet her lips.

  “I wish to comprehend yer world. An’ I wish to go to the museum.”

  Tabby was shocked.

  “Ye’ll take me there,” he added flatly.

  Tabby didn’t have to think about it to know that was a very bad idea. The police were looking for him, and even if she got him clothes, she was pretty certain he’d stand out like a sore thumb. And there was no way he should ever be told about his future.