“You worry.”
“You betcha,” she said, shooting him a glance, then once more looking over her shoulder. The street was empty, lamplight shining like tiny globes of gold in the darkness, spreading pools of light across the damp cobblestones. Pins and needles scampered up and down her spine.
She could swear they were being watched.
“There is no need,” he said, and stopped long enough to pull her close to him for a tight, one-armed hug. In his free hand, he held his sword, ready for battle. “I will protect you. We will find our way.”
“I really do want to believe that,” Emma said, staring up into those icy blue eyes that could hold her captivated with a glance.
“Then do.”
She laughed shortly and huffed out a breath that ruffled the short, red curls on her forehead. “Okay. What was I thinking? I’ll believe.”
One corner of his mouth tipped up and Emma’s body turned to liquid heat as erotic images flashed through her mind. Clearly, her body didn’t care that they were in danger.
Instantly, Bain groaned low in his throat. “Guard your thoughts, Emma. You can’t tempt me here. There are other things we must do.”
“Me tempt you?” She smiled wryly. “Just looking at you makes me want to—” Another very explicit image rolled through her mind. Her, straddling him, arching her back as he lifted his hands to cup her breasts. Her body encasing his, her hips grinding against him, taking him deeper, higher. Sweet friction as he moved within her. The sweeping sensations of a soul-shattering orgasm ripping through them both…
“Enough!” He cupped the back of her head, pulled her close and kissed her, hard, long and deep. When he was through he pulled his head back and each of them fought for air. “Let us finish this and then I will show you my thoughts.”
Emma trembled with the miniquakes she now recognized as foreplay shocks. Almost as good as the real thing, they rippled through her with tiny jolts of expectation that nearly made her forget they were on the trail of a cursed cup designed to hold her blood.
Nearly.
“Okay,” she said, nodding as that thought went through her mind. “Back on track.”
Without another word, he crossed the street, taking her with him, leading her toward the darkened university. A scant few windows shone with the soft glow of lamplight. Mostly, the blackened windowpanes of the school stood out as darker shadows in the gloom. Sort of like empty eyes staring into space. And over all, the hint of danger lay like a thick fog.
“Don’t you feel it, too?” she asked, turning her head toward Bain.
“I do.” His eyes glittered in the light and his features were shadowed, harsh. “There are demons near. They sense the energy barrier.” His hand tightened on hers. “As I can see the trace energy signatures they leave behind, they can sense mine.”
“So the invisibility thing is pretty much useless?” She glanced around, even more nervous than before. “That makes me feel better.”
He squeezed her hand briefly. “The energy field is not a defense against demons. It’s only to protect us from prying human eyes while we do what needs doing.”
But there are no humans watching us. Emma’s frantic gaze swept the darkness, searching in the shadows, even as she hoped she wouldn’t see a thing. Knowing demons were out there, staring at her, was completely different from actually seeing them.
Her stomach jumped, her nerves seemed to sizzle in warning. Suddenly, she felt those watching eyes even more fiercely than she had before. There was dark power out there and it was focused on them. Was it Derek watching them? Or a different demon? Or even worse, a troop of demons, all working together to kill Bain and her? And what if the demons didn’t know where to go at all? Were they simply leading the demon threatening her to exactly what he needed?
“Bain—”
“I feel your fear,” he said softly, gaze still moving over their surroundings, scanning, watchful for the slightest movement that might constitute a threat. “Don’t allow it. If the demon follows, I’ll dispatch it.”
“So you’re expecting Derek to show up.” Great. That makes me feel fabulous.
“I always expect trouble,” he countered. That way I am rarely surprised.
But Emma felt as if she’d been nothing but surprised for days now. She didn’t know how much more adrenaline her body could take without just imploding.
Then the university loomed before them, the old buildings, constructed of gray stone, boasting mullioned windows, looked like an ancient fortress rather than a school. And, for some reason, that made Emma feel better. Maybe because the man she was with had come from before the time this place was built? Maybe because he belonged, not in a city but on the ramparts of a castle? If anyone could get them through the dangers of tonight, Emma knew it was her Highlander. Pride rushed through her in a wave almost strong enough to quash her terror.
“When this is finished, Emma,” Bain promised, “I will take you from this crowded city and show you the Highlands. You will love it.”
Emma looked at him and hoped he was right. Oh, she knew she’d love the Highlands. How could she not, with her very own Highlander to show her the country, to make her see it through his eyes? But what she didn’t know was if she’d be alive to go with him. Even her pride and faith in Bain wasn’t enough to convince her that she had a future past tonight. And should she live, how long would she have with Bain before she was forced to leave?
A scuffle of sound reached Emma and ended whatever she might have said to Bain. Before she could react, the world seemed to explode.
Stay down!
Bain’s voice was harsh and loud and brooked no argument. Emma dropped to the cobblestones, their damp cold seeping into the knees of her jeans as she watched three demons rush Bain from the shadows. They were pale, their faces white as bone, their long arms ending in hands curled into claws. One of them howled and the sound seemed to echo up and down the street, sending shivers along Emma’s spine. Her mouth went dry and everything inside her iced over. Fear was a living, breathing entity within her. She felt helpless and didn’t like it.
She never heard Derek approaching from behind her until it was too late.
He snaked one hand around her mouth, and with the other grabbed her hair and viciously yanked her head back. Naked throat arched toward the sky, she sent one quick mental scream.
Bain!
She caught only a glimpse of her Highlander’s furious eyes when he whirled to see Derek with his hands on her. Then the other three demons pounced on Bain as Derek carried her off toward the university…and the waiting Campbell Cup.
Bain was filled with a fury that nearly choked him. Roaring his rage, he tore through the demons he now realized had been sent to distract him. It had worked. He’d been so focused on protecting Emma from this, he hadn’t sensed the real attack coming from another direction. Derek had used Bain’s own concern for Emma against him and Bain had fallen for it. That only infuriated him further. It was his fault Emma was now in danger. His mistake that had put her in danger. Now all he could do was end this battle and get to her as quickly as possible.
Derek would use Emma to open the portal and keep it open. Preventing that from happening should be the most important thing to him and yet, after a thousand years of protecting humanity, Bain realized he didn’t care about the damned portal. If it was opened and he was forced to stand guard over it for eternity, he would. Battling one after the next, every demon hell spat out at him.
The portal was unimportant. The only thing he worried about now was Emma’s safety.
Once that doorway was open, Derek would have no further use for her.
She would die.
Unless Bain prevented it.
With single-minded determination, Bain emptied everything he had into the fight with the three demons. His blade sang as he swung it with fierce abandon. His muscles bunched and cries of agony filled the still night air. A demon claw raked along Bain’s arm and blood flowed freely. He d
idn’t notice. Another of the demons kicked out at his legs and Bain leaped into the air, avoiding that pitiful attempt to bring him down.
Again and again, he squared off against the three, his body moving in long familiar moves even as his mind sought Emma’s. But her thoughts were closed to him. Was she too afraid? Was she unconscious? There was another explanation, but Bain refused to accept that. She wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. Derek had need of her and so would keep her alive. For now.
That thought gave him the impetus to finish the fight in a few blindingly fast moves. First one, then another, then finally the third demon succumbed to his blade until all three opponents were writhing on the street, wet cobblestones shining black with the stain of demon blood.
“You’re too late, Guardian,” one of them managed to say, its words coming garbled from a mouth sliced open by Bain’s sword. “We have the woman and the gates will open.”
He paid them no heed. They were merely the distraction and he wouldn’t be drawn away from his objective.
“She dies tonight,” another one promised, grunting as Bain gave it a kick that sent it sprawling into one of its brothers.
“You lose!” the first crowed, then moaned, clapping one hand to its ruined face.
“We shall see,” Bain muttered, draping the three demons in the finely meshed, silver Guardian netting. The harder they struggled against the net’s hold, the tighter they would be caught. The perfect trap to keep them detained and unable to hurt anyone else. Bain stood, grabbed his sword, then waved his free hand across the demons, wrapping them in an energy field that would hide their presence from all but him.
When he was finished, he spun, faced the hulking black shadow of the university and raced toward the woman who was now the center of his life.
Chapter 7
“You stupid bitch.” Derek yanked at her hair until Emma’s eyes watered. “You won’t stop this.”
He forced her through one of the oldest buildings on the Edinburgh campus, using her like a divining rod. He faced her first one way and then the next, down long, empty corridors of what seemed to be an ancient section of the university. When he didn’t find what he was searching for, he dragged her farther along the darkened halls.
Now that her time was running out, all Emma wanted was the chance to tell Bain she loved him. To let him know that the past week—despite everything—had been the most amazing of her life. That she would love him forever. That maybe, one day, she’d be born again and they’d have another chance.
But even with that, she kept her thoughts closed to him, afraid of distracting him while he was fighting. He would come to her. She knew it. Believed it. All she had to do was stay alive long enough for him to come storming to her rescue.
Then her racing thoughts crashed to an end. She jolted in Derek’s grip as something dark and ancient awakened in her blood and made it buzz as if it sizzled just beneath her skin. Evil wasn’t just a word, she told herself as she felt the black stain of it slide through her system. It was alive and hungry and calling to her as if to a lover. Emma moaned and pulled back, instinctively trying to distance herself from the source of that power.
Derek laughed in her ear and his voice was a hiss of sound. “I knew you’d find it for me. Blood calls to the cup. Soon this will be over. Soon, my brothers will own this world and all of you will service us.”
Oh, God.
Fist still in her hair, Derek dragged her down the hall, enjoying her struggles to get free. The dark heat emanating from the cup was more intense the closer they got and Emma’s body erupted in a sheen of sweat. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t force enough air into her lungs to keep from feeling light-headed, dizzy and disoriented.
At last, her mind helplessly sought out Bain’s. It’s here. Derek found it. Help me.
Emma!
The roar of her Highlander’s voice in her mind was a momentary comfort. Finally, though, Emma’s body seized up at her nearness to the cup. A faint, tight moan slid from her throat and Derek laughed. Throwing the closest door open, he stepped inside and spotted the very thing he was searching for.
Emma dropped to the floor, trying to make herself a smaller target. She curled into herself, trying to ease the racking pains shuddering through her now that she was so close to that damned cup.
It was no use, though. Just being in the same room with the thing was killing her. She felt her bones shrieking. Felt her soul cringe and her blood boil. There was ancient power in that cup. Dark and evil.
She looked up as Derek took the cup from a low shelf and ran his long, pale fingers over it in slow, loving strokes. The ancient bronze cup was battered and stained, its once-pristine surface blackened through time and the evil that had brought it into existence. The inscription etched around its rim was barely legible. But when Derek lifted it, those faded symbols suddenly illuminated with a dark red light that seemed to burn into the bronze, rejuvenating the cup into what it had been in the beginning.
A dark promise of death and power and change.
“You see?” Derek sighed. “It reacts to me. It knows its time has come.”
Emma watched him smile at the damn thing, and for a moment, she half expected him to kiss it as sports champions kissed a hard-won trophy.
He slanted a look at her. “The demon world has long sought this cup. Forged by your ancestors for use when worshiping the old ones.”
He walked close and crouched beside her where she huddled on the floor. His burning, maniacal gaze speared into her eyes. “It was lost centuries ago. Even my kind couldn’t find it. Buried and forgotten, the cup lay hidden beneath the earth. Until a new housing project was begun. It was freed from the muck and brought here to wait for your arrival. Now it sings to me.”
Pain welled and blossomed inside her. The closer the cup was to her, the deeper the agony twisting within. How could her ancestors have forged a bargain with whatever had created that cup? How could they have thought, even for a moment, that anything was worth the fetid stench of the thing being brought into this world?
She shuddered, lungs collapsing, brain burning, and still she managed to look into Derek’s eyes and whisper, “Bain will stop you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, bitch.” He smiled. “Your Guardian is as good as dead.”
“Not quite yet.”
Emma heard Bain’s voice and reacted instantly. Fighting the crippling pain inside her, she took advantage of Derek’s momentary surprise. She reached out, batted the cup out of his hand, then watched as it rolled across the room toward Bain. He kicked it out of reach, lifted his sword and smiled at the demon. “Your plan is finished.”
Her hand burned where she’d touched the cup, but already, with distance, the pain she felt began to fade just enough to make drawing breath easier.
“I’ll kill the bitch!” Derek dragged her to her feet, and stood behind her, using her body as a shield. He grinned at Bain and said, “So you see, your plan ends, as well, Guardian.”
Before Emma could figure out what Derek meant by that, he bit her.
She screamed while white-hot pain lanced through her throat as his teeth dug deeply into her flesh. This, she thought wildly, she hadn’t expected. Her eyes met Bain’s horrified gaze and she felt agony spiral through her system like a tightly wound string suddenly released. Heat, then cold, washed over her, in her, as if something hideous—something alive—was racing through her bloodstream. Her gaze locked on Bain, she saw fear dazzle his eyes before the edge of her vision began to go gray.
Over, she thought. All over now with no hope of a happily ever after.
A shout of pain, raw with rage, tore from Bain’s throat as he watched Emma slide slowly to the floor at the demon’s feet. He heard her last coherent thought and his soul wept for her even as his body and mind raged with the need for vengeance.
Her green eyes were glazed, her already fair skin going pale as milk. Blood stained her torn throat and ran in bright rivulets down the front of her blue T-sh
irt. His heart shattered, Bain felt her agony as his own, took the pain inside him and used it to finish the demon that had brought all of this down on them.
Cup forgotten, the demon laughed. “You can’t kill me on this plane, Guardian, but I’ve killed what’s yours.”
Bain had no time for conversation and no wish to talk to the smiling beast standing over Emma. Instead, Bain rushed him, lifted his sword and swung it in a wide arc. The razor-sharp blade sliced through Derek’s neck in one clean stroke. The demon dropped to the floor and Bain kicked the body away from Emma.
Weakly, Emma clapped one hand to her neck. “Thought you said they couldn’t be killed.”
Bain spared the body a quick look. “It’s not dead. Like a lizard, it will regenerate whatever it needs.”
“That’s…gross.” She let her hand fall to her lap, glanced at the bright red blood coating her fingers, took a breath and said, “Not vampires, huh?”
Stop talking. He tore his shirt off, ripped at the fabric, then folded a strip of the material into a thick square and used it as a pad, holding it to her injured neck. Too much blood loss, he thought, even knowing that the blood wasn’t the real problem. There was no way to keep the truth from her. You have been poisoned.
“Poisoned? Great. How long do I have?” Her eyes held his, demanding truth when he would have preferred a more gentle lie.
His heart twisted in his chest. The love of his life was so near death it terrified him. He, a Guardian who hadn’t known the bitter taste of fear in too many centuries to count, now felt it overwhelm him.
“Tell me, Bain,” she insisted in a voice that was barely more than a hush.
“Not long.” Fresh fear as well as despair jolted through Bain. He was going to lose Emma permanently unless he acted. Soon. But the “cure” was not a sure thing. How could he risk it? Yet how could he not?
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