by Donna Grant
“Promise me you willna engage Declan if you see him,” Ramsey said.
“What is it you are no’ telling us, mate?”
Ramsey looked at Charon then at Arran. “It’s the X90 bullets I’m worried about.”
With a nod, Charon straightened and left the cottage after grabbing a bag of chips from the kitchen counter.
When the door shut behind him, Arran crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Ramsey. “Charon may believe that bullshit you just doled out, but I doona.”
“It’s the truth,” Ramsey replied with a shrug.
“My arse. Have we no’ been through enough that I deserve the truth?”
“You want the truth?” Ramsey asked as he stepped closer to Arran. He rarely let anger control him, but it wasn’t as easy to control at the moment. And he didn’t care. “I’ll give you the truth. The truth is that we doona have Sonya here with her healing magic, nor do we have Phelan and his blood that can heal anything. It’s just us. It’s why I didna want Fallon to bring anyone else here.”
“Then who would look after your ugly arse?”
Ramsey blinked, taken aback by Arran’s calm reply.
“I’m going to have a look around Tara’s room. Maybe we’ll find something useful,” Arran said.
Ramsey watched his friend leave. He had expected Arran to comment on his lack of control or at least his anger. Instead, Arran had said nothing.
Ever since coming to Dunnoth Tower, Ramsey hadn’t been himself. Whether it was because of Tara, or finally admitting to everyone he was half Druid as well as Warrior, and then using his magic, he didn’t know.
Nor did it matter. All he wanted was to return to being the man he was. The man who always kept himself in control. The man who didn’t make rash decisions. The man who thought things through thoroughly at least six times before making a decision.
The man who didn’t let anger rule him.
Ramsey tossed another log on the fire before he leaned his ear against the door to listen for sounds of Tara. When he heard nothing, he feared she might have run away again.
He had the door open before the thought finished in his mind. When he caught sight of Tara asleep beneath covers she had pulled nearly over her head, he quietly closed the door. It wasn’t until he was seated on the couch and caught sight of Tara’s boots that he realized what kind of fool he’d just made of himself.
“What is wrong with me?” he asked.
His gaze shifted to his arm that rested atop his leg to see the magic still there, still as thick as before.
Though he had been a man of twenty-one years when Deirdre unbound his god, he had been raised as a Druid of Torrachilty Forest.
Since their magic ran powerful and deep, it was only the males who could control it. Any female born with magic in Torrachilty was killed, because if she were allowed to live she would go insane from the force of the magic.
Ramsey came from a long line of males from Torrachilty. He had learned spells as soon as he could talk, and they were perfected before he learned any more.
His teachers had been brutal, but effective. The Druids of Torrachilty had been known as the Druid warriors. All Druids, even the droughs, feared them.
Like all Druids, Ramsey had been taught how the droughs had called up the ancient gods from Hell so they could take the host of a man and rid Britain of Rome. Ramsey had also learned how it had taken both droughs and mies alike to bind the gods inside the men.
Ramsey had learned how difficult it had been to correct something the droughs had done. There were consequences to such decisions, and those consequences had fallen to the mies. They were the ones who followed the bloodlines the gods would travel through generation after generation.
But Ramsey’s teachers hadn’t known everything. They hadn’t known about Deirdre or what she would do. They hadn’t realized the gods could be unbound once more.
And they hadn’t known he would be taken by Deirdre and that his god would be released.
Ramsey thought of his father and uncles, and he thought of his family. It wasn’t something he allowed himself to do very often, because he had no idea what had happened to them.
All he did know was that the infamous warrior Druids of Torrachilty Forest were no more.
He jumped up and reached for the laptop Saffron had sent with him. Sleep he would not get that night, but maybe he could learn something about his people.
Maybe he could find some clue as to what happened to them, or where they went.
He would never find his family, that he knew. But if there was another out there, Ramsey wanted to find him. He couldn’t believe he was the last of the Torrachilty Forest Druids.
It seemed too cruel, too brutal.
But Ramsey had a sinking feeling it was all true.
CHAPTER NINE
MacLeod Castle
Galen sat at the end of the long table in the great hall, his finger tapping slowly on the wood.
“You look worried.”
Galen started and turned his head to find Lucan standing beside him. Galen shrugged. “My thoughts are dark today.”
“You’re no’ the only one.” Lucan lowered himself onto the bench and propped his elbows on the table he had made so many centuries ago. “You’re thinking about Ramsey.”
Galen wasn’t surprised at the statement. His power might be to read other’s minds, but Lucan wasn’t a fool. “Aye. I doona like that he wanted to go alone.”
“He’s no’ alone now.”
Galen ran a hand down his face and sighed. “Ramsey was the one Deirdre caught after you and your brothers. He’s the eldest next to you three MacLeods.”
“Your point?”
“He’s cautious for a reason, Lucan. The fact that he wants to face Declan alone doesna sit well with me.”
“Nor did it with Fallon, which is why my brother sent Charon and Arran to Dunnoth Tower.”
“Will it be enough though?”
Lucan’s sea green eyes narrowed. “What are you no’ telling me, Galen?”
“Nothing. It’s just … I’ve a bad feeling. Ramsey might have admitted to being half Druid, but I’m no’ sure that was all of it.”
“How so?”
Galen shook his head. “I’m guessing here, but it was something Reaghan said last night before she fell asleep. She wondered what kind of magic Ramsey had.”
“Verra powerful if we judge by what we saw in the battle with Deirdre and the awakening of Laria.”
“Exactly.” Galen leaned forward so that his arms rested on the table. “I did some research on the Druids of Torrachilty Forest.”
When Galen didn’t immediately continue, Lucan flexed his hands in agitation. “Well?”
“They were considered the warrior Druids, Lucan. They were feared. Greatly. No one messed with them, no’ even the droughs.”
“Ballocks.” Lucan blew out a breath. “I doona know whether to be impressed or worried.”
“Me either. Reaghan’s question did make me curious. What with Deirdre’s death, Camdyn and Saffron’s wedding, the search for the missing scroll with the spell to bind our gods, and Declan going after Tara, none of us spoke with Ramsey about his magic.”
Lucan rubbed his forehead. “Nay. We should have. I think we were all so relieved to have Deirdre finally dead that we forgot. But I doona think Ramsey would go after Declan himself if he didna believe he could take him.”
“And that in itself scares me. I would have expected Hayden or even Camdyn to act in such a way, but no’ Ramsey. He’s the one who thinks everything through, the one who listens to everyone before he makes a comment.”
“I’ll go tell Fallon,” Lucan said as he stood. “See if you can find out anything else about the Torrachilty Druids.”
Galen watched Lucan stride away as he continued to worry about Ramsey. It didn’t sit well with any of them that Ramsey had wanted to go alone. They all wanted to fight Declan, but Ramsey and Saffron convinced them of the need to get Tara to th
e castle first.
Galen just hoped Ramsey’s decision didn’t cost him his life.
* * *
Tara stretched her arms over her head and yawned. When she opened her eyes to see the grayness of dawn coming through the shutters she knew she wasn’t in her room.
A second later the events of the night before rushed through her mind. She slowly sat up, a smile pulling at her lips as she thought of how safe she had felt with Ramsey. It never entered her mind to be afraid of him or of Declan.
Tara couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so free. Maybe that’s what allowed her to sleep so deeply, but whatever the cause, she felt like a new woman.
She threw back the covers and slid off the bed. The mirror on the back of the door stopped her cold when she saw her reflection. She hadn’t paid much attention to the shirt Ramsey had given her the night before, but now she couldn’t look away.
It was flannel, but one that had been washed many times. The plaid was blue, white, and black and smelled like a heady mixture of pine and man. She turned her nose to the collar and inhaled the scent that was all Ramsey.
The cuffs were unbuttoned and hung well past her hands when she lowered her arms. She’d never understood why in movies they always showed a woman walking around in the man’s shirt after they’d had sex. Now she knew.
She’d never felt sexier in her life.
Tara snorted at her own thoughts. “I’ve never felt sexy at all.”
She tried to smooth down her sleep-mussed hair with her fingers without any success. Then, she slowly turned the doorknob and opened the door.
Silently she peeked around the doorjamb at the couch, only to find it empty. Her feet walked soundlessly across the wooden floor and rugs to the kitchen, but she found herself alone.
Tara was about to return to her room and see how dry her clothes were when her gaze was caught by the view out of the huge windows that took up a large portion of the wall.
Snow had fallen at an incredible rate the night before, leaving huge mounds of it everywhere. The flurries that continued to fall were large and showing no signs of decreasing anytime soon.
Everywhere Tara looked it was white. Only the gray stones of the castle broke up the white wonderland. If she tried really hard she could almost believe she was in another world, a world where Declan didn’t exist and she didn’t need to run for her life.
* * *
Ramsey nearly dropped his armload of wood when he caught sight of Tara. Every fiber of his being was attuned to her. It wasn’t only because Tara leaned over and his shirt hem came up to the top of her shapely thigh, giving him a peek at bright green panties with white lace trim.
It wasn’t only because her hair was tousled as if she had just been made love to.
It wasn’t only because her smile transformed her face into something that stole his breath away.
He was seeing a side of Tara he suspected few ever had. The sun broke though the thick canopy of clouds and shone directly on Tara, highlighting her light brown hair so that the golden strands in it shone.
To his amazement, she leaned to the side so that he was able to see a white frog on the back of her panties and the word JAMMIN’ atop it.
It brought a smile to his lips, because he hadn’t expected to see Tara wear panties like that. She was a loner, a runner, so she had expressed herself in ways others wouldn’t be able to see.
He could stare at her all day, his imagination running wild over what she was—or wasn’t—wearing beneath his shirt. All he could think about was how good it looked on her, but how desperately he wanted to rip it off her body.
His cock thickened and his blood quickened at the thought. How would her magic affect him if they kissed? Or made love? The fact that he was even thinking about it told him she had already affected him too much.
“Oh,” she said as she turned and found him staring. “I thought you had left.”
Ramsey finally shut the door behind him and stomped his feet to get the snow off before he walked to the fireplace. “We were running low on wood, and with the temperatures continuing to fall, I needed to stock up.”
He stood after putting the wood away and once more he was lost. Tara was a classic beauty, but there was something so compelling, so alluring, about her that Ramsey had been struck by it from the first moment he saw her.
“Did you sleep well?”
She smiled and glanced down at her feet. “It’s been a long time since I’ve slept that well.”
“I’m happy to hear it.”
“Thank you for the use of your shirt.”
Ramsey walked back to the kitchen and leaned against the stove. “It looks much better on you than it ever did on me.”
Her slow smile made his balls tighten and his hands itch to touch her. He’d only gotten a small feel of her smooth skin, and he wanted, no, he needed more.
Ramsey mentally shook himself. He wasn’t there to seduce her, he was there to protect her. He needed to remember that before he got her killed.
“I was about to make pancakes and sausage. Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Famished. Would you like some help?”
He shook his head as he began to get everything out. “Nay. You sit and talk.”
“About what?”
He glanced at her as he opened the refrigerator. “Anything.”
“I’m not that interesting.”
“I doona believe that. Everyone is interesting in their own way.”
“Not me,” she said with a laugh.
Ramsey wanted her to get more comfortable with him, to trust him. And that meant she had to start opening up to him. “How about telling me something you did that you weren’t supposed to as a child?”
She bit the side of her bottom lip, her blue-green eyes alight with pleasure. “All right. I used to sneak out of my house to swim in the loch.”
“That’s the best you can do?” he teased as he stirred the mixture in the bowl. “I didna just sneak out. I would take something from my father and put it with one of my cousins so he’d get in trouble. It was a game we had played since we were old enough to walk.”
“Did they ever discover you?”
He grinned. “No’ once.”
They shared a laugh, their eyes locking. Ramsey was the first to look away. He told himself it was because he didn’t want the pancake to burn, but the real reason was that he didn’t trust himself with Tara.
She was allowing him to see a little bit into her world, and it startled him how much more he wanted to know. She only had herself to lean on to survive, and through it all, she could still smile as if Fate hadn’t screwed her.
“What?” she asked, her head cocked to the side so that her wavy, light brown hair hung over her shoulder.
He flipped the pancakes with a twist of his wrist. “How long will you run from this man who is after you?”
She looked down at the table and exhaled. “Either until he catches me or I kill him.”
“You doona believe he’ll give up?”
“No.”
The firm note in her voice made him nod. “What if I said I could help?”
“Why would you want to? You don’t know me, Ramsey. I’m not going to hand my problems off to you or anyone else.”
He got out a plate and put the first pancake on it before handing it to her. “Why did you stay here last night?”
“What?” she asked as she slowly lowered her plate to the table.
“Why did you stay?”
Tara pushed herself up from the table. “I shouldn’t have.”
“But you did, and there’s a reason. Say it.”
She shook her head.
Ramsey closed the distance between them and lifted a lock of her golden-brown hair with his fingers. “You felt safe.”
Already Ramsey could feel her magic moving from her hair onto his fingers. His god all but purred at the unique and heady sensation that was becoming all too familiar.
He found himse
lf leaning closer to her, drowning in her beautiful blue-green depths. The tendrils of magic were once more swirling around his hand and were working their way up his arm the longer he touched her hair.
“Yes,” she finally admitted. “Thank you for that.”
She rose up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. Her lips on his skin was his undoing. He turned his head slightly so that their mouths brushed, which halted her retreat.
Her lids lifted so that she looked into his eyes, and the need he saw there was all it took for him to shift his head a little more until their lips brushed.
Ramsey’s breath locked in his lungs at that first, hesitant touch of their mouths. He tilted his head and kissed her again, longer, deeper.
His body roared to life, demanding and needy. The ends of her hair tickled his hands as he placed them on her back. He coaxed, he seduced. Anything to get closer to her, to feel more of her.
To know more of her.
To have her.
Tara’s soft moan had his blood burning through his veins like quicksilver, and when she softly laid her hand upon his chest, Ramsey wanted to crush her to him. The urge to pin her against the wall and ravage her lips was overwhelming.
His chest constricted, his heart pounding inside him as if he’d run for days. He heard her soft intake of breath that was part gasp, part pant.
And it drove him wild.
Ramsey fisted his hands in her shirt as he swept his tongue inside her mouth and she eagerly returned his kiss. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, the passion and pleasure was so intense.
She leaned into him, her breasts pressed against his chest. Ramsey bit back a groan as her magic joined in the frenzy that surrounded him. It became too much to govern, too much to resist.
Just before he lost all control and kissed her as he’d been dreaming about, he heard footsteps approaching. Grudgingly, reluctantly, he pulled back.
It took a moment before Tara opened her eyes. They were dilated and her breathing was rapid, proving she was just as affected as he from the kiss.
“We’re about to have guests,” he said a moment before the door opened and Charon and Arran stepped inside.
