by Brenda Joyce
He met her gaze, hesitated, then sat down by her hip. “I have vowed t’ protect ye an’ ye almost died today. Not once, but twice.”
Claire did not want to think about everything that had happened on the ramparts with Sibylla. “Why does she think I have the page? Because I own a specialty bookstore?”
“Because she didna find it in yer store.” He suddenly lifted her cap sleeve. “’Tis a scratch.”
Claire didn’t care about the scratches. “So what? Why does everyone think it’s there, anyway?”
“I dinna ken, Claire. If Moray sent Sibylla t’ yer store, I believe the page be there—or was once.”
Claire absorbed that. “How did she get into Carrick? She leaped time, didn’t she? To get away.”
“Moray dispenses the powers from the Duaisean with great care. He has made her strong so she can slay his enemies an’ she can leap time in order to serve him well. Aye, she probably vanished into the near future.”
Claire tensed. She didn’t like the fact that the bad guys could travel through time, too. She began to realize that the woman could never be captured if she could simply leap away into another time. However, that was suddenly the least of her worries. She impulsively touched Malcolm’s arm. “He can dispense powers?”
“Aye. Why do ye think his armies be so powerful? They nay be ordinary men, lass.”
Claire began to breathe rapidly and shallowly. “I know you believe in the books, but I don’t. His armies are ordinary—human. She’s ordinary, even if her power was shocking.” She realized she was near tears, but her near hysteria was from overload and exhaustion.
He remained grim. “I ken ye dinna wish t’ hear the truth, but ’tis dangerous fer ye now, Claire. Ye need to ken the truth o’ the world.”
Claire realized she might lose it if he said another word. “Don’t you dare,” she cried.
His gaze was searching, then it softened. “Lass, t’morrow we go t’me home an’ we’ll discuss these matters. Ye’ll be safe there.” He smiled reassuringly at her. “Dunroch’s walls are thick an’ sure. I have affairs to attend, but I willna be gone fer long.”
It took Claire a moment. She sat up. “You intend to leave me at Dunroch? Absolutely not! I am going with you!” she cried. And she realized that she did not wish to be separated from Malcolm. The issue was one of her safety.
“Ye canna come with me, lass. I willna be gone long. A few days, a week, nay more.”
“A week,” she gasped, horrified. “Where are you going? You are sworn to protect me! Sibylla may decide to make hamburger out of me while you are away! And what about Aidan—and Moray? Does Moray think I have the page, too?”
“I must speak with MacNeil. I go to Iona, and then, t’Awe.”
She hardly cared. She seized both of his hands. “Take me with you,” she cried. “Do not leave me behind.”
His gaze locked with hers. His mouth turned down and his eyes filled with a torment she didn’t understand. He suddenly touched her throat. “I’ll be the one t’ kill her,” he said flatly.
And his fingertips stroked the exact place Sybilla had licked her. But the thick, callused pads caused a delicious shiver to arise.
Claire knew a tear fell. “She didn’t hurt me. I’m a wuss. I’m tired. And I’ll admit it—I’m in over my head.”
“Yer afraid,” he said flatly. “I’ll die afore allowin’ye to be hurt, Claire.”
Claire went still, and damn it, she felt a thrill. “Because of your vows,” she somehow whispered.
“Nay. Because o’ ye, lass. Because o’ ye.”
Her heart exploded in her chest.
Carefully, he looked from her eyes to her mouth.
So much desire made her feel faint. Claire felt the huge tension throbbing between them.
His gaze slowly lifted. And then he leaned toward her—and kissed her throat.
Claire gasped as his mouth feathered the skin where she had been violated. And as the pulse in her sex exploded with urgency, she clasped his hard, stubbled jaw. The promise of so much raw sex coursed in the room. Did it matter that he didn’t love her and she didn’t love him? Nothing had ever mattered less.
He straightened and stared.
“It’s all right,” Claire breathed, wanting to encourage him.
He was silent. “We play with fire, lass,” he said quietly.
“I don’t care!”
His gaze drifted again to her mouth and she knew he was finally about to kiss her. And she could no longer think of a single reason why he should not.
“Fire,” he said harshly, “an’ evil.”
CHAPTER SIX
MALCOLM BRUSHED his mouth against hers.
Claire did not move. She had wanted to kiss this man for so long, and the featherlight caress of his lips sent such desire through her. She had never been kissed by such a powerful man and she had never known such a gentle kiss, either. Claire moaned softly, reaching for his huge shoulders. Dear God, she wanted him to deepen the kiss.
He had a hand on each side of her, pressed into the bed, as he played her lips, slowly but insistently, kissing her again and again. The pressure steadily increased, his tongue beginning to flick at the seam of her lips. Claire could not stand it. She cried out.
He became still. Claire did not care. She clawed his shoulders, moaning shamelessly, thrusting her tongue at his lips, demanding more while urgently spreading her thighs. For one more instant, he didn’t move, not even to return the kiss, while she frantically tried to thrust her tongue past his strong, closed mouth. Why was he doing this?
And then he caught her head in his powerful hands. Claire went still and he kissed her hard and openmouthed, instantly reversing their roles. His kiss was so demanding that she felt the wall against her head through the pillows.
And Claire kissed him back, shocked that so much pleasure could be gained from a kiss. And damn it, a kiss was not enough!
As he sucked on her mouth, his tongue locking fiercely with hers, Claire ran her hands over his hard chest, wanting the damn tunic to disappear. She wanted to feel every inch of his hard, powerful body, but not through coarse linen. She wanted to touch his skin, explore his muscles, taste every inch of him. She found the slit at the neckline and slid her hand through, shoving aside the large cross he wore, gasping when she felt his bare, hot skin under her palm. This was so good….
He grunted. She tried to move her hand lower but it was impossible, the neckline wasn’t deep. She jerked her hand out and then frantically stroked down his rib cage and hard, tight abdomen, over the tunic, toward his navel. She cried out wildly when she felt the hot, huge, bulbous tip of his erection thrusting at her.
She was going to die if he did not take her with that hardness….
He jerked her hand away from his penis, his grip uncompromising, breaking the kiss as he did so. “Nay, lass,” he breathed hard, his eyes savagely bright.
“Damn you,” she wept, writhing in an urgency she could not bear. She managed to gaze at him through her tears, panting hard. Shocked, Claire realized he was standing firm to some dumb notion he had about not sleeping with her. Furious, desperate, she wanted to strike him, but he held both of her wrists now and there was no possible way to do so.
“I need t’ leave ye,” he said harshly, and he released her.
Claire reared up, fists flying, pummeling his chest. “Like hell!”
He used his forearm to brush the blows aside the way he might an annoying fly. Then he placed his hand abruptly on her bare knee, pressing her leg into the bed.
Claire went still, her heart almost exploding with comprehension, anticipation, more insane fire licking between her thighs. “Yes,” she whispered.
His face hard and tight, his eyes glittering, he slid his hand up her leg and beneath her skirt, all the way to the wet cleft there.
She gasped, sinking back against the pillows, arching shamelessly for him. “Hurry,” she said hoarsely.
His eyes flared brighter, and Clair
e blinked back hot tears when his knuckles brushed her silk-clad, throbbing sex. He moved his long blunt fingers beneath her thong, and held it suspended from her flesh. His knuckles lay deep where she was the most sensitive and distended.
“Oh, God,” Claire gasped.
“Aye,” he said thickly, and he jerked her skirt up to her waist, his gaze riveted on her. “Ye wear a string. A string with lace an’ beads.”
Claire whispered, “Please.”
He edged his thumb slowly over one distended lip, then down the other one. Claire bucked as his thumb traced the swollen outline of her clitoris. She gave in and came, bursting into a thousand pieces, crying out in anguish, pleasure, ecstasy.
And then she felt his tongue probing her there.
The delicious and agonizing pressure renewed itself with stunning force, as his strong tongue tasted her, stroked her, circling her. It had been so long—and never like this! She broke apart again, weeping, moaning, flayed by his tongue, again and again, crying out in part pleasure, part pain. He did not stop, testing her threshold, pressing into her again, causing an even greater, more violent orgasm. Claire sobbed and his tongue finally stilled. She panted and breathed and finally she floated back to the bed.
Claire lay back, incapable of any movement now. She wasn’t certain how long he had been performing oral sex on her, but she’d had so many orgasms she had lost count. Her body actually hurt now. And Malcolm hadn’t come.
What had just happened? How had she let this happen? And what about his pleasure? She was finally sane again. She no longer knew herself. Was this his idea of foreplay?
Was he going to try to mount her now, when she was finally sated, as she had never, not even once in her life, been sated by anyone?
She bit her lip, shocked when a surge of desire formed at the thought of his moving onto her, into her. But he was motionless. His cheek rested intimately on her thigh and she was now acutely aware of the huge tension in his stiff, rigid body.
“Malcolm.” She did not recognize her own voice.
She finally realized he was in the midst of some kind of internal battle.
He breathed hard, harshly. His hand moved over her sex, just once, a sweeping caress.
He left the bed, throwing the fur over her, and their gazes met.
Instantly she sat up, alarmed. His eyes blazed with lust. The hunger she saw there was frankly frightening. His face was hard and his huge erection stood up against the linen, making her mouth dry, her heart race all over again. Claire tore her gaze from his blazing eyes, beginning to tremble.
She died taking her pleasure from me.
Maybe that woman had died because he was so sexual and so strong.
It was a horrifying thought.
He turned and left.
Claire gasped, wide-eyed. Her every instinct was to run after him, but to do what? He did not need comfort—did he? He needed sex, but he had given, not asking for a thing in return. She leaned back into the pillows, stunned. Maybe it was time to rethink her opinion of him.
HE STOOD ABSOLUTELY STILLon the ramparts between the two towers, the whisper of an early-morning breeze flattening his leine against his bare thighs, his hand grasping the hilt of his sword. Tension vibrated within. A glacial chill had cloaked Urquhart the moment he had passed through the gatehouse. Moray was waiting for him.
His stomach twisted into knots. There had been many warnings and he had ignored them all. He glanced up the allure and down it, but no one else was present. He looked below, first into the bailey at the peasants there, and then into the wide silver blue belly of Loch Ness.
A breeze shifted past him, whispering his name. “Calum.”
And the voice was not the wind, but Moray. The lord of darkness—his mortal enemy.
He trembled with his rage and hatred, and pushed open the wood door of the stone tower.
Darkness wafted onto the ramparts like an oncoming storm, dulling the light of the rising sun, and for one moment, he could not see.
Moray smiled at him.
His teeth were shockingly white. His skin was bronzed from centuries of sun, but he seemed all of thirty and five, if that. He was dressed in the English-court manner, his hose scarlet, the black wool doublet trimmed in ermine, a red-and-black brat pinned over one shoulder by a ruby-and-gold brooch. Moray was Defender of the Realm and King James’s favored counsel.
“I have been waiting for you, Malcolm,” Moray purred, speaking English. He was laughing as he spoke.
“Tha mi air mo sharachadh.” I am tired of this.
Moray seemed delighted, his smile widening. “Then what has taken you so long?” He lifted his sword and it rang as it slipped from its sheath.
Thought vanished. Sanity was gone. He drew his sword and thrust. “A Bhrogain!”
Moray easily met the blow, and when the two huge blades locked, he knew he faced the kind of strength and power he had never before imagined. He had never lost a battle, but in that single moment, he doubted his ability to defeat Moray.
Moray deflected every blow as if he were a child in napkins.
The battle became absurd. Moray played him while he had no strength left to wield his sword. He should have listened, he should have waited. His powers were too new, too unformed. And suddenly Moray thrust past his defenses and his blade sank deep into muscle and flesh, into bone.
He gasped as a terrible comprehension began, accompanying the blazing pain and heat.
Moray smiled, pushing the blade more completely into his body, through tendon and muscle, and he was completely skewered to the wall.
Moray withdrew, the blade dripping his blood.
He tried to fight the sudden and terrible wave of weakness, but it was impossible and he sank to the floor. The tower had become shockingly still. He choked on pain, fury, blood, realizing that Moray had vanished.
He closed his eyes tightly, but not against the burning pain in his chest. All he could think of were the sacred vows he had recently taken. He had vowed upon the ancient and holy books at the sacred shrine, to defend God and mankind. But evil had just left the tower and it would hunt the Innocent from one end of the realm to the other, in all times.
And in that stunning moment of clarity and comprehension, he knew he must live to protect Innocence as Brogan and his ancestors had.
A terrible lust began. It was the lust to live, and it raged.
Somehow he struggled to his feet, clutching his bleeding chest. His body screamed at him for life. Urges began which he suddenly, instantly, understood—urges to take power so he might restore his own. But he was alone and his life was rapidly draining away. As death crept over him, he prayed to the Ancients who had first brought the Masters to the earth.
A woman rushed into the tower, shouting his name in alarm.
He was near death. She was unfocused in outline, dancing before his eyes, the tower swimming in gray shadows. And he was shocked, because he knew she had been sent to him.
She ran to him. Before she even touched him, he realized that she was young, wholesome, healthy and filled with so much life force that he choked on it. He reached for her. She helped him stand upright and he felt her power flowing into his veins.
He cried out, relieved.
She staggered and he held her. With every passing moment of union, his strength returned, increasing, escalating. It was good…and he became triumphant.
And he threw his head back against the wall, crying out as power swelled inside his veins. And with the surging strength came a sense of invincibility, the comprehension that he would not die. Elation roared in him—he had never known so much power. He had never known such rapture. Shocked, he realized his loins had engorged, too. Even more rapture beckoned.
He pulled her close so she could feel his lust, and her eyes widened. “Aye,” he said roughly. “Let me pleasure ye, lass.”
“My lord,” she whispered, throwing her arms around him.
He turned her back to the wall, moving aside his leine and h
er skirts. And he could not wait. He pushed her thighs apart and thrust hard, directly, deep. And as he came, he had to take even more from her—it felt too good not to.
He was blinded by the lust, the power, her ecstasy, his. Her life rolled from her in huge, slick waves and the power escalated a hundredfold. She was weeping and begging. He did not hear. He had been carousing since he was fourteen and he had never experienced so much ecstasy or known it could exist. He came again, his loins never slackening. He had more virility than any single man should ever claim.
This was a power he had not dreamed of.
And the power blinded him, kept him engorged, allowing him terrible stamina and endurance. He howled his pleasure at the sunrise. This time he would be able to kill Moray.
And then he realized the woman was finally still.
He glanced down at his chest. His leine was soaked withblood, but the wound had closed. There was only a ridged scar above his left nipple.
He owed this woman his life. Cradling her, filled with gratitude, he gently brought her to the floor. He unpinned his brat and laid it over her, then stood. And he realized Moray was present.
The demon stepped out of the shadows, his eyes glowing and red.
And as Moray laughed at him, Malcolm knew.
Dread began. The maid lay motionless.
No. He knelt at her side. He turned her face toward him and found her blue eyes wide and sightless.
“Welcome, my brother. Welcome to the pleasures of death.”
Malcolm stood abruptly, throwing his mug of wine savagely at the hearth. It was midnight, and he was alone in the great hall, except for a pair of prized wolfhounds. The dogs watched him, unperturbed.
He had not allowed himself to think of Urquhart in months. He had spent three years atoning for his sins, wrestling with his guilt. He had thought himself firmly in control. There had been a hundred women since Urquhart, yet there had been no temptation. But it was a lie.
He was not in control. He thought about Urquhart now. And then he thought about the woman who slept upstairs, another innocent maid, a woman who was so seductive, he wished to taste her life.
