by Donna Grant
Ronnie tried to remember the last time she’d had a date, a real date. The last time someone had asked her out had been just a few months after she broke things off with Max.
She’d declined the date, and the next several following that. Then she’d dived into work so that she hadn’t realized it had been over two years since she’d had a date of any kind.
With a sigh she lifted her head and looked at the water. What would it have been like to swim with Arran? What would it have felt like to forget about the past and give in to the attraction?
What would it have been like to kiss him?
Ronnie angrily wiped at a tear that dared to fall. Then she did as she’d always done. She gave herself that minute to wallow in guilt and regret, then she shoved it aside and looked ahead.
It was the only course she had. Look ahead. Always look ahead.
She fastened her seat belt and started the car. As she drove away, she was determined never to think of the loch and Arran walking from the water again. Never to think of the way her body reacted to his mere presence or what could have been.
CHAPTER
TEN
Arran watched Ronnie drive away. Only then did he release the breath he’d been holding. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t hauled her against him and plundered her mouth as he’d wanted to do from the first moment he’d seen her. Several times he’d nearly come out of his hiding spot when she called his name.
She’d wanted to come into the water. It’d been there on her face. But something had stopped her. What was it?
And why did he care so damn much?
He dressed as the sizzle of her magic began to fade when her car drove away. He’d felt her magic while he was underwater, but to break the surface and see her standing there had brought all the ardor he’d worked so hard to cool back in an instant.
If he could forget the burning need long enough to talk to her about Druids, he might learn more about her. But damn if he could get his body under control. Yet, he was going to have to—and soon. He’d seen the way she’d looked at the arches. Whether it was a burial mound or something else she was uncovering, he didn’t like the feel of it.
And it seemed to be taking her. It was the way she looked at it that bothered him the most. The last thing he wanted was to confront her with being a Druid, but since he hadn’t been alone with her, he was fast losing time.
He’d had that opportunity a few minutes ago, and he’d blown it. All because of his damned cock.
His phone rang at that moment. “Shit,” he murmured, and jerked the phone out of his back pocket. Then he let loose another string of curses when he saw Saffron’s name.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” he said by way of answering, since she’d refused to take his calls.
“Hello to you as well,” Saffron said, a smile in her voice. “I thought you might like my little trick. Many people think Ronnie is a man based on her name.”
“That’s a natural deduction. And you could’ve answered my calls before about this. Why are you really calling?”
When she didn’t immediately answer, he grew instantly alert. Saffron was a Seer. They were rare in the Druid world, so rare that she’d been kidnapped by Declan Wallace in order to use her magic.
It had been Camdyn, her husband, who released her from her imprisonment. Those were three years Saffron never spoke of.
“Saffron,” Arran said softly. “Did you have some sort of vision?”
There was a long sigh through the phone. “Yes.”
Arran squeezed his eyes closed because he knew whom the vision was about. “Ronnie.”
“Yes,” Saffron said again.
“What did you see?”
“Not nearly enough. I’m sorry. All I know is that she’s scared. Really scared, Arran. The kind of scared like I was when Camdyn found me in Declan’s dungeon.”
Arran’s gut clenched painfully. He struck a tree with his fist. “Fuck.”
“I wanted to call you first. Camdyn went to the castle to tell the others. Fallon will want to send another Warrior, and maybe that’s wise.”
“Nay,” Arran said forcefully. He didn’t want to share Ronnie with anyone. “I can do this.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to her. It could be an accident at the site, or it could be a mugging in the city, a wreck while she’s driving. It could be anything.”
“A wreck,” he repeated, and jerked his head up to where the taillights of Ronnie’s car had disappeared. “I’ll call you back.”
Arran was running before the last word left his mouth. He didn’t hold back this time. Memphaea wanted to be released, and with the dread pounding through him, he was barely able to keep his god clamped down.
Using all his speed, Arran hurdled parked cars and boulders. He didn’t follow the road, but instead took a straight path until he saw Ronnie’s taillights.
He began to slow until he saw a car turn the curve toward her. The tire blew at that moment, causing the car to swerve in Ronnie’s lane.
“Ronnie!” Arran shouted as he pumped his legs harder to reach her.
It was going to be a head-on collision. The cars were too close to each other, and it was happening too fast.
“Turn the damn wheel, Ronnie!” Arran shouted, knowing it wouldn’t do any good since she couldn’t hear him.
But somehow, she did jerk the wheel at the last second. The car slammed into her passenger side. The squeal of tires and the smell of burnt rubber along with the crunch of metal would stay in his memory forever.
The cars were still rocking from their collision when he reached her. He threw open her door, halting his true strength so he didn’t rip it off, to find her gripping the wheel so tightly, her fingers were white.
“Ronnie?” he asked softly, hesitantly. “Ronnie, lass. I need you to look at me. Look at me,” he said louder when she didn’t move.
Her startled, fear-filled hazel eyes turned to him. “Arran?”
“Aye. Are you hurt?”
“I … I don’t know.”
He did a once-over, but didn’t see any blood besides a cut on her hand from the broken passenger window. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Arran rushed to the other car, and after determining they were also all right, he ran back to Ronnie. She hadn’t moved. Blood ran from the cut between her two knuckles, where a small piece of glass had embedded itself in her hand.
He took her face in his hands and made her look at him again. “Ronnie, did you hit your head?”
Her eyes were a bit dazed as she tried to shake her head no, but a wince quickly stopped her.
“Damn,” Arran muttered.
He pried one of her hands from the wheel and felt how ice-cold it was. Shock. He rubbed her hand to help warm her before he gently took her other hand.
Arran carefully held her injured hand in his. “I’ve got to get the glass out.”
“Glass,” Ronnie repeated. Then she looked at her hand and nodded. “Yes. Please get it out.”
“Turn your head.”
He waited until she looked away before he looked at the glass. His fingers were too big to try to grab it without hurting her. The only option he had was to use his claws.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he warned.
A ghost of a smile pulled at her lips. “Blood doesn’t bother me.”
“Well, you looking makes me nervous, and I doona want to hurt you.”
“Okay.”
He watched as white claws extended from his fingers. Arran was just reaching for the glass when she inhaled.
“I’m glad you’re here, Arran.”
He used that second to pull the glass free and toss it away. “Me, too. It’s all over.”
“Is my car dead?”
“Nay,” he said with a chuckle, his claws now gone. “You’ll need a new window and some bodywork, but the car should continue to drive.”
It took longer than Arran liked to get information exchanged regarding the
wreck. Once that was done, he cleared the passenger seat of glass and moved Ronnie over.
He was in the process of driving back to the site when his phone rang again. Somehow he wasn’t surprised to see it was Saffron.
“It’s over,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Saffron asked.
Arran glanced at Ronnie to find her eyes closed. “There was a wreck. Ronnie is all right.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Saffron said after a brief pause. “But I don’t think that’s what my vision was. Terror, Arran. True, heart-pounding terror.”
He clenched his jaw. The only thing that would cause Ronnie to feel any of that was the evil they’d been fighting for centuries. An evil that was now gone.
“That’s over,” he ground out.
Saffron made a sound at the back of her throat. “Is it?”
“It’s been a year.”
“I know. Let me talk to Ronnie.”
Arran held the phone out to Ronnie. “It’s Saffron,” he said when she looked at the phone.
He drove along the narrow winding roads, pretending he couldn’t hear Saffron’s voice through the phone asking how Ronnie was. Arran kept his gaze forward as he feigned not hearing the tremor in Ronnie’s voice as she responded.
The conversation ended quickly, and when Ronnie handed him the phone, he felt her hand shake. He tossed the phone into the cup holder and wrapped his fingers around hers.
He gave her a reassuring smile, and to his relief, she didn’t pull away.
“I’ve only ever been in one other accident,” she said. “It was during college, and I was driving home. I had a friend in the car with me, and we were talking as I drove through the parking lot of the university. A car suddenly backed out right into me. Very little damage, but it scared the shit out of me.”
“The unexpected always frightens. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
She looked at their clasped hands. “I suppose.”
All too soon they arrived back at the dig site. Arran got out of the car and hurried to the other side to help Ronnie. She’d already opened her door and was stepping out by the time he got to her.
Most everyone had already found their tents for the night, so there was no one to see them arrive. Arran waited until she was out before he closed the door.
He walked her back to her tent, and though he didn’t want to leave her, there was no excuse to stay. His hands itched to hold her again and make sure she was really all right. Mortal life could be extinguished so quickly, too quickly. It left him cold just thinking about it.
“Thank you. For being there.”
Arran shrugged. “You wouldna have been there had I no’ gone to the loch.”
“This wasn’t your fault.”
“Nor was it yours. Accidents happen.”
She smiled and sat on her cot. “I can’t even see where the glass was in my hand.”
“It was small.” He swallowed and glanced around. They were alone. He could ask her now about being a Druid, but the dazed looked in her eyes told him he wouldn’t get any information out of her. He’d have to wait again. “Get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Arran left before he did something crazy like take her in his arms and kiss her until they were both senseless. The fear that had rushed through him when he witnessed the wreck left him cold.
Even after knowing Ronnie was safe, he couldn’t shake the knowledge that at any time she could be taken. It could have happened that night, had she not turned the wheel.
Now he realized how each of the Warriors felt about their mortal wives. And why they had all chosen to stay beneath the magical shield at the castle.
Arran lay down on his cot and stared at the top of his tent. The accident replayed in his mind again and again. The crunch of the gravel, the squeal of the tires.
Despite knowing Ronnie’s accident would haunt him for some time, it was Saffron’s words that kept him awake.
The evil was gone. Arran had watched first Deirdre and then Declan be destroyed. They were gone, wiped off the face of the earth.
But they had killed Deirdre once before and she’d lived. Is that what had happened with Declan?
Arran rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He then sat up and reached for his phone. For several minutes he considered calling one of the Warriors.
Before he could decide which one, his phone rang. He saw Ramsey’s name pop up. The Warrior was also half Druid. He’d been the one to end Declan.
“Ramsey,” Arran answered the phone.
“Saffron and Camdyn just left. She told us what happened.”
“Is that all she told you?”
Ramsey paused. “She said the evil may no’ be dead as we thought.”
“You were the only one inside Declan’s mansion. Is he gone?”
Ramsey chuckled, the sound filled with humor and satisfaction. “Oh, aye. Declan is gone.”
“We thought that of Deirdre as well.”
“True enough.” Ramsey sighed. “We’ve lived a year thinking everything was gone. That’s a year someone could’ve put things in motion.”
“We’d have known. Wouldn’t we?”
“I’d like to think so. Saffron has had no visions regarding Declan.”
Arran rubbed his chin as he thought. “Aye, but we were no’ looking for anything either, were we? We assumed the evil was well and truly vanished.”
“As my lovely wife keeps reminding me, there can no’ be good without evil. Tara should know, since her entire family is droughs. Has anything out of the ordinary happened there?”
“Besides the wreck? Nay. Nothing. There’s magic everywhere. I’ve no doubt the magical items we’re searching for are here.”
Ramsey grunted. “What kind of magic? Drough? Mie? Fallon said you didna say.”
“Because it’s difficult. I doona sense drough.”
“But,” Ramsey urged.
“But … I sense lots of ancient magic. And mie magic.”
“Does it involve any one person?”
“Aye.”
“Ronnie,” Ramsey answered. “You’ve spent more time with her since Fallon last spoke with you. Have you spoken with her about it?”
“No’ yet. Things … keep getting in the way.”
“Ah. You want her.”
Arran braced his elbows on his legs. “I can barely think with the need, Ramsey. Her magic is—”
“Special,” he finished.
“Aye. It’s mie, but it feels different from any of the mies I’ve felt before.”
“You shouldna be there alone.”
He smiled at Ramsey’s statement. “I’m a Warrior, my friend. I can take care of myself.”
“There’s no doubt about that. But as I learned while I was keeping Tara safe, it’s always better to have someone watching your back while you’re focused on someone else.”
“Maybe.”
Ramsey laughed softly. “I hear Dr. Reid is verra pretty.”
“She’s damned beautiful. And untouchable.”
“Why have you no’ seduced her?”
Arran closed his eyes. “It’s … complicated.”
“Interesting. Verra interesting.”
“Meaning?” Arran asked.
“Never mind. We’ll look into Declan, but I swear to you he’s dead.”
“That’s what we all said about Deirdre,” Arran said before he ended the call.
He tossed the phone aside and lay back on his pillow, one arm under his head.
Somehow he had to get Ronnie alone tomorrow morning and talk to her. It wasn’t going to be easy with Andy hovering or the site calling to her, but Arran had to know how much she knew of Druids.
He wasn’t worried that she might be working with evil. There wasn’t a hint of it in her magic, but what he was worried about was her absorption to her current dig. If what he searched for was in there, he had to know before Ronnie saw it.
Or he was really going to have a problem on
his hands.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Ronnie looked up from her spot on the ground to find Arran to her left. He was never far. It should have bothered her. It would have bothered her before.
But after the car accident, she liked having him near. She liked it entirely too much.
Whereas before the accident, he’d kept her off-kilter and desire smoldering beneath her skin, now he added a new element—safety.
There were only two other men who had ever inspired that sense of comfort in her—Pete and Andy. Never would she have thought Arran would be put in the same category as Pete and Andy, but there was no denying it.
When she’d woken that morning after another night full of dreams involving the box and more that involved Arran making love to her, she found just how bad the damage was to her car. How it had been drivable, she didn’t know. She’d had Andy call someone to tow it away to get it fixed.
She’d woken at five, and had been going ever since. Several times, Arran asked to speak to her alone, but there was always something that came up that needed her urgent attention.
She didn’t want to keep putting him off, but she couldn’t help it. Whatever he wanted, she would make sure to have some time alone to hear what he had to say. As long as it wasn’t him telling her he was leaving.
The thought made her stomach sour. Ronnie looked back at the ground. She needed to concentrate on her work, not the all-too-hunky guy who happened to save her life and bring forth desire she thought to never have.
She smiled. Well, saying he saved her life was a bit dramatic, but that’s what it felt like. He’d been calm and collected while he saw to everything. Ronnie hadn’t been able to think past the part that she’d been in a wreck.
Arran had not only seen to her but the other driver as well. He’d then gotten her back to the site and to her tent.
Ronnie couldn’t remember the last time she’d had someone help her in such a way. She was used to doing everything on her own. It had become a habit, since she was raised in a foster home with five other kids.
Not that her foster parents had been bad people. They had been normal, and treated her kindly. But they both worked and had other kids to take care of.
