Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  "I meant in feet," she clarified. Speaking of the mundane gave her a measure of calm.

  He eyed his boots a moment and appeared to be doing some rapid calculations.

  "Forget it. I get the picture." Six and a half feet, perhaps taller. And to a woman five foot three inches on her best day, daunting. She stooped and grabbed her backpack, sliding a strap over her shoulder. "Let's go."

  "Hold. I am yet unprepared for travel, lass." He moved to a pile by the wall, which Gwen had thought was a jumble of rocks. She watched nervously as he retrieved his belongings. He did something she didn't quite follow with the blanket thingie he was wearing, where part of it ended up over one shoulder. After fastening a pouch about his waist, he draped wide bands of leather over each shoulder so that they crossed in an X over his chest. These he secured at his waist with another wide band of leather that belted them snugly in place, then he donned a fourth band that encircled his pecs.

  Was he dressing in some old costume? Gwen wondered. She'd seen something similar to his attire in a castle her group had toured yesterday, on one of the medieval sketches in the armory. Their guide had explained that the bands fashioned a sort of armor, adorned in critical places—such as above the heart and over the abdomen—with ornate metal discs.

  As she watched, he fastened similar leather bands that stretched from wrist to elbow around his powerful forearms. She stared in silence when he began tucking dozens of knives away—knives that looked alarmingly real. Two went into each wristband, handle down toward his palm, ten on each crossband. When he bent to the dwindling pile and hefted a massive double-bladed ax, she flinched. Cherry tree chopper-downer, indeed. Definitely not a man a woman could take any chances with. He raised an arm and lowered it behind his right shoulder, sliding the handle into the bands across his back Last, he sheathed a sword at his waist.

  By the time he was done she was aghast. "Are those real?"

  He turned a cool silver gaze on her. "Aye. You can scarce kill a man otherwise."

  "Kill a man?" she repeated faintly.

  He shrugged and eyed the hole above them and said nothing for a long while. Just when she was beginning to think he'd forgotten her entirely, he said, "I could toss you that high."

  Oh, yes, he probably could. With one arm. "No, thank you," she said frostily. Small she might be, a basketball she was not.

  He grinned at her tone. "But I fear that doing so might cause more rocks to collapse upon us. Come, we will find the way out."

  She swallowed. "You really don't remember where you came in?"

  "Nay, lass, I'm afraid I doona." He measured her for a moment. "Nor do I recall why," he added reluctantly.

  His response troubled her. How could he not know how or why he'd entered the cave, when he had obviously come in, removed his weapons, and piled them neatly before lying down? Did he have amnesia?

  "Come. We must make haste. I care naught for this place. You must put your clothes back on."

  Her hackles rose and she barely resisted the urge to hiss like a cat. "My clothes are on."

  He raised a brow, then shrugged. "As you will. If you are comfortable strolling about in such a fashion, far be it from me to complain." Crossing the chamber, he took her wrist and began dragging her along.

  Gwen allowed him to tug her behind him for a short distance, but once they'd left the cavern, all light disappeared. He was guiding them by feeling his way along the wall of the tunnel, his other hand latched about her wrist, and she began to fear they might plunge into another crevice, hidden by the darkness. "Do you know these caves?" she asked. The blackness was so absolute that it was crowding her in, suffocating her. She needed light and she needed it now.

  "Nay, and if you are telling me the truth and you fell through the hole, then you doona either," he reminded. "Have you a better idea?"

  "Yes." She tugged on his hand. "If you'll just stop a moment, I can help."

  "Have you fire to light our way, wee English? For'tis what we sorely need."

  His voice was amused, and it irritated her. He'd taken her measure, deemed her helpless, and that pissed her off. And why did he keep calling her English? Was it the

  Scottish version of American, and perhaps they called people from England British? She knew she had a trace of an English accent because her mother had been raised and schooled in England, but it wasn't that pronounced. "Yes, I do," she snapped.

  He stopped so suddenly that she ran into the back of him, striking her cheekbone on the handle of his ax. Although she couldn't see him, she felt him turn, smelled the spicy male scent of his skin, then his hands were on her shoulders.

  "Where have you fire? Here?" He sifted his fingers through her long hair. "Nay, perhaps here." His hand brushed her lips in the dark, and if she hadn't clamped them shut he would have slipped the tip of his finger between them. The man was positively outrageous, hellbent on seduction with a single-mindedness that made her fear for her resolve. "Ah, here," he purred, sliding his hand over her derriere, then yanking her against him. He was still erect. Unbelievable, she thought dazedly. He laughed, a husky, confident sound. "I doona doubt you have fire, but'tis naught that might help us escape this cave, though it would undoubtedly make it vastly more amenable."

  Oh, definitely mocking now. She twisted away from his liberty-taking hands. "You are so arrogant. Have all those steroids eaten away your brain cells?"

  He was silent a moment, and his lack of response unnerved her. She couldn't see him and wondered what he was thinking. Was he preparing to pounce on her again? Finally he said slowly, "I doona understand your question, lass."

  "Forget it. Just let go of me so I can get something out of my pack," she said stiffly. She slipped it off her shoulder and thrust it at him. "Hold this a minute." While she'd been willing to discard her cigarettes, throwing away a perfectly good lighter had seemed wasteful. Besides, she'd quit before, and then when she started again, she had to buy a new lighter every time. Rummaging in one of the external pockets, she sighed with relief when her fingers closed on the silver Bic. When she pressed the little button, he roared and leaped back. His heavy-lidded eyes, glittering with banked sensuality, widened in amazement.

  "You do have fire—"

  "I have a lighter," she interrupted defensively. "But I don't smoke," she hastened to add, not in the mood to entertain the disdain of a man who was clearly an athlete of some kind. She'd taken up smoking two years ago during the Great Fit of Rebellion, right after she and her parents had quit speaking permanently, and then she'd ended up addicted. Now, for the third time, she'd quit, and by God she was going to be successful this time.

  His fingers closed over the lighter, and he assumed possession of it. As she stood beside him in the darkness, as he took her lighter away and the flame flickered out, she sensed that he would do the same with anything he wanted. Casually assume possession. Wrap his strong hand around it and claim it.

  She was surprised when he fumbled for several moments before he managed to press the little button that released the flame. How could he not know how to use a lighter? Even a health fanatic would have seen someone light a cigar or a pipe, if only on TV or in a movie. She suffered another attack of the shivers. When he resumed the pace, she followed him—the only alternative to remain by herself in the dark, and that was no alternative at all.

  "English?" he said softly.

  "Why do you call me that?"

  "You haven't given me your name."

  "I don't call you Scotty, do I?" she said irritably. Irritated by his strength, his arrogance, his blatant sexuality.

  He laughed, but it didn't sound like his heart was in it. "English, what is the month?"

  Oh, boy, here we go, she thought. I did fall down one of Alice's rabbit holes.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  Drustan MacKeltar was worried. Although there was nothing he could put his finger on—apart from the remarkable fire she possessed, her shameless attire, and her unusual manner of speaking—h
e couldn't shake the feeling that an even more significant fact was eluding him. Initially, he'd thought mayhap he was no longer in Scotland, but then she'd informed him he was a mere three-day hike from his home.

  Mayhap he'd lost several days, even a week. He shook his head, trying to clear it. He felt the same as he had once before when as a young lad he'd had a high fever and woken over a week later: confused, thick-witted, his normally lightning-fast instincts slowed. His reactions were further dulled because lust was thundering though his veins. A man couldn't think clearly when he was aroused. All his blood was being sucked to one part of his body, and while it was one of his finer parts, cool and logical didn't describe it.

  The last thing he remembered, prior to awakening with the English lass sprawled so wantonly atop him, was that he had been racing toward the little loch in the glen behind his castle and growing unnaturally weary. From there, his memories were blurred. How had he ended up in a cave, a three days' hike away from his home? Why couldn't he remember how he had gotten here? He didn't seem to have suffered any injury; indeed, he felt hearty and hale.

  He struggled to recall why he had been running toward the loch. He paused, as a tide of fragmented memories washed over him.

  A sense of urgency… distant voices chanting… incense and snatches of conversation: He must never be found, and a curious reply, We will hide him well.

  Had his petite English been there? Nay. The voices had been oddly accented, but not like hers. He quickly discarded the possibility that she had aught to do with his plight. She didn't seem the brightest lass, nor particularly strong. Still, a woman of her beauty didn't need to be; nature had given her all the gifts she needed to survive. A man would use all his skills as a warrior to protect such lush beauty, even had she been deaf and mute.

  "Are you all right?" English nudged his shoulder. "Why did you stop, and please don't let the light go out. It makes me nervous."

  Skittish as a foal, she was. Drustan pressed the tiny button again and flinched only mildly this time when the flame issued forth. "The month?" he asked roughly.

  "September."

  Her reply hit him like a fist in his stomach: the last afternoon he recalled had been the eighteenth day of August. "How near Mabon?"

  She regarded him strangely, and her voice was strained when she said, "Mabon?"

  "The autumnal equinox."

  She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "It is the nineteenth of September. The equinox is the twenty-first."

  Christ, he'd lost nearly a month! How could that be? He pondered the possibilities, sorting and discarding until he struck upon one that horrified him because it seemed the only explanation that fit the circumstances: once he'd been lured to the clearing, he'd been abducted. But assuming he had been abducted, how had he lost an entire month?

  The unnatural exhaustion he'd experienced while running toward the glen suddenly made sense. Someone had drugged him in his own castle! That was how his captors had managed to take him, and apparently they'd been keeping him drugged.

  And that someone could even now be returning to the cave to force him to slumber again. They would not find him so easy to take captive a second time, he vowed silently.

  "Are you all right?" she asked hesitantly.

  He shook his head, his thoughts grim. "Come," he warned before he dragged her along behind him.

  She was so small that it would have been easier to toss her over his shoulder and run with her, but he sensed that she would vociferously resist such treatment and he cared not to waste time arguing. She was fine-boned and petite, yet prickly as a hungry boar. She was also lushly curved and scandalously clad and stirred a cauldron of lustful urges in him.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. Whoever she was, wherever she was from, she was unaccompanied by a man, and that meant she was going home with him. The lass made his heart pound and his blood roar. When he'd awakened to find her on top of him, he'd responded fiercely. The moment he'd touched her, he'd been loath to let go, had slipped his hands up her silky legs and been captivated by the notion that mayhap she removed all her body hair. He would find out as soon as his plight permitted.

  In the fierce Highlands of Scotland, possession was nine-tenths of the law, and Drustan MacKeltar was the other one-tenth: Drustan was brehon, or lawgiver. He could recite the lineage of his clan back for millennia, directly to the ancient Irish Druids of the Tuatha de Danaan—a feat worthy of a Druid bard. No one questioned his authority. He'd been born to rule.

  "Whence do you hail, English?"

  "My name is Gwen Cassidy," she said stiffly.

  He repeated her name. " 'Tis a good name; Cassidy is Irish. I am Drustan MacKeltar, laird of the Keltar. My people made their home in Ireland for many centuries, before we took these Highlands as our home. Have you knowledge of my clan?"

  Why had he been abducted? And once taken, why not killed? What must his father be making of his disappearance? Then a worse thought occurred to him: Was his father still alive and unharmed?

  Fear for his father's safety gripped him, and he repeated his question impatiently, "Have you news of my clan?"

  "I've never heard of your cl—family."

  "You must hie from across the border. How came you here?"

  "I'm on vacation."

  "On what?"

  "Vacation. I'm visiting," she clarified.

  "Have you clan in Scotland?"

  "No."

  "Then whom do you visit? Who accompanies you?" Women did not travel without escort or clan, and certainly not dressed as she was. Although she'd knotted a blue fabric about her waist before they'd left the main cavern, it failed to conceal her shocking undergarments. The woman had no shame at all.

  "No one accompanies me. I'm a big girl. I do perfectly well on my own."

  There was a defiant note in her voice. "Have you any clan left alive, lass?" he asked more gently. Mayhap her family had been massacred and she displayed her body reluctantly, in hopes of finding a protector. She comported herself with the stiff bravado of an orphaned wolf cub, conditioned by savagery and starvation to snap at any hand, no matter that it might hold food.

  She glared at him. "My parents are dead."

  "Och, lass, I'm sorry."

  "Shouldn't you be busy trying to find a way out of here?" she changed the subject swiftly.

  He found the display of toughness, affected by a woman so obviously wee and helpless, touching. It was evident that the loss of her clan was still difficult for her to speak of, and far be it from him to press such a discussion. He knew too well the pain of losing a loved one. "Och, but'tis just ahead. See the daylight sifting through the stones? We can break through there." He let the flame go out, and they were swallowed by darkness, broken by a few thin trickles of light a dozen yards ahead.

  As they drew nearer, Gwen eyed the rubble blocking the tunnel with disbelief. "Even you can't move those boulders."

  She knew so little about him. The only question was whether he would do it using his body or his other… arts. Eager to be quit of the cave, he knew using his Druid skills would be the fastest way out.

  It would also be the fastest way to ensure he would never get her in his bed. A display of such unnatural power had driven three of his betrotheds from his life. The fourth had been killed two weeks past—nay, he amended, a month and a half ago if it was truly almost

  Mabon—with his brother Dageus, who'd been escorting her to Castle Keltar for the wedding. He closed his eyes against a fresh wave of grief. It still felt like two weeks to him.

  He'd never met his bride-to-be. Although he mourned her death, he grieved the loss of a potential wife, grieved the cutting short of so young a life, not the woman herself.

  Dageus, on the other hand… Ah, that was a bitter and burning grief within his breast. He closed his eyes, firmly corralling the pain to be dealt with at a later time.

  Since his brother had died, it was even more critical that he beget an heir. And soon. He was the last MacKeltar left
to sire sons.

  He glanced speculatively at Gwen.

  Nay. He would use no Druid magic to move the stones in her presence.

  He studied the stone blockade for a few moments before launching a simple physical assault. But he didn't merely put his arms into the job, he put his entire body into it, aware that she had dropped to her knees on the floor of the tunnel and was watching his every move. He might have flexed a bit more than necessary, to demonstrate what a prize she might enjoy in her bed. Anticipation was an important part of bed play and heightened the woman's ultimate satisfaction immeasurably. Never let it be said he wasn't an expert and attentive lover. The seduction began long before he removed a woman's clothing. Women might not like the thought of wedding with him, but they vied in masses for the pleasure of his bed.

  Digging them out was a time-consuming task. From how tightly the stones were packed, the crevices between them sealed with the dust of time, he guessed this branch of the tunnel had collapsed a long time ago and been forgotten. He dug and tossed and cleared out the smaller rocks before turning his attention to the larger ones, using his ax as a lever to push and roll them. Before long, he had cleared a small passage. Thick foliage camouflaged the opening, and he could see why the tunnel had been forgotten. What had once been an entrance lay secluded between boulders and covered by bramble. Who would think to look for a cave in such a place? It was apparent that he hadn't been brought in via this tunnel. That much foliage couldn't have grown in a month.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. She raised a guilty gaze from his legs, and he grinned. "You have naught to fear," he assured her. "Freeing us is easy. 'Tis the hike that will be tiring."

  "What hike?"

  He didn't bother to answer her but returned to his labor. The sooner they got out, the sooner he could devote attention to her seduction. Of course it would have to happen while they were traveling back to his castle, for he dare not waste time. After widening the opening, he used his sword to hack through the dense overgrowth obscuring the entrance. When he'd finally cleared a passage he deemed safe enough to accommodate them, she hurried to his side. He realized she would bolt out the opening and sprint away if he gave her the opportunity.