Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  She'd not felt brave enough to risk nudity and showering, even with the locked door, so she'd washed up a bit, then brushed her teeth with his toothbrush because there was no way she was not going to brush her teeth. She'd felt strange using it. She'd never used a man's toothbrush before. But after all, she'd rationalized, they'd eaten from the same fork. And she'd nearly had his tongue in her mouth. Honestly would have rather liked his tongue in her mouth, so long as she had a firm guarantee it would stop there. (She wasn't about to become the next pair of panties beneath his bed, not that she had any to leave.)

  She drowned in his clothes, but at least when he'd retied her to the bed, she hadn't had to worry about her skirt riding up. The sweats were drawstring—the only saving grace—rolled up about ten times, the shirt fell to her knees. No panties was a bit disconcerting.

  He'd tucked her beneath the coverlet. Tested the bonds. Lengthened them slightly so she might sleep more comfortably.

  Then he'd stood at the edge of the bed a moment, gazing down at her with an unfathomable expression in his exotic golden eyes. Unnerved, she'd broken eye contact first and rolled—inasmuch as she was able—onto her side away from him.

  Sheesh, she thought, blinking heavy-lidded, sleepy eyes. She smelled like him. It was all over her.

  She was falling asleep. She couldn't believe it. In the midst of such dreadful, stressful circumstances, she was falling asleep.

  Well, she told herself, she needed her sleep so her wits would be sharp tomorrow. Tomorrow she would escape.

  He hadn't tried to kiss her again, was her final, slightly wistful, and utterly ridiculous thought before she drifted off.

  Several hours later, too restless to sleep, Dageus was in the living room, listening to the rain pattering against the windows and poring over the Midhe Codex, a collection of mostly nonsensical myths and vague prophecies ("a massive muddling mess of medieval miscellany," one renowned scholar had called it, and Dageus was inclined to agree), when the phone rang. He glanced at it warily, but did not rise to answer it.

  A long pause, a beep, then "Dageus,'tis Drustan."

  Silence.

  "You know how I hate talking to machines. Dageus."

  Long silence, a heavy sigh.

  Dageus fisted his hands, unfisted them, then massaged his temples with the heels of his palms.

  "Gwen's in the hospital—"

  Dageus's head whipped toward the answering machine, he half-rose, but stopped.

  "She had untimely contractions."

  Worry in his twin brother's voice. It knifed straight to Dageus's heart. Gwen was six-and-a-half-months pregnant with twins. He held his breath, listening. He'd not sacrificed so much to bring his brother and his brother's wife together in the twenty-first century, only to have something happen to Gwen now.

  "But she's fine now."

  Dageus breathed again and sank back down to the sofa.

  "The doctors said sometimes it happens in the last trimester, and so long as she doesn't have further contractions, they'll consider releasing her on the morrow."

  A time filled with naught but the faint sound of his brother's breathing.

  "Och… brother… come home." Pause. Softly, "Please."

  Click.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  Dageus was perilously close to losing control.

  "That means 'bridge,' not 'adjoining walkway,' " she was saying, peering over his shoulder and pointing at what he'd just scribbled in the notes he was taking. Some of her hair tumbled over his shoulder and spilled down his chest. It was all he could do not to slip his hand into it and tug her lips to his.

  He should never have untied her this morn. But it wasn't as if she could escape him, and it bordered on barbaric to keep her tied to the bed. Besides, the mere thought of her tied to the bed was obsessing a dark part of his mind. Still, it was no better having her flitting about, examining everything, pestering him with incessant questions and comments.

  Each time he looked at her, a silent growl rose in his throat, scarce repressed hunger, need to touch her and taste her and—

  "Doona be hanging over my shoulder, lass." Her scent was filling his nostrils, inciting a lustful stupor. Scent of lush woman and innocence. Christ, didn't she sense that he was dangerous? Mayhap not overtly, but in the way a mouse took one look at a cat and kept wisely to the shadowy corners of a room? Apparently not, for she chattered on.

  "I'm just curious," she said peevishly. "And you're getting it wrong. That says, 'When the man from the mounts, high where the yellow eagles soar, takes the low… er, path or journey… on the bridge that cheats death'—how curious, the bridge that cheats death?—'the Draghar will return' Who are the Draghar? I've never heard of them. What is that? The Midhe Codex? I've never heard of that either. May I see it? Where did you get it?"

  Dageus shook his head. She was irrepressible. "Sit lass, or I'll tie you up again."

  She glared at him. "I'm only trying to be helpful—"

  "And why is that? I'm a thief, remember? A barbarian Visigoth, as you put it."

  She scowled. "You're right. I don't know what got into me." A long pause. Then, "It's just that I thought if you really were going to return them"—she gave him a searingly skeptical look—"the sooner you finished with them, the sooner they'd go back. So I'd be helping for a good cause." She nodded pertly, looking inordinately pleased with her rationalization.

  He snorted and motioned her to sit down. 'Twas evident the lass was obsessed with antiquities and curious as the day was long. Her fingers actually curled absently whenever she looked at the Codex, as if she was aching to touch it.

  He'd like to see her aching to touch him like that. Worldly women all but pushed him into bed. He'd never seduced an innocent before. He sensed she would resist… The thought both amused and aroused him.

  Huffily, she plunked down on the sofa opposite him, folded her arms and stared at him across piles of texts and notebooks on the marble coffee table between them. Lush lips pursed, one foot tapping.

  One wee, bare delicate foot, with shell-pink toenails. Slender ankles peeking from his rolled-up sweats. Clad in one of his linen shirts, the sleeves pushed up to the elbows, which was also where the shoulders dropped to on her delicate frame, her hair mussed about her face, she was a vision. The fickle March sun had decided to shine for the moment, like as not, he thought, just so it could spill in the wall of windows behind her, and kiss her curly coppery-blond tresses.

  Tresses he'd like to feel spilling over his thighs. While those lush pink lips…

  "Eat your breakfast," he growled, turning back to the text.

  She narrowed her eyes. "I already did. I'm going to lose my job, you know."

  "What?"

  "My job. I'm going to get fired if I don't show up for work. And then how will I live? I mean, assuming you really mean it about letting me go."

  She gave him another haughty glare, then glanced toward the door for the dozenth time, and he knew she was wondering if she could make it to it before he stopped her. He wasn't worried. Even if she made it out the door, she'd never make it onto the elevator in time. He knew also that earlier, she'd stood behind him, her gaze drifting betwixt a heavy lamp and the back of his skull. She hadn't tried to bash him with it, wise lass.

  Mayhap she'd seen his tense readiness, mayhap she'd decided his skull was too thick.

  He inhaled deeply and released it slowly. If he didn't get her out of the room soon, he was going to leap the table betwixt them, pin her to the sofa, and have his way with her. And though he fully intended to, he needed to finish the Midhe Codex first. Discipline was a crucial part of controlling the evil within him. The first portion of the day was for work, the evening for seduction, the wee hours for more work. He'd been living that way for many moons. 'Twas imperative he keep things neatly compartmentalized, for he could too easily become a man consumed by indulging whatever momentary need or whim struck him. Only by rigidly maintaining his routines, never deviating
, did he prove to himself that he was indeed in control.

  The Draghar, he brooded. This was the third mention of them he'd encountered. The peculiar phrasing did seem to encompass his actions. The man from the mounts… the bridge that cheats death. But who or what were the Draghar? Were they mayhap some faction of the legendary Tuatha Dé Danaan? Would they return from their mythic hidden places to hunt him now that he'd broken his oath and violated The Compact?

  The deeper he dug into tomes that neither he nor Drustan had previously spared a thought for, the more he realized that his clan had forgotten, even abandoned, much of their ancient history. The Keltar library was vast, and in his thirty-three years he'd scarce made a dent in it. There were texts no Keltar had bothered with for centuries, mayhap millennia. There was too much lore for a man to absorb in a single lifetime, and verily, there'd been no need to. Over the aeons, they'd grown careless and content, looking forward not behind. He supposed it was man's way to relinquish the past, to live in the now, unless suddenly the ancient past became critical.

  Had they not forgotten so much, he might never have stood in the circle of stones, assuring himself there was no evil in the in-between awaiting him should he use the stones for personal motive. He might never have half-convinced himself that the Tuatha Dé Danaan, a vague race spoken of in vaguer terms, were but a myth, a faetale woven to prevent a Keltar from misusing his power. Not that he'd believed he had been abusing it. He'd not thought of his actions as serving personal motives. Well, not entirely, for was love not the greatest and most noble purpose of all?

  She was havering away again.

  How best to make her give him some peace?

  A predatory smile curved his lips.

  He looked up. Raised his eyes from the text and looked at her, deliberately letting all that he was thinking about doing to her—which was everything—show on his face, blaze in his gaze.

  She sucked in a soft breath.

  Head canted down, he looked at her from beneath his brows. It was the kind of look one warrior might give to another in challenge, or the kind of look a man gave a woman he intended to thoroughly plunder. Slowly, with lazy sensuality, he wet his lower lip. Dropped his gaze from hers, to her lips and back again.

  Her eyes grew impossibly round and she swallowed.

  He caught his full lower lip with his teeth and slowly released it, then smiled. It was not a smile meant to reassure. It was a smile that promised dark fantasies. Whether she wanted them or not.

  "I'll just be in the study," she said faintly, hopping briskly from the sofa and practically running from the room.

  Only after she'd left did he make that noise. A long, low growl of anticipation.

  Chloe's heart was hammering furiously and she wasn't seeing a darned thing as she pretended to peer at the titles of the books on the shelves in his study.

  Heavens, that look! Holy cow!

  There he'd sat across from her, looking breathtakingly gorgeous in black from head to toe, his gorgeous midnight hair pulled back from his gorgeous face, essentially ignoring her, then he'd raised his eyes—but not his head—from the text and given her a look of… quintessential sexual heat.

  No man had ever looked at Chloe Zanders like that. Like she was some kind of succulent dessert and he was coming off a week-long fast of bread and water.

  And his lip—God, when he caught and released that sinfully full lower with his teeth, it made a girl just want to snack on it. For hours.

  I do believe the man might be planning to seduce me, she thought wonderingly. Yes, she knew he was a womanizer, and yes, last night he'd seemed flirtatious, but she hadn't taken it seriously. She wasn't exactly the kind of woman that men like him fell all over themselves trying to get to. Chloe was pretty realistic about her looks; she wasn't tall, leggy, model material, that was for sure. Even the Security guys had said she wasn't his type.

  But that look…

  "He only did it to get you to leave, Zanders," she muttered to herself. "And it worked. You willy-nilly chicken, you."

  She was on the verge of stomping back out there and calling his bluff; indeed, had moved back toward the door and was about to step out, when he made a sound.

  A sound that made her shiver and dose the door instead.

  And lock it.

  A hungry animal sound.

  Leaning back against the door, Chloe took slow, deep breaths.

  She was in way over her head. It was one thing to be held hostage by a criminal. To maybe fantasize about kisses. It was entirely another thing to be seduced by him. The dastardly man was both a thief and a kidnapper, and she dare not forget that.

  She had to escape before it was too late. Before she was fabricating reasons, not merely to aid and abet the criminal, but to present him with her virginity on a silver platter.

  When Chloe crept from the study half an hour later, the arrogant man actually let her get all the way to the door before he bothered moving. Then he stood slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, and gave her a look of gentle reproof and disappointment.

  As if she was doing something wrong.

  Defiantly, Chloe brandished the short sword she'd pilfered from his wall collection, having decided it was best for her size, eighteen inches of razor-sharp steel. "I told you I won't tell anyone and I won't. But I can't stay here."

  "Put down the blade, lass."

  Chloe twisted the interior dead bolt.

  The precise moment she tugged at the door, he lunged, and when it didn't open she was stunned, then realized that it hadn't been locked to begin with. Frantically, she scrabbled to turn it the other way, but his palm hit the door above her head and he crowded her with his body. Instinctively, she raised the sword and he stiffened, as the tip of it came to rest at his heart.

  They stared at each other a long moment. Dimly, she realized his breath was coming as shallowly as hers.

  "Do it, lass," he said coolly.

  "What?"

  "Kill me. I'm a thief. The evidence is here. You'll need but summon your police and show them that I am—or was—the Gaulish Ghost, that I held you captive. None will blame you for killing me to escape. 'Tis no more than any honest lass would do."

  She gaped. Kill him? She didn't like hearing him speak about himself in the past tense. It put a cold, awful knot in her stomach.

  "Do it," he insisted.

  "I don't want to kill you. I just want to leave."

  "Because I've treated you so badly?"

  "Because you're holding me captive!"

  "And it's been awful, has if no'?" he mocked lightly.

  "Just step back," she hissed. When he deliberately pressed his body forward against the tip of the sword and she felt his skin give beneath the blade, she gasped. His lips curved in a chilling smile.

  And she knew if she drew the blade back, it would gleam red with his blood. The awful knot was joined by nausea.

  "Kill me or put down the sword," he said with deadly intensity. "Those are your options. Your only options."

  Chloe searched his eyes, those glittering golden eyes. They seemed to be swirling with shadows, changing color, dimming from molten amber to burnt copper, but that wasn't possible. The moment was taut with danger, and she had the sudden bizarre feeling that something… else… was in the penthouse with them. Something ancient and very, very cold.

  Or was it just the coldness in those eyes? She shook herself, scattering her absurd thoughts.

  He was serious. He would make her kill him to leave.

  She couldn't do it.

  It wasn't even remotely possible. She didn't want Dageus MacKeltar dead. She didn't ever want him dead. Even if it meant he was out there, a rogue thief, beautiful as a fallen angel, breaking laws and stealing artifacts.

  When she let the sword dip, his hand moved in a lightning-fast blur of motion. She screamed, dropping the sword as the silver flash of a blade arced up toward her face.

  It sank into the door beside her ear.

  "Look at
it, lass," he ordered.

  "Wh-what?"

  "The dirk. 'Tis a fourteenth-century skean dhu."

  She turned her head gingerly and peered at the blade protruding from the door, then glanced back at him. She was walled in by six feet plus of muscle and man, palms on either side of her head. A knife by her ear. He'd had it somewhere on his body all along. Could have used it on her at any moment. But hadn't.

  "You like your artifacts, doona you, lass?"

  She nodded.

  "Take it."

  Chloe blinked.

  He dropped his hands suddenly and stepped back. "Go on, take it."

  Eyeing him warily, Chloe tugged the blade from the door with a little grunt. It required both her hands to free it. "Oh," she breathed. Hilt studded with emeralds and rubies, it was exquisite. The finest blade she'd ever seen. "This must be worth a fortune! It's in mint condition. There's not even the teeniest nick on the blade! Tom would give anything for this."

  So, she was afraid, might she.

  " 'Tis my own. 'Tis the crest of the Keltar on the hilt. Now'tis yours. For when you leave. Should you lose your job."

  He turned around and stalked back to the sofa.

  When he sat down and resumed working on the text, Chloe stood in stunned silence, her gaze drifting from him to the skean dhu and back again. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

  His actions had just demonstrated, more persuasively than any words he might have used, that he'd meant it when he'd said he wouldn't hurt her. What words had he used last night? Naught will be done to you that you doona wish done.

  She didn't find that quite as comforting as she might have, had her own wishes been a bit purer.

  He'd just put an ancient Celtic artifact in her hands and called it hers.

  Her fingers curled possessively around the hilt of the dagger. She should object strenuously. Or at least, protest politely. And she was going to, anytime now.