by Joanne Rock
Her words were a breathless caress against his cheek and still she did not let go. For that matter, neither did he. His hands were planted on her waist, suspending her above the ground so that she remained at eye level with him.
Chest to chest. Hip to hip.
Or at least, close enough to tantalize him with memories of her taste. The feel of her mouth against his.
“You must go to your friend,” he reminded her, holding her tight.
“I am.” She nodded and did not move. “That is, I will.”
His hands seemed seared to her sides, sealed to her. Why did she feel like a part of him after just one night spent together? Perhaps it was because he had saved her. He felt responsible for her, maybe.
“Do not venture from the keep,” he reminded her. “My brother will protect you.”
He trusted Iain completely, yet he hated him in that moment.
“Will I see you again?” She bit her lip and clung to him a bit tighter.
His heart,long absent from his chest,squeezed tight in a painful ache, reminding him why he’d ignored the thing for so long. He closed his eyes and put Elizabeth on her feet. Away from him.
“Nay.” Forcing his eyes open again, he watched her with the backdrop of his old home behind her. He longed for both of them. “Never.”
Yet even as he spoke the word, the familiar hum along his skin began.
His skin prickled. Tingled.
“Do you hear something?” Elizabeth hugged her arms around herself as she peered up at the sky.
Iain emerged from the keep through the front entrance, a sword in his hand.
“Get her inside!” his brother shouted, waving Elizabeth toward him and toward the safety of Invergale.
The sidhe were coming. Again. Elizabeth watched the silver streams of light coming toward her as if it was no more than a lightning storm or a comet streaking through the sky.
Fear clogged Magnus’s throat. For her, him and everyone else nearby.
“Go!” He turned her toward the keep and pushed her in the direction of his brother. “Lock yourself inside and do not come out.”
She took two halting steps and turned.
“What about you?” She had to shout the words since the buzzing of the oncoming sidhe was loud enough for her to hear.
What did it mean that the sidhe had followed her here, had tracked their progress all through the night and still came after her? Them?
“I would send them to their graves if they were mortal,” he vowed. “As it is, they will only wish they were dead.”
Before she could reply, Iain had her in his grasp and Magnus was sprinting away from her and all that was good and tempting, forsaking life and love for the battle he did not choose. He ran toward the silver light. Toward his personal hell and a war that never ended.
Chapter Three
“What is happening out there?” Elizabeth stumbled into the foyer of the massive stone tower of Invergale, her slippers sliding on cold cobblestones as she almost fell into the man Magnus had called his brother.
“Elizabeth!” A familiar voice shouted her name.
Straightening, Elizabeth turned to find her childhood friend, Lillian Desalles, briefly the Viscountess Broadville, and now—apparently—bride to Magnus’s brother, Iain. She scarcely recognized Lily who had once attired herself in jewels and silks for every ball in New York and, later, London. Now, her friend wore a simple wool gown of deep green, her long, fawn-colored hair dressed in a single plait that rested along her shoulder instead of elaborately knotted and curled.
“Lily!” Elizabeth rushed across the stone floor and into her friend’s outstretched arms while a man who looked like a slightly older Magnus bolted the front door with a mammoth crosspiece of iron.
“You are safe inside our home now! I have missed you and feared for you.”
Lily gathered her up in a hug as if they were still schoolgirls in New York. For a moment, Elizabeth let herself forget worries and confusion over this strange place and the handsome man who’d turned her world upside down with a devilish look and a seductive brogue. She would have continued thus, clinging to the past, even bringing up a shared memory to giggle over, except her eyes were drawn by a strange glow. Looking aside, she saw that even with the castle door closed, silver light shone under the bottom with unnatural brightness from outside. She held tight to her friend, as tightly as Lily held back, their eyes trained on the strange sight even as Iain Darroch pointed toward the winding staircase to the right.
“I must protect the door in the tower chamber. Lily, you will be safest in the kitchen storeroom. It has the sturdiest lock.” He took two strides closer, his long legs bringing him face to face with Lily.
He kissed her hard on the lips with a familiarity that would have set London tongues wagging at such a familiarity outside of their private chambers. Lily leaned into the moment with a depth of feeling that gave Elizabeth a sharp pang of envy for their obvious love. She thought immediately of her kiss with Magnus. Had it moved him at all? He’d appeared so calm afterward while her heart had beaten erratically ever since. The effect he had upon her was so great she trembled at the thought of him outside doing battle with…she barely understood what.
“Be safe,” Iain told Lily with a fierceness that translated to an obvious declaration of love. Then, he turned toward Elizabeth. “Stay close to my wife’s side. Magnus bid me to protect you and that means my life is yours should you need it.” He inclined his head briefly and then sprinted away, a gleaming broadsword already in his hand.
Dear God, had that archaic weapon been glued to his palm the whole time he’d been kissing his wife and swearing his protection to Elizabeth?
“I feel as if I’ve fallen through time,” Elizabeth observed as she squeezed Lily’s hand tighter. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“I know. It is overwhelming, but you must believe the danger we face is all too real.” Lily gave her a quick hug and then drew her deeper into the drafty keep that looked as if it had been standing since medieval times, the walls hung with tapestries of hunts and battle scenes filled with warriors that looked like Magnus and Iain. “Come with me.”
And with no other greetings, they hurried through a small hall and then a kitchen where a hearth fire blazed. They did not linger to warm their hands though. Lily tugged her toward an open door lit with candles from low-hanging sconces. Elizabeth could see the shadowy shapes of flour sacks and barrels of wine or ale, but in the middle of the food stores, there were benches, a table and two narrow beds as if the place had been prepared for a siege. The sight of those careful preparations only added to her fear.
“Lily, I cannot lock myself away from danger while Magnus is out there.” She pulled her hand free from her friend’s and hugged her arms around herself. “I’m so frightened for him and I don’t understand the enemy he faces. Can’t we help?” She paced off nervous energy, walking in a circle on the smooth stones of the kitchen floor. “Can’t your husband help him?”
“You are concerned for Magnus?” Lily frowned. “I mean, of course I am as well. I’m worried for both of them. But they are trained fighters and they understand the nature of the enemy.” She sounded more certain than she appeared as she bit her lip and smoothed her tawny hair.
“Can’t we at least see what is happening out there?” Elizabeth’s gaze went to narrow slits in an exterior wall. “What will these sidhe creatures do? Do they fight like mortal men? Will they use swords?”
Already she closed the space between herself and the narrow openings in the wall. The silver light did not shine as brightly here as it did in the front of the keep. She couldn’t stop thinking about Magnus and how weary he’d sounded.
“I don’t know, exactly.” Lily frowned and followed her to the small window, dragging over a stool so they might reach it. “I witnessed a battle once, but the light was so bright I could not see for myself exactly what happened.” She set the stool beneath the window and climbed up onto the ste
p before offering Elizabeth her hand. “Iain says they fight with swords though—just as Darroch men do. The sidhe move faster than mortals, but so can the Darroch brothers. I worry more for Iain now that his curse has been broken. He is all the more likely to be killed by a sidhe sword if he cannot track the enemy.”
Elizabeth climbed onto the stool beside Lily, her gown snagging on a rough stone. She snatched it away impatiently, wishing she wore the kind of practical garb that attired her friend.
As soon as her chin cleared the stone sill, however, her eyes went to the small, empty courtyard outside.
“One of them rests like a silver shadow behind the Blackthorn tree,” Lily whispered in her ear, pointing with a finger to the far right.
At first, Elizabeth could not see it. She gripped the stone sill tighter and bent her head so she would be level with Lily. And then, a soft glow became apparent even though dawn had already broken. A beautiful male warrior dressed in the exotic garb of a wealthy foreigner pressed with his back to the tree. A long sword gleamed at his side, the jewels in the hilt a colorful splash of color in the silver light.
“What does he wait for?” Elizabeth asked, nervous tension rising in her throat. She wished she could hear something, anything, that would give her a clue what happened outside the enclosed courtyard’s walls, but she did not even hear the buzzing sound that preceded the attack earlier when her carriage had been waylaid. “Do you think he will try and enter the kitchen?”
Elizabeth’s gaze went to the barred door on the far side of the hearth on the opposite wall of the storeroom that Iain had bade them to enter. Would the sidhe warrior try to breach the walls of Invergale that way?
“Nay.” Lily’s hand grabbed hers in an ice-cold grip. “Look.”
On the opposite side of the courtyard, a leather boot dangled over one wall. A long, masculine leg followed it. By the time the huge, muscular Highlander appeared at the top of the wall, Elizabeth already knew who it was.
“Magnus.” Fear swirled in her stomach, an ice-cold poison that made her sway on her feet. “He will be ambushed.”
“They should sense each other,” Lily tried to assure her. “Even if Magnus doesn’t acknowledge the sidhe’s presence outwardly, he must feel the presence of an enemy in the courtyard.”
She sounded as uncertain as Elizabeth felt while Magnus dropped to all fours at the base of the wall. He crouched there, still and watchful, his muscles tensed. Elizabeth remembered the way he’d held her. Protected her.
Even the way he’d looked at her had stolen her heart. He did not stare at her with mockery and amusement or behave as if she was some hulking oddity in a gown. Whether he acknowledged their kiss or not, he had kissed her with an intensity that set her soul on fire.
She could not allow him to be hurt now when he had saved her before. Especially not when he stalked toward the Blackthorn tree with the easy walk of a man who was in a place of safety.
“Magnus! Behind the tree!” She shouted her warning before she’d even made the decision to do so.
Leaping from the stool, she scrambled toward the barred kitchen door.
“You must not go out there!” Lily chased her, but she was not as fast or as determined.
Outside, the clank of metal on metal was deafening. Light sparked brightly through the narrow windows and glowed through the cracks around the kitchen door. Elizabeth hefted the heavy iron bar from the entrance using both hands. Her arms protested at the burden but her will was stronger.
“If I stay here, I will go mad.” The metal cut into her hands as she raised it over her head. “All my life I have been a poor excuse for a society heiress. I have never felt a sense of purpose before, Lily. Today, I do.”
She burst out the door and away from her shouting friend. Lily would bar the door behind her, she knew. She would honor her husband’s wishes because she would protect her home and her husband first before anything else, which was only right. But Elizabeth had no such allegiance. Her loyalty now was to repay the man who had saved her.
Unfortunately, she could scarcely distinguish the being inside the bright glow battling Magnus. It was as though he fought a bolt of lightning, although now and again she saw a sword swing—his or his enemy’s.
If Magnus knew she was there, he did not acknowledge it, his expression fierce. Her gaze swept the courtyard in the hope of a weapon but she spied nothing. In the meantime, she could sense Magnus weakening even if she knew nothing about sword fighting. His blade moved slower. He stumbled backward while the enemy surged forward.
Desperate to at least distract the powerful sidhe, Elizabeth raced across the courtyard and scaled the wall. Or at least, she attempted to. When her skirts prevented her from finding her footing, she ripped aside even more of the hated ruffles. Silk barrier gone, she climbed a few feet to sit on the edge of the rock barrier. Putting a finger in her mouth, she made the ear-piercing whistle that an American groom had once taught her for calling back a mount.
As she hoped, the battle sounds paused, swords lightly humming in the aftermath as they ceased clanging against each other. For a moment, she could see both Magnus and his enemy glance her way. But Magnus recovered first, recognizing his chance. He struck a blow to the enemy that echoed like thunder and sent sparks showering across the courtyard as if lightning had struck from heaven above. The silvery sidhe wavered and fell, the glow around him dimming as he did so. The shimmer from in front of the tower faded as well until the sky returned to its normal morning hue.
The battle must have somehow died along with its leader.
But Magnus would not have noticed since he already barreled across the cobblestones toward her, running faster than her eyes could see.
“Ye dinna understand ‘stay inside’?” he thundered at her, in the brogue that thickened when he was tense, or in this case, furious. He leapt to the top of the wall beside her with the grace of a winged creature and then, more carefully, he said, “You could have died.”
With a glance over his shoulder, he whistled for his horse in a way not unlike the groom had shown her once upon another lifetime. The mare pranced out of the mist, head bobbing and mane shaking as if to acknowledge his wishes.
Then, like a western cowboy doing a trick, Magnus dropped onto the horse’s back. She blinked at his rapid movements, even more amazed when he held up his arms for her to follow him down. A moment’s hesitation had her thinking about all the people who had accused her of being awkward. Graceless. A bull in a china shop.
With more than a little pleasure, she swept them from her mind and focused on Magnus’s waiting arms as she jumped. She landed exactly where she wanted to be, sealed to the Highland warrior’s side. She clung to him with both arms, grateful that he was whole and unharmed. She did not care if he knew her feelings or if they were foolish and unreturned. As long as Magnus Darroch breathed, she would be beholden to him.
Indeed, she would love him.
Wrapping that knowledge close to her heart for fear it would somehow shatter, she ducked her head against his chest as he spurred the mare into the swiftest possible pace. They galloped through the trees, away from the dying battle, and back into the ancient forest.
Chapter Four
As he cradled Elizabeth Harrison in his arms, Magnus could not remember the last time someone had made such a sacrifice for him.
Sure, his brothers put their lives at risk for their clan’s honor every day. They knew they faced death or worse each time they faced a dark, otherworldly enemy. But they did not endanger themselves for him. The Darrochs battled for their sister, their name, the history of their clan.
Elizabeth had fled the comfort and safety of Invergale, defying the odds that she would be hurt or killed, and she’d done it to save him. His heart was so full it damn near sent him reeling off his horse. His chest ached with the raw pain of a blow. No wound he’d received in combat had ever hurt worse. And it was rooted in the knowledge that this strong, fearless yet so vulnerable mortal woman had risked
all to come to his aid.
“Are we safe yet?” Her voice whispered softly against his chest, his senses keen enough to hear her despite the clamor of blood rushing to his ears and the rumble of his horse’s hooves as they pounded over ancient forest paths.
“The sidhe retreated when I buried my sword in their commander. They wage war as one mind, like bees in search of a hive. When the leader is deflected from the cause, the rest dissipate.” And the only reason his opponent had been distracted now nestled against him in a sweet, trusting bundle of torn skirts and soft limbs.
Magnus feared his aching heart was about to fall out of his chest and make itself known. He did not know what to do with her or how to react. He needed to send her home. Remove her from the Highlands and the risks of his dangerous, cursed life. But he instead, he found himself reining in the mare.
“Where are we?” She lifted her head, tousled blond waves fallen loose from the once-complicated plaits she’d worn. Her hair was a beautiful thing, a flaxen veil that he’d guess few others had been privileged to see.
With the fussy ruffles torn away from her overly tight and trussed gown, Elizabeth’s more regal beauty was almost blinding. She was at home here in a way he would have never guessed a woman of her upbringing could be. She was no delicate bit of fluff to decorate a drawing room or parlor. Elizabeth had the spirit of an ancient Amazon warrior and the strong constitution of a Highland maid. She damned near took his breath away.
“Magnus?” She frowned, her fingers reaching for his cheek to smooth along his jaw. “Are you hurt?” Her gaze searched his face while her hands skimmed along his shoulder and his chest as if inspecting him for damage.
He wanted to keep her with him always. To claim her in the way a man claimed a woman. For this lifetime and all the ones that followed. But he knew that would not be fair to her.
“I am fine,” he lied, his heart aching with a fatal blow struck by her sweet hand. “Merely overcome by a need to thank you. You should not have endangered yourself for my sake, but that will not stop me from acknowledging what you did. I owe you my life.”
