“I-I’m all right,” she managed through chattering teeth. “Adrenaline overload.” She pushed herself away from where she’d been sick and managed a cross-legged sit. Maggie dragged her sleeve across her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them, gratified the bower of trees was still there. “We got out.” Tears pricked behind her lids. “Christ! I wouldn’t let myself think about it, but I was afraid I was going to die down there, crushed under tons of rocks.”
“Aye, lass.” He gathered her shaking body against him. “’Twas your magic made the difference. Ye should be proud.” He hesitated, and then added, “Your grandmother will most certainly be. I’ve never seen such an impressive display of power from one so untrained as ye are.”
She pulled away and sat straight. “Grandma. Shit! What time is it?” Maggie scrabbled through her bag, which she’d miraculously held onto, and got her iPhone. She blew out a breath. “Only eleven-thirty. Thank God. We still have plenty of time.”
“Are ye sound enough to drive that contraption ye call a car?”
Maggie snorted. “I like being taken care of, but if the options are me driving or you, I’ll take me any day.”
“I could learn.”
“Yes, but not between now and when we need to be in Glasgow.” A soft smile curved the ends of her mouth. “Help me up. I hate to admit it, but I still feel like I got run down by a train.”
He pushed to his feet and held out his hands to help her. “I’m not familiar with the word, but I assume ’tis equivalent of being tied to four horses and having them all run in different directions.”
“Maybe not quite so bad as being drawn and quartered,” she murmured and let herself be coaxed back into his arms. His voice and hands held a soothing quality that steadied her nerves.
He laughed quietly. “Aye, and ye’re familiar with the concept.”
She nodded. “I have an advantage. I studied history. While I don’t know everything about the time you lived in, I know far more about it than you know about the world I come from. Walk with me.” She headed for her car. “I’d like to rinse my mouth out with some of the tea in my trunk and maybe eat the sandwiches I made.”
Maggie led the way across the deserted street. It seemed like another lifetime when she’d made those sandwiches in her kitchen. Maybe they could find a pub somewhere off the highway and get something more substantial. Her belly felt hollow. She had the shaky feeling she got when she overdid it exercising, and her blood sugar dropped too low.
****
There was indeed a pub on their way out of Inverness. Because they’d inhaled the peanut butter sandwiches and were still half-starved, Maggie ran in and talked the bartender into making them ham sandwiches with all the trimmings to go. They ate as they drove, with Lachlan breaking off small bites and handing them to her. They had plenty of time, so she stopped frequently, even pulled off onto a back road to give Lachlan a chance to see what it felt like behind the wheel. As she expected, his first few attempts to coordinate the gas and clutch were laughable, but by the end of forty minutes, she was confident he could drive in a pinch—if he had to. At least he’d be able to move the vehicle in a straight line and turn it. Traffic signs, and understanding how to operate in an environment with other cars was a whole different story.
Mmph. If it comes down to him having to drive, I’ll just hope he gets us to where we need to be before the cops pull him over and haul him off to jail.
Questions swirled through her mind, but she forced herself to sit on all of them, at least until they were done eating. She needed energy and didn’t want information that would twist her stomach into burning knots of tension. The darkened highway stretched before them. At a hundred kilometers an hour, her Fiat ate the distance as if it wasn’t there.
“Do ye wish for any more?”
Maggie shook her head and then said. “I’ve had enough. You can finish whatever’s left.”
“How did ye guess I was still hungry?”
“You’re a man, aren’t you?”
He laughed long and hard. The rough edges of his mirth warmed her heart. “Aye, if ye doona watch us, we’ll eat whatever’s not tacked down.”
Maggie stared at stars visible through the windshield. A quarter moon sat low on the horizon. The countryside smelled damp and green through the window she’d cracked to get a bit of fresh air into the car. She considered how to organize the questions she had for Lachlan, but her mind recoiled. The knowledge she craved would change her irrevocably. She’d never again be able to walk away from the power simmering inside her.
What the hell? I can’t do that now.
Years ago she’d established what felt like détente with her latent abilities. Sort of an I’ll-leave-you-alone-if-you-don’t-nag-me agreement. Humph. Blew the lid right off that arrangement, didn’t I? She girded herself. There really were things she had to know—before Rhukon struck again.
“My stomach’s full. The next thing I need is a few answers.” Maggie listened to the words as they rolled out of her mouth and sat between them in the darkened car. If she didn’t know better, she could’ve sworn they were written against the gray of the console, glittering a challenge.
“Aye, I figured ye’d get around to asking a question or two. I’d have volunteered information but thought it best if ye came to wanting it on your own.” He crumpled the paper the sandwiches had been wrapped in and shoved it back into the paper sack. Lachlan fingered the bag. “In my day, all such things were woven from cloth.”
“Probably better. Less waste.” She licked her lips and took a slug of tea from the bottle balanced in the car’s console. “Ecology’s the last thing on my mind right now. My mind’s still jumbled, but could you tell me what happened in your cave? Just hit the major points, and keep it simple.”
“What do ye think happened?” His voice was soft, soothing. She could almost feel him infuse a calming spell into his words.
“Rhukon attacked us and tried to trap us. Damn near succeeded from what I could tell.”
“’Twasn’t just Rhukon. I could’ve managed him, even without Kheladin’s help.”
The short sentences settled in her stomach like a lead weight. For a moment, she fought nausea, but then her head cleared and her gut quieted, likely a result of Lachlan’s spell. “So it was those other ones you told me about? The battle crow, uh, Morrigan, and the other bad dragon?” Maggie held her breath, not really wanting him to answer, but needing to hear the truth.
“Aye, but Connor would laugh himself sick to be called a bad dragon, right afore he ripped the eyes from your skull. ’Tisn’t a game we play, Maggie. This is deadly serious.”
Anger raced through her, bright, brittle, and hot as dragon’s fire. She signaled and pulled to the side of the expressway, before bringing the car to a stop in a flurry of squealing brakes. She gripped the wheel hard and twisted to face Lachlan. “Don’t you dare patronize me. As if I need reminding. I lost my parents to magic. I know how quickly—and irrevocably—it can destroy everything.” To her horror, a great, choking sob escaped, followed by another. She shook her head hard, and tears flew from her eyes.
“Lass. ’Tis sorry I am. I had no mind to be upsetting you.”
“Never mind. It’s me. I’m on edge and kicking myself for not learning about magic when the coven offered me a chance. Tell me what happened in the cave. I’ll try not to take your head off.” With a glance in both mirrors, she ferried the car back onto the highway and brought it up to cruising speed.
“I doona know for certain, lass, but my best guess is Rhukon, Connor, and the Morrigan presumed I’d brought you to Kheladin’s lair to consummate our relationship. The first thing they did was try to convince me, and with such a degree of subtlety I dinna recognize it for sorcery, that we needed to be married afore we bedded one another.”
“Yes. I got that part. Kheladin and I disabused you of that notion.”
“Aye, and I must admit I’m anxious for a repeat performance, but that’s off t
he topic to hand.”
Her left hand snaked across the console. He tucked it between one of his and the warmth of his body. “Thanks. Making love with you was so unlike anything else I’ve done, it should have a different name. I’m up for more of the same just as soon as we find a wall I can lean up against and—”
“Och, lass, we’ve barely begun in that department, but I get your drift.” He chuckled. “Doona say aught more. When I get hard in these breeks, it pains me something fierce.”
“The airport has lots of shops. I’m sure we can find you a pair of sweatpants.” Reassured by the warmth of him and his solid energy radiating confidence, she prodded. “Is there more I need to know about the attack?”
“Ye’ve figured out they were trying to kill us. I’m immortal, but they can spin webs to immobilize me for long years. Rather like the net I just escaped from.”
Maggie tightened her hand on the steering wheel again. What he hadn’t said was she was far from immortal. A major cave-in, with its concomitant loss of oxygen, would’ve killed her. “Since they couldn’t stop us from fucking, is doing away with me the next thing they’ll try?”
“Smart lass. I’ve been thinking along much the same lines. Ye need a crash course in controlling your magic. I’m hoping your kin will help with that. I’m not as familiar with witch magic as I am with my own.”
“I can help,” Kheladin said. “We must teach her to ride me. An aerial position is a defensible one.”
“I heard that,” Maggie murmured. “Thank you for the offer.”
“Och aye,” Lachlan cut in. “’Tis much more than an offer. ’Tis a concession. No one has ever ridden Kheladin. Of course, I’m within him when he takes to the skies, but I’m not astride his back.” He squeezed her hand. “The dragon likes you.”
“How could I not? She is ours.” Kheladin reiterated his earlier statement.
Warmth simmered in her heart and created a comforting shroud. Within its layers, she found acceptance and approval. Maggie tried to send reciprocating energy back to Kheladin. It was hard to tell if she succeeded at first, but then she was certain the dragon recognized her offering. “He has ways to talk that transcend words,” she murmured.
“That he does,” Lachlan concurred. “How much farther to Glasgow?”
Maggie glanced at a passing road sign. “Maybe another hour. Despite how late it is, we’ll run into traffic when we get closer to the metropolitan area. Fortunately, the airport is a few miles out of town. I’ve only driven in the downtown area once, and it was hideous. I got caught in a traffic jam that lasted so long, I was afraid I’d run out of fuel.”
“A traffic jam being many cars stuck together somehow?”
“You have the general idea. There’s usually an accident, where one car’s run into another. Sometimes there are even multi-car pileups. Anyway, they block lanes so the other cars can’t move.”
He chuckled. “I should be talking with you of love and a bright future together, not metal tubes with no life in them that run into one another.”
Something deep inside her grew warm and fluttery. It felt right and good, but she pushed it aside. “If we make it through this in one piece, you can sing me all the love songs you want.”
“A practical lass.”
“No. A lass who’s scared half to death. I’m afraid if I let my guard down for even a moment or two, I’ll miss something and end up dead.”
“A wise lass.”
“I don’t know what I am. Would you mind if I turned on the radio for a few minutes? It’s closing on four-thirty, and I’d like to hear the news.”
“I doona mind, though I have no idea what ye’re talking about.”
Maggie fiddled with the dial until she got a news station. She listened to the weather forecast. The broadcast crackled. “This just in,” the DJ said, his voice shifting from jovial to worried. “An inbound flight from Chicago to Glasgow disappeared off air traffic control’s radar half an hour ago. All inquiries should be routed to the carrier, Air Blue Sky. I repeat. Call the airlines at…” He rattled off a number. “If you had friends or family arriving on Flight 427, Air Blue Sky will have up-to-the-minute information.” A breathy sigh came through the car’s speakers. “May God protect those three hundred passengers. I hope to hell He and all His saints take good care of them.”
Maggie felt as if she was about to pass out. She didn’t remember pulling the car off the highway to the shoulder. She didn’t hear Lachlan until his anxious voice finally penetrated the fog around her brain.
“Lass, lass.” He shook her arm. “Whatever is the matter? Was that your grandmother’s airplane the fellow was nattering on about?”
She dropped her forehead onto her hands clutching the top of the steering wheel. “Yes,” she managed, just before anger so violent she wanted to kill whatever crossed her path ripped through her. “Mary Elma is on that plane.”
Chapter Eleven
“Can you do anything?” Her voice held anguish.
Lachlan gathered her as close as he could, given the small shelf sitting between them in the car. “I doona know, lass. Ye hold an imprint of your grandmother’s energy. If any one of us could reach her, ’twould be you. I will lend my magic to whatever ye wish to try.”
“All those years I spent moldering away in college, medical school, and residency were nothing but a colossal waste.” She raised her head and banged a fist down on a ridge that ran across the front of the car behind its steering wheel.
Lachlan chose his words with care. Since the Celts knew about Mary Elma, it was a good bet Rhukon and the Morrigan did as well. “Gwydion and Arawn were aware of your grandmother—”
Maggie jumped on his line of thought before he finished getting the words out. “Of course they know about her. My grannie is one of the most powerful witches alive today. Whatever happened to her plane was no accident.” She pounded her fist against the car’s steering wheel, winced in pain, and flexed her knuckles. “When Rhukon and them couldn’t kill us, they switched gears to easier prey.”
“Explain radar to me, lass?”
She exhaled raggedly. The sound broke his heart. The lass was in pain, suffering terribly, and there was nothing he could do to ease her anguish. “Radar is an invisible electronic beam that tracks airplanes—and other things. If the plane had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, radar would’ve followed its trajectory down.”
“But the fellow said the plane disappeared, which means it dinna crash.”
“Exactly.” Maggie bit off the word. “Those bastards did something.” She shook her head, and he heard her teeth grind against one another. “I wish I knew more about magic.”
“Are we anywhere near to Loch Lomond?”
“Not far. Maybe fifteen minutes. Why?”
“Do ye know Castle Balloch?”
“I’ve seen it. Never took the tour, though.”
He blew out a breath. Tour? Whatever did she mean by that? “Thank the gods the castle still stands. There doesna appear to be any sense in going to Glasgow. Take us to Castle Balloch.”
“Why?” she asked again.
“Magic is strong there. Once upon a time, a series of magical nodes extended betwixt the castle and the far side of the loch. ’Tis a strong possibility I can secure help from there.”
“How?”
“I canna explain the whole of it, but the location will intensify my abilities. Yours, too.” He paused, wondering whether to give voice to his next thought. In the end, he did, to underscore the urgency of their predicament. “Even with Kheladin’s strength at my disposal, I couldna have freed us from the cave without your help.”
“And you’re hoping for a much stronger infusion of power from these nodes? For both of us.”
“Aye, lass.”
“All right. I don’t have any better suggestions. To tell you the truth, I feel woefully out of my league.” Her phone trilled. Maggie made a grab for it, peered at its illuminated display, and said, “Aunt Chloe.”
&
nbsp; Lachlan watched Maggie as she spoke with her kinswoman. Her features were carved into bas relief by pale moonlight. Mayhap it was a trick of Artemis’s moon, but Maggie had an ethereal beauty that glowed, illuminating her from within.
Thick, golden curls fell around facial bone structure that would have done a goddess proud. His groin stirred. He wanted her, plain and simple, but now wasn’t the time. The small taste of her hot, slick core, when he’d been crazed with lust and hadn’t lasted five minutes, had been the merest of appetizers. He shifted in his seat and tried to move his more-than-hard cock to a comfortable position. He caught himself gazing longingly at the full curves of her breasts and the enticing swell of her rump where it rested against the seat. His heart beat faster. Lachlan forced himself to look out the window before he threw prudence to the four winds and ravished her in the dirt next to the car.
While he heard her side of the conversation, he couldn’t make out the rest, despite using Kheladin’s acute senses.
Aye, and the aunt must be shielding things with magic.
“Here.” Maggie thrust the phone at him. “She wants to talk with you. I’ll get us moving toward Castle Balloch and the loch.”
Lachlan took the phone. Feeling odd, like he was trespassing on someone else’s magic, he held it to his ear as he’d seen Maggie do and said, “Aye?”
“My name is Chloe,” a strident female voice said without preamble. “Margaret is my niece. You will help her find out what happened to my mother.”
“Aye. She is my mate. Of course I’ll help.” Because Chloe seemed overwrought, Lachlan experimented with a calming spell.
“Don’t waste your magic on me, dragon shifter. Save it for what’s important.”
“Certainly. Of course.” Apparently, the witch knew far more about him than he did about her. Lachlan stilled his racing mind and focused on what he saw as paramount. “’Tis as I told Maggie, I’m not familiar with your mother’s energy. ’Twould be best if one or more of you could travel here.”
“Not likely any of us would trust the airlines after tonight.” A hesitation, then a sly note crept into Chloe’s voice. “You’re connected to the Celtic deities.”
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