by Olivia Norem
By
Olivia Norem
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locations, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Olivia Norem
Cover design by StephenSimonArt
Cover Images: periodimages.com, pixabay.com
ISBN: 9780692128169 (Paperback)
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may by reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.
A Modern Thief
Katherine Goldman is a professional with world-class skills who never misses a deadline. Yet the expertise of Goldman & Associates doesn't lie within the scope of legitimate commerce, but in the underground sphere of stealing priceless treasures and delivering them to the highest bidder.
And business is good.
Katherine lands in Scotland to boost some relics before they are unveiled at a museum exhibit. But what she discovers is shocking — nothing in the experience of this notorious thief has prepared her to collide with a dark, rakish man wearing plaid — who happens to be trapped inside a mirror.
A Man Imprisoned in Time
Centuries before, Simeon Campbell had no idea the woman he charmed was a dark witch of unspeakable power. When Simeon refused her gift of immortality, he quickly learned there is no wrath like that of a woman scorned.
Cursed to spend eternity within the bonds of her enchantment, Simeon is lost in time and nearly bereft of hope. Until he's accidentally released into the care of a woman with questionable motives, in a century he could never have imagined…
One Wicked Curse
As the pair plunge into a journey to outfox the jilted witch, danger and tempting desire trail them at every turn. Considering Katherine's disguises and the flair for which this modern lass can pick a lock, Simeon is unsure if she can be trusted. Yet this man of honor is determined to stop at nothing to save the woman he has sworn to protect.
In order for Simeon to uphold his vow, he'll travel back in time, willing to pay the ultimate price if necessary. But Katherine insists if Simeon is determined to defeat ancient evil at its source, he's going to need help.
He's going to need a thief.
For my very own Simeon whose love traverses time.
Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,
Whose ancestors, in days of yore
Thro’ hostile ranks and ruin’d gaps
Old Scotia’s bloody lion bore:
Ev’n I, who sing in rustic lore,
Haply my sires have left their shed,
And fac’d grim Danger’s loudest roar,
Bold-following where your fathers led!
Excerpt from Address to Edinburgh, Robert Burns
The Goldman Rules
One
Trust no one outside of the family
Two
Never get personally involved
Three
Never do anything out of the ordinary right before a heist
Four
Never share details about yourself
Five
Everyone is a potential mark
Six
Expect the unexpected
Seven
Decide with your gut, not your heart
Eight
Never get cocky
Nine
When all else fails, improvise
Table of Contents
The Goldman Rules
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Author Links & Notes
Chapter 1
Doon Hill, Dunbar, Scotland, 1650
The morning’s fog and fume lifted in tattered veils revealing hundreds, nae thousands of bodies littering the fields. As far as the eye could see, men lay bleeding. Dying. Horses screamed and breathed their last, cut down with pikes and billhooks. Their wails of death blended into a hideous chorus amid the bark of muskets and cannon.
For eight miles the cavalry gave chase across Spott burn, up the Lammermuir slopes and as far as Doon woods, cutting and hacking men in their wake. Facing the Scots who still resisted, Cromwell’s soldiers quickly dispatched lethal field justice with shots and swords. Nothing in his years of experience with battles or skirmishes had prepared Simeon for this slaughter.
Spirits of the captured had plummeted into the abyss of defeat, yet, when he would revisit this ill-fated portion of the morning in his future memories of this cursed day, it was not their loss of this three-day battle that Simeon Campbell would remember most about the fight.
It was the stench.
Unholy smells from the putrid flesh of his clansmen, his brothers, his countrymen, choked with gray-black smoke and the tang of burnt hair, baked together in the rising heat and suffocated his every breath. It was as if the boils on hell’s vile demons had burst open with the blackest of plagues and coated yard upon yard of bloody tartans and tangled limbs with sickness and rot.
In a final effort, he’d leapt to the ground, just as his horse’s knees gave way, cut down by the deadly spikes of a mace. Simeon plunged his sword into the chest of the nearest English devil and slit the throat of another, intent on cutting through the swath. He lost his footing on the blood-soaked earth, and it was that slip that saved his own neck from being separated from his head. As a battle cry echoed behind him, he twisted and met the clang of steel with his own. Simeon snarled at the Englishman whose face was spattered with bone and blood and streaked black with gunpowder.
Having passed exhaustion hours before, it was a brutal force of will that drove his momentum in the upward struggle. Simeon managed to rise to his feet from his inferior position. Each man was determined to gain advantage. Each man refused to give quarter. Bracing his legs in the loamy earth, his fingers sought his dirk; finally closing over the hilt, he plunged his blade into the gut of his attacker with a savage cry.
The victory was short-lived. His foe was quickly replaced by two more. Then three. Fighting the onslaught on multiple fronts, the searing pain of a sword sliced his back and Simeon collapsed to his knees.
On the crest of Doon Hill, shrouded in a mist of smoke and fog, a solitary woman stood. She pushed back the hood of her cloak to survey the carnage.
And smiled.
The sounds and ache of the battle diminished. Seconds ticked by as Simeon’s life scrolled in front of him, year after year between the spaces of each defined heartbeat. Mouth parted and eyes slightly closed, he waited as a comforting sense of peace settled over him. The death blow, he knew, was next. His warrior’s braids sank to his chest when he bowed his head and murmured a final prayer to the Almighty.
Suddenly, a violent cry rang out. A towering Scot erupted through the brush. His eyes glowed wild with menace amid a face smeared with sweat and black powder. Simeon glimpsed a nearly unrecognizable Campbell plaid through the haze of his vision, and with a savage yell, the man sliced th
rough his would-be executioner with a heavy claymore.
“Come on, laddie.” The elder Scot roared and jerked him to his feet. Of all the people to emerge as an avenging angel, his odious uncle, Alastair was the last one he would have suspected to save him. Alastair’s kilt and hair were soaked with blood and gore. His eyes were wild, and his lips curled back in a terrible sneer. And in that moment, the man who towered over him as a battle-crazed devil had never looked sweeter.
Simeon stumbled after him, but his legs faltered. Alastair growled like a toothless mongrel and wedged him beneath his arm, dragging him deeper into the woods.
“I cannae gae on, uncle.” Simeon flung his back against a tree as he panted for breath. His hands and feet were numb and cold, and he was weak from the loss of blood.
“Ye will,” Alastair snarled, and clutched the shoulder of Simeon’s tartan in his fist. A rapid tattoo of musket fire amplified behind them. “Nae bràthar o’ mine will join that death march to the south. Ye willnae survive.”
“Save yersel, uncle. Nae need we should both die here upon the cursed field. I’d only… only slow yer retreat.” Simeon locked his grip on his uncle’s forearm. A stray lead ball whizzed close and both men ducked in a flinch as the bark exploded near their heads.
“For whence stop thinking o’ others, ye daft bastard. Now come on.” Pulling Simeon to his feet once more, Alastair braced him tight. Simeon was near unconscious as his uncle half-dragged, half-ran with him through the cutting brush and snags of the forest. The British were scattered and nowhere to be found now and Alastair searched for a protective copse. The calls of the battle retreat sounded farther and farther away as Simeon struggled to keep pace.
“Ahead. There, lad,” Alastair gasped between sharp intakes of air.
Breaking from behind a shadowed thicket of the wood, a cloaked figure emerged. Simeon squinted hard in recognition.
“Isobel, lass?” he choked out in his weakened state.
The maid’s only reply was to slowly lift the hood away and favor the two warriors with a chilling smile. A light breeze teased the hem of her cloak as leaves from the forest floor rustled at her feet.
A cold wave of alarm washed over Simeon as he shivered involuntarily, sinking to his knees.
“Och, a rescuin’ angel,” Alastair breathed, and tried to brace his nephew upright. “Yer bleedin’ heavier than a stuck boar.”
“Come, I’ll tend him,” Isobel urged softly. She seemed to float toward the pair with a single palm outstretched.
Nae! His mind screamed. This fair-haired lass, who he’d foolishly dallied with for several weeks in a nearby village, was anything but a simple maid. He’d had to shed her attentions when the lass parried words with him such as ‘forever’ and ‘love’ and… ‘bairns’… then vowed to see him unmanned in the worst ways possible when he explained he was not a man to suffer the shackles of marriage.
While Simeon was not a man who lived in fear of either man or lass, he’d thought it prudent to avoid the clinging female. Besides, there was something about Isobel, something he hadn’t been able to lay a finger to until after spending a few impassioned nights in her bed. His warrior’s instincts issued a stern warning… something dark and sinister seemed to lurk beneath the bonny face and curves.
“Are ye afeared o’ me, Laird?” Isobel arched a single brow as she stressed Simeon’s title like a curse. She issued a throaty laugh and edged closer as a queer blue light seemed to glow around her.
“Campbell men fear nothing, lass.” Alastair stiffened to a proud height.
“Let us be gone from this place,” Simeon whispered so low only his uncle could hear.
“Leave now and ye will most assuredly die.” Isobel narrowed her gaze at Simeon and the light surrounding her grew brighter.
‘Twas nae possible for the lass to hear the words he’d spoken.
“Who are ye, woman?” Alastair spat.
“I am the only one who can save him from a hellish death.” Isobel knelt beside Simeon’s near prostrate form. She held her hands close, as if cradling an invisible orb, and bit by bit a strange ball of blueish light gathered and grew between her palms. The thing crackled and rolled and twisted, strengthening in intensity and swelling brighter. Both men’s mouths fell agape as the ball of light passed over Simeon, instantly sealing the wounds on his legs.
“Whot devilry is this?” The hiss of Alastair’s sword hastening from his scabbard accompanied his shout. The sharp edge of his blade winked against the woman’s throat.
“Nae devilry, Alastair Campbell.” Her words chimed unflustered and rolled over the men like warm, thick honey as she pinched the edge of the blade between her thumb and forefinger and nudged the sharp steel aside to a non-lethal angle. She gave Alastair a look of undisguised disdain. “’Tis simple… healing.”
Whether it was a trick of his mind, or he was weakened from the loss of blood, Simeon did not know, but the woman he’d known, the one he’d lain with transformed, for a moment. She was not the fair-hair Isobel, with a sweet face and sun-kissed curls, but a creature so grotesque his breath left him in a rush. Her face and neck were covered with patches of weeping blisters and parts charred so black, bits of tooth and bone emerged from beneath.
“Nae healing this,” Alastair growled and returned his sword to her throat. “Best he die by English steel than at the hands o’ a witch.”
“Witch?” Isobel’s voice pitched, incredulous. “Yer prattle bores me, Campbell.” She rolled her eyes and with a flick of her hand, a bolt of blue-hot light shot from her palm so quickly, Simeon doubted what he’d just seen.
Alastair was thrown backward as if he’d been shot. The man wheezed, desperate for breath, and clutched his chest. His beard was singed, and the edges of his tartan smoldered.
“Alastair!” Simeon scrambled and slipped on the moss and loam beneath him. His uncle groaned in pain, and Isobel raised a warning hand.
“Aid him and I’ll tear his entrails with his own blade,” she snarled in warning.
Simeon’s head snapped in her direction and his heart seethed with rage. Between gritted teeth and a body still riddled with pain, he finally rasped. “Whot. Are. Ye?”
One side of Isobel’s lips curved wickedly as she locked her gaze with his. The whites and colors of her eyes receded like a dwindling tide, until all that remained were soul-less black orbs staring back at him from her skull.
“Yer fae,” Simeon breathed and eased his dirk from his boot.
“Fool! Ye think tae name me in the same breath as those treacherous beasts? The Tuath Dé?” Her eyes snapped back to human form and she spat to the side. Isobel disappeared and instantly rematerialized on his right, winding her body against him. Simeon’s gut twisted in disgust as the tip of her nose skimmed his cheek. This creature pricked his audacity, and his fingers clutched the knife tighter.
“Ye seek tae stab me, Highlander?” Her breath fanned hot on his ear as she moaned in a low, sensual purr.
Bile scorched his throat as invisible bands restrained his legs, his body—and most importantly—his hand holding his dirk. Everything in him as a man, a laird, a warrior rebelled. He’d not just battled and lost to the cursed English, clinging to life in this darkened corner of the wood, only to die immobile at the whim of this malevolent creature.
“Release me,” Simeon growled. “By all that’s holy, release me. If ye want tae kill me, then fight me fair.”
“Och, I dinnae want tae kill ye, Laird o’ mine.” Her eyes glittered in amusement as she crossed her thigh intimately over his groin. Her skirts fell weighty on his bare legs and a sickly-stench of burnt rose petals assaulted the air so thick, he could taste it on his tongue. “Not. Just. Yet.” She tapped her fingers on his chest with each word. “Ye see, Simeon Campbell, I hae need o’ a man such as ye.”
Simeon’s voice turned low and dangerous. “The only thing ye will hae from me is everlasting hatred. Release me now, and Alastair as well. Or leave us tae die in peace.”
> Isobel chuckled and propped up on one elbow. Her voice crooned as her hand hovered in a leisurely pass above his chest and shoulders, yet she never touched him. She stood and peered down at him with her hands on her hips.
“Och, if yer no’ a stubborn man, Simeon Campbell. And a proud one, aye. E’en now, as yer blood soaks the ground, ye think tae command. ‘Twill be a favorable quality for me bairn.”
“Bairn? Ye daft witch,” Simeon rasped as his head fell back, thinking death would claim him. His only prayer was to gather enough strength to break free of the bonds that held him. He’d spend his last breath if necessary to kill this creature before he allowed the Campbell line to be defiled by such evil.
Even now, it seemed the skin on his back from the cut had knitted, and feeling was returning to his arms and legs. Simeon flexed his feet and clenched and unclenched his fists as the grayed corners of vision fled. He looked up at the trees, no longer shrouded in a weakened haze — leaves rustled in the wind beneath a rare sky, clear and bright.
Simeon struggled to jerk free of whatever weights still held him captive, earning him a chilling laugh. The sound emitted from Isobel’s throat iced his blood as a fist of dread squeezed his heart. It was — inhuman.
“Why are ye doin’ this?” Simeon gritted.
“Ye turned me away. Said ye nae wanted me tae warm yer bed, and all a’fore I could conceive. Tossed me aside is whot ye did. But nae longer.” She bent quickly and placed her arms on either side, caging him within her unwelcomed embrace. Her voice turned thick and husky, laced with seduction. “Join with me, Laird. Be free. I’ll make ye immortal. Ye’ll hae power ye ne’r dreamed o’, and together we’ll raise a son the likes this world hae ne’r seen. Join me…. be free.” The final utterance of her speech was mere whispers against his throat.
Her graveled dialogue ensorcelled him, weaving a lure of palpable strands around his mind, clouding his reason. The dusky persuasion drew him deep, and deeper still into an abyss of temptation. Immortality? Aye, he would devote eternity to ensure the Campbell clan would never diminish… And power? Aye, he’d take vengeance first upon the English to make them atone for their atrocities...
