by Olivia Norem
“I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy,” she panted.
Center, breathe deep. Exhale, good. Center, breathe deep.
“I’m not crazy.” Exhale.
Was her mind playing an anxiety-strained trick on her, or was this extraordinary?
“Who are ye, lass?” the voice demanded.
Kat flinched as his question was punctuated by an echoing slap of his hand against the mirror. “Answer me woman,” the man growled, “I ken ye see me.”
It spoke again.
Wait. It spoke again. And did it just call her woman?
Kat crept forward and leaned over the table. Poised with her hands on the edge as she inspected the oddity closer.
The man was mesmerizing. Kat tried to look away, tried to keep a trained eye at the room, but she couldn’t. Silky black hair fell about his face and shoulders. A face that was sharp with chiseled features. The hard angle of his jaw was dusted with trace of a dark shadow. He had high cheekbones a supermodel would be envious of and a straight, firm nose, leading down to his lips filled with sensual promise. He was quite simply, the essence of raw male magnificence, yet dangerously savage at the same time.
His eyes were hypnotic — piercing blue so light, they were icy. Glacial eyes filled with mocking and curiosity. His sinful gaze raked over her, pausing too long on the shadow of cleavage in her blue gown. Kat rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t stifle an involuntary shiver.
“I ken ye see me, just as I see ye.” His eyes narrowed as he pointed an accusatory finger. “Ye hear me too. Whot’s yer name, lass?”
It took her a moment to register exactly what she heard through the thick brogue of his musical accent. Her mind translated his words slowly, as they made sense about half a minute after he spoke them.
This image, this… this man in the mirror… it, he, or whatever this thing was, definitely spoke.
“What?” Kat pointed a shaky finger at the mirror.
“Yer name, lass! Whot are ye called, ye ken?” he growled impatiently. Heavy brows drew together in a scowl.
“My… my name?” Kat stammered, trying to recover from the shock.
“Aye! Are ye simple then?” A hand waved in front of his face.
Kat frowned at the mirror in confusion. She paused another long moment and then leaned close.
“Wait a second. Did you just ask me if I’m stupid?”
The man shot her an imperious glance.
This exchange was beyond humorous. Katherine Moira Goldman was talking to an ancient relic; and it, or he, or whatever it was, was giving her attitude.
“Listen up, buddy. Until I know who or what you are, it wouldn’t hurt to be a little nicer. It’s not like this kind of thing happens to me every day. You ken?”
Simeon ran an impatient hand over his shadowed jaw and exhaled his frustration. Nicer? He simply wanted to know her name so he could be bloody nice. Then he could sway her to say the words to release him from this infernal prison.
The endless passage of time in hellish solitude, devoid of sights or conversations would have driven a lesser man to madness.
Simeon had no want for food, or sleep, or lust; even the need to relieve himself had been removed from his existence. In this place, he simply was. This prison had stripped him of everything a man was, making him question whether he would ever desire anything mortal again. That question had been answered tonight.
The lack of these simple cravings, he’d pondered long ago and then forgotten. Forgotten until a few moments ago, when this mysteriously fair lass, who spoke strangely, had not only heard and seen him, but stirred a rising lust so powerful, he cursed and welcomed the barbarian within.
So God forgive him if he was anxious to the point of being rude.
Simeon gathered his shredded patience and made a second attempt. This time, he tried a rakish approach.
After all, women had always adored him.
He’d never known one not to succumb to his slow smile or seductive speeches. If he had seen correctly, and he was certain he had, this one on the other side of the mirror had trembled when his gaze rested upon her supple breasts. Still, it appeared as if no matter how many centuries had passed one fact remained resistant to change — the bonnier the woman, the more cantankerous they were.
“Me apologies, lass.” Simeon’s head bowed in a respectful nod. He leaned his arm above his head on the glass and rested his forehead there. “As unbelievable as this may be, ‘twas a witch’s curse hae imprisoned me here long ago. I’m as startled as ye, for it’s been more years than I can count, and I’ve nae heard nae seen another person. Me name is Simeon Campbell, and ye’d honor me deeply to ken who ye are as well.”
Chapter 4
“Heather, lass.”
Brice blocked the entrance to the tower (or more importantly, the exit) leaning his shoulder against the door frame.
Simeon’s eyes darted toward the intruder, as Kat whipped around in open-mouthed alarm to face Brice. She still shivered from the aftershocks of the hypnotic brogue from the man in the mirror. His voice was… dangerously sensual.
“Sweet Heather ye be then.” Simeon purred the name like a caress and flashed her a disarming grin.
“Keep it down!” Kat shushed him harshly. She quickly flipped the velvet over the mirror to hide it from Brice’s view.
Simeon checked his ire. The stumbling lad had returned, and worse, he was helpless to come to her aid.
“Dinnae be angry, lass. I couldn’t stay away. There is no’ enough whiskey in all of Scotland to drown the vision of your beauty,” Brice slurred, as he stumbled forward.
“Och, Heather, dinnae consign me tae darkness, lass. Speak these words and release me. Fuasgail seo priosanach. I’ll protect ye from that bleatin’ arse. Ye hae me word,” Simeon urged. He resumed his vexed pacing from the other side of the glass.
Kat’s mind whirred in a tumult of indecision. This was supposed to be a simple heist. In and out. ‘Easy peasy’ she’d told Murray.
Curses? Talking mirrors? Not to mention a drunken, horny wedding guest who could certainly blow her cover. Kat was positive there was nothing, absolutely nothing in the entire catalog of Goldman rules that covered mythical enchantments and talking artifacts.
It was time for plan B.
First things first. Deal with Brice and then boost the score. The man in the mirror? Well… he hadn’t quite made it into her list of priorities. Yet.
“Don’t hurt me!” Kat held up one hand and dipped her fingers into her evening bag.
“Hurt ye? That’s the last thing on my mind.” Brice halted in bewilderment.
Kat’s fingers closed around the cool cylinder cleverly disguised as a pen.
“Release me, lass. On me honor I’ll protect ye.” Simeon clenched and unclenched his fists.
Ignoring the mirror, Kat plunged headlong into the ruse. “Look, Brice, or whatever your name is… I won’t tell anyone what I saw you doing here tonight. I swear. Just let me go.”
“Let ye gae? Heather, I may be a wee bit drunk, but I hae no idea whot nonsense ye’re talkin’ now.” Brice listed in confusion.
“Take whatever you want. I… I didn’t see anything. I promise.”
Kat inched closer to Brice. Simeon pressed his ear against the glass and strained to make sense of this confusion.
Brice snagged her hand as Kat came near. He had done exactly what she’d hoped he would.
“Don’t touch me, you beast! My husband…” Kat shrieked.
“Husband?” Two voices roared in unison.
“I dinnae see ye with any husband, Heather.” Brice pulled her close against him and locked his arm around her waist.
“He’s sick. But I don’t need to explain anything to you. Just let me go, Brice. I don’t want any trouble,” Kat protested.
She depressed the pen against Brice’s neck. The poor bugger never felt the micro needle penetrate his skin.
Brice crumpled at her feet.
“Heather? Are ye all right
? Are ye still there, lass?” Simeon bristled at the exchange. For certs he’d heard the sound a body thudding to the stone floor.
“I’m fine,” Kat hissed, as she searched Brice’s pants for a wallet.
Flipping it open she memorized his address. Inverness. How convenient. Brice’s address was in the same section of town as the safe house.
Double convenient.
Inverness was exactly where she was headed.
Tonight.
She’d hold up in the safe house, which up until she talked with a mirror, she would have bet Colin a million dollars she wouldn’t have needed. She’d plant evidence at Brice’s place, and then continue on to deliver the goods to the bank in Switzerland. Later she could figure out what to do with this crazy talking mirror.
Katherine Moira Goldman was back on track. Now where were those coins…
The untraceable toxin she’d used on Brice would give her about thirty minutes, and Kat knew she’d need every precious second of them. There was no way she would ever be able to explain tonight’s bizarre twist to Murray, Colin, or Ian.
Her family would commit her straight to the looney bin.
“Are ye hurt, Heather? Please. Tell me somethin’.” Simeon knocked his forehead against the mirror in frustration. Everything he’d heard so far was and affront to the very fabric of his being, and worse, he was impotent to assist the lady in need.
“Just shut up, will you!” Kat snapped. She was going to need a minute, or more like several days, to process all of this, but right now, the clock was ticking.
She combed through the trays looking for the Viking coins and whatever else would be small enough to conceal as a plant in Brice’s home.
“Och, Heather, ye’ve blinded me,” Simeon shouted. “Where’s the mon, lass? Speak the words, Heather. Release me and I’ll wring his neck for ye!”
Kat stomped back to the table and flipped back the fabric. She was flustered at the Highlander’s expression. The worry that etched his handsome face appeared genuine, which quickly suffused to relief as he gazed upon her once more.
Kat quickly recovered her temper and growled closely in the mirror.
“Look you. You want out of there?”
“Aye.” Simeon nodded.
“Then shut the hell up!”
Simeon blinked. He couldn’t recall anyone ever shouting at him in such an egregious manner. “Seems ye could use a lesson in being nice, lass.” Simeon rebuffed and raised an accusing brow.
“Argh! Of all the arrogant—” Kat seethed.
“I was only worried for ye, lass. Whot tale was that ye spun? And whot happened tae the mon? I see no’ but the ceiling.” Simeon’s arm muscles flexed taut as he spread his hands plaintively against the mirror.
Kat bit her lower lip and cocked her head. Simeon chafed at the tightness that filled his shaft at her simple gesture.
Kat growled low in her throat. She needed to finish this job and establish her alibi. The last thing, the very last thing she needed was to waste time explaining anything to what may or may not be a figment of her stressed imagination. Kat pondered his situation and bunched the fabric up behind the mirror, propping it in such a way that Simeon had a wider field of vision.
“Is that better?” she sneered sarcastically.
“Aye. But where’s the mon?” Simeon craned his neck from left to right, struggling to scan the room.
“Forget about him. Listen to me. One word, one sound, one more peep from you, and I’ll bury this mirror so deep in the ground it will be a thousand years before you’re found again. If ever!” Kat’s green eyes snapped with anger in the dim light.
By God, this woman was stunning.
While backing away from a challenge was not in Simeon’s nature, he was hardly in the position to test her threat. Simeon’s sapphire eyes sparkled with amusement as he made a definite show of closing his lips firmly.
It was a cocky response he knew, and he couldn’t stifle a chuckle as he earned a second heated glare. She fled his field of vision, and Simeon listened intently as he heard her rummaging through boxes and crates.
Was her husband truly infirm? He couldn’t fathom what sort of man would let his bonny wife wander about without any protection. Then again, what sort of wife was Heather to leave her husband on his sick bed? The lass was a mystery to be certain, and, he suspected, after hearing the tale she spun for Brice, she was not all that honest.
Kat finally located the coins. And the painting. With a sigh of relief, she secured the gold inside the silk Velcro pouch attached to her lacy garter. The skirt of her long, navy dress cleverly zipped off into a neat bag. She extracted the black cloth interior from the bottom of her cast-off dress. A few folds and the bag transformed to a backpack.
Unfolding the second micro-thin sack, Kat smiled. She palmed the familiar weight of her tools and went to work on the tacks holding the canvas. A magnetic awl held the tacks as she carefully removed it from the stretchers. She rolled up the canvas and slipped it into the black bag.
A quick glance at Brice assured her he was still unconscious. Kat dropped a necklace and two rings into the bag, adding her cotton gloves, tools, and the disassembled stretchers. Then she zipped up the package, rolled it and fastened the entire thing with the Velcro strips.
The whole take fit snugly in no more than a two-foot long canister. As a precaution if she were caught with the painting, she had the coins secure on her person. She zipped the lower portion of her dress back on and slid into her shoes.
Kat opened her evening bag pulled out a pair of dark-framed eyeglasses and settled them into place. She shot a worried glance at the mirror. It didn’t fit in her tiny evening bag, and if she tucked it in with the painting it might sear a hole through the canvas. There was no way she was leaving it behind, so she’d have carry it on her body as well.
Kat peered into the mirror. She saw no reflection, simply Simeon standing in profile, arms folded and eyes stubbornly fixed to some distant point.
“Okay, Simeon. Can you tell me why this mirror lights up when I touch it?”
He was pouting arrogantly in response to her order to stay quiet, but when he chanced a sidelong look, Simeon visibly flinched.
“Whot the fook is on yer face, lass?” His dark brows furrowed in confusion.
Kat touched the frames with her fingertips.
“What? The glasses?” She lifted them off and looked at them then turned back to his astonished face.
“Glasses? ‘Tis whot ye drink from,” he argued.
“Just how long have you been in there?”
Kat mentally flipped through her knowledge of history. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember when eyeglasses were invented. Her brain whirred through catalogs of time periods thinking he couldn’t possibly be older than the fifteenth century. Could he? Then again, eyeglasses wouldn’t have been all that common. Cursing her distraction, Kat continued on without giving him an opportunity to reply.
“Look. You want me to help you, I need a little help in return. When I touch the mirror, it has like a charge…”
“A charge?” Simeon frowned.
“Okay, an energy…” she clarified. He still looked confused. “It feels like I am being burned when I touch it.” Kat explained, using terms an antiquity might understand.
“Och, ye cannae let it touch yer bare skin, Heather.”
He was distracted by the way she looked wearing her “glasses.” They were strangely erotic, and he imagined removing them from her slowly, and then coaxing her out of the rest of her garments as he placed hot kisses along her skin.
What was happening to him? He hadn’t entertained lustful thoughts in eons...
Kat snapped her fingers a few times, sensing his mind had wandered. “Hey, pay attention here. Not touching my bare skin is going to be a bit of a problem. Will it burn me for real? Or will it just feel like it?”
“I dinnae ken if ‘twould burn ye in troth, lass,” Simeon shrugged.
Kat blew ou
t a hearty breath. “I guess I’ll just have to chance it.”
Kat pursed her lips in a tight line and grabbed the sides of her low neckline. She ripped the fabric open with both fists. Simeon’s brows shot up and his mouth went dry at the wanton display of her breasts. Perfectly round flesh was curiously underscored by wisp of lace, just covering the blush of her nipples.
This was no corset he was familiar with, and his hands splayed against the mirror. His gaze riveted to the tiny bow of ribbon laying just between. How long would it take for the fragile lace to part if he untied on that bow between his teeth?
Kat bent forward and hiked up her dress. When she reached for the mirror, her hand paused. The Highlander’s fingers were splayed against the glass. His eyes turned dark, and hooded.
She suppressed a shiver, and the sound of her own voice surprised her. It sounded throaty, sensual, not at all flippant as she had intended.
“What? Like you’ve never seen breasts before?”
Simeon opened and closed his mouth a few times before he answered. His eyes had turned almost indigo as he pierced her gaze.
“Seeing a sight as enchanting as ye, fair Heather… ‘tis well worth the price o’ this curse.”
Kat wanted to snort in reply, but the man’s brogue rolled over her with such smoldering conviction, her only response was to swallow hard.
Wow, this guy was good.
“God, I’m going to regret this.” Kat gritted her teeth and clasped the handle.
Electricity shot up her arm and she cried out. The markings on the back began to glow bright and hot, borderline horrific. The damn handle sparked worse than a bad breaker in a Frankenstein laboratory.
As she lifted the mirror to tuck it into the protective band of her stocking, Simeon caught a glimpse of the body that lay on the floor. That must have been Brice. Just as he was about to ask what happened, he was faced with a sight that shocked him to his core.
Heather’s dress was pulled above her waist.
It wasn’t as if the lass held it there to let him look at his leisure, but for a centuries-starved man, mere seconds of the vision etched an indelible picture into his brain.
The contrast of her white thighs curved just above the most sinful, erotic, black stockings he’d ever seen. The sheer coverings traveled halfway up her leg and fastened with a lacy wisp of a belt, molded to her hips. The belt had long ribbons attached, and Simeon could only imagine how those ribbons must tease her satiny skin when the lass walked. Beneath those scandalous lines crossing her hips and legs, another mere wisp of lace covered the juncture between her thighs.
