“Plenty,” Greyston said, “and damned if I didn’t miss it all.”
He filled Jamie in on the first and second-hand details, then added, “Hush about demons when Georgina’s within earshot.”
Jamie rocked on the balls of his feet, his hardboiled gaze assessing Greyston in an attempt to size up the situation. “You haven’t told her?”
“I tried.” The subtle vibrations tuned to his blood changed and Greyston swung his boots off the dash to lean forward, his palm folding over the rudder gear. “She didn’t bite.”
“I’m sorry, Grey.”
“Don’t be.” Corralled between endless streams of pale blue skies and mellow cotton puffs, his soul unclipped in free flight and Greyston shook off the last regret. “It’s better this way.”
He’d never lived a life that could be peeled open and shared. Lily was the only person who knew all his parts, and look how hard and fast he’d fallen. And even then, his past had found a way to cast darker, crueller shadows where she couldn’t follow.
He thought of Georgina, of her zest and spontaneity and the warmth she wrapped around him, and he had no wish to mess with what they had.
Georgina rejoined them just as they were spearing through a final bank of cloud. He spread his legs so she could perch on the seat between his thighs.
He folded himself around her, one hand on the gears to release the throttle, the other pointing out the Spanish coastline and then the speck just east in the Balearic Sea. “There she is.”
“I don’t see a thing.”
“Give it a moment,” he murmured.
At their rapid descent, the speck grew into a shade and then into the rock of Es Vedra. Over the years, he’d chiselled the ancient military fortress into a home, blasting flat jagged peaks to add pockets of tiny courtyards, carving new cottages into the cliffs for the people he’d collected along the way—some who worked for him, some in desperate need of a new life, some retired from their alternate seafaring professions.
Georgina rolled her head against his chest, her gaze reaching for him, filled with wonder. “You own the entire island?”
Jamie snorted from the side. “Now there’s a stretch of the imagination.”
“I bought and own a rock,” Greyston said, chuckling.
“That’s impressive enough for me,” she sighed.
He bent his head to graze a kiss on the mouth turned up to him.
“Do you two mind?” Jamie groused. “Some of us haven’t been on shore leave in a while.”
Georgina shifted to set her gaze on the burly Scotsman. “Do you have someone special waiting at Es Vedra?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Jamie dragged out with exaggerated woe.
“Don’t feel too sorry for him,” Greyston chuckled. “Jamie here has a special someone waiting in every port.”
He nuzzled the sensitive skin behind Georgina’s earlobe, then tipped her mouth upward to finish the kiss she’d started.
Heat stole through his limbs and crept into his heart. Contentment wrapped around him as he hugged Georgina in his arms and flicked his gaze to the shield of glass and the activity far below.
But then, coming home always had this effect on him.
Alerted to their approach, his men on the ground fired up the hydraulic arms to raise the landing platform across a deep gully; the only place on the rugged rock to land a ship. On the south side, one small sandy cove could accommodate a sea vessel, and iron-studded doors guarded both ends of stairs built into the cliff.
There were no unwelcome guests and there were no unwelcome laws. The hefty purchase price had included un-tethering Es Vedra from the Spanish mainland.
His home was a rock, but it was also the place where he was a country unto himself.
TWENTY
Kelan leant a hip against the doorjamb of Cragloden’s ballroom. His gaze found Lily in the flashing strobes, and roamed appreciatively over the fitted white shirt and buckskin breeches that clung to her curves like a siren’s song.
He’d installed her in the bedroom across the passage from his, but that was still ten feet too far from the bed he wanted her in. One look at Greyston fawning over his new lady, and he’d dropped straight over the edge of his lofty intentions. What the hell had he been thinking, preserving his wife for another man? But then Lily had looked at him, her eyes honey-glazed with desire, and told him she wasn’t ready.
What was she waiting for?
Damned if he knew, but he humoured her…for now.
She wasn’t swerving and dipping to slice past the fabricated fire bolts; she attacked with the plucked sapling branch held fiercely in both hands. In Armand’s absence, Ana had been roped in to man the strobe machine.
He caught Ana’s eye and made a sign for her to cut the source.
The deep rumble clicked over to a grumbling echo and the pulsing lights blinked out of existence on Lily’s upswing.
“You can’t bludgeon a demon bolt to death,” Kelan observed, leaving his position by the door in unhurried strides.
She spun about, her chin set to defy him. “I want to learn to do more than evade and run.”
“Then let me teach you.” He unsheathed the sword at his boot and put the hilt in her hand.
Her mouth softened in surprise. The stick clattered to the polished floor as her other hand came up, too.
“Agility over strength.” Kelan pushed her hand down to her side, looking into her eyes. “Lesson number one. Don’t throw out the moves you’ve trained for just because you hold a weapon; the fire bolts come just as quick and deadly. Wielding your sword one-handed gives you more flexibility to react and assert.”
She dragged her gaze from him to the sword. She raised it easily with her right hand and flicked her wrist a few times to get the feel. The sword was light, fashioned for stealth and dexterity, but he immediately saw the hilt was too thick for her slender grip. He ran through the store of Cairngorm weapons in his head; there was nothing readily available to suit.
He picked up her discarded stick and stepped back. “Lesson number two. There isn’t a lot of weight behind a bolt, but the energy force does kick.”
He brandished the stick between them, demonstrating as he instructed. “To counter the kick, press into each swing, but only slightly. You don’t want to over-compensate, and you don’t want to exert more than you have to.” He looked at her, gauging how much she absorbed. “That’s lesson number three. You will tire before the bolts stop coming. If you can’t train your body to push through exhaustion, you’re dead.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You’re worse than Evelyn when it comes to hot air and high drama.”
His mouth twitched at the comparison. “You saw me fight those demons. Tell me, Lily,” he said, serious again, “do you think I’m exaggerating?”
“No,” she said with a heavy sigh. “But you do have a darkly pessimistic streak. Let’s do that over. Lesson number three. If you can train your body to push through exhaustion, you live and the demon’s dead.”
He let the criticism slide and held the stick up at an angle in front of her. “Give it a thrust. Remember, you want to deflect with the broad side of the blade, not slice.”
A smile crossed her lips. “You trust me to not lop your head off?”
“Of course,” he drawled.
“You mean you trust your unnatural reflexes to jump out of harm’s way at the touch of cold steel.” She raised the sword, her eyes narrowed in concentration.
A breath before her blade connected, Kelan gave a light flick to simulate the kickback of energy on impact.
Lily’s wrist flagged and the blade bounced.
“Step into the swing, Lily. Push and deflect.”
They tried again with marginal improvement.
Kelan tossed the stick aside, calling out to Ana to start up the machine. Lily stiffened as he moved behind her and reached one arm alongside hers.
“The best way to learn is to feel,” he said softly, his palm folding over
her hand and the hilt. “Relax into me; let your arm be mine.”
Her lungs swelled against his chest with the breath she gulped down. “If I give you an arm,” she said with a little laugh, “promise you won’t take a leg with it.”
Her rounded rump brushed his groin and his body responded hard. “We’ve already been over this,” he said, his voice husky from the sudden heat. “I never make promises I can’t keep.”
She tried to turn a laugh—or scowl—on him. Kelan slid his jaw along her cheek, keeping her gaze and attention ahead as the first strobes pulsed at them. He guided her, pushing into each measured stroke and flexing their wrists as one to adjust the broad edge of the blade to each randomised angle of light. Again and again, with no pause for breath, he kept their pace on pulse with the strobes until she forgot to resist him and melded her body to his moves.
Kelan could defeat Armand’s machine with his eyes closed. Resisting the woman who brushed and pressed into every corner of his awareness, however, was a losing battle. He kept his muscles lithe, his reactions fluid, but the rest of him was stiff, stilted and overheated.
His free hand rubbed up her thigh, he couldn’t help himself. “Lesson number four…”
She sucked in a long breath, but didn’t freeze. Her body softened further into him and her breath released on a melting groan.
“Never forget the strobe is pure light and not the real thing. Remember, always, to step in as you arc upward, and to press.” He spoke near her ear as he thrust forward gently with the sword into non-existent resistance. “Trick your brain as you practice until it becomes second nature or that first genuine fire bolt will take you by surprise and there are no second chances in a demon fight.”
His palm flattened over the flare of her hip, supple leather a feeble barrier between his touch and her naked skin. A shiver trembled through Lily and into him, and he forgot to move with the next pulsing strobe.
“Kelan…” She rolled her cheek against his, her words a ragged breath just shy of his lips, “I think I have the gist of it.”
His jaw clenched at the hunger coiled inside him for days, thickening his blood and demanding more. He brought their joined hands down, slipping the hilt from Lily’s grasp as he stepped back. If this went any further, he’d end up doing something neither of them would regret, whether she was ready or not.
By the time he’d sheathed his sword and straightened, he’d blanked the longing from his face and blood.
Languid desire plumped Lily’s mouth and heated the gaze turned up at him, very nearly stripping all his masks.
“Lesson number five,” he said coolly, arching a brow, restraint sunk into the look he set on her. “The next time you look at me like that, I’m taking you into my bed.”
The velvet thrum of powerful forces stroking the Aether alerted him to the Red Hawk’s arrival.
Kelan pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes glued to the map spread in front of him. Red ink dotted across the north and west of Scotland marked the McAllister strongholds he’d be visiting.
The door to his study flew open and Lily blew inside. “Greyston’s here!”
“So I hear.” He sat back in his chair, pushing a hand through his hair as he took in her enthusiasm.
High colour rode her cheeks and excitement lit the green in her hazel eyes. He wasn’t convinced it was all for Greyston, but he’d been wrong before.
Her gaze landed on the map as she walked up to him. She pressed her hands to the desk and tilted her head to match clusters of red dots with upside down names of towns. “What is this?”
“McAllister land,” he informed her. “If I’m putting out a call to arms, I’d be better off doing it face to face.”
He’d delayed only for Greyston’s return, and now he could put his plans into action.
Her eyes lifted to his, the flare of excitement dulled. “You’re amassing an army.”
Today she was dressed for prim and proper, laced up to her throat, her hair scooped into a neat pile with curls drifting down her temples. But there was nothing prim about the corner of that lush lower lip she ravaged with her teeth, or the thoughts her mouth invoked. It had been two days since their ballroom dance and she hadn’t slipped up once with careless desire.
Pity. His body had been primed for weeks for lesson number five.
Kelan hushed his errant mind with a shallow breath and nodded. “I hope to depart in the morning.”
“What on earth will you tell everyone?”
He’d deliberated various versions of the truth to carry with him, and discarded all of them. Some family heads of the McAllister branches were loyal to a fault; they’d trust every word so long as it came from their chieftain’s mouth. But he needed the McAllisters united, not divided.
“I’ll allude to threats from abroad; that should suffice,” he said. “The McAllisters once helped Jamie claim his English throne; they’ll band together at the chance to protect Scottish shores. I can train my army to battle demons without them knowing their true enemy.”
Her gaze dropped from his. “Greyston wouldn’t mind couriering you across the country.” She drew a pattern on the map with her finger, connecting the clustered dots. “You’d cover the distance far quicker by air.”
“I’m perfectly content to crawl along the ground,” he said.
She quirked a brow at him, curious amusement wrapped around her mouth. “The fearless Earl of Perth is afraid of flying!”
He smiled and said nothing, indulging Lily in her fantasies. There was a stark difference between dislike and fear. The only fear that ever gripped him was a world overrun with demons.
“Come, let’s go and greet our guest before he barges into my study.” Kelan stood and walked around the desk. “It’s been three days since we parted company. Knowing Greyston, that’s plenty of time to find some new injustice to rain wrath down upon me.”
He offered an arm, but Lily stood immobile, looking at him with a tiny frown as she struggled to voice her worries.
“I’m teasing.” Kelan steeled his irritation and smoothed his tone. “Even if I weren’t, Greyston has broad shoulders.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “There’s still no sign of Agares and I’ve been thinking…” The frown deepened, darkening her eyes. “Now that Greyston’s here, I’d like to hook Ana up to your uncle’s memory box. There may be…”
She bit her lip.
Suddenly she couldn’t meet his gaze and her eyes went past his shoulder. “Um, his research notes, may have clues on how to stretch my ability. If Agares is hiding from me, it means there are shadows in my demon glass I’ve not yet learnt to probe.”
His hand went to the small of Lily’s back, guiding her firmly toward the door. “What are you not telling me?” he said mildly.
“Nothing.” She threw him a worried smile and recanted. “Well, quite a lot actually, but you have little tolerance for my excessive impatience, so I try not to bore you.”
“Hmm…” Kelan opened his palm over the base of her spine as they turned into the hallway. Any temptation to rove lower would have been promptly curtailed by the elegant bustle scooping the lemon folds of her skirt. We need to invest in more breeches and less coy dresses. “Every day with you, my sweetling, yields new revelations.”
“Such as?” she said with a laugh that sounded a lot like nerves.
My wife’s an appalling liar. “My wife’s concern for the well-being of my mind,” he drawled.
“Oh, I’ve always reserved a healthy concern for the state of your mind,” she assured him.
Kelan chuckled, in no doubt this time she spoke true. “You’re welcome to Duncan’s memory box, but it will have to wait until Armand returns from Harchings Castle. I wouldn’t dare tinker with his devices, even if I knew where the hell to start.”
“But Armand won’t be back for ages,” Lily groaned.
“All the better for you to practice curbing that excessive impatience,” Kelan said. And give him time to figure out w
hat Lily lied so appallingly about.
Cragloden’s housekeeper, Mrs. Locke, hovered in the reception foyer for the expected guests that always followed the penetrating hum from the skies.
“We’ll take it from here, Mrs. Locke, thank you,” Lily called out, marching straight past the library door Kelan had been headed for and out into fresh air through one of the arched doors.
Kelan followed at his leisure, debating the conflicting aspects of his wife’s eagerness. She hadn’t seemed overly distressed at the doe-eyed exchanges passed back and forth between Greyston and Georgina at the weekend.
Perhaps she hadn’t noticed.
How could anyone miss it?
Or was she hoping to discover Greyston had dropped his new lady like a used napkin after the dessert course?
Lily stood with her back to him, her hands pressed to the portico balcony that wrapped around the front of Cragloden, her attention fixed on the man strolling up the pebbled drive. Greyston’s cane swung loosely at his side, his limp barely noticeable, his grin settled into every feature of his face, body and stride.
Leaning back against a stone pillar, Kelan crossed his legs at the ankles and shoved a hand in his pocket, observing with detached interest. He wasn’t jealous. Greyston could have Lily’s heart; it was all the other bits he wanted for himself.
“You’ve come alone,” Lily exclaimed when he drew within speaking distance.
“My crew prefers aluminium rafting beneath their feet to Scottish soil.” Greyston’s gaze swept over his greeting committee, his grin never wavering. “Neco will be along shortly.”
“I was referring to Georgina.” Lily moved to meet him on the steps. “I do hope you both know there’s no need to wait on an invitation. She’s welcome anytime.”
“The lovely Georgina has urgent business in London,” Greyston said lightly. “I set her down in Edinburgh.” His eyes came to Kelan and his grin turned wry. “Have we been invaded yet?”
“Greyston, good to see you too.” Kelan cocked his head and scrubbed the tension from his jaw as he turned to lead the way inside.
The Dark Matters Quartet Page 66
