The Dark Highlander

by Karen Marie Moning

  Damn it, she knew better than that. The two did not necessarily go together where men were concerned.

  When they entered Gilly’s Coffee House, she stood beside him at the counter as he ordered, peeking at his profile. She wondered what he was thinking about, what had changed his mood so completely. The man ran hot and cold. That’s a good comparison, she thought, he’ll either scald me or freeze me; either way it’ll hurt.

  Well, she wasn’t about to make the first move. If he wanted to go all reserved and professional, she could too. After all, he hadn’t said “Come with me to Scotland and let’s get to know each other.” He’d said, “Come with me to Scotland to help me translate texts. Oh, and I’ll try to seduce you too.”

  How many times had Katherine called him? Had all nine of those messages been from her? That thought jarred her thoroughly back to reality She’d hate being that kind of woman. Pining after a man she couldn’t have.

  She folded her arms across her chest. Stared straight ahead at the menu behind the counter.

  “I always want you, Chloe-lass,” he murmured suddenly in a low voice, for her ears only. “There’s no’ a moment that I doona.”

  Chloe scowled. What was he—a mind reader? Damn him anyway! Arching a brow, she tipped her head back, narrowed her eyes and gave him a chilly look. “Who said I was thinking anything even remotely like that? Do you just think I sit around with nothing better to do than think about you?”

  “Nay, of course not. I merely thought to assure you that though my mind may seem far away, should you wish my attentions, you’ve only to say so.”

  “I’m fine. I just want some coffee.”

  “Mayhap you’d prefer to spend this eve with me at an inn, rather than going straight to my brother’s,” he suggested with a seductive smile.

  Chloe scowl deepened.

  “One eve is no’ enough?” he teased, though his eyes were distant. “Greedy lass, would you be wishing a week?”

  “Get over yourself, MacKeltar,” she muttered. “Though the women out there”—she flung a hand toward the street—“seem to think so, I hate to break it to you, but the world does not revolve around you.”

  Dageus’s nostrils flared and he inhaled sharply as he recognized her emotion. Jealousy. She’d been watching other women look at him (aye, he noticed, in a peripheral fashion) and it chafed her. That her desire for him was intense enough to make her feel jealousy, made him feel wildly possessive. His seduction was working. She was growing attached to him. Abruptly, he pulled her in front of him at the counter, and wrapped both arms around her waist. He held her while their order was filled, hungry for the feel of her wee body against his. She was stiff at first, but slowly the tension quit her small, lushly curved form.

  When she leaned forward to take her latte and scone, he pressed against her from behind, deliberately brushing his hard arousal against her bottom, letting her know exactly how much she was always on his mind.

  He smiled when she nearly dropped her coffee.

  “I’d have bought you another,” he said with a shrug, when she glanced sharply over her shoulder at him, blushing as furiously as she was scowling. Like as not, he’d buy her the café if she indicated the slightest desire for it.

  “You’re incorrigible,” she hissed. “Just so you know, what happened on the plane is not going to happen again,” she informed him, before turning and stalking off toward the rental car.

  His eyes flared dangerously. Did the lass think to share such intimacies with him and then rescind them?

  Och, nay, Dageus MacKeltar didn’t go backward. She would find that out soon enough.

  As they neared their destination, Dageus grew increasingly subdued. After lengthy deliberation, he’d decided it best to simply appear on Drustan’s doorstep unannounced, hope Gwen answered the door, then hope for the best.

  He glanced over at Chloe, acknowledging that he’d not have made this trip today alone. Even with her beside him, he’d considered turning around half a dozen times. Alone, he’d have tried the museums first, have put it off indefinitely, telling himself all manner of lies when the simple truth was that he didn’t want to face Drustan. But somehow, with her at his side, it didn’t seem nigh as impossible.

  Her earlier irritation seemed to have passed or, as wee as she was, there simply wasn’t enough room in her to contain irritation and excited curiosity. She was sipping her coffee, staring out the window, pointing, and asking endless questions. What was that ruin? When did summer begin? When did the heather bloom? Were there really pine martens, and could she see one? Could they be petted? Did they bite? Could they go to the museums while they were there? How about Glengarry? How much farther?

  He’d been answering absently, but she was so enamored by the vista that she hadn’t seemed to notice his inattention. He had no doubt that she would fall in love with his country. Her enthusiasm made him remember a time—what seemed a lifetime ago—when he, too, had viewed the world with wonder.

  He forced his gaze away from her, and his thoughts back to the upcoming confrontation.

  He hadn’t seen Drustan—awake, that was—in four years, one month and twelve days. Since the eve that Drustan had been placed in an enchanted sleep, to slumber for five centuries. They’d spent that final day together, trying to wedge a lifetime into it.

  Twin brothers and best friends since they’d drawn breath, a mere three minutes apart, they’d said farewell that night. Forever. Drustan had gone to sleep in the tower, the tower that Dageus had to walk past a dozen times a day. At first, he’d bid his brother a sardonic “good morrow” each morn, but that had swift grown too painful.

  Before Drustan had gone into the tower, they’d labored together over plans for a new castle that was to be Drustan and Gwen’s home in the future. After Drustan had gone to sleep, Dageus had immersed himself in overseeing the construction of it, directing hundreds of workers, making certain all was perfect, working alongside the men.

  And while so involved with the building of it, he’d become aware of an ever-growing, restless emptiness inside him.

  The castle had begun to consume him. Impossible for a man to labor daily for three long years and not lose a part of himself to not merely the act of creating, but the creation. The empty, waiting rooms were the promise of family and love. The promise of a future he’d never been able to envision for himself.

  When Drustan had died, he’d gone and stood outside the castle for hours uncounted, staring at its dark and silent silhouette in the gloaming.

  He’d imagined Gwen in the future, waiting. And Drustan never arriving. She would live alone. Nell had told him Gwen was pregnant, though Gwen herself had not yet realized it, which meant Gwen would raise their babes alone.

  He imagined no candles ever flickering beyond those windows. No children ever padding up and down those stairs.

  All the empty places inside him had finally been filled—not with good things, but with anguish, fury, and defiance. He’d shaken his fist at the heavens, he’d raged and cursed. He’d questioned all he’d been raised to believe.

  And by the misty, crimson-streaked dawn, he’d known but one thing: The castle he’d built would be filled with his brother and his family.

  Aught else was simply unacceptable. And if the legends were true, if the cost was his own chance at life, he’d deemed it worthwhile. He’d little left to lose.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Chloe asked.

  Dageus started, realizing he must have been stopped at the stop sign for several minutes. He shook his head, scattering the grim memories. “Aye.” He paused, weighing his next words. “Lass, I haven’t seen Drustan in some time.”

  He had no idea how Drustan would react. He wondered if he would know, merely by looking at him, that he was dark. The bond of twins betwixt them was strong. Aye, I used the stones, but the legends were wrong. There was no dark force in the in-between. I’m fine. ’Tis but that this century is a marvel and I’ve been exploring a wee. I’ll come home anon.
’Twas the lie he’d been telling his brother since the day he’d made the mistake of calling him, unable to resist hearing Drustan’s voice, so he could assure himself that he was alive and well in the twenty-first century.

  Dageus, you can tell me anything, Drustan had said.

  There’s naught to tell. ’Twas all a myth. Lie upon lie.

  Then had begun the regular calls from Drustan, asking when he’d be home. He’d stopped picking up the phone months ago.

  “So this is a reunion?”

  “Of sorts.” If Drustan turned him away, he’d take Chloe to the museums. He’d find another way. He was fair certain his brother wouldn’t attack him. If he’d not come home, if he’d made Drustan hunt him, that might well have happened. But he hoped Drustan would understand his return for what it was: a request for aid.

  She eyed him intently. He could feel her gaze, though he kept his profile to her.

  “Did you and your brother have a falling out?” she said gently.

  “Of sorts.” He released the brake and resumed their journey, giving her a chilly look so she’d drop it.

  A few moments later, she slipped her wee hand into his.

  He tensed, startled by the gesture. He was accustomed to women reaching for many parts of him, none of them his hand.

  He glanced at her, but she was staring straight ahead. Yet her hand was in his.

  He closed his fingers around hers before she might snatch it away. Her wee hand was nearly swallowed by his. It meant more to him than kisses. More even than bedplay. When women sought him for sex, it was for their pleasure.

  But Chloe’s small hand had been given without taking.

  Adam Black watched the automobile wind up the roads into the Keltar mountains. Though his queen had long ago passed an edict forbidding any Tuatha Dé Danaan to go within a thousand leagues of a Keltar, Adam had decided that since The Compact had been violated on the Keltar side, old edicts didn’t apply.

  He knew why she’d passed the edict. The Keltar, having pledged their lives and all their future generations to upholding The Compact, were to be free of any Tuatha Dé Danaan interference, because his queen had known, even then, that there were those among their race that didn’t like The Compact. Who’d not wanted to leave the mortal realm. Who’d argued to conquer the human race. Who might have tried to goad a Keltar into breaking it.

  So since the day The Compact had been sealed, not one Keltar had so much as glimpsed one of their ancient benefactors.

  Adam suspected that might have been a mistake. For, although the Keltar had faithfully performed their duties, over four thousand years they’d forgotten their purpose. They no longer even believed in the Tuatha Dé Danaan, nor did they recall the details of the fateful battle that had set them on their course. Their ancient history had become nothing more than vague myths to them.

  While on Yule, Beltane, Samhain, and Lughnassadh, the Keltar still enacted the rites that kept the walls solid between their worlds, they no longer recalled that such was the purpose of those rites. Perhaps one generation had neglected to pass down the oral tradition in full to the next. Perhaps the elder had died before he’d been able to impart all the secrets. Perhaps old texts had not been faithfully recopied before time had disintegrated them, who knew? One thing Adam did know was that mortals ever seemed to forget their history. Those days that were so sacred to The Compact were now seen as feast days, little more.

  He snorted, watching the car crest the hill. Humans couldn’t even get their own religious history sorted out, from a mere two millennia past. It was no wonder that their history with his race had become so obscured by time’s passage.

  So, he thought, watching from his perch upon a high tor, the darkest Druid has come home, bringing with him all the resurrected evil of the Draghar. Fascinating. He wondered what his queen would make of it.

  He had no plans to tell her.

  After all, in Adam’s opinion, it was her fault they’d been there to be resurrected in the first place.

  Even now, she was ensconced with her council, where they were busy determining the mortal’s fate.

  Four thousand and some odd years ago, his people had withdrawn to their hidden places so that mortal and Fae would not destroy each other. Shortly thereafter, the Draghar, with their black arts, had nearly destroyed both their worlds.

  His queen would never permit such a thing to happen.

  He sighed. The mortal’s time was finite.

  12

  Gwen MacKeltar, former pre-eminent theoretical physicist, now wife and expectant mother, sighed dreamily, leaning back in the bathtub against her husband’s hard chest. She was between his muscular thighs, with his strong arms around her, soaking in warm bubbly water and deliriously content.

  Poor man, she thought, smiling. In her second trimester, she’d nearly punched him if he’d tried to touch her. Now, in her third, she was inclined to punch him if he didn’t touch her. Frequently and exactly how she wanted. Her hormones were all over the place and the darned things just wouldn’t function according to any equation she’d been able to compute.

  But Drustan appeared to have forgiven her for the last few months, after the marathon sessions they’d been having. And not only didn’t he seem to care that she was hopelessly fat, he’d happily devoted himself to finding new and unusual ways to make love that compensated for her physical changes. The tub was one of Gwen’s favorites.

  Hence, there she was at seven o’clock in the evening, with dozens of candles scattered about the bathroom, and her husband’s strong arms around her, when the doorbell chimed downstairs.

  Drustan dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck. “Are we expecting someone?” he asked, the small kiss turning into delicious nibbles.

  “Mmm. Not that I know of.”

  Farley would get the door. Farley, properly christened Ian Llewelyn McFarley, was their butler and every time Gwen thought of him her heart went all soft. The man had to be eighty if a day, with bristly white hair and a tall, bowed frame. He lied about his age, and everything else, and she adored him.

  What made her heart go really soft was that Drustan also had a tender spot for the old geezer. He had endless patience and invited his tall tales in the evening before a fire, as butler and laird shared a wee dram.

  She knew that, regardless of how well her husband had adapted to her century, part of him would always be a sixteenth-century feudal laird. When they’d first moved into their new home—instead of doing what a normal twenty-first century person would have done, and taken an ad out in the paper for staff or contacted an employment agency—Drustan had gone to Alborath and dropped word in the local grocery and barber shop.

  Within two hours, Farley had appeared on their doorstep claiming to have “buttled in some of the finest homes in England” (the man had never been out of Scotland), and further claimed he could arrange the entire staffing of their castle.

  They’d since been overrun by McFarleys. There were McFarleys in the kitchen, McFarleys in the stables, McFarleys doing the ironing and the laundry and the dusting. As near as Gwen had been able to count, they’d employed the man’s entire clan of nine children (and spouses), fourteen grandchildren, and she suspected there were a few “greats” floating about.

  And though it had soon become clear that none of them had any experience in their respective positions, Drustan had pronounced them all satisfactory because he’d heard in the village that positions were hard to find.

  In modern terms, the economy in Alborath was not good. Work was hard to find. And the feudal lord had surfaced, taking responsibility for the McFarleys.

  She adored that about her husband.

  A sharp knock at the bathroom door jarred her from her thoughts.

  “Milord?” Farley inquired cautiously.

  Gwen giggled and Drustan sighed. Farley refused to address him by any other title, no matter how persistently Drustan corrected him.

  “Mister MacKeltar,” Drustan muttered. “Why is that s
o difficult for him?” He was determined to adopt twenty-first century customs. Unfortunately, Farley was just as determined to preserve the old ones and had decided that since Drustan was the apparent heir of the castle, he was a lord. Period, the end.

  “Aye?” Drustan replied more loudly.

  “Sorry to be disturbing you and the lady, but there’s a man here to see you, and I ken ’tis no’ of my business, but I’m thinking I should have you know that he seems a bit the dangerous type, though he’s polite enough as it is. Now the lass with him, och, in my opinion she’s a sweet wee and proper lass, but him, well, ’tis more of an air about him, you ken? I’m thinking you mightn’t hold well with me saying so, being as he looks so much like you, though no’ like you at all. Ahem.”

  Farley cleared his throat, and Gwen felt Drustan go rigid behind her. She’d gone rather tense herself.

  “Milord, he’s saying he’s your brother, but being as you’ve no’ mentioned a brother, despite the resemblance . . .”

  Gwen didn’t hear another word because Drustan shot from the bath so fast that she got a thorough dunking and her ears were filled with water. By the time she surfaced, Drustan was gone.

  Dageus had neglected to mention that his brother lived in a castle. Sheesh, Chloe thought, shaking her head, I should have expected it. Where else would such a man have come from? Old World, indeed.

  It was an elegant castle, with a great stone wall and authentic barbican, with round turrets and square towers and probably a hundred rooms or more.

  Chloe pivoted, trying to look everywhere at once. She’d not uttered a word since they’d entered the tree-canopied drive and begun their approach. She’d been too stunned. She was in Scotland, and they were going to be staying in a castle!

  The interior of the great hall was enormous, with corridors shooting off in all directions. An intricately carved balustrade encircled the hall on the second floor, and an elegant double staircase swept down from opposing sides, met in the middle, and descended in one wide train of steps. A lovely stained-glass window was inset above the double entry doors. Brilliant tapestries adorned the walls, and the floors were scattered with rugs. There were two fireplaces in the hall, both tall enough for people to walk around in, bigger than the bathroom in her efficiency had been! Her fingers curled as she wondered how many artifacts she might get to examine.