The Dark Highlander

by Karen Marie Moning

  As Gwen slipped from the library, she cast a last glance over her shoulder at the two magnificent Highlanders. She was both elated and deeply troubled, elated that Dageus had come home, troubled by what was yet to come. She and Drustan had been so certain their idea would work, they’d not thought beyond it.

  Now Dageus was going to have to go back into the past. Open a bridge through time and search the old lore. She didn’t want to let him go, and knew Drustan didn’t either. But there wasn’t much choice. She intended to try to cajole him into waiting a few days, but harbored little hope on that score.

  Even without the benefit of her husband’s Druid senses, she could feel that Dageus was different. There was something violent in him. Something barely contained, on the verge of exploding.

  She arched a brow, thinking that, though she would never tell her husband so, Dageus was even sexier dark than he’d been before. He was raw and primal and something about him made a woman’s every nerve stand up on end.

  Her thoughts went to the woman upstairs. If Chloe had any sense at all, she mused, she’d be sharing his room tonight, and for however many future nights they might have.

  Not only was refusing a Keltar male’s bed a difficult thing to do, but it was a criminal waste of a woman’s time, in Gwen’s opinion. Drustan was an extraordinary lover, and with all that raw sexual heat Dageus was giving off, she had no doubt he would be too.

  Long ago, in another century, she’d watched Dageus sit on the front steps of the MacKeltar castle in the gloaming, staring at the night sky. She’d recognized his loneliness—she’d been lonely once too—and had made a vow to help find him a mate. It seemed he’d found her himself. The least she could do was help him win her. The debt she owed Dageus MacKeltar was enormous.

  She tucked her bangs behind her ear, smiling faintly. She would have to let slip a few comments to Chloe about Keltar expertise and stamina. As well as imparting a few other bits of hard-earned wisdom when the time was right.

  Hours later, Dageus followed Drustan abovestairs. They’d talked long into the night and soon it would be dawn.

  After Gwen had left, he’d told Drustan about the attack on Chloe’s life, and the words her strange assailant had said, then filled him in on the few references he’d found about the Draghar. Unfortunately, Drustan had been as baffled as he. They’d bandied about possibilities, but Dageus was getting blethering weary of possibilities. He needed answers.

  “When will you be leaving?” Drustan said, as they reached the end of the north corridor and prepared to part for their respective chambers.

  Dageus looked at Drustan, savoring the sight of his brother alive, awake, and happy. Though he’d like to spend more time with Drustan and Gwen, now that he was on Scottish soil again, he couldn’t afford further delays. Chloe was in danger, and his time was growing short. He could feel it. He suffered no doubt that another attack would come, and didn’t know if the Draghar, whoever they were, could follow them through time. If they were part of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, they could follow them anywhere.

  “On the morrow.”

  “Must you go so soon?”

  “Aye. I doona ken how much time I have.”

  “And the lass?” Drustan asked carefully.

  Dageus’s smile was icy. “She goes where I go.”

  “Dageus—”

  “Say no more. If she doesn’t go, I doona go.”

  “I would protect her for you.”

  “She goes where I go.”

  “And if she doesn’t wish to?”

  “She will.”

  14

  “’Tis time, Chloe-lass,” Dageus said.

  “Wh-what do you mean?” Chloe asked warily. “Time for what?”

  “It occurs to me that mayhap I’ve no’ made my intentions clear,” Dageus said with soft menace, stalking toward her.

  “What intentions?” Though Chloe was determined to hold her ground, her cowardly feet had other plans. Traitorous little ninnies, they took a step backward for each step he took forward.

  “My intentions about you.”

  “Oh, yes, you have,” Chloe assured him hastily. “You want to seduce me. You’ve made that crystal clear. Any clearer would require an X rating. I’m not going to be just another one of your women. I’m not made like that. I can’t leave my panties beneath a man’s bed to be swept out with the trash. That’s why I’m still a virgin, because it means something to me and I’m not going to toss my virginity at your charming feet just because you’re the most gorgeous, fascinating man I’ve ever met and I happen to like your last name. Those are not good enough reasons.” She nodded her head to punctuate the rush of words, then looked horrified by what she’d admitted at the last.

  “The most gorgeous, fascinating man you’ve ever met?” he said, his dark eyes glittering.

  “There are oodles of gorgeous men around. And dusty, boring ancient texts are fascinating too,” she muttered. “Stay away from me. I’m not going to fall for your seduction.”

  “Doona you even wish to know my intentions?” he purred.

  “No. Absolutely not. Go away.” Her back struck the wall and she stumbled a little, then folded her arms across her chest and scowled up at him.

  “I’m not going away. And I am going to tell you.” He rested his palms against the wall on either side of her head, walling her in with his powerful body.

  “I’m waiting with bated breath.” She faked a delicate yawn and examined her cuticles.

  “Chloe-lass, I’m going to keep you.”

  “Keep me, my ass,” she snapped. “I don’t agree to being kept.”

  “Forever,” he said, with a chilling smile. “And you will.”

  “Argh! Can’t I just not dream about that man one freaking night?” Chloe cried, rolling over in bed and pulling the pillow over her head.

  He was on her mind incessantly when she was awake. She didn’t think it was so much to ask to be able to escape him in her dreams. She’d even dreamed about him when she’d dozed on the airplane! And all the dreams had been so intensely detailed that they’d seemed almost real. In this one, she’d been able to smell the spicy man-scent of him, to feel his warm breath fanning her face when he’d informed her he was going to keep her.

  As if!

  What did her dream Dageus think? she brooded irritably. That such a barbaric, utterly Teutonic declaration would melt her to her toes?

  Wait a minute, she thought, backtracking mentally—it had been her dream, which meant that it wasn’t what he thought, but apparently what she was subconsciously thinking about.

  Oh, Zanders, you are so not politically correct, she thought dismally.

  It had melted her. She’d love to hear such words from him. One teeny declaration of that sort and she’d be stuck on him like superglue.

  She sat up and flung the pillow across the room in frustration. The Gaulish Ghost in New York had been fascinating enough, but the glimpse of emotion she’d seen last night when he’d been reunited with his brother had made him even more dangerously intriguing.

  It had been one thing to think of him as a womanizer, a man not capable of love.

  But she couldn’t think that anymore, because she’d seen love in his eyes. Love that she wanted to know more about. She’d glimpsed depths to him that she’d convinced herself he didn’t have. What had happened between the two brothers to make them so estranged? What had happened to Dageus MacKeltar to make him so tightly guard his emotions?

  She was doing it—wanting to be the woman who got inside him. Dangerous want, that.

  She hugged her knees and rested her chin atop them, brooding.

  A significant part of the blame for her dream, she thought peevishly, could be attributed to Gwen. Last night, after Chloe had finished showering, Gwen had brought a dinner tray to her room. She’d stayed while Chloe had eaten, and the talk had turned, as it was wont to do when women got together, to men.

  Specifically to Keltar men.

  Facts that Chl
oe had known about Dageus prior to Gwen’s little visit: He was irresistibly seductive; he had a fantastic body—she’d seen it when he’d dropped his towel; he wore condoms for the “Extra-Large Man.”

  And now—thank you Gwen MacKeltar—she knew that he was a man of both immense appetites and stamina, and had been known to spend, not a few hours, but days in bed with a woman. Oh, Gwen hadn’t actually come out and said those things, but she’d made her point clear enough in bits and pieces that she’d dropped.

  Days in bed? She couldn’t even begin to imagine what that would be like.

  Oh, yes, you can, a snide little voice poked, you dreamt about it a few nights ago, in shocking detail for a virgin.

  Scowling, she pushed her curls out of her face and swung her legs over the side of the massive, antique bed piled with down ticks. Her toes dangled a foot above the floor and she had to hop to get out of it.

  Shaking her head, she grabbed her clothes and headed for the shower. She didn’t really need to, having showered late last night, but this morning she suspected she might benefit from a cold one.

  When she stepped out into the corridor a half an hour later, she stopped abruptly, bristling. She’d taken a chilly shower, forcing herself to think about the artifacts she might get to see, and what she’d like to explore first. It had taken her nearly the entire half an hour to get him off her mind, and now he was right back on it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked grumpily, feeling that dratted, instant surge of attraction that demanded plaintively (and incessantly!), Would you just jump on him and to hell with the consequences? The man of her dreams—literally—was sitting on the floor, leaning against the door across the corridor from hers, his long legs outstretched, his arms folded over his chest. He wore black trousers and a charcoal crew-neck wool sweater stretched over his powerful torso, showcasing his perfect physique. He’d shaved, and the skin on his face looked smooth and soft as velvet. Coppery eyes met hers.

  He rose, towering over her, his sheer masculinity making her feel small and feminine.

  “I was waiting for you. Good morrow, lass. Did you have pleasant dreams?” he inquired silkily.

  Chloe kept her expression bland. He looked immensely pleased with himself this morning, and there was no way she was letting him know she’d had even one nocturnal thought about him. “I can’t remember,” she said, blinking guilelessly. “In fact, I slept so deeply I don’t think I dreamt at all.”

  “Indeed,” he murmured. When he moved forward, she nearly jumped out of her skin, but he simply reached behind her and pulled the door to her bedchamber shut.

  Then backed her against it.

  “Hey,” she snapped.

  “I sought but to give you a good morrow kiss, lass. ’Tis a Scots custom.”

  She craned her neck, scowling up at him, and gave him a look that said Yeah, right, nice try.

  “A wee one. No tongue. I promise,” he said, his lips curving faintly.

  “You never give up, do you?”

  “I never will, sweet. Doona you know that by now?”

  Oooh, that was beginning to take on shades of her dream. And he’d called her “sweet,” a little endearment. She clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.

  He lifted his hand to her face and lightly traced his fingers down the curve of her cheek. A soft touch, nothing overtly seductive about it. The gentleness of it startled her, stilled her. He moved his hand from her face to her soft curls, threading them through his fingers.

  “Have I told you, Chloe-lass, that you’re beautiful?” he said softly.

  She narrowed her eyes. If he thought a generic compliment would buy him a kiss, he was sadly mistaken.

  “Och, aye, lovely as can be.” He smudged her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “And without a trace of artifice. I sat in my cab and stared at you the day I first saw you. I watched other men looking at you and wished them blind. You bent back into the car to say something to your driver. You were wearing a black skirt and jacket with a sweater the color of heather, and your hair was falling into your eyes and you kept pushing it back. It was misting a bit, and the hose on your legs glistened with droplets of rain. You didn’t mind the rain, though. For a moment, you tipped your head back, turning your face up to it. It took my breath away.”

  The caustic comment coiled on the tip of her tongue died.

  He looked at her a long moment, then dropped his hands.

  “Come, lass.” He offered her his hand. “Let’s fetch some breakfast, then I’d like to take you somewhere.”

  Chloe struggled for composure. The man had a way of throwing her off-kilter like no one else she’d ever known. Just when she thought she knew him, he threw something unexpected at her. Where had that just come from? He remembered exactly what she’d been wearing the day they’d met, and it had been misting that morning. And she had briefly turned her face up into the mist; she’d always liked rain. She cleared her throat. “So when do I get to see the texts?” she hastily forced the conversation to less uncertain terrain.

  “Soon. Very soon.”

  Other men were watching you and I wished them blind. She shook her head, trying to scatter his words from her mind. Unable to determine what “face value” to place upon them. “Does your brother have other artifacts too?” she pressed brightly.

  “Aye. You’ll see many things before the day is through.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  He smiled faintly at her eagerness and caught her hands in his. “Do you know how I know when you’re excited about something?”

  Chloe shook her head.

  “Your fingers start to curl, as if you’re imagining touching whatever it is you’re thinking about.”

  She blushed. She hadn’t known she was so transparent.

  “Och, lass, ’tis charming. Do you recall that I said I could show you a Scotland no other man ever could?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, this afternoon, lass,” he said with a strangely wry note in his voice, “I’ll be making good on that promise.”

  Some distance from the castle in which Chloe and Dageus were currently breakfasting, a man leaned back against the side of a nondescript rental car, talking quietly on the phone.

  “I haven’t had the opportunity to get close,” Trevor was telling Simon. “But it’s only a matter of time.”

  “You were supposed to take care of her before they left London,” Simon’s voice was faint on the cell phone, yet still rang with implacable authority.

  “I couldn’t get near her. The man is constantly on guard.”

  “What makes you think you can get close on Keltar ground?”

  “He’ll drop his guard eventually, if only for a few minutes. Just give me a few more days.”

  “It’s too risky.”

  “It’s too risky not to. He has an emotional bond with her. We need his ties gone. You said so yourself, Simon.”

  “Forty-eight hours. Ring me every six. Then I want you out of there. I’m not willing to run the risk that one of our Order is taken alive. He must know nothing about the Prophecy.”

  With a soft murmur of assent, Trevor hung up.

  15

  The day had been sunny and surprisingly temperate for March in the Highlands: mid-forties, a light breeze, the sky dotted by a few fat, fluffy white clouds.

  It had been one of the most exhilarating days of Chloe’s life.

  After breakfast, she, Dageus, Drustan, and Gwen had driven to the north, taking the winding roads to the top of a small mountain, above the colorful, bustling city of Alborath, where’d she’d met Dageus’s cousins, Christopher and Maggie MacKeltar, and their many children.

  She’d spent the day with Gwen and Maggie, touring the second MacKeltar castle (this one quite a bit older than Gwen’s). She’d seen artifacts that Tom would have blithely committed felonies to acquire: ancient texts sealed in protective cases, weapons and armor from too many different centuries to count, rune stones scattered casually about
the gardens. She’d toured the portrait gallery lining the great hall, a painted history of centuries of the MacKeltar clan—what a wonder to know such roots! She’d brushed her fingertips to tapestries that should be in museums, furniture that belonged under much tighter security than she’d been able to see on the grounds. Though she’d inquired repeatedly and rather anxiously about their anti-theft system (which seemed criminally nonexistent), she’d gotten nothing but reassuring smiles, forcing her to conclude that none of the Keltars bothered to lock things up.

  The castle itself was an artifact, meticulously preserved and protected from time’s gentle erosion. She’d wandered through the day in a dreamy kind of stupefaction.

  Now she stood on the front steps of the castle with Gwen in the rosy, early evening light. The sun was resting on the horizon and tendrils of mist were wisping up from the ground. She could see for miles from her perch on the wide stone stairs, past a sparkling many-tiered fountain, out over the valley where the lights of Alborath were nudging back the encroaching twilight. She could imagine how glorious the Highlands would be in spring, or better yet, the full bloom of late summer. She wondered if she might find some way to still be there by then. Maybe after her month with Dageus, she mused, she would stay in Scotland, indefinitely.

  Her gaze skimmed the front lawn, coming to rest on the gorgeous, dark man who’d turned her world so completely upside down in just under a week. He was standing, some distance from the castle, inside a circle of massive, ancient stones, talking with Drustan. Gwen had told her the brothers hadn’t seen each other in years, though she’d offered no explanation for their estrangement. Inquisitive as Chloe usually was, for a change, she’d resisted prying. It just hadn’t seemed right.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” she said, sighing wistfully. To live here, to belong in such a place. The rowdy enthusiasm of Maggie and Christopher’s six children, from teens down to tots, was unlike anything Chloe had ever experienced. The castle was stuffed to overflowing with family and roots, the air rang with the sounds of children playing and occasional bickering. As an only child, raised by an elderly grandparent, Chloe had never seen anything like it before.