The Dark Highlander

by Karen Marie Moning

  His eyes flared. “You’ll come? Without knowing where I’m taking you?”

  “If you think I’ve come this far to be dumped along the wayside, you don’t know me very well, MacKeltar,” she said lightly, seeking strength in levity. The moment was simply too tense. “I’m the woman who snooped beneath your bed, remember? I’m slave to my curiosity. If you’re going somewhere, I am too. You’re not getting away from me yet.” God, had she really said that?

  “That sounds as if you’re telling me you plan to keep me, lass.” His eyes narrowed and he went very still.

  Chloe caught her breath. It was so similar to her dream!

  He smiled then, a slow smile that caused tiny lines about his eyes to crinkle, and for a moment something danced within the coppery depths. Something younger and . . . free and breathtakingly beautiful. “I’m yours for the asking, sweet.”

  She forgot how to breathe for a moment.

  Then his eyes went cool again and abruptly, he turned back toward the center slab and wrote a series of symbols. “Hold my hand and doona let go.”

  “Keep him safe, Chloe,” Gwen shouted, as a sudden, fierce wind kicked up through the stones, scattering dried leaves in swirling eddies of mist.

  Safe from what? Chloe wondered.

  And then she wondered no more, because suddenly the stones began spinning in a circle around her—but that wasn’t possible! And even while she was arguing with herself over what was and was not possible, she lost the ground and was upside down, or something, and then she lost the sky too. Grass and twilight swirled together, speckled by a mad rush of stars. The wind soared to a deafening howl, and suddenly she was . . . different somehow. She glanced wildly about for Drustan and Gwen, but they were gone, and she could see nothing at all, not even Dageus. A terrible gravity seemed to be pulling at her, sucking her in and stretching her out, bending her in impossible ways. She thought she heard a sonic boom, and then suddenly there was a flash of white so blinding that she lost all sense of sight and sound.

  She could no longer feel Dageus’s hand.

  She could no longer feel her own hand!

  She tried to open her mouth and scream, but she had no mouth to open. The white grew ever more intense and, though there was no longer any sense of motion, she felt a nauseating vertigo. There was no sound, but the silence itself seemed to have crushing substance.

  Just when she was certain she couldn’t endure it one more instant, the white was gone so abruptly that the blackness slammed into her with all the force of a Mack truck.

  Then there was feeling in her body again, and she wasn’t thrilled to have it back. Her mouth was dry as a desert, her head felt swollen and oversized, and she was pretty sure she was about to throw up.

  Oh, Zanders, she chided herself weakly, I think this was a little more than just another loopy turn.

  Chloe stumbled and collapsed to the ice-covered ground.

  “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.”

  —THE PROPHETESS EIRU, sixth century B.C.E.

  “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.”

  —MIDHE CODEX, seventh century C.E.

  “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.”

  —GEORGE SANTAYANA, twentieth century C.E.

  JULY 24, 1522

  16

  There were voices inside his head. Thirteen distinct ones: twelve men and the jewel-bright tones of a sultry-voiced woman, talking in a language he couldn’t understand.

  The voices were but a susurrus, a sibilant murmuring. No more than a stiff wind rustling through oaks, yet like a wind, it blew darkly through him, stripping away his humanity like a fragile autumn leaf no longer firmly anchored to its branch. It was the wind of winter and of death and it accepted no censure and would abide no moral judgment.

  There was only hunger. The hunger of thirteen souls confined for four thousand years in a place that was not a place, in a time that was not a time. Locked away for four thousand years. Locked away for one-hundred-and-forty-six million days, for three-and-a-half billion hours—and if that was not eternity, what was?

  Imprisoned.

  Adrift in nothing.

  Alive in that heinous dark oblivion. Eternally aware. Hungry, with no mouth to feed. Lusting, with no body to ease. Itching, with no fingers to scratch.

  Hating, hating, hating.

  A seething mass of raw power, unsated for millennia.

  And as they felt, so Dageus felt, too, lost in darkness.

  The storm was nature at her height of savagery. Chloe had never seen such a squall before. Rain mixed with jagged chunks of hail pelted from the sky, bruising her, stinging her skin, even through the thickness of her jacket and sweater.

  “Ow!” Chloe cried “Ow!” A large chunk of ice struck her in the temple, another in the small of her back. Cursing, she tucked into a protective ball on the hail-covered ground and wrapped her arms around her head.

  The wind soared to a deafening pitch, keening and howling. She screamed into it, calling Dageus’s name, but couldn’t even hear her own voice above the din. The ground trembled and tree limbs crashed to the earth. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The shrieking wind whipped her hair into a sodden tangle. She hunched in a ball with no hope but to endure it and pray it didn’t get worse.

  Then suddenly—as abruptly as the fierce storm had arisen—it was gone.

  Simply gone. The hail stopped. The deluge ceased. The wind died. The night fell still and silent but for a soft hissing sound.

  For a few moments Chloe mentally tallied her bruises, refusing to move. Moving would mean acknowledging she was alive. Acknowledging she was alive would mean she’d have to look around. And frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  Ever. Thoughts were colliding in her head, all of them impossible.

  Come on, Zanders, get a grip, the voice of reason endeavored valiantly to assert itself. You’re going to feel downright silly when you look up and see Gwen and Drustan standing there. When they say “Gee, don’t you hate it when a storm comes up so fast? But that’s how they are in the Highlands.”

  She wasn’t buying it. She wasn’t certain of much at the moment, but she was pretty darned certain storms like that didn’t happen, in the Highlands or anywhere else, and furthermore, she didn’t hold out much hope that Gwen and Drustan were anywhere nearby. Something had happened in those stones. Just what, she couldn’t say, but something . . . epic. Something that reeked of a kernel of truth secreted in ancient myths.

  After a few more moments, she drew her arms back and peeped cautiously out. Rain poured from her hair, dripping down her face. She braced her palms on the ground and suddenly understood what the hissing noise was.

  The earth was warm, as if it had been sun-heated all day, and the pellets of hail were steaming on it. How could the ground be warm? she wondered, baffled. It was March, for heaven’s sake, and forty-degree weather didn’t heat the soil. Even as she thought that, she realized the air was warm, now that the heavens had stopped dumping a small icy flood on her. Humid and positively summery.

  Gingerly, she raised herself up a few inches and glanced about, only to discover she was swathed in a cloud. While she’d huddled, a thick soupy fog had surrounded her. She was completely walled in by white. It made the already eerie situation even spookier.

  “D-Dageus?” Her voice quavered a little. She cleared her throat and tried again.

  If she was still in the circle of stones—and she was beginning to think that might be A Very Big If—she could no longer see them. The fog consumed everything. It was like being blind. She shivered, feeling horribly alone. The past few minutes had been so bizarre that she was beginning to wonder if she’d not . . . well, she wasn’t sure what she was beginning to wonder, and would rather not wonder it.

  Some people say they’re portals . . .

  She scooped at the fog with her hand. Condensation beaded on her palm. It was thick, dense stu
ff. She blew at the white air in front of her. It didn’t puff away.

  “H-hello?” she called, feeling frantic.

  A dark swirl of movement flickered in the whiteness. There. No, she thought, turning, there. Inexplicably, the temperature dropped again and her teeth began to chatter. The hail stopped steaming on the ground.

  She sat back on her knees, drenched to the bone, shivering and waiting nervously, half-expecting something awful to leap out at her.

  Just when her frayed nerves were about to snap, Dageus glided out of the fog, or rather, one moment he wasn’t there and then he materialized in front of her.

  “Oh, thank God,” Chloe breathed, relief flooding her. “Wh-what—” just happened was what she was trying to say, but the words died in her throat as he moved nearer.

  He was Dageus, but somehow . . . not Dageus. As he moved, the fog swirled away from him like something out of a creepy sci-fi movie. Against the whiteness, he was a great, hulking dark shape. The expression on his chiseled features was as cold as the ice upon which she knelt.

  She shook her head, once, twice, trying to scatter the idiotic illusion. Blinked several times.

  He’s almost inhumanly beautiful, she thought, staring. The storm had ripped his hair free from his thong and it fell to his waist in a wet, wind-tossed tangle. He looked wild and untamed. Animal. Predatory.

  He even moved like an animal, fluid strength and surety.

  And all the devil ever wants in exchange, a small voice said warningly, is a soul.

  Oh, puh-lease, Chloe rebuked herself sternly. He’s a man, nothing more. A big, beautiful, sometimes scary man, but that’s all.

  Graceful as a stalking tiger, the big, beautiful, scary man dropped into a crouch on the ground before her, his dark eyes glinting in the shadowy night. They knelt mere inches apart. When he spoke, his words were painstakingly articulated, as if speaking was an immense effort. His words were carefully spaced, tight, coming in rushes, with pauses between.

  “I will give you. Every. Artifact I own. If you kiss. Me and ask no. Questions.”

  “Huh?” Chloe gaped.

  “No questions,” he hissed. He shook his head violently, as if trying to scatter something from it.

  Chloe’s mouth snapped shut.

  It was too dark to see his eyes clearly, the sharp planes of his face shadowed. In the misty gloom, his exotic coppery eyes looked black as midnight.

  She peered at him. He was perfectly still, motionless as a tiger before the killing lunge. She reached for his hands and found them, in tight fists. Most reserved when he feels most strongly, she reminded herself. She closed her hands over his.

  His body was racked with sudden shudders. He closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them again, she could have sworn she saw shadowy . . . things moving behind them, and she had that strange feeling she’d had once before in his penthouse, as if there was another presence with them, ancient and cold.

  Then his eyes cleared, revealing such utter desolation that her chest tightened and she almost couldn’t draw a breath.

  He hurt. And she wanted to take it away. Nothing else really mattered. She didn’t even want his stupid artifacts in exchange; she only wanted to wipe that horrid, awful look from his eyes however she could.

  She wet her lips and that was all the encouragement he seemed to need.

  He crushed her in his arms, swept her up and, in a few powerful strides, backed her hard against one of the standing stones.

  Ah, so the stones are still here, she thought dimly. Or I’m still here. Or something.

  Then his mouth was hot and hungry on hers and she couldn’t have cared less where she was or wasn’t. She might have been leaning up against a great big nasty, winter-starved bear for all she cared, because Dageus was kissing her as if his life depended upon their tangle of tongues and the heat between them.

  He sealed his mouth tightly over hers, his velvety tongue seeking, claiming. He thrust his hands into her wet curls, wrapping handfuls of it around his fists, holding her head cradled in his big, powerful hands, his hot tongue plunging deep into her mouth.

  He kissed like no man she’d ever known. There was something about him, a rawness, an earthy sensuality that bordered on barbaric, something she’d never be able to explain to someone else. A woman had to be kissed by Dageus MacKeltar to fully understand how devastating it was. How it could bring a woman to her knees.

  For a moment she couldn’t even move. Could only take his kiss, not manage the strength to return it. She felt like she was being consumed, and knew that sex with him would be a little bit dirty and a whole lot raw. No inhibitions. She’d been tied to his bed with silken scarves; she knew what kind of man he was. Dizzy, light-headed, she clung to him, arching against him, reveling in the sensation of his big hands gliding over her body, one burrowing impatiently beneath her bra to close roughly over her breasts, teasing her nipples, the other cupping her bottom and lifting her against him. Feverishly, she wrapped her legs around his powerful hips.

  She was so aroused that she throbbed, aching and empty. She whimpered into his mouth when he shifted that last bit, fitting them together so the hard ridge of him was cradled in her yielding heat. Oh, finally! After denying herself, refusing to even let herself think about it, he was there, trapped snugly in the vee of her thighs, huge, hot man. He braced her back against the stone again, grinding himself against her, driving her to an erotic frenzy.

  Tangling her fingers in his thick silky hair, she strained against him, arching forward each time he thrust, meeting him. His lips were locked to hers, his tongue deep in her mouth. She was delirious with need. Her defenses had not merely dropped, they’d toppled, and she wanted shamelessly, everything, all that he’d been teasing her with for so long now.

  As if he’d read her thoughts, he captured one of her hands in his and guided it between them, pressing her palm to the hard ridge in his jeans, and she gasped when she realized how big he was. She’d only caught a glimpse of him when he’d dropped his towel, but she’d been wondering about him ever since she’d found those incriminating condoms. It wasn’t going to be easy to take him, she thought, with a dark erotic shiver. Everything about him was too much man, and it exhilarated her, seduced her into finally acknowledging her most private fantasies. By his sheer nature, he was the answer to them all. Dark, dominant, dangerous man.

  She touched him frantically, trying to shape her fingers over him through his jeans, but the damn things were too constricting, strained by his heavy bulge. She gave a small whimper of frustration and, growling savagely, he shifted her in his arms, braced her against the stones, holding her with one arm, while roughly unfastening his jeans.

  Chloe panted, her eyes wide, watching his beautiful dark face, taut with lust while he freed himself. She wanted, needed, was beyond thinking about it anymore. The intensity of the attraction between them was mind-numbing. Then he was pushing the hot, thick hardness of himself into her hand.

  She couldn’t close her hand around it. Her breath hitched in her throat and she dropped her head forward against his chest. There was no way.

  “You can take me, lass.” He cradled her jaw with his palm and forced her face back up for more urgent, heated kisses. He closed his hand over hers, moving it along his thick erection. She whimpered, wishing her jeans would just melt away so she could take him inside her.

  “Do you need me, Chloe?” he demanded.

  “I’d say she does, but I doona think ’tis either the time or the place,” a dry voice cut through the night briskly.

  Dageus stiffened against her with a savage oath.

  Chloe made a sound that was half-startlement, half-sob. No, no, no! she wanted to scream. I can’t stop now! Never in her life had she wanted so desperately. She wished that whoever had spoken would simply disappear. She didn’t want to come back to reality, didn’t want to think about the consequences of what she was about to do. Didn’t want to return to the myriad questions that she would have to face: ab
out Dageus, about her whereabouts, about herself.

  They froze in that intimate moment for what felt like a miserable eternity, then Dageus shuddered and with a hand beneath her bottom, leaned her against the stone and dislodged her hand. She had a hard time making herself let go and they waged a short, silent, silly little battle that he won, which she reluctantly conceded was probably only fair since it was part of his body. He stood still, inhaling measured breaths, then lowered her to the ground.

  It took him several minutes to refasten his jeans. Dropping his dark head forward, lips to her ear, he said in a burr thickened by desire, “There will be no takin’ this back, lass. Doona even think to be tellin’ me later that you willna hae me. You will hae me.” Then abruptly, wrapping one strong arm around her waist, he turned them both to greet the intruder.

  Still dizzy and breathless with desire, it took Chloe a few moments to focus. When she did, she was startled to discover that the fog had vanished as utterly as the storm, leaving the night bathed in pearly luminance by a fat moon hovering just beyond the mighty oaks that towered around the circle of stones. She refused to dwell on the fact that a short time ago there had been no oaks around the circle of stones, only a vast expanse of manicured lawn. If she thought about that too long, she might start to feel sick to her stomach again.

  So she concentrated instead on the tall, elderly man, with shoulder-length, snowy-white hair, clad in long blue robes, who stood about a dozen paces away, his narrow back to them.

  “You can turn around now,” Dageus barked at him.

  “I was but ceding you what privacy I could,” the man muttered defensively, his posture rigid.