by Lora Andrews
“I’ve got it.”
“Hurry, lass. I have a bad feeling.” Ewen waited at the door, tapping his hand against his leg.
“Oh, great. Now you tell me.” She ran toward him and stopped short. “We need a syringe. Shoot, I forgot the syringe.” She scanned the room. Think, think, think. She opened draw after draw, searching for the stupid syringe, unable to slow her racing mind to access Daniel’s knowledge.
An assortment of grunts, bangs, and groans carried into the room from outside the door.
Her hands shook. She bent down, swung open the bottom cabinet door, and shoved her hand into a box loaded with packaged syringes. She grabbed two for good measure, and stuffed them into her pants pocket along with the antidote. Trying not to think about what was happening outside the door was impossible. The stairwell led to the escape route. They’d have to intercept the guards. The stairwell’s design—narrow, curved, and uneven—was meant to thwart invaders, giving the keep’s inhabitants the advantage. In Ewen’s time, they’d battle one attacker at a time on their way down.
Nowadays, semi-automatic weapons evened the odds. Sheesh, would they ever catch a break? The blows to the door answered her question with a big resounding no.
They were trapped.
A loud crash sounded behind her. Caitlin whirled to find Ewen standing on the countertop, slamming a chair against the window, gripping what looked like a thermal blanket. He had another plan in mind.
“Now, Caitlin.”
The urgency on his face buckled her knees.
The glass broke with another blow. Obviously, MacInnes hadn’t bothered to install safety glass here. He probably never expected her to find his lab. Or need to escape through his window. She didn’t know why she found that funny, but she had the sudden urge to laugh. It was either that or cry. She looked out the window. Rain splattered through the cracked glass and fell against the shiny black table.
“Um… I don’t think I can do this.” A blast of cold air rushed into the room, blowing strands of her hair across her face.
“Aye, you can. ’Tis but one story. You’ve fallen through worse.”
One story? It might as well be ten.
“Yeah, but I didn’t have a say in it.” Thanks to her nightmares, the heights thing was still a work in progress. She’d overcome her fear of the woods but jumping out of a window… Nope, not quite there yet.
“Give me your hand,” Ewen cajoled. “It’s not far. You can do this, Caitlin.”
Refusing his assistance, she scrambled onto the tabletop and peered out the broken window. Her heart tried to cartwheel out of her mouth. It was a one-story jump to a roofline that extended about ten feet out to form an overhang to the ground below.
Metal creaked against metal in what she could only imagine was an attempt to pry open the door.
“We’ve no time, Caitlin.”
Rain blew in from the broken glass and slapped her face. “I can’t. Here.” She pulled the antidote and syringe from her pocket. “Go without me.”
“Shh.” Ewen snaked his arms around her. “Put the antidote away, Caitlin.” Calm waves of strength soothed and chilled the fear overtaking her mind. He cupped her chin. “You can do this. I would not ask it of you if I did not believe you could.”
When he squeezed her hand, she felt his strength and his steadfast determination.
“Okay.” She slid the syringe and the antidote back into her pocket.
He pressed cool lips to her head. “I will let naught happen to you. Trust me.”
Trust me.
She did. With her life.
Ewen spread the gray blanket over the threshold. The large, paned window was barely big enough to hold them standing side-by-side as they were. But somehow they managed to squeeze their bodies together into the tight space without the shards of glass digging into their flesh.
Holding his hand, she stared into oblivion. Pins and needles raced from her toes, stung her cheeks, and heated her scalp. “Oh, god. Oh, god.” Breaths sputtered from her lungs. Two jumps. He was crazy. But hey, if she survived the first, then she could certainly do the last.
If she didn’t break her neck sliding off the slate roof. Or slice herself open on the ginormous pieces of glass lying on the surface.
“We jump together,” he said. “On three, aye?”
Holy heights.
“One…”
One.
By the time she realized he’d lied to her, she was falling through the air.
FORTY
The scream lodged in her throat. The landing knocked them both onto the tiled roof. They slid against the slick surface. Caitlin scrunched her face and waited for the pain to hit.
Ewen nudged her. “Open your eyes.”
The edge of the roof was a foot away. “God, that was close.”
He helped her up. “We’ve one more jump. Do you trust me?”
“You lied. You said on three.”
“Aye, lass, I did, and I’m sorry for it. Just one more now and we’ll be free.”
And before she could protest, Ewen hauled her reluctant body over his shoulder and launched off the roof. Her stomach lurched. Bitter air bit her skin as they dropped to the ground. Jostled by the landing, Ewen oomphed and crashed onto the wet cement. She wiped hair from her face and crawled to Ewen.
He was hunched over on his knees, one strong hand braced on the wet surface, the other curled around his torso. And when their eyes met, everything inside her shattered. The look on his face said it all: I’m not going to make it.
“Yes you are. We just need to find cover.” She grabbed hold of his arm and helped him stand. “You can rest then, all right? We’ll figure something out. Just hang on, Ewen.”
“Nay, Caitlin. Find this place Daniel disclosed. Go, now, before they arrive. I’ll secure your escape.” Wobbling on his feet, he threw something across the lawn in the direction of the loch, then pulled the gun from his waistband,
There was nowhere to hide.
A violent cough ravaged him. He stumbled back and shook his head as if trying to displace water from his ear.
Several feet away, hedges framed a portion of the manor’s foundation. The thick shrubbery ran a length of about thirty or forty feet. They were tall, cropped close to the house, and bordered a stone path. It could make a decent temporary shelter until Ewen was capable of walking.
On the flip side, they’d be sitting ducks. But anything was better than their current situation—big fat targets out in the open where anyone could take a shot.
Ewen’s teeth chattered and his body shivered. The fever had progressed.
“Can you make it to those bushes?” she asked.
“God’s teeth, woman. Now is no’ the time to be willful—”
“Or foul-mouthed and contrary. I know. I know. Heard it all before. I’m not leaving you. We are going to hide in those bushes, and you’d better stop arguing with me or you’ll get us both killed.”
“I wish…” He smiled and the sentence died on his lips. His knuckle brushed across her cheek. Emotion flared in his eyes, matching the strength of the feelings streaming in from his touch, but then his face blanked. He collapsed onto the wet cement.
The rain beat against her face. She wanted to cry. Instead she grabbed the gun from the ground and laid it carefully on Ewen’s chest. With her hands scooped beneath his armpits, she heaved with all her strength and dragged his body several feet across the cement to the grass before she stumbled and fell. Back on her feet, she resumed her efforts, picked the gun off the wet grass, glanced over her shoulder, and kept lugging, steering him in through a bed of wet landscaping. Branches scraped their limbs, but she kept going, maneuvering them both until they were deep enough to not be seen from the opening.
Five minutes that felt like an eternity.
Caitlin crashed beside him. Just in time because someone came running from the opposite side of the hedge. There were shouts from above. Commands to check the gatehouse. To search the stables.
She squeezed in tighter, turning her face to blend in with the thick shrubbery. They wore the same clothing from the day before, Ewen in the torn black shirt and Caitlin in the blue sweater that was now darkened by the rain. Thorny bushes lined the edge of the grass, which at quick glance, appeared to encompass the whole area. She recognized boxwood and Rhododendrons interspersed with other variety of shrubs she couldn’t name.
Maybe their luck would hold. What had Ewen said? Luck never gives, only lends. Right now they needed all the luck they could borrow. For once, just once, let something go their damn way. Let the rain conceal any evidence of their escape. Let the bloody antidote work. Let them find Daniel’s stupid car and get the fuck out of this fucked-up manor with its fucked-up people.
“Don’t you dare die on me, Ewen MacLean. Do you hear me?” She brushed wet hair and leaves from his gorgeous face and traced the faint lines etched in his forehead. There was no tension in that brow. His expression was relaxed, almost peaceful, as he lay unconscious beneath a rain-soaked bush.
God, she missed the heat of his stare, the intensity of that furrowed brow when he whipped those killer eyes her way. Eyes that saw through to her soul and stripped every last layer of defense she put out to the world.
With a shaky grip, she laid the dagger on the ground and pulled the antidote and syringe packet from her pocket. Rain sluiced between her fingers and the glass jar, streaming down her face to form puddles of mud where her knees pressed into the wet dirt.
Her vision blurred. From tears. Or the rain. At this point, she couldn’t tell which. She narrowed her focus on the vial’s cap and ignored the fact that she couldn’t have picked a more unsterile location to inject a life-saving virus than the dirt bank that cradled his body.
She wasn’t a nurse. She’d never administered a shot, although she’d received plenty in her lifetime. She tore the syringe package with her teeth and pushed the plunger to expel the air. Careful not to bend the needle, she inserted it into the rubber top, pulled back the plunger, and watched the liquid fill.
A pair of guards rounded the side of the house.
Caitlin lowered herself until her hip and shoulder pressed into the ground, and transferred the syringe to her left hand. She grasped the gun in her right and waited.
“Any sign of them?” asked a deep male voice.
She held her breath. One guard stood with his back to the bushes about two feet away.
“Damn rain. They may have run for the shed or the stables,” the other guard answered.
“If it were me, I’d make for the car park.”
The pair crossed the field to join another guard moving toward the perimeter of the property. Others fanned into the woods.
She set the gun down. No amount of breathing calmed the shaking of her hands. Caitlin rolled the fabric up Ewen’s arm while monitoring the activity across the field. She had no idea how far to inject the needle. Cringing, she pierced his skin, and when the last of the antidote had entered his body, she shoved the used syringe into the mulched earth.
“Come on, Ewen, wake up.”
Daniel’s words came back to haunt her. There was a chance the antidote wouldn’t work—a possibility she refused to accept.
Another pair of guards crossed the lawn heading back to the manor. One of them bent over and picked something up from the lawn. He showed the item to his partner and gestured to the loch.
Caitlin slid beside Ewen, stretching out so she was half on, half off his body to shield him from the elements and stay hidden from view. Heat radiated from his skin despite the drop in temperature and the freezing rain.
He was hot. Too hot.
Please work. Because she had no freaking idea what she would do if he didn’t wake up. Because, without him, she was alone in a nightmare that was just beginning to unravel. Because he’d cracked the wall around her heart and made her want more…with him.
Time ticked—a ticking bomb poking a worried finger at her tattered optimism. She looked up over the hedge across the lawn to the stables. If she could move him, somehow lug two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle onto the horse unseen, they could ride through the woods. Find the cottage. The car. Maybe even locate a hospital.
The slow thump of his heart beat against her ear. Ba-bum.
Ba—
Her breath held.
—bum.
Ba—
She strained to hear the second thud, but no sound followed.
The antidote…failed?
It couldn’t have failed. This was not how the story was supposed to end. She clasped the fabric of his shirt and shook him. Wake up. Wake up, dammit.
On her knees, with one hand over the other, she pressed the heel of her palm into the center of his chest. Wake up. Please, wake up.
One, two, three…
Not fair. Not fair. The guards. MacInnes. Every obstacle they had overcome to escape. It could not end here—on a dirt bed in the rain.
Five, six, seven…
Her parents.
Nine, ten, eleven…
Three days ago she had kneeled over his body contemplating CPR. But then he’d been a stranger who’d fallen out of the sky. Now he was a man she’d fall out of the sky for.
Grief gutted her. Ewen deserved better than this, better than a mound of dirt and mulch with rain pelting his body. She wrapped her arms around his torso, her sobs smothered against his neck as the pain consumed her. There was no one left. Her parents were dead. Jadiel and the adoption destroyed. And now…Ewen.
She had failed them all.
Everyone was gone.
MacInnes had single-handedly hacked her life to shreds. She had been weak. Too freaking helpless to stop him from killing her parents. Too fucking naïve to stop him from murdering Ewen. Now all that remained of her life were the bloodied splinters of a future she’d been too afraid to live.
Warmth slid along her spine. It took her all of a second to register Ewen’s hand before she heard his grunt. His thick dark lashes fluttered and opened to reveal gorgeous, melt-your-heart eyes.
She hugged him, her throat thick with relief. “I was so scared you died.”
“I’m not sure I haven’t.”
She touched his cheek with a shaky hand. “You’re burning up.”
He lifted his head off the mud and looked around. “Not exactly the place I’d choose for a ravishing.” He flashed her a weak grin.
“Yeah, well, there’ll be none of that here.” God, was he really okay? “We need to get you help.”
“Any sign of the guards?”
“They’ve expanded the search to the loch area.” Caitlin glanced to the left side of the property. “I haven’t seen them on this part of the grounds since I administered the antidote.” Which was five, ten, fifteen minutes ago? She couldn’t remember.
“Help me up.”
She assisted him into a sitting position.
“What of the stables? Have they been searched?” He peered through the brush.
“Yes, and the forest beyond it.”
Ewen watched three guards emerge from the loch area, faces grim, and return to the front of the manor. He patted her hand. “Are you up for a wild ride through the woods, lass?”
“If you can make it across that lawn in one piece, then hell yeah, Ewen MacLean, I’ll get on a horse for you. I’ll probably kill myself, but it can’t be worse than jumping out of a window.”
“You’ve never ridden before?”
“Nope. The closest I’ve come to touching a horse was at a Christmas parade when I was a kid, and it scared the living daylights out of me. They were huge. But there is an old mare I wave to during my morning runs at Weetamoo…”
“Ah, lass, you don’t know what yer missing.” Ewen chuckled and lay back on the ground. “We wait until they’ve cleared the loch, and then I’ll show you the thrill of a lifetime.”
Oh, she had no doubt riding—with him—would be thrilling.
“You saved my life.” He touched her face.<
br />
She swallowed. “Yeah, well, now we’re even.” There was so much to say and no time to say it. If they lived through tonight—if they made it to the car—if the antidote worked…
“The MacLeans would no’ attack your kin without provocation, Caitlin. Magic or no magic. But we did claim lands belonging to the McMasters, but not for the reason he told you. There is much amiss with your history, lass.”
“I never doubted you.”
“Nay?” He arched a doubtful brow.
She shrugged. “Okay, maybe a wee bit.”
He smiled and shook his head. His dark hair had come loose from the tether and fell to his shoulders.
“MacInnes knew exactly which buttons to push, and I’m not proud of the fact I let him. But I know you’re honorable, and I told him as much.”
“Och, you give me credit I dinna deserve. A man doesna know what he is capable of until those he loves are threatened. Make no mistake, I am no saint.”
No, saint wasn’t the word she’d use to describe him. Temptation. Now there was a word that described Ewen MacLean to a T.
She chewed her bottom lip. Sweat covered his skin. Time would tell if the antidote had done its job or if it was the sheer force of his will that kept him alive. She squinted through the branches. Two more guards returned to the house from the loch. Voices could be heard from the front of the property. Somewhere off in the distance, an engine roared.
“It’s time.” Ewen sat up and crouched behind the hedges.
Caitlin crept behind him to the edge of the landscaping. Here we go. The start of the next leg of her nightmarish adventure. Who or what waited for them in Ardgour was a mystery. There was too much that could go wrong between here and there. They had to make it to the stables and the car. And that was just the beginning.
The stone hummed in her pocket—the stone that had started it all. Grief tore at her heart when she thought of her parents. Her old life. Ewen.
So much heartache for one magical rock.
Ewen raised himself into position. “Are you ready?”
She had made him a promise, one she had every intention of keeping. God help her, she would find the ritual that would send him home. One of them deserved a shot at happiness.
