by Brenda Joyce
He laid his large hand on the small of her back, fingers splayed low. He pressed her forward, ahead of him. “I said what I mean.”
Tabby inhaled, his touch causing her to tighten. “I am not chattel,” she said, starting for the stairs. He did not remove his hand and, dazed, she didn’t really want him to.
“Aye, ye’re nay chattel. Ye’re my guest,” he murmured.
His sexy tone washed through her. How could he set her body on fire so easily? “Guests leave when they wish to.”
“’Tisna safe fer ye to leave, so why argue?” He laid his other hand on her waist as they moved into the narrow spiral staircase.
Tabby felt her mind start to go blank. Both of his hands held her hips now. She knew how strong he was and she sensed he wasn’t going to let go of her, not anytime soon. “We will finish this discussion tomorrow,” she said thickly. Arguing now, when her body was raging, making it hard to think clearly, was ridiculous.
He suddenly halted her in her tracks and his mouth moved to her neck. He pulled her backward, toward him, and Tabby went still, her heart slamming, as his huge erection burned against her skirt, over her buttocks. They were halfway up the spiral staircase, which was too narrow to accommodate anyone else, and eerily lit with rush lights. “What are you doing?” she gasped—the stupidest question of her life.
He wrapped her hard in his arms from behind, throbbing heavily against her. “I dinna wish to wait.”
They were on a public staircase. She wanted to protest—didn’t she?
He growled and wrapped his huge arms tightly around her, holding her for one moment so she could not move. In that moment, she felt that entire solid length, escaping the tunic, pulsing urgently against her buttocks, over her skirt. She felt his thundering heartbeat, his savage excitement. She could not stand it.
He lifted her skirt and that heavy length butted hard against her bare thighs. He ripped her bikini apart, sliding his fingers over her wet, throbbing flesh. Tabby cried out, pressing her face to the stone wall. Tabby felt him coming, massive and slick, and he embedded himself in her.
She gasped, vibrating in pleasure, wrapped in his arms. He moved his mouth against her neck repeatedly, small, hard kisses, while he thrust, again and again, hard and determined. She went over the brink, pleasure becoming rapture. He laughed and then groaned loudly, joining her. He slid his hands lower. He held her there, murmuring to her. His excitement seemed to merge with hers and became unbearable. Tabby wept his name.
HE COLDLY LIFTED his sword as Alasdair cowered on the ground on all fours, begging for his life. But he didn’t hear him. Instead, he glanced at the river below. Coinneach was there, running hard toward them, screaming, “No!”
He started, as Coinneach came rushing up the hill, filled with fury, desperate to save his father. But he could not stop what must be. Macleod sent his power blazing at him and Coinneach fell.
He lifted his sword, glancing at Alasdair, who was trembling at his feet.
“No!” Coinneach screamed, struggling to get to his feet. Macleod blasted him lightly again. This time he was annoyed.
The MacDougall boy went down, writhing wildly. Macleod almost felt sorry for him. Then he froze, incredulous, because the tall, blond boy writhing on the ground changed. Suddenly he was dark-haired and twisting in absolute futility against a deamhan’s embrace. He fought furiously, desperately, as Blayde’s halls rang with screams and sabers, as wood dropped away from the ceilings, falling to the ground, ablaze.
“Nay! Father!”
Macleod wanted to step back, away…Where was Alasdair?
But he couldn’t move, he could only watch himself—an impotent struggling boy. And William looked up as the two Frenchmen began stabbing him repeatedly in the back….
The boy screamed and screamed and screamed.
Macleod awoke abruptly. He was breathing hard, and for one moment, he smelled the fires consuming Blayde’s great room. He was in shock. He had been dreaming of the boy prisoner, Coinneach—and the boy had turned into him.
Coinneach had been helpless to prevent his father’s murder.
He had been helpless to prevent William’s murder, too.
The rage took him by surprise. It suffused him and the entire bedchamber shuddered. And with it came so much hatred, not for his enemies but for that damned fourteen-year-old boy!
That boy had failed everyone!
Her hand covered his clenched fist.
He jerked, aware of Tabitha for the first time, as she lay in bed beside him, their bodies touching. Her golden eyes were wide, warm and concerned.
Let me help you.
He knew he was recalling that long-ago voice. He jerked free of her, sliding from the bed.
“Are you all right?”
“I am fine,” he lied, too late realizing that he was covered with sweat and trembling. Damn that stupid boy. He had failed….
Tabitha sat up, holding the covers over her chest. “That must have been a nightmare.”
The room was still shuddering. He took a deep breath. “I dinna ken. I dinna recall.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.
He paced to the fire. Let me help you. He whirled. “Are ye usin’ yer magic on me now, Tabitha?”
She tensed with alarm. “No, I’m not.”
Perhaps her soul was familiar with his. Too much was strange in this world, and he did not dismiss the idea. “I dinna need help.”
Her eyes widened. “Okay,” she said carefully, pulling her knees up to her chest. “But you do seem upset. Are you sure you don’t remember that dream?”
“Women dream,” he snapped. “Men dinna bother to do so!”
“That is such bull,” she said as softly.
He whipped his brat from the chair and wrapped it around his waist. Coinneach was bothering him, he decided. Maybe he should be hanged tonight to end this insanity instantly.
“Why are you angry?”
He trembled. The shutters rattled. “I said I dinna need yer help.”
She was silent for a while, and he was relieved. He poured two goblets of wine. When he handed hers to her, her golden gaze played over his features, lingering on his eyes, searching there. “I can imagine you’re dreaming of war and death,” she said. “This is such a violent time. You’ve probably lived through hell, many, many times.”
He actually spilled wine on the sheets as he jerked away. “War doesna bother me.”
“I can’t believe that. War is horrible. Nobody likes war.”
He faced her now. “The Highlands would be better without war.”
She smiled just a little at him. “But war doesn’t frighten you, does it?”
He almost smiled because, finally, he was somewhat amused. “I fear naught, Tabitha.”
“Everyone fears something.”
He drained the wine, feeling better, the disturbing dream receding now. “I fear women who speak too much.”
She gave him a look. “You’re afraid to share your nightmare with me.”
He tensed, dismayed. The dream he’d just had returned full force. So did the pain, the despair, the rage—and now, the guilt. “’Tis nay fear.”
“Really?” She smiled skeptically at him. “I think you cannot control your dreams—and that must be a bit frightening, to a big, bad, macho man like you.”
He twisted and writhed and the deamhan laughed, urging him to watch his own father’s death. Helpless, he screamed….
“Ye need to stop,” he shouted at her.
She sat up straighter.
He fought for composure. It eluded him. “Aye, I had a dream—a nightmare, as ye say. ’Tis done.”
She wet her lips. “I keep seeing that fourteen-year-old boy—you were dreaming about him.”
He was disbelieving. “That boy is gone, Tabitha, an’ I am sorry ye keep thinkin’ about him. Mayhap he needed yer help that day. But ye werena there—except as a spirit or an apparition. He chased the intruders away. He buried
the dead. He did what he had to do.” He spoke so harshly and swiftly that he couldn’t breathe.
“I think that boy lost more than his family that day,” she said softly, sadness in her eyes. “It sounds like he lost his childhood—that overnight, he became a man.”
“Leave the boy alone!” he roared.
And he thought of Coinneach again.
He thought of Coinneach’s cowardly father, who had died begging for his life. He thought of Coinneach’s fear and bravery. He suddenly imagined the boy’s head on his pike and his face changed—he saw his own head there.
Tabitha stood up, taking a cover with her. “Maybe you’re too tough and macho for me to help, but damn it, I want to help that boy.”
He whirled, irate as never before. “Then ye’ll have to use yer magic to go back to 1201, aye?”
She shook her head, paling.
He became wary as never before. “Tabitha?”
“I think that boy is here, now, standing right in front of me.”
It took him a moment to understand her. And when he did, his rage erupted and the timbers above their heads started cracking. Stone fell from the ceiling but Tabitha stood as still as a statue. He did not move, either. “That boy isna here, Tabitha. That boy is dead!”
She cried out.
“Ye leave him buried, buried at sea with the rest o’ them. God damn ye!” He stormed from the room.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TABBY OPENED HER EYES. It took her an instant to comprehend why the ceiling above was dark stone and wood rafters, instead of white plaster.
Slowly she sat up in Macleod’s bed. His power wafted from the sheets and filled the bedchamber.
She tensed, hugging her knees to her chest. It had been almost impossible to fall asleep after he’d left her in that rage. His anger was so obviously a disguise for his pain, and it went deep. She would never forget him shouting at her that the boy was dead. She shuddered. What a terrible and tragic thing to say.
He remained a complicated and medieval stranger, but indifference toward him was impossible. He had done some things she would not condone, but he had protected her several times and made love to her as if the earth was ending. Now, she understood that he had never gotten over the massacre that had taken his family in 1201.
How could she not be filled with compassion for him? No matter how often she thought about Angel or being taken into the past against her will, she could not stop herself from wanting to soothe him and help him. Most ordinary children would be traumatized by witnessing the murders of their family. As extraordinary as he was, it was clear now that Macleod was no different.
She hadn’t ever suffered as he had. Although her mother had been murdered by demons in a pleasure crime, she’d been at ballet lessons when it had happened. It was Sam who had witnessed the violent murder. Like Macleod, her sister had refused to ever speak about it.
Was that why she was with him in 1298? Was she supposed to help him deal with that tragedy? Maybe it didn’t matter, because Tabby couldn’t leave it alone. She knew that intimacy was a terrible idea for them, and her compassion was a form of intimacy, as was the sex. But she was here and she intended to help, no matter how he might roar and rage at her—no matter how it might connect them further. She was compelled.
When he’d stormed out of the bedchamber, he’d been furious with her. She hoped he’d calmed down since then and decided to try to be a bit more subtle the next time she pried into his past. But there would be a next time. Now, though, she realized it would be hard to get him to open up. Men didn’t discuss their feelings in the thirteenth century. She’d probably made him really uncomfortable.
A knock sounded lightly on her door. Tabby called out for the housemaid to enter. A young, pretty redhead came bustling in, crying out because the room was so cold. Immediately she knelt before the hearth, trying to start the fire.
Tabby stared out of the closest window. The shutters had been opened and it was a gray morning, heavy with clouds, indicating rain. The bedchamber had been cold last night, when Macleod had risen from the bed.
The maid jabbed the fire again, but the flames seemed ready to go out. Tabby looked at the fire, threw her mind into the task at hand, and murmured, “Fire obey me, fire return. Fire obey me, warm the room.”
The maid looked at her, her eyes wide with surprise. Behind her, the fire burst into flames, and the maid jumped to her feet.
Tabby pulled the covers chin-high. “Good morning.” There was no answer. “Do you speak English?”
“Aye, my lady…a bit.”
Tabby smiled. “Thank you for the fire. It’s so cold in here.”
The maid stared. “Are ye a witch?”
Tabby knew just about everything there was to know about the history of witches and witchcraft. The great witch hunts of Europe would not begin until the middle of the sixteenth century. No one was burned or hanged for sorcery in this time. “A little magic can be useful,” she hedged.
The maid smiled. “Can ye help me with yer magic?”
Tabby laughed. “Do you need a love spell?”
“Aye, I do. I’m Peigi,” she added. Her brows lifted. “Ye’re still in the Macleod’s bed, so ye dinna need a love spell—or maybe ye put one on him.”
Tabby tried to decipher that comment. “I have never tried to cast a love spell. Why wouldn’t I be in his bed this morning?” She slid from the bed, seizing the red-and-black plaid at the foot.
“No woman has ever stayed the entire night with the Macleod,” Peigi said.
Tabby thought she’d misheard. After all, he was over a hundred years old and he’d had lots of women. The thought was too disturbing, so Tabby said quickly, “What did you just say?”
Peigi repeated herself.
Tabby stared in surprise. “That makes no sense,” she stammered. Ridiculously, she was somewhat pleased.
“The women he takes to bed are too afraid o’ him to stay the night. ’Tis why he’s never married, I think. They would have to be dragged to the altar, kickin’ and screamin’.”
Abruptly Tabby sat down. Macleod had never married. That was highly unusual in this time period. “That’s terrible,” she said softly. “Women use him for sex and then hurry away?”
“Aye, as far as they can get and as swiftly.”
“I don’t think he’s that bad. Does he beat them?”
Peigi started. “He canna beat a dog, lady, so how could he beat a woman?”
She had laid a colorful bundle on a chair. “He told me to find ye garments.” She shook out a dark blue velvet gown.
Tabby blinked at the beautiful velvet dress. Clothing her was a necessity, she reminded herself. But his sending her a gown felt terribly intimate, as if they were really lovers.
“’Twas his mother’s.” Peigi gave her a sly look. “Ye’re the first woman to stay in his bed till sunrise, an’ now he gives ye such a costly gift. Bein’ as ye did not cast a love spell, ye must have truly pleased him.”
Tabby was incredulous. “I don’t think that’s a gift.”
“He willna want it back. I ken his lordship well. He’s pleased with ye, but he’ll never say so.”
Tabby swallowed. She didn’t want Macleod to be pleased with her—to start feeling some form of medieval macho affection for her. Did she? He might never let her go home if he cared for her. But he wasn’t capable of that kind of relationship, was he?
And she didn’t want to become fond of him, not in any way—she simply wanted to help him out. Disaster and Destiny had brought them together, not rational choice. Her choice of lover would be an intellectual from the twenty-first century.
She fingered the dress, certain it was a necessity, not a gift. But this was costly medieval finery, not the clothes worn by every other woman she’d thus far seen. The sleeves were long, bell-shaped and would trail to the floor, a sign of great wealth, and the cuffs, hem and neckline were embroidered in gold thread. It was a truly beautiful dress, and incredibly refined for the per
iod.
Tabby fought her soft spot for well-made, elegant and beautiful clothes. She didn’t want to like the dress.
“This might be getting too complicated,” she muttered.
“I beg yer pardon?”
First desire, then compassion, and now a really nice dress. “Nothing. The gown is lovely.”
Peigi smiled. “Mayhap he put a love spell on ye, lady.”
She was surprised, but she felt her cheeks warm. “Peigi, I am not in love. I do not go for big brutes who wear swords to dinner—and they’re not even dress swords! However, I owe Macleod for his protection, and I am a bit worried about him. Do you know about the massacre that took his family?”
Peigi sat beside her. “O’ course I do. Everyone knows. His father was a great man who had made peace with the MacDougalls after a hundred years of war. There was a great day and night of celebration. But when the Macleod clan was asleep, they opened Blayde’s doors to mercenaries. The family was murdered afore his very eyes. Fifty-eight kin died that day. He fought wildly, they say, but what could a single boy do? He was only fourteen years old when he became the Macleod.”
Tabby closed her eyes, and the instant she did so, she saw that boy wildly heaving a huge sword at violently fighting men, hacking at their legs and hips, tears and blood mingling on his face. He was screaming incoherently, a combination of rage and grief—she could hear him! She could hear the ringing swords, the shouts.
She shivered. Had she just seen into the window of time? Had she just seen Macleod as a boy, in the midst of the massacre?
In the previous incidents, she hadn’t heard a single sound. But each time she’d seen him as a boy, his image had become clearer, his emotions had felt stronger and more tangible. And now, she’d heard all of those terrible battle sounds.
“Lady, are ye ill? Ye’re as white as a sheet.”
Tabby trembled, suddenly sickened, perhaps from his grief and despair. But maybe it was because she had just seen unbelievable violence and brutality. Blood had been running across the floor like a high tide. She was filled with anguish for that boy. It had been even worse than he’d let on—or than she had imagined.