“It’s not a bee. Come.” He pulled her closer with a quick tug and plucked her hair pin out. The bun uncoiled in a glorious cascade of waves that smelled of honeysuckle. He inhaled the fragrance, and his pulse continued to speed. This dream was so full of detail that it must be a premonition, and not one of death and destruction. A buoyancy filled him, giving him the courage to direct the dream.
Drustan reeled her in, ignoring her gasp. He raked fingers through the fragrant tangle of hair to capture her head, guiding her mouth to his before she could breathe a word. He slanted against her lips, melting into the delicious details, cataloging each and every one. She tasted of mint, a new detail he would retain forever.
He teased her mouth to open, but she didn’t yield. In fact, she was stiff as a day-old corpse. This was not at all like his usual dream kisses. He ran his hand down her back, pressing her to stand between his parted knees where he sat on the edge of the altar. His thighs clasped her hips through her dress, caging her.
She shoved impotently against his chest and tried to speak. “Stop this—”
His leaned forward to kiss her again. “Relax,” he soothed against her mouth which twisted to the side so he felt the smoothness of her cheek under his lips. He leaned back and studied the frantic widening of her green eyes. “I would never harm you.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb as he’d seen other men do to their loves. The she-demon, Bast, spent hours telling him what they would do together once she had her body back, but her hedonistic tales would never make it into his dreams of this perfect woman.
“Let go,” Anna Pemberlin shouted, mere inches from his face. He smelled the mint this time. “I don’t know you. Let go of me!”
The green in her eyes sparkled as her unease mixed with barely contained fury. “You are exquisite, Anna Pemberlin.” His words stunned her immobile for a moment, and he leaned forward, capturing her mouth again. Anna Pemberlin. The heat of her skin warmed the palm of his hand, her breath flowing through her pert nose. His hands slid around—
He broke the kiss to look down at the strange drum-like sensation, rather like the pounding of another heart. Small fists pummeled his chest. The woman glared at him, her cheeks flushed. A light sprinkling of brown dots crossed her nose, each dot no bigger than the tip of a sewing needle. They were beautifully chaotic. Did all people possess such a design? Surely he would have noticed. He touched his nose. Did he?
Lightly arched brows lowered over her long lashes. “Unhand me, you…you wretch.”
He frowned back. “You always enjoy my kisses.”
Her eyes snapped up to his. “Always? Sir, we’ve never met. You’ve mistaken me for someone else.” Her beautiful face remained pinched in anger. “Unhand me.”
What a bizarre twist to his dream. He dropped her wrist, and her glare relaxed. She glanced to the edge of the clearing as if she were judging whether escape was feasible. Which it wasn’t.
“You are Anna Pemberlin,” he said to distract her from her futile assessment. Could this be a premonition about how they would meet? “I am Drustan, your mate.”
She blinked those amazing lashes. “Pardon?”
“I am Drustan,” he repeated.
“Not that part.” She flapped a delicately boned hand. “The mate part.” He caught her fingers, turning the finely-shaped nails this way and that for his inspection. They were white and curved nicely. He’d never noticed that before.
“You are mine,” he said absently and moved his attention to the gold streaks playing through her brown hair. He slid his fingers into the heavy curtain of waves while his other hand encircled her wrist. Where had all these details come from?
“No, I am not,” she said, jerking her unbound hair out of his hand.
“Not what?” he asked softly, once again focusing in on her soft, pink mouth.
“Your mate. I’m not that,” she said, her words running too fast. “You’ve mistaken me for her,” she insisted. She took a full breath. “I’m Anna Pemberlin, sister to Patricia Pemberlin who is soon to be the new mistress of Kylkern Castle and Chief William Maclean’s wife.”
William Maclean was the chieftain of one of the powerful clans in the area. William Maclean was also the great-grandson of Drustan’s sister, Serena and her mate, Keenan Maclean. Drustan heard the young, serious man was betrothed but not to whom. A real world detail had wormed its way into his dream.
Drustan frowned and looked past Anna. The stones stood as always, the sun edged toward the tree line in the west. On the ground, the flowers lay dry and dead from where he’d stood healing the boy. A thin hair, stuck to the moss on the stone slab, floated away on the breeze.
He inhaled sharply. “This is not a dream,” he stated, glancing at the smooth skin of Anna’s wrist.
She raised one eyebrow. “No.” Her mouth formed a perfect little circle on the word.
He looked closer, but no blisters marked her skin. He felt the flutter of her pulse under his thumb. “You are real?”
Her lips turned upward but not quite into a smile. “I believe I am, sir.” She straightened, her free hand smoothing her dress, which he realized was a sage green that brought out the color in her eyes. Intricate embroidery decorated the neckline.
“And you…you do not feel ill?” He was touching her, had kissed her and she still stood, still breathed. He funneled his magic toward her, trying to penetrate her mind, but she was blank as if she didn’t exist. He slid from the stone slab to stand tall before her.
Her eyes widened slightly and she leaned back. “I am actually feeling some disease coming on. You should let go of me before you catch it,” she said. She reached for her nose. “Achoo,” she said and sniffed loudly.
Drustan felt no illness in her, but how could he know? He felt nothing at all. He slid his hand up her slender arm and realized that he couldn’t detect anything else around him with his magic. It was as if the flaming stone in his heart had faded away.
“It was…nice to meet you, Drustan,” she said, her gaze racing the path up and down her arm. “But I need to return to Kylkern since I’m ill. My new family is just a ways off.” She pointed behind her, angling her body away from him and coughed. She cleared her throat. “They know where I am and hordes of Highlanders will soon swarm this glade.”
Drustan dropped her hand, and his senses came back to him, at least his senses concerning the rest of the world. He could hear the animals of the forest and the far-off crash and roll of the sea. There were no horses riding toward the stone circle. She was lying. He met each of her backward steps with a forward one of his own.
“You do not look ill,” he said, his gaze scanning her unmarred skin. How could this be? Every living thing he touched died in some way, either the part his evil came in contact with or the entire body. His poison increased as he grew into adulthood, until no one could touch him.
“I really must be going,” she said, her voice a slightly higher pitch.
“No,” he said.
He hesitated at the fear tightening her features. He didn’t like frightening people, but he couldn’t let her disappear from his life. She might flee Kylkern. If he couldn’t sense her, how could he find her again? The thought made his heart race.
He followed her into the forest beyond the stones. Grabbing her skirts, she turned and ran. “Anna, stop,” he called out since he couldn’t control her with his mind, but she continued. He used a tendril of magic to direct the thick root of a tree up ahead to rise. She cried out as she tumbled into the wet ferns.
He jogged over and offered his hand.
She ignored him and murmured a curse under her breath while slapping the dirt from her dress. A small grimace crossed her face and she rubbed her knee through the layers. He tried to assess if she’d hurt herself, but once again she was blank to him. He frowned. “My magic doesn’t work on you.”
“Magic?” She shook her head. “Are you in on some intricate joke at my expense? First my sister claims that her fiancé’s intuition is charmed, an
d now you tell me you possess magic.”
“You are angry,” he said, trying to decipher her emotions from the tone of her voice and her facial expressions. Never before had he needed to guess at the workings of a person’s mind. Even without touching them, he could sense their pain, worry, lust, fear, any dark emotion. Those were the easiest to sense.
He pulled her up to stand. The freedom to touch her was exhilarating.
She pummeled his chest again and extended her fingers to scratch him. He caught her wrists together in one hand. “Let me go,” she yelled up into his face. She must be terrified yet she chose anger. Her inner strength made her even more beautiful.
“If I let go, you’ll run away.”
“Hell, yes.”
He smiled. She was honest. He could comply, let her hurry back to Kylkern. He would follow her of course immediately, before she could escape.
The wind shifted and rattled the leaves dangling above. The air currents, dodging and sporadic, carried the tang of old death. Anna wrinkled her nose. For a moment he was mesmerized by the beauty of it but then snapped his gaze to the sky. For once he had no time to waste. A storm cloud, gray and voluminous infiltrated the twilight blue sky, like a sickness. Damnation. They were coming.
Chapter Two
Anna’s gaze scanned the forest around them. I am a fool! She’d left the safety of the castle without a guide, wishing to escape the constant view of affection between her sister and her fiancé. They brought her to the stone circle just the day before, so returning to study the flora was easy and a perfect excuse to leave the Maclean holding.
She concentrated on inhaling and exhaling evenly, despite the pungent smell of some rotting animal nearby. She must keep her wits about her, and a depletion of oxygen wouldn’t help her mind devise a plan. The wind whipped up almost violently, snagging her hair. With her hands manacled, she couldn’t capture it, so she turned her face into the wind.
Anna studied her tall, broad captor. His sleeping form had beckoned her, such a beautiful example of the male species. Yet now, fully awake and enchaining her, she realized her dangerous stupidity.
“You must release me,” she said, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Brows lowered, mouth set and grim, he studied the growing storm. The flickering remnants of the sunset cast shadows along the angular shape of his face. He continued to scan the sky, tipping his sleek, perfectly-formed nose and rugged jaw upward.
“I have very powerful friends,” she said.
“So do I,” he returned without looking at her, his words caught in the growing tempest. She followed his gaze to the tops of the pine and birch trees. Dark clouds poured across the sky. He dropped his eyes to hers, his dark blue gaze sharp. “My…associates are dangerous.” He scanned up into the fall foliage as if looking for a hiding place. “I need to get you away from here.”
A gust of foul air whooshed through the trees, bending them like dancing giants. Anna gasped and actually took a step toward her captor. Her unbound hair streaked across her face.
“No time,” he growled, and grabbed her to him, lifting her feet from the ground in one steady swoop. He shushed her as he spun them behind a thicket of brambles amongst boulders.
“Let me go,” she yelled above the violent air currents.
He clamped a hand over her mouth. It was dry and warm and smelled of earth. He spoke so close to her ear that she felt the heat of his breath. “Watch, but don’t make a sound.” She struggled in his lap, twisting in her skirts. “Anna”—the pleading tone of his voice stilled her—“if they find you, they may kill you.”
She searched his gaze. Blue eyes, dark like the deepest fathoms of the ocean, asked for her understanding even though she had absolutely none. The cracking sound of close lightning made her jump, her yelp caught within Drustan’s hand. She turned back to peek through the bramble at the stones.
She felt her full bladder clench with the rest of her as a funnel cloud touched down in the center. She blinked against the particles of dirt and leaf bits swirling and spitting out from the circle. With a collapsing whoosh, the stench of rot washed outward, hitting her face with a foul gust. She leaned back into Drustan. Don’t let me retch.
Images appeared as the debris filtered to the ground. Beings, some more animal than human. They stood apart just inside the stones, ringing the center slab. An old man with a long white beard raised his arms, bringing a chaotic bubbling of voices down to a murmur. A beast with horns stood to his right. On the other side, a winged creature stretched his wide maw that held blade-like teeth.
“I must leave you here,” Drustan whispered. “Don’t run or they will catch you.” She trembled slightly but willed herself to nod.
“He’s not here,” a cat-like woman shrieked. She had a tail. A bloody tail! “I can’t sense him anywhere,” she said.
Drustan froze, still holding onto Anna. “Impossible,” he murmured.
“Perhaps the witch has him,” a large creature, with black, vacant eye sockets, said.
The white bearded man raised his hand. “Silence,” he called and the conjecture ceased. Anna quickly counted. Thirteen creatures, each one varied and slightly transparent. Were they ghosts? Not that she believed in spirits or monsters or whatever they were. She hoped she was hallucinating.
The one with the long beard looked the most human. He walked into the center of the circle and ran a hand along the slab. “Drakkina has been here, as has Drustan.” He turned and Anna held her breath as his shiny black eyes scanned the woods where they crouched. “Yet I cannot hear his heartbeat.”
“He is dead,” the blade-toothed beast yelled and raised a giant hammer that seemed to drip with blood. The entire circle erupted in curses and growling. “We will rule the new world without him.”
Pinpricks of light dotted Anna’s peripheral vision, and she concentrated on inhaling and exhaling evenly. The man in the center turned his nose toward the sky, ignoring the fury around him. He raised his arms and spoke above the others, though his lips barely moved. “I do not smell death. He is merely gone from this plane.” He turned in a tight circle, his black, bulbous eyes searching.
“But he’s never traveled to another thread of time before,” the cat-like creature hissed.
“Perhaps he searches for his dream woman,” a winged man said, turning the blackened, vacant eye sockets to the cat.
She spat and extended claws from the ends of her fingers. “He has no need for the human,” she said with vehemence. “He has me.”
“You have no body yet, Bast,” the old man said. “Perhaps our boy has finally grown into a man, ready to find his mate.”
“He has no need for a human mate,” Bast insisted, rubbing her hands down her voluptuous body. Anna felt her face flush at the display of sexual abundance. “He is mine. Has always been mine since he was a little boy.” She smiled, and Drustan’s hand tightened around Anna’s arm. She glanced at him; his focus was entirely on the unholy group.
“Semiazaz wouldn’t let you play with him back then, and he won’t let you play with him now,” a squatty, gnarled creature said, causing the woman to hiss, her tail flicking sporadically.
“He is more than man enough now,” she replied. “We will love one another.”
“You just want to rule next to him,” accused a snake-like woman with a tiny forked tongue that flickered over blood-red lips. “Perhaps he will choose me once we have our bodies back.”
Bast grew larger until she towered over the stones. “I’ll rip every scale off your writhing body—”
“Enough,” the leader said. Even though his face remained slack, eyelids half lowered, his voice held the strength of a mountain. “Drustan has no need for someone to rule with him. He will rule the new world, and we will continue to advise him.”
“What about his mate?” another asked.
“She will be his play thing as long as he likes, but then…” he trailed off with a shrug. A froth of nausea churned in Anna’s stomach. Rule the new world? P
lay thing? “If he’s gone off to find her along a different thread, he will return. He knows his destiny and will not shirk his responsibilities. We are his family, the only one he’s ever known.”
“But the prophecy, Semiazaz,” the winged man said.
“I see victory despite her presence.”
“But the prophecy with the baby—”
“Shall also be in our favor,” Semiazaz cut off. “Let us slide amongst the threads and see if we can sense our king. Perhaps he followed Drakkina.”
The wind surged around the stones, seeming to wash away the figures like a wave of water against a chalk drawing on a London sidewalk. The colors of the figures blended into a muddy brown which paled into a funnel cloud to rise into the sky. Anna watched it shrink, condensing in on itself until it disappeared, leaving the twilight sky vacant.
Anna stared, unmoving. Was she stuck in some nightmare? Unconscious, perhaps from hitting her head as she fell? She pulled in a steadying breath and realized that Drustan’s hand no longer lay across her mouth. She held her skirt tightly in her crouched position and pivoted toward him on the balls of her feet.
She cleared her throat, coughing into her fist. “Shall I call you Your Majesty, then?” she whispered.
He tipped his head slightly to the side like a falcon sighting prey. It made her shiver. “If you’d like, though in private I would prefer Drustan.”
Insane. “I’m going.” She pushed up out of her crouch and he followed, still connected to her arm.
The deepening twilight shed just enough light to reveal confusion in the furrowing of his brows. “This was the first time they weren’t able to detect my presence. Even in my home, which I keep warded, they know when I am inside even if they cannot enter. But while I touched you, Anna Pemberlin, they could not hear the beat of my heart on this thread of existence.”
He’d obviously seen them too. She looked behind her at the empty circle. “What…what were they?” she asked.
“Demons,” he said. “And one wizard.”
Sacrifice Page 3