Anna tugged at the neat braid that hung over one shoulder. Even the mythological Achilles had a vulnerable spot, and Drustan’s inability to touch was his. Had she attacked it to force distance between them after the incident in his room? Was she that cruel? After all, he had been the strong one, gentlemanly, giving up his bed and smoothly setting her aside when she practically threw herself at him.
Anna groaned and yanked harder on her braid. She released it and clasped her wrap closer while striding through the bailey. What must he think of her? Anna shook her head and turned it into a nod in response to Helen’s greeting. The housekeeper carried a basket from the direction of the chicken coop. Anna stopped to watch several of the boys wrestling in the side yard. Luckily, young Josiah seemed to be absent from their antics. She frowned and turned toward the stables. She would visit with her mare, Mazy. The gentle horse could benefit from a currying while Anna tried to dodge her guilt. “I will just apologize when I see him next,” she said and stepped into the horse barn.
The sweet tang of fresh hay filled her inhalation. The stables had apparently already been mucked out and refreshed. She spied the docile, chestnut mare and picked up a stiff grooming brush. The horse blinked her wide brown eyes, thick with lashes, at Anna. Anna clicked her tongue and whispered. “Hi Mazy, it’s me.” She slid the brush gently along the mare’s side. The horse stamped her feet and shifted her weight. Her tail swished, sending up a small spray of dust. Anna rubbed her itchy nose and kept stroking, trying to lose herself in the rhythmic motion of the brush. But her mind kept sliding to the haunted look she’d seen cross Drustan’s face. “Blast,” she murmured.
Anna forced her thoughts to London where the work, no doubt, piled up for her at the hospital. She’d taken a month’s leave to attend her sister. Her male colleagues were probably scheming to have her position filled by some fresh intern. As long as he possessed male genitalia, he’d fit right in.
Her one supporter, a notable genius in the field of cardiology, Dr. Winston Murdock, would look out for her in her absence. Although he might be weary of defending her. The last attack on her female intelligence had so piqued her anger that she’d lashed out with sarcasm. Unfortunately, though brilliant, the comment about carrying a cadaver’s severed penis in her medical jacket in order to be taken seriously had gone a bit too far. Winston’s eyes had widened, his jaw dropping like a gasping mackerel. Yes, a bit too far. Wasn’t that always her problem?
“Poison. I really called him poison,” Anna whispered to Mazy.
Something zipped past Anna’s line of sight, making her gasp. She stared, hand frozen holding the brush against Mazy’s side. There perched on the pointed tip of the mare’s ear sat a dragonfly with broad, finely-veined silver wings edged with blue. Anna blinked as a second dragonfly buzzed past the horse’s head, upsetting the first fairy-like creature. Mazy tossed her mane. A third dragonfly shot from behind Anna, making her drop the brush. She stood still, watching the small swarm of ethereal insects as they zipped haphazardly into the stables as if bent on some urgent mission.
“Wait, you bloody witch,” a familiar, deep voice swore from the doorway. Drustan swung around the corner, his face fierce, eyes searching. “I wish to speak with you.”
Anna stood inside the stall with Mazy where she’d backed up against the wall. He couldn’t see her, but he might be able to hear her heart pounding.
“I know you’re in here,” Drustan said and took several steps into the barn.
Just then the little swarm of dragonflies swooped along the wall where Anna stood. Despite her rational mind telling her that dragonflies were harmless, unless you happened to be a gnat, her fight instinct struck out at them. She gasped, her voice teetering on a scream and swatted as they dove toward her face.
“Anna?”
“Help,” she called, opening her eyes to see nothing but the faint residue of dust in the air. She pivoted abruptly in the confined corner, but the dragonflies had completely disappeared. She looked at Drustan who wore an open jacket over a light gray vest. “You were chasing them.”
“Yes,” he answered.
Thank God she wasn’t imagining them.
Mazy neighed and moved farther away from Drustan to stand nervously against her rear wall. Anna unlatched the stall door, edging out, and Drustan stepped backward as she fastened the latch. “You chased a swarm of dragonflies into the barn.”
“Yes,” he answered again, the tightness around his mouth finally loosening.
“Why?” she asked and patted her dress. If she looked only at herself she wouldn’t keep noticing the perfectly tailored fit of Drustan’s trousers and the way his jacket hung about his broad shoulders.
“I wanted to talk to them,” he said.
She raised her gaze. “That doesn’t sound completely sane you know.”
“Since I don’t live in your polite society,” he said. “There isn’t a need to be completely sane.”
“My polite society?” Anna snorted. “Polite society has all but excommunicated me.”
“You do not attend balls and shop for ribbons along the avenue? Chatting with ladies about the flowers in your gardens while sampling tea cakes?”
She glanced at her dusty boots sticking out from her skirt. “I have no time for such dalliances,” she said.
He nodded. “You prefer to walk the halls of your hospital, labeling diseases and strategizing on how to domesticate and destroy them.”
With the overcast sky, the muted sun cast only shadows about the barn. Anna stared at the shaded lines of his handsome features. He scanned her face as if trying to read her thoughts. Was it Anna’s imagination or had he stepped closer? “Yes,” she whispered.
“And how would you domesticate me, Anna?”
Anna sighed, feeling her cheeks flush. “Drustan, you are not a disease. I am sorry about my comment yesterday.”
“Your label was quite accurate. I am poison.”
“Labeling human beings in such a way is cruel. I had no wish to hurt you.” She threw one arm out to the side. “If anything I wished you to know that your curse is good. To be able to save a person from cancer…” She shook her head. “Well, it would be wonderful.” What Anna would have given to have his power when her mother progressed painfully toward her death. Her stomach twisted. “The people you could save.”
“’Tis risky, exposing myself by performing miracles,” he said. “Like Matilda, I stay away from civilization. Magical healing will bring back witch hunts or rabid proclamations of a reborn messiah.”
“You do plan to resurrect humankind, judge them and reorganize their eternal rest,” she pointed out. “Would reborn messiah be too far off?” What would God think of her analogy? He’d think she was rash and tactless most likely.
Drustan leaned against the wooden stall door, creating a sexy picture of contrasts with his perfectly tailored clothes against the rural setting. “I am the farthest creature from God. I would not mislead anyone.”
Anna leaned forward where a single beam of muted sunlight had broken through the gloom to splash on the hay-strewn ground. “I would say that those demons are further away than you.”
He looked at her. “You do not know me.”
Anna teased one of Mazy’s pieces of hay out of her bin and wrapped it around her finger absently. “I know that you have great power, yet you tame it for the sake of those around you. I know that you have cured people from lethal disease and strive to protect those from your touch. There is goodness in that. Just because you converse with evil things, were raised by demons…. Just because you have the potential for doing wrong, doesn’t mean you must. In fact, you can be noble and kind and use your powers to aid mankind.”
Drustan crossed his arms. He was the perfect picture of harsh self-judgement. “And what if I’ve only seen and heard the cruelty inherit in mankind, the evil?”
“Then you’ve judged mankind and found it lacking?”
“Certainly,” he said. “Haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Of course, but I’ve also seen goodness in people, kindness and compassion.”
Drustan stood up from the wall. “I’ve seen that in you.”
“There are others,” she pointed out. “Matilda travels all about this area, helping those in need. Alicia, too, in her way. If you look at individuals and not humanity as a whole, you will find goodness in people, including yourself, Drustan.”
A soft smile gentled the fierce line of his mouth. “Given the evidence, I see myself confronted with pitchforks and torches rather than welcoming arms.”
Anna tapped her foot. “Perhaps you should give it a try. Confess all and then see what people think.”
“I prefer not.”
“Afraid?” she asked, a slight tease to her words. She couldn’t imagine Drustan afraid of anything. “I don’t see you frightened of torch-wielding villagers or Bible thumpers.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes, what?”
“I am afraid.” Drustan stood, legs braced, hands at his side. How could this large man, with enough power at six-days-old to fight off a witch bent on his death, be afraid of anything?
“Impossible,” Anna said. “Of what could you possibly be afraid?”
He studied her for long seconds. “For you to really see who I am, of what I am capable. For you to judge me and agree.”
“Agree?” Anna whispered, the word stuck in her throat.
He nodded. “Agree that I am beyond redemption, that I am indeed evil.”
Anna swallowed. “You are not evil, Drustan.”
“Like I said, you do not know me.”
Anna’s heart thumped at the tension stuffed in the vacant space between them. She breathed deeply and took a step closer to tap the stall gate for Mazy to come close. “Maybe we should rectify that. Tell me about yourself.” The horse remained in the corner, unwilling to come close to Drustan.
“What do you wish to know?”
She spun and leaned against the gate. “How about your powers first. You can turn yourself invisible. Isn’t that so?”
He nodded slowly, watching her. “I can mute the sound waves I create and the chemicals my body gives off.”
Anna shook her head. “Completely hidden to all senses. You could”—she gestured to him with one hand—“go without a bath for weeks, and people would be oblivious to your stench.”
A grin turned up the corners of his mouth and Anna felt the shift in their conversation. Body hygiene was a safe topic. Perhaps there were others.
“If I want, but I enjoy my baths most heartily.”
“You could walk into any bank or museum or jewelry storefront and make off with gold and rubies, and no one would know,” she said.
Drustan’s grin grew, adding a teasing spark to his dark blue eyes. “Are you in want of some jewels, Anna? I would be happy to retrieve some for you. Although emeralds would match your eyes better.”
Anna shredded another shaft of hay. “No. I just…have you ever used your powers for personal gain?”
His smile faded somewhat. “I have.” Drustan shifted and slid his hands into the pockets of his dark gray trousers.
The heaviness of disappointment sat inside Anna. Of course. With such powers what would hold one back? Drustan was not a saint, but she needed to convince him that he wasn’t a monster either. “What did you steal? A horse?”
“I would kill the animal with my touch, so I do not ride.”
His answer led to twenty more questions in Anna’s mind, but she stopped herself. “Jewels then or clothes perhaps?”
His jaw tightened, and his gaze moved away for an instant. Would he keep his secret? Did he not trust her? Of course he didn’t. Why would—
“Food,” he said and met her gaze.
“Food?”
“I stole bread, mostly, as it is filling. Sometimes fresh fruit or vegetables though they were difficult to find during the Great War in the States.”
“You stole food?”
“I wasn’t quick enough to catch animals with my hands to kill them, but I learned to set traps and fish. I stole a fishing rod and some traps once.”
“You stole to survive,” she said low. “That is not for personal gain.”
“Only if you don’t consider living a personal gain.”
She stared at him for a long moment. With the world at his fingertips, he merely wished to live. “See, your conscience is a good one,” Anna said. “Most men would make themselves rich with powers like that.”
“Do not surmise that I am full of integrity, Anna. That my heart is golden when it is shadowed by darkness,” he said low. “I could certainly steal like a common thief. But if I sported riches, people would desire to become close to me, and then they would die. I would not have more blood on my hands.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you will be made to do, though, if you reorganize the world by severing the lines of time or whatever they are?” Well hell, she certainly wasn’t convincing him of his goodness. “Maybe that’s not the best plan for someone with such a good heart.”
“My good heart is yet to be seen.”
Anna studied the lines and angles that created the masterpiece of Drustan’s face. “You are a complicated man, Drustan MacDruce.”
“And thus I strive for simplicity.”
“In a house in the trees away from everyone,” she whispered. “Without wanting anything.”
“Not true.” Drustan stepped closer until he stood directly before her, penning her in with his large frame. “There is something I desire more than jewels and riches, even more than bread.”
She should push past him. Surely a lady of proper deportment would do so. But Anna was absolutely not proper. Instead, she looked up into his face, the tip of her tongue touching her upper lip to relieve the dryness. “What do you desire?” she whispered though his eyes held the answer unspoken.
Drustan’s hand rose to capture her cheek, his thumb feathering across her bottom lip. “You, Anna. You are the only thing in all the world that I desire.” Drustan’s arms bent to frame Anna in where she stood, the wooden wall at her back and Drustan’s largeness before her. Anna had only a second to inhale before his mouth found hers. Warm and restrained, he slid against her lips, his hand gently tilting her to deepen. The clean taste of him was familiar and exciting, reigniting the fire she’d felt the night in his room. Anna’s body instinctually molded itself to his, turning her bones molten. His hand raked gently up into her hair to cradle her head as he pressed against her.
Anna’s heart pounded as if it were breaking out of a crystalline cage, one that she’d built herself through years of lonely iciness. He desired her, Anna Pemberlin, despite her blunt responses and candor. She moved against him, trailing her touch up over his massive shoulders. Memories of his naked chest echoed in her mind as she felt the muscles under the fine linen of his shirt. Madness. Enough to make her tremble.
And yet she wanted more. She breathed against his mouth, and he dove in for a deeper taste. She met him in kind, ravishing him. He tasted of reckless freedom and fierce desire. Dripping with sexuality, brimming with self-restricted power and wrapped in honor no matter how he refuted it. Drustan MacDruce was fast becoming irresistible. Her mind abandoned any and all reality. Obligations faded. Responsibilities paled in comparison to this intense rush.
“I want you, Anna,” Drustan said as he kissed a path along her jaw to her neck. “Only you.”
Anna’s breath came in ragged pants. “Because I’m the only woman you can touch.”
He broke the kiss slowly and met her heavy-lidded gaze. “I’ve dreamt of you my whole life. Now that you are real, that you speak your mind, that I see your beauty in action, I want you more.” His hands rested on
her shoulders “You are everything, Anna. I want to explore every inch of you.”
Anna shivered at the words. They were as intense as his piercing eyes and as strong as an oath.
“You are my queen,” he said and leaned in.
Queen? The title niggled a path of ice through Anna as images of demons sprang to her mind. Did Drustan think her queen of the damned? Queen of the demons, as he was lord over them?
Anna broke the kiss. “Drustan.” She fought for a slow, even breath. “I am not your queen. We are not wed, and my veins do not contain a teaspoon of royalty.”
He splayed his fingers through her hair after freeing her braid. “We are wed in my mind,” he said.
She blinked at him, her brow wrinkling.
“The moment I knew you were real,” he continued. “I pledged to protect you. I will keep you forever.”
Anna swallowed and inhaled long. “I am not a polished piece of furniture for you to keep, Drustan.”
Drustan looked confused but then grinned. “Certainly not. You are my bride.”
The title tightened the muscles in Anna’s forehead, and she rubbed at them. “You have not asked me, and I have not accepted.” A breeze blew a chill into the barn, scattering the hay at the entrance. “Promises of protection are not strong enough for a true marriage. They come from a sense of responsibility not love.” Her stomach tightened even saying the word.
Drustan’s brows lowered, making his handsome features more dangerous. She looked away. “Your mother must have loved you, Drustan.”
He shook his head. “Perhaps. I don’t know. I was growing rapidly, had come unnaturally early from her womb. It must have been the magic in me, so much power. She may have seen me as a monster.” Bitterness that hinted at old pain laced his words.
Anna pressed. “The nuns—”
“Feared me. My body grew too fast. I had powers I couldn’t hide. And one by one they each sickened and died. To them I was duty and sacrifice, not something to love.”
Sacrifice Page 16