Could a child grow normally without love in his life? The only sense of affection coming from a manipulative band of demons and a dark wizard as a father figure? Without much physical contact, a loving environment or a sense of stability, what could possibly stop this powerful man from becoming a violent psychopath?
But Drustan was nothing like the people she’d studied during her mental health rotation: cold, lacking emotion, seeking the rush of risky behavior, unable to control their aggression.
He reached for her hand, and she let him hold it. His features remained tight, but instead of desire, the intensity had turned to determination. “Your face is as familiar to me as my own,” he said. “Even though you have just met me, I have known you my whole life. I have seen us together in prophecy. We are meant for one another. Perhaps that is love.”
She shook her head, tears burning the back of her eyes. “That is not love, Drustan. That is possession.”
He backed up and cupped the back of his own head with one large hand. “Then teach me, Anna. Teach me what love is. You will be my queen and teach me.”
She laughed darkly. “I am not one to garner someone’s love. I’m opinionated, tactless and too progressive for a society that doesn’t view women as important as men.”
Silence. She glanced up to him. As if waiting for her gaze, he began. “We are matched then. Tenebris tells me I am opinionated, I’ve never learned tact, and I belong to no society. You are perfect, Anna Pemberlin. The light to my darkness.”
His words thrummed through her. “We are neither dark nor light, Drustan. All beings are a combination. And yet, you will be made to judge every man and woman. When those…demons make you lord of the world.” A tendril of fear fluttered up her spine.
Drustan’s hands gripped tightly into fists at his side. “I would refuse the position.” His eyes turned sad as they connected with her gaze. “But if I turn away from the task, it will fall to Semiazaz and my brethren. They would fill the world with darkness and misery.”
The reality of what Drustan described began to fully penetrate. This wasn’t some fictional tale or hypothetical musings. She swallowed against the dryness in her mouth and fought the trembling in her arms. “So you will rule as king?”
“And you will keep me in the light as my queen.”
Anna leaned against the rough wood gate when sparks lit her periphery and concentrated on an even flow of air.
Several men outside the stables yelled in the guttural Gaelic language, and Drustan moved to the stable doors. “What is it?” she asked and watched William stride past toward the gates in the wall surrounding the bailey.
The gravel outside crunched under rolling wheels and the clopping of horse hooves. Anna pushed off the wall to follow Drustan outside as a wagon stopped in the bailey. A farmer sat in front, behind two draft horses, a load of wooden barrels in the back. Another man, wearing a gray traveling coat, sat amongst the barrels. His head turned this way and that as he seemed to search the faces in the bailey.
“Winston?” Anna called.
A relieved smile cracked across the smooth, handsome face of Dr. Winston Murdock as he raised his gloved hand to wave at her. What was he doing away from London? His straight bearing and cultured air seemed so out of place away from the hospital. He maneuvered around the barrels to step down. Firmly on the ground, he dusted down his suit and straightened his cravat, fished out a coin and thanked the farmer who handed him a polished leather bag. Winston met William with a handshake, and they both turned toward her, Winston smiling and William grinning with a slightly raised brow.
They strode across the bailey. “He’s bound to shake your hand,” Anna warned Drustan and moved closer to him.
Drustan stood with his legs braced, arms across his chest as he glared out at the advancing men. His voice rumbled low beside her. “Let him. I’m going to kill him anyway.”
Chapter Ten
Drustan felt Anna wrap her arm completely around his, turning off the damnably giddy thoughts of the man racing toward Anna.
“You will do no such thing,” Anna hissed beside him.
“He’s come here for you,” Drustan answered without taking his eyes off his prey. “To take you back to London.”
“He’s my employer. Of course he wishes to take me back to London.”
“He plans to ask you to marry him,” Drustan said and looked down into Anna’s flushed face. The anger in her eyes dissolved into surprise and then blended into denial.
Her lovely lips parted and closed several times before a word came out. “No, we are…professionals, maybe friends but—”
“He has missed you, tortured himself with letting you leave to be with your sister.” Drustan’s words were harsh as he described the man’s thoughts. “You are intelligent and beautiful, and he knows you would give him perfect children. He’s fantasized about you and had planned to ask you to marry him before you left.”
Winston disengaged himself from a suspiciously talkative William, although the Highlander kept stride with him. William’s glare nearly shouted at Drustan to keep his distance. The Maclean leader did have magical intuition.
“He feels he can’t live without you,” Drustan ground out. “And since he cannot have you, I will honor his request to die.”
“No you will not,” Anna said, holding tighter to his arm. Seeing Anna cling to his arm though made the doctor’s smile straighten into a tight line. A small victory.
“Anna,” the man said and stopped before them, his eyes flickering to her hand on Drustan’s arm.
“What are you doing here, Winston, Dr. Murdock?”
“Please, we are not at Kensington Hospital. Call me Winston.”
“Is something amiss in London? At the clinic?” she asked.
“Apart from Drs. Newton and Bradley trying to sully your reputation as usual, nothing, except that you are not there,” he said, his face turning a light red hue.
“You have traveled a great distance to tell her that,” Drustan said, his tone full of distaste. The man must have no doubt that he stood before an enemy.
“And you are?” Winston Murdock said, standing to his full height.
“Anna’s betrothed,” Drustan said at the same time Anna said, “He’s my patient.”
Murdock’s gaze snapped back and forth between them.
“He is delusional,” she added.
“But I am still her betrothed and lethally jealous,” Drustan said outright. The doctor couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned.
“You are…engaged?” he asked, his little brown eyes piercing Anna.
“Yes,” Drustan answered.
“No,” Anna said.
“Which is it?”
“As you can see, she can’t let go of me,” Drustan said, offering proof of their connection with a wave of his free hand.
“He is a patient,” she said. “I am assisting him.”
“Truly,” Drustan said. “Does it look as if I’ll fall down without her support?” He stood tall and powerful. If Anna would just let go of him, he’d show the little doctor just how powerful he was.
“I am confused,” Murdock said. “You were not attached when you left London?” His tone went up in question at the end.
“Perhaps we had best go inside where we can get ye settled, Dr. Murdock,” William said.
“Perhaps I should be on my way,” Murdock countered, a frown marking his pointy features. He glanced around as if searching for a ride, but the wagon had rolled back out of the gates. “I should seek another mode of transportation.”
“The man is intelligent, Anna,” Drustan said.
Anna’s small foot shot out from her skirts to stomp down on his boot. “I have always spoken well of Doctor…Winston,” she said, flustered. “Come now before I’m forced to have William lock you in the dungeon.”
Drustan followed her tug. “I’d like to see him try.”
“What has gotten into you?” Anna hissed near his ear as she dragged him alongsid
e her.
“Keep whispering intimately with me. I’m sure it’s making the weasel-faced doctor frown even more behind us.”
She grumbled but didn’t let go.
What had gotten into him? Drustan had never before felt such twisting of his gut. The emotion that had spiraled through him when the man had mentally claimed Anna had turned Drustan as mad as Bechard. Never before had he felt so vulnerable. It was helplessness because he couldn’t make Anna stay with him. Well he could force her body, but not her heart. And he didn’t know if she felt anything for this Winston Murdock. So he needed to just get rid of the bloke.
They stepped into the castle and up into the great hall where Patricia, Matilda and Alicia turned to greet the weasel.
“Dr. Murdock?” Patricia said, standing quickly. Her gaze widened and moved to Anna, returning quickly to Murdock with an awkward smile. “Welcome to Kylkern. We were not expecting any visitors from London.” Patricia bobbed a curtsey. The other ladies followed.
“Dr. Murdock came to wish you well,” Anna explained. “And to update me on the goings on at the hospital in my absence. It seems I should return soon. You know how Newton and Bradley work to tarnish my reputation.”
“I will have a discussion with them,” Drustan said. All three ladies placed a hand flat against their upper chests; the unison display of fear was rather comic. Apparently his voice still dripped with toxic threat.
Anna turned to him. “I am very capable of defending myself.”
“I will make certain there is no need ever again,” he replied. “I would not have you tormented.”
Murdock continued to watch them, his brow furrowed. Matilda came up to him. “Ye can follow me, Doctor, above so ye can refresh yerself after yer long journey. We have an aired room always ready for last minute guests.” She started to walk toward the stairwell. “My name is Matilda Maclean, and I am niece to William.”
“Uh, um, thank you,” Winston answered, his legs finally propelling him after her.
They rounded the corner into the stairwell, Matilda talking all along until her voice began to fade. Anna dropped Drustan’s arm and swung toward him, hands on her hips. “What the hell was all of that?” She motioned to the bailey. “Betrothed? Lethal jealousy? Killing him?”
Patricia gasped, and William moved to stand by her. Alicia plopped onto a stool, shock across her features.
Drustan focused on Anna. Her rage had turned her face red, her eyes nearly snapping with passion. Was it passion for the young doctor?
“I read his thoughts,” he said. “He came here to take you away, to propose and carry you away to London. Just seeing you brought forth his illicit, carnal thoughts of you.” Drustan glanced toward the stairwell, a rash need to chase after the man. “Naked thoughts of you.” He looked back to Anna. “He is a threat. I have no patience for threats.”
“The man has just arrived after a week on the road,” she said. “He is tired, dirty, and defenseless.”
“He was ready to ask you to marry him as soon as he saw you,” Drustan replied, his words a little softer. Had he over-reacted?
Her gaze met his without blinking. She breathed slowly through her nose. “I could have said no. Could you not have considered that? That I wouldn’t have just let him carry me away on the barrel wagon. That I might have let him down gently?” Her eyes narrowed. “Could you not fathom that?”
Her words sank in, thawing the first layer of doubt in his gut. “You will tell him no then?”
She threw her hands up. “He wouldn’t dare ask me now.”
“You want him to ask you?” Drustan shot out.
“I didn’t say that,” she replied, and silence descended as they glared at one another until William spoke up.
“I sense that the man is just as confused as the two of ye seem to be,” William said. “But until he leaves here, we are not to use our magic in front of him. He is from the outside world.” William pointed a finger at Drustan. “And ye are not to touch him.”
If Drustan wanted Winston Murdock dead, no force on earth would stop him.
William’s eyebrow rose as he read the silent message in the hardness of Drustan’s eyes. “She would never forgive ye,” William said low, speaking obviously of Anna. Drustan knew that of course. The reminder made his jaw tighten.
“Then we will just make him comfortable,” Patricia said.
“Not too comfortable,” William added. “No need to prolong his stay.”
“No,” Patricia said. “But we will be hospitable.”
“I had Matilda take him to Anna’s old room next to ours,” William said, the ghost of a grin around his lips. Anna let out a little huff, her face growing pink.
“With the rats?” Patricia asked. “That should certainly make him consider leaving sooner rather than later. And after Anna tells him that she’s not interested—”
Anna snorted. “He won’t approach the issue.”
“I’ll make certain he doesn’t,” Drustan murmured.
“Anna can let him know that she isn’t ready to return to London yet,” Patricia continued. “She will persuade him to return on the next coach going south, well fed, clean and warm.” She smiled, satisfied at her plan. “Doesn’t one stop at the town on the other side of the lake?”
William nodded.
“Maybe I should accompany him back to the hospital,” Anna said. “With Matilda’s powers, I’m not needed here.”
“Yes you are,” Drustan said quickly, watching her. She’d donned the mask of ice queen once again, all traces of the heat he’d felt in the stables extinguished.
“How so?” she asked.
“You seem to have no idea how important you are here,” he said.
“Apparently not,” she said on a whisper, even though she met his stare.
He watched her swallow, then shake her head ever so slightly, her loose hair brushing her shoulders. Soft, her hair felt like silk and smelled of flowers. She couldn’t return to London, riding away from him, hiding away without him being able to find her. He would go mad.
“If you leave, Anna Pemberlin,” Drustan said, his voice hushed in the large room as everyone seemed to be caught in their spell. “Who will stop me from poisoning the world?”
****
Anna rolled her undergarments and jammed them into the open maw of the clasped bag sitting on her bed. She paused to inhale and exhale evenly as she glanced around the room. Her hairbrush sat on the dresser, and she traipsed to it, scooping it up, her boots tapping loudly upon the boards.
She’d had enough. She would go. She must go. Patricia would call her rash, but Anna might as well live up to her reputation. Besides, she’d always preferred action over just sitting and waiting to see if things improved. Half her patients would be dead if she just waited.
No, she wouldn’t let Drustan have such control over her, manipulating her to remain in the Highlands. He desired her, felt obligated to protect her, wanted her to keep him in the light, not that she had any idea how the hell to do that. This was insane. She should despise him, hate him even for trying to possess her. Yet, if she were honest with herself, she’d admit that her response to him was anything but cool. In fact, he made fire race through her.
Anna clipped the bag shut and grabbed her cloak. The sun was starting to set, and she must ride to the small town south of the loch before nightfall. With Mazy, she should make it without too much trouble.
Anna threw her cloak around her shoulders and laid the letter for her sister on the bed. “He won’t hurt anyone,” she whispered to the room. Drustan had saved Josiah by sending his wolf out for the boy. He’d saved others from cancer, saved her from those demons. She’d determined that he wasn’t a psychopath. Surely he wouldn’t harm everyone in a rage because she left. Anna pushed away the memory of his wrath when the demons had attacked. If anything, Drustan would just come after her and thus leave the Macleans safely behind.
She stepped out into the hall and froze. Little Sarah, Matilda’s f
our-year-old daughter stood outside Matilda’s door, rubbing her eyes like she’d just awoken from her nap. “Auntie Anna,” she said, her sweet voice like the soft cooing of a dove. “I want to go ice skating.”
Anna left her bag in the room and stepped out, squatting down before the child. “Were you just dreaming of winter?”
Sarah nodded and smiled broadly. “I took ye skating on the loch. Can we go now?”
Anna pulled the little girl into a hug. “This winter perhaps.” Anna pressed down the bubble of guilt. She wouldn’t be here this winter. “The lake is still just water now.”
Sarah stiffened and frowned at her. “I want to go now.” Children certainly had a genuine love of experiences. Much like Anna.
“It would be fun to go now.” Anna smiled. “But we have to wait until it is cold enough to freeze the lake solid before it will be safe to skate. We must be patient.” Anna stood up. “Where is your mama?”
Sarah continued to pout but pointed toward the door. “Sleeping.” She must have fallen asleep while putting Sarah down.
“She will be worried if you aren’t next to her when she wakes,” Anna advised and led her back to her door. “Go lay next to her until she’s up. I’m sure she’s warm and cuddly.” The little girl looked quite petulant but let Anna close the door, sealing her back into the room.
After a silent descent and sneaky exit out the back gardens, hiding her satchel in a basket that looked full of folded blankets, Anna made it along the wall to the stable and Mazy. She moved through the familiar motions of saddling the horse while whispering to Mazy. She hummed a song her mother had sung to her every night while she drew the horse behind her.
She quieted as they clipped toward the bailey gates. Act like you’re supposed to be there, and everyone will accept it. She’d learned that early on at the male-dominated hospital. “Just going for a little ride,” she whispered to herself and kept her gaze on the horizon. Where was Drustan anyway? At any moment she expected to hear his demand for her to come back.
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