by Donna Grant
He raised a brow and glanced at her foot before he tossed another log onto the dying fire. The flames jumped higher, spreading an orange glow across the floor. “Tell me what happened with Declan.”
Images of Declan’s handsome face laughing with triumph as he tortured her, frightened her, and tormented her flashed through her mind.
Her stomach roiled with nausea as she thought of all the times he’d had her hit or kicked. Or both. Of the times he had starved her, froze her.
“No,” she said when she could finally speak.
Camdyn lifted a brow. “It needs to be known, and if I have to, I’ll go get Galen.”
Saffron paled and dropped her hands. Galen’s power was the ability to see into a person’s mind when he touched them. She didn’t want him anywhere near her, not when her head was so full of atrocities.
“Why are you being so mean?” she asked. How could he have gone from making her feel so desired to this? Were her emotions so messed up she didn’t know the difference?
“I’m trying to help.”
“Bullshit. Do you like having me relive those memories? Do you get off on seeing how it upsets me?”
He frowned, his lips flattening the more she spoke.
“Whatever Declan did to me is better kept locked in my head,” she said. She started to turn away when he took her arm and kept her facing him.
As much as she hated it at the moment, his touch sizzled through her sweater to her skin. And she wanted more.
His gaze was hard and calculating as he stared. “Do you always run away from problems?”
His mark hit too close to home. She elbowed him in the ribs, knowing it would do no damage other than surprise him. But she was able to wrench her arm out of his hold.
“Don’t pretend to know me.”
Camdyn laughed dryly. “No worries there, lass. You keep everyone at arm’s length. No one can get to know you.”
Saffron wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. She had kept everyone at arm’s length. At first she used the evil from Declan’s magic as an excuse, but the longer she stayed at the castle, the more she used her blindness as an excuse.
And it had been a poor one at that.
She never got a chance to respond because her cell phone rang at that moment. Glad an for excuse not to continue the conversation she’d been in, Saffron answered it without looking at the number.
“Hello,” she all but shouted.
“Saffron? Honey, is that you?”
The sound of her mother’s voice made all the blood rush from her head. Saffron swayed, and suddenly Camdyn was there. His strong arms held her as he sat her down on the bench in front of the bed.
“Saffron?”
She swallowed. “Hello, Mother.” She didn’t want to talk to her mother, not now, possibly not ever.
“Why haven’t you called me? I’ve been worried sick.”
“And that’s why you tried to declare me dead?” she asked.
Elise tsked. “Honey, we hired private investigators to search for you. We found the car you rented in Edinburgh, but nothing else. All your luggage and your purse was gone. And you didn’t answer your cell.”
Saffron laughed. It was either that or cry. “So it took you only three years to give up and declare me dead so you could take the money.”
There was a pause before Elise said, “You always make it about the money. Had your father left me more than a few hundred thousand, I wouldn’t have need of more.”
“So it is about the money. I gave you almost a million before I left three years ago.”
“I have needs, honey.”
Saffron closed her eyes. “Well, I’m not dead. I’m very much alive, and you won’t get a penny of that money. I’ve already had Arthur draw up a new will. I’m leaving you as much as Dad left you.”
“You ungrateful bitch!” Elise screamed. “Do you have any idea how much pain you put me through during the nearly two-day delivery? When you wouldn’t come out they cut me open! Not only did you mess up my body, but I have a scar I’ve had to cover up ever since then.”
“And we all know how important a good body is for a swimsuit, don’t we? I’m so very sorry being pregnant messed up your perfect body, and that the C-section scar has been so difficult to bear.”
“You have no idea,” Elisa said, completely missing the sarcasm in Saffron’s tone. “You do know you’ll have to be seen in person to dismiss my claim.”
Saffron laughed. “Oh, I took care of that today. Watch the papers tomorrow, Mother.”
She disconnected the call, and sat there, desperately trying to get her breathing and raging emotions under control. She had held out hope in the back of her mind that her mother might have actually missed her, that it was more than just the money.
But she had been wrong yet again.
It took her a few moments to realize she wasn’t alone. Camdyn wasn’t just in the room with her, he was sitting beside her. And she had a hold of his hand.
How long had she held it? Saffron looked down at their joined hands and the way her nails dug into his skin. Instantly she released him and rubbed her hands along her arms as she rose to her feet.
“I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
When she turned around, he was standing right in front of her. His dark eyes had softened, and were almost kind. But it was the desire that wound through her, settling with a low heat between her legs, that made her all too aware of him. From his dark eyes to the closeness of his body to hers, she saw nothing but him.
CHAPTER
TEN
Camdyn knew he was standing too close to Saffron. Hell, he should never have followed her from the battlements to her chamber, but her anger had sparked his own. He wanted to know what drove her, what propelled the need for revenge that sat so heavily on her shoulders.
So he had followed her.
Of all the times he had watched Saffron he’d seen her always serene, always guarded, as if she couldn’t show her true self.
When her anger began to show, he had pushed at her harder. He might have gotten the answers he sought if her mobile phone hadn’t rung. And if it hadn’t been her mother on the other end.
Camdyn’s advanced hearing had allowed him to hear the entire conversation, and he was appalled that a mother could treat her child so.
When Saffron had taken hold of his hand, her nails digging into his flesh, he had kept still and given her whatever strength she needed from him.
But then he made his second mistake. He didn’t leave.
Instead, he stood when she stood. And found himself mere inches from the most beautiful, alluring woman he had ever encountered.
Her tawny eyes looked up at him with a mixture of sadness and desire. And it was his undoing.
Camdyn had to taste her, had to feel her. Had to touch her. It might have been the worst decision he had ever made, but the need, the craving, gnawing at him was too great to ignore.
With only the desire clawing at him, he pushed aside all thought and gave in to his body. He wrapped a hand around Saffron’s waist and pulled her the remaining few inches toward him.
Her hands came to rest on his chest, her lips parted and her breathing shallow. His head lowered to hers, their eyes locked.
Camdyn was giving her ample opportunity to escape him. When she remained in his arms, his god, Sculel, god of the underworld, roared with approval and appreciation.
Their faces were so close he could see the gold flakes in her eyes and the tiny scar near the corner of her left eye.
But it all became too much. He could wait no longer. He had to taste her. He slanted his mouth over hers in a hard, explosive kiss that left him reeling. Listing.
Completely unsettled.
Utterly adrift.
Her body was soft and curvy, fitting against him to precision. A small moan broke in the back of her throat as they continued the fiery, scorching kiss that fanned the flames of their desire higher and higher, consuming them. Her fingers
dug into his chest before she wound her arms around his neck.
The feel of her molded against him had his balls tightening and his blood pounding in his ears. The need he had felt a moment before was nothing compared to what pumped through him now.
It was going too fast, and if he didn’t stop now, he never would. It was the pleasure that thought gave him that somehow provided him the strength to end the kiss.
He reluctantly, slowly, pulled back and met her bewildered gaze. “Oh, shite,” he muttered.
Camdyn had known she would taste of heaven, he just hadn’t been expecting such a fierce and physical reaction to her, a reaction he’d never felt in his long life. One that had his cock aching he wanted her so desperately.
He made himself drop his arms from around her and step back. The loss of her body, her tempting curves against him, was nearly too much.
The words he wanted to say, to explain why he had kissed her, stuck in his throat. Because every one of them was a lie. He couldn’t tell her the truth—that he had needed to kiss her, needed to know her taste.
Camdyn hadn’t needed anyone in … a very long time, and he didn’t want to find himself back in that situation. He wouldn’t survive it.
He clenched his jaw shut and hurriedly walked from her chamber without another word. As he exited, he noticed Gwynn and Ian standing outside the chamber, but he didn’t speak to them. He couldn’t.
Camdyn was almost to the stairs when Broc walked out of his chamber. “I was just coming to find you. Want to play the hunter’s game you were interested in?”
“Nay,” Camdyn replied as he took the stairs three at a time.
He didn’t stop until he was in his chamber. But he was too restless. His body was on fire, heated to the point that he was in physical pain. And the only one who could relieve him was the one person he couldn’t touch again.
Camdyn rested his head on the cool glass of the window and struggled to calm his breathing. He fisted his hands before he spread them wide as he thought of touching, of holding Saffron, of how soft and good she had felt against him.
Of how wonderful she had tasted. The stroke of her tongue, the sound of her moan.
He swallowed and could still taste her on his tongue, could still smell the moonlight and snow scent that was hers alone.
Nothing he did could erase her from his mind, not even thoughts of Allison, which seemed to have faded to nothing suddenly. All he knew was that he had mucked things up tremendously.
Before he had only wondered how Saffron would taste or feel against him.
Now, he knew in excruciating detail just how perfect she felt, how seductive her kiss was.
* * *
Saffron gently touched her swollen lips and closed her eyes as she replayed the sizzling, consuming kiss again in her mind. The kiss had swept her away. Taken her. Seized her.
And she hated that it had ended so abruptly.
More confusing was Camdyn’s reaction when he broke off the kiss. Had he been as affected as she?
Saffron shook her head and put a hand over her heart as it continued to race. No, Camdyn wasn’t a man who let his emotions lead him. He had wanted the kiss, and initiated it, but he’d also been the one to end it.
Had he found her lacking?
Saffron frowned. It had been years since a man had kissed her or held her, and never with such raw, untamed desire that it made her shake with wanting.
She’d been unprepared for it at first, but her body soon caught up. And now … now need, hot and consuming, still throbbed within her.
After blowing out a breath, she started toward the bed when she saw her iPhone sitting on the bench. She had forgotten all about her conversation with her mother. Even now, she found she wasn’t as angry as she had been before Camdyn kissed her.
Saffron put her hand to her forehead and groaned. How would she face him now? He had walked out of her room without a word. Tomorrow night was the full moon. The time to awaken Laria where they would all be together.
To take her mind off everything, she cleaned her room, then decided to move all her makeup onto the vanity before taking it back into the bathroom, then finally deciding it should be on the vanity.
Saffron was a ball of nerves, her body throbbing with need. Every sound she heard she found herself looking to the door wondering if Camdyn was going to come back. Even when she knew he wasn’t.
What was it about the Warrior that attracted her so? He was solemn, rarely smiling, and liked to keep to himself. He worked well with others because all the Warriors liked him, but even so, Camdyn was a loner.
Maybe that’s what it was. Saffron was also sort of a loner. She hadn’t started off that way, but as she grew older and discovered people only wanted to be her friend because of her money she began to distance herself from people.
It made it less likely that she would get hurt that way. But it also made life lonely.
She had thought she’d had a few true friends, but even they had dropped by the wayside when she rebelled against her family and gone on a European tour. Alone.
Saffron couldn’t help but wonder if Declan would have convinced her as easily as he had if she’d had someone with her. Most likely, she never would have been in the small southwesterly town of Oban since it was so out of the way. She had been driving to the Isle of Skye, and going to Oban required a significant detour.
But she had heard so many great things about Oban from locals that she decided to see for herself.
Where would she be now if Declan hadn’t imprisoned her? Would she be back home? Married maybe? With a career in her father’s business as he had wanted?
Saffron knew it was pointless to think about what could have been, but it was easier than allowing her memories of the three years prior to pull her under. Which they always did.
She lowered herself in front of the fire and stared into the flames. There was something mesmerizing about a fire and the flicker of the flames.
It pulled her mind away from her tangle of thoughts and let her wander. She didn’t know how long she sat there before she heard the sound of drums and the distant murmur of chanting.
Her magic instantly reached out to it, pulling her with it as the chanting and drums grew louder. It hypnotized her, until her eyes closed.
She could feel the magic swirling faster and faster inside her, growing stronger and stronger each moment. The louder the drums beat the more her magic surged. And the chanting seemed to suddenly come from all around her. Enveloping her. Encircling her.
Enfolding her.
The many visions she’d had over the years zoomed through her mind’s eye. People she hadn’t known and couldn’t help, families she had diverted from disaster. All of them were wound together like a huge funnel in her mind before disappearing.
But some remained.
The visions she’d had of Deirdre, Declan, and anyone else involved in this war now were in the forefront of her mind. She saw them differently, examining every particle of the visions in the hope of finding some clue or missed message.
She felt the visions more than before. Declan’s shouting was louder, and Deirdre’s rages made her quake inside. Everything was amplified so she felt it twenty times more than before.
Her head began to pound, and she tried to pull away. However, the chanting only grew louder, taking away her pain and her fear.
“Who are you?” she asked the invisible force she could feel around her.
“The ancients,” the thousands of voices answered between the chants.
For the first time in so very long Saffron found a place where she could let herself go, where her magic was stronger, and where she could be completely safe.
Somehow, instinctively, she knew neither Declan nor Deirdre would ever be able to reach her where she was. No one would be able to hurt her again.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Declan reclined on his leather couch in his office staring through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the snow
that continued to fall. With one arm resting along the back of the couch he sipped on his single-malt whisky, relishing the heady taste while his thoughts centered on Tara and how to find her.
He had already located Tara’s pitiful excuse for a mother. The same mother that had tried to kill her. But Declan had taken Tara away from all of that. He’d known there was something special about her. Too bad he hadn’t realized just how special Tara was before she had run away.
It was bad enough that she had had the audacity to leave him, but to make matters worse, it was like Tara had never been. She had vanished, all but become a ghost. Even with all his considerable magic he couldn’t find her. With all his money and connections, Declan couldn’t find a trace of her.
Oh, there were instances where the person that had been there months before could have been Tara, but he didn’t know for sure. Couldn’t know for sure.
He should have known Marie would give him nothing no matter how much he’d made her suffer. She and Tara hadn’t spoken in years, but Declan had held out a small thread of hope that Tara had given in to the need for her mother’s love and contacted Marie.
But he’d had no such luck.
With Saffron gone, Declan needed another Druid. What made Tara so special was that she came from a long line of very powerful droughs. All he had to do was apply the right pressure and convince her she belonged with him, and he’d have another drough on his side.
Tara’s magic was volatile, but he could help her control it. The thought of both Tara and Deirdre standing with him against the world brought a smile to his face.
If only he could convince Deirdre she needed him. She had survived for too long on her own to think she needed anyone, but Declan wasn’t about to give up.
He was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t see the black smoke until it was upon him. “So you think you need Deirdre?” the voice asked in his mind.
Declan wasn’t afraid of the deep, booming voice. He smiled. “Welcome, Master. I wondered when you would visit. As to answer you, aye, I do require Deirdre. She’s been around for over a thousand years. Her experience in controlling the world would be vital. No’ to mention her ability to create wyrran.”