—abruptly she was sucking air like a fish out of water.
Alone on the floor.
She blinked. Heavens, but the man could move fast! She sat up, looking dazedly around. “Where did you go?” she said breathlessly.
“Behind you, woman,” came the tight, furious reply.
She glanced over her shoulder. He was inside the mirror, propped in the corner, breathing hard, like he’d been running a race. She was panting herself, she realized. Her lips were swollen, she had the sting of a rug burn beginning on her spine, and her nipples throbbed.
Why was he in the mirror? For that matter, how had he gotten in the mirror? She gaped at him, bewildered.
“It reclaims me after a time,” he said flatly.
She continued gaping. “W-without preamble?” she stammered. “Just like that?”
“Aye. ’Twas not my choice to leave you in such a fashion.” His gaze dropped sharply and fixed there. “Och, Jessica, you’ve a beautiful ass. Nigh worth living a thousand years to see.”
His words drew her awareness to the fact that she was sitting on the floor, between the TV armoire and the bed, facing the entry door, her bare bottom pointed at the mirror, glancing over her shoulder at him, her sweater rucked up, jeans and panties down around her knees.
The cold reality of reason returned.
Oh, God, what had she almost just done? She gaped at the mirror, stunned.
In a matter of mere minutes, she’d been down on the floor, with her jeans and panties around her knees! A few heated kisses—and she’d been about to have sex with a man she barely knew. An arrogant, throwback of a man, at that. Who lived in a mirror. And in the midst of such dire straits, to boot!
This wasn’t like her at all. Was she freaking nuts?
Shocked and appalled at herself, Jessi stumbled to her feet, tugging at her jeans. Her panties got twisted and her jeans got stuck partway up, just beneath her butt. She yanked but they didn’t yield. Only her butt did— she felt it jiggle.
He made a choking sound. “Sweet Christ, woman, you’re killing me!”
Cheeks flaming, she shot a scowl over her shoulder at him as she bunny-hopped, bare-bottomed, into the bathroom.
A groan followed her.
“Stop looking at my butt,” she hissed fiercely.
She could hear his laughter, even through the closed door.
Hours later, Jessi awakened so hungry that her stomach was cramping.
Rolling over on the miserably lumpy hotel bed, she glanced at the clock. No wonder she was hungry—she hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours!
The room service she’d ordered earlier hadn’t come, for whatever reason: Either they’d tried to deliver it while she’d been stretched beneath Cian MacKeltar’s rock-hard body, deaf, dumb, and blind to all but his erotic assault on her senses; or they’d lost her order; or it had arrived so late that she’d been sleeping. Since she rarely got a full night’s sleep, she tended to drop off the moment her head touched the pillow, and slept like the proverbial dead, sprawled flat on her back, arms outflung.
After the near-sex-on-the-floor debacle, Jessi had gone in the bathroom and stayed in there awhile, cooling down and trying to think things through. But mostly cooling down—the man threw off serious sexual heat—because by then she’d simply been too exhausted to make much sense of anything.
When she’d finally come out, she’d stiffly informed the mirror to go away and let me sleep and don’t you dare wake me unless my life is in danger. And I do not want to talk about what just happened. Not now. Maybe never.
He’d laughed softly. As you wish, Jessica, he’d replied.
Her stomach sounded a long, growling, painful protest.
Fumbling for the light switch on the wall sconce above the bed table, she turned it on, picked up the phone, and pressed the button for room service. As she was placing her order for a double cheeseburger, fries, and a large Coke, the mirror rumbled:
“Quadruple all of that. And if there’s naught sweet, add something.”
Shrugging, she did so, assuming he’d eat it whenever he was able to come out of the mirror again.
Until the mirror had reclaimed him, it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder why he’d gone back in once she’d let him out that first night he’d killed the assassin. In her own defense, she’d had a lot of other things on her mind. Now she knew the answer. Apparently, he had no choice. Though he could be released from the mirror by the chanting of a spell, he couldn’t stay out long.
That was a problem. Exactly how did he plan to protect her from behind a pane of silvered glass?
Replacing the phone in the cradle, she scowled at him. God, the man was beautiful. Every time she looked at him, he took her breath away. Made her forget all the important things she should be thinking about. She shook her head, striving for levelheadedness. It was time for more answers. “How often and for how long can you be released from that glass?”
He leaned back against something in the mirror that she couldn’t see, folded his arms over his chest, and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. She narrowed her eyes. “Wait a minute, how did you get your clothes back in there?”
“I’ve had centuries to test the glass. Though the elements comprising it are beyond my fathoming, I’ve learned to exploit it after a fashion. ’Twas designed to hold humans, not inanimate objects, and I’ve learned to summon in inert items that reside in my field of vision.”
She blinked, glancing around. Kilt—gone. Boots—gone. Even his thigh sheath and knife were gone. Apparently he’d drawn those items back in while she’d slept. Oh, she had a million questions about the nature of that artifact! But first things first: her continued survival. “So?” she prodded. “How often?”
He shrugged. “Try again now.”
Jessi drew a deep breath. She really didn’t want him out of the mirror at the moment. She wasn’t prepared to deal with him in the flesh—all that rippling, sexy, horny male flesh, at that—just yet. Still, she needed to understand the parameters of their situation. She recited the chant to release him.
Nothing happened.
He inclined his head. “I didn’t think so. I cannot answer your question precisely. I can tell you only what has occurred in the past. On occasion, when Lucan wished something of me, he afforded me a temporary freedom. Once, several centuries ago, he released me on four consecutive days. Each day I was allotted a different interval by the glass. One day I had but a few hours, another five or six, the fourth day I had the entirety of a day and a night. There is no predicting it.”
“So, you can come out every day, for at least a while,” she clarified.
“Aye.”
“Which means you probably can’t come out again until tomorrow morning?”
Another shrug. “I doona ken. You should continue trying at frequent intervals.”
“How do you intend to protect me if you can’t stay out of that glass?” she said peevishly.
“Lass, we need only evade Lucan for a number of days. Twenty more, to be exact. Scarce any time at all. I assure you, I will keep you safe and well until then.”
“ ‘Twenty days’? Why only twenty?” That didn’t sound so bad. She hadn’t known there was a time limit to how long her life was going to be screwed up, and it was a relatively short one. Surely she could get her life back on track after only twenty out-of-control days, if things really would be resolved by then. She was grateful that she’d had the foresight not to call in sick. Her odds for survival and a return to normalcy were suddenly looking considerably brighter. One whopper of a good story might take care of things. It might not even have to be half as inventive as some of those her students tried to feed her.
“Because the Compact that holds me bound to the Dark Glass requires that a tithe of purest gold be passed through the mirror every century to reaffirm the Unseelie indenture. The next tithe is due this Hallows’ Eve, on the thirty-first day of October, at midnight.”
Crimeny. Tithes, Compacts, indentures: Anytime
she began thinking about resuming a normal life, she was reminded that she was currently up to her eyebrows in a fairy-tale world of spells and curses.
And the scary part was that it was all beginning to sound somewhat reasonable to her. The longer she interacted with a man who lived inside a mirror, the more inured she became to the strangeness of subsequent oddities. His existence was so inexplicable in and of itself that it seemed pointless to squabble over further inexplicabilities. Though she never would have believed it, magic existed. There was proof of it right in front of her eyes. Arguments over, case closed.
Shaking her head wonderingly, she pushed off the bed—she’d slept fully clothed but for shoes and socks—and went to stand in front of the mirror. She studied the fabulous frame with its odd symbols, stroking the cool gold of it, trailing her hand down over the silvery glass.
Inside the mirror, Cian raised his hand, too, and traced the path of her passage, making it appear as though their fingertips met. She felt only cold glass.
When the tips of her fingers passed over the black stain at the edge, she snatched them hastily away. It had felt icy, just like that strange E-mail, and it had seemed to almost . . . well, kind of . . . stick to her skin like a psychic leech as she’d pulled away, as if reluctant to release her. She made a mental note to tell him about the Myrddin-guy and his goose-bumpy E-mail. But first, more questions.
“ ’Tis because it is an Unseelie Hallow, lass,” he said softly.
“What?”
“The chill. Dark power is cold. Light power is warm. A Seelie artifact exudes a gentle heat. Mere rubbings of a page from the Unseelie Dark Book suck the heat from a man’s body. ’Tis said handling the Dark Book itself turns a man into something no longer human, day by day, robbing him of all remnants of inner warmth and light.”
Jessi absorbed the information but refused to get sidetracked from the issue at hand. She needed to regain a measure of control that could only be achieved via a thorough understanding of her immediate situation, and as far as she could see, this Dark Book, whatever it was, had nothing to do with her problems.
“So, all we have to do is keep you away from this Lucan person until after the tithe is due, and the spell will be broken? We just need to hide for three weeks? That’s all?”
“Aye.”
“Then what—once the spell is broken and you’re free?” Could he get rid of this man who wanted her dead? Assure her return to a nice, normal life?
He inhaled deeply, his whisky gaze gleaming with sudden, chilling brutality. When he spoke, his voice was hard. “Then you’ll never have to worry about Lucan Trevayne again. No one will. This I swear.”
Jessi stepped back, in spite of herself. With those words, he’d transformed from sexy man to savage beast, lips drawn back in a silent snarl, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed and not quite sane. Madness born of a thousand-plus years of captivity flickered in those whisky depths, shadowy and cold as the inky stain on the perimeter of the Dark Glass.
She swallowed. “You sound pretty sure of your ability to defeat him, considering that he’s the one that stuck you in the mirror,” she felt obligated to point out.
A wicked, feral smile curved his lips. “Ah, Jessica, I’ll win this time. Of that you may be certain,” he said with soft menace.
His words chilled her to the bone. There was such implacable surety in his voice, such savagery in his eyes, that she no longer entertained the slightest doubt whatsoever about Cian MacKeltar’s ability to keep her alive.
She had a feeling the man had a few tricks up his proverbial sleeves. Even stuck inside a mirror. Tricks she probably couldn’t begin to imagine. Again, she had that sense of something more in him.
Oh yes, one way or another, this man would keep her safe.
And how are you going to keep yourself safe from him?
Good question.
Twenty more days. And he could be released from the mirror for at least a portion of each day.
God help her, she had no idea.
Cian MacKeltar attracted her in a manner that defied logic or reason. Then again, she thought wryly, that shouldn’t surprise her too much, because everything about her current situation defied logic or reason. She was chagrined by the sudden sinking suspicion that her intact hymen was probably due less to her impressive moral fiber than to the fact that she’d simply never experienced such intense, brainless chemistry before. If she had, she highly doubted she’d have lasted so long.
“Room service!” The cheery call was accompanied by a sharp rap-tap-tap at the door.
Brightening, Jessi turned away from the mirror. “Thank goodness,” she said. “I’m starving.”
Cian eased back, just behind the silver, where he could still see but couldn’t be seen.
As Jessica walked toward the door, his gaze fixed on her luscious little ass. He’d had that silken-skinned, sweet bottom in his hands only that morning, a cheek of it in each palm. He’d been about to make her his woman, fill her with his cock and pump deep inside her. He’d touched those heavy, round breasts, kissed those full lips, tasted the honeyed sweetness that was Jessica St. James. And soon he would taste the sweetness between her thighs, while he lapped and nibbled and sucked her to shuddering orgasm after orgasm.
A soft growl built in his throat. Christ, he loved to watch her move! Her stride was determined and purposeful, yet graceful and sexy. With a body like that, she couldn’t help but be sexy. Her short dark curls only made her seem more womanly, showcasing the delicate, creamy nape of her neck, the fine bones of her shoulder blades, and the sweet slender bow of her spine.
I do not want to talk about what just happened, she’d snapped.
Fine with me, woman, he’d thought with a silent laugh and a shrug. They didn’t need words.
Their bodies spoke the same language, used identical vocabulary.
Desire. Lust. Need.
He looked at her and something hot and possessive flexed inside his chest.
It wasn’t about wanting to bed her. It was about answering an ancient, undeniable call to mate.
It was about raw, animal passion. It was about—
Food. Bloody hell. His mouth began to water. He smelled meat.
“You can put it here,” Jessica was saying, gesturing to the table by the windows.
A slender, thirtyish woman with shoulder-length brown hair wheeled a tray into the room, pushing it down the narrow aisle between beds and furniture.
Red meat. She’d not ordered fish or fowl, bless the wench! It had been over a century since he’d eaten, and he wanted meat with blood. The last time Lucan had freed him, he’d managed to wolf down a meal of bread, cheese, and ale. To his deprived palate it had been a feast of divinely varied flavors and textures, but it hadn’t been rich, juicy, tender meat. That was a memory that had been tormenting him for more than 427 years.
Though inside the glass his existence was suspended and he suffered no bodily needs—no hunger, no thirst, no need to sleep or piss or bathe—that didn’t mean he suffered no mental ones.
He hungered. Holy hell, did he hunger! He’d whiled away entire weeks at a time, conjuring the memories of the tastes and scents of his favorite foods.
Closing his eyes, he savored the aromas currently wafting past his mirror as the woman began unloading the cart.
He had no idea what tipped him off.
He decided later that mayhap the woman’s intentions were so intense and finely focused that he’d inadvertently deep-listened, catching them even through the glass. Such had happened on occasion with Lucan, usually when his emotions had been strong because he’d been in a fury over one thing or another.
Whatever it was, Cian acted on it instantly, without hesitation.
His hand went to his thigh sheath.
Snapping his eyes open, he whipped his selvar free, hissed the chant to part the veil of silver.
And flung the eight-inch, razor-sharp blade, end over end, through the glass.
* * *
11
Jessi backed away from the room service lady, shaking her head from side to side, mouth open on a scream.
One moment she’d been making small talk with the hotel employee, the next something hot and wet and unexpected had sprayed her, splashing her face and hair, her sweater, even splattering her jeans. She’d squeezed her eyes protectively shut against it.
When she’d opened them, it had been to find the woman, standing, eyes wide and glazed, lips moving soundlessly.
With Cian MacKeltar’s jewel-encrusted knife protruding from her throat.
Belatedly comprehending what had sprayed her, she’d almost thrown up. But when she’d opened her mouth, a scream came out instead.
“Jessica, you must stop screaming!” came the sharp command from inside the mirror.
She knew that, and she was going to any second now. Really.
The woman staggered back into the TV armoire, knocked her head against it with a solid thud, collapsed, and slid down. Her body jerked convulsively, and she went abruptly still, half-sitting, half-lying, hotel uniform twisted about her hips.
As Jessi stared in shock, blood suddenly bubbled between the woman’s lips, and her eyes went eerily empty.
Oh, God, she was dead; the woman was dead!
Cian pounded on the inside of the mirror with his fists. “Stop screaming, Jessica! Bloody hell, listen to me, if you draw people to us, they’ll think you killed her. No one will believe your story of a man in a mirror and I will not show myself. I’ll let you go to prison, Jessica!”
Jessi jerked, his harsh words a bracing slap in her face. She stopped screaming so abruptly it turned into a screeching hiccuping noise, then silence.
He was right.
If her screams drew neighboring guests to her room, she would be found covered with blood, in possession of a stolen artifact, with a dead woman on her floor—said woman having been killed by yet another artifact Jessi wouldn’t be able to explain having in her possession.
She’d be arrested in a heartbeat.
And not just for theft, as she’d worried about earlier when leaving campus, but for murder.
Beyond the Highland Myst Page 188