The Dark Highlander

by Karen Marie Moning

  She was starting to feel light-headed again, dizzied by the possibility that all those myths and legends carefully scribed in Ireland thousands of years ago were true. When the truth was so fantastical—why bother hiding it? Who would ever believe it? Nobody but a girl who’d gotten herself all wrapped up in it. A girl who’d stood in an ancient circle of stones and felt a gate or portal or whatever it was, open around her.

  “Come, lass,” Dageus interrupted her thoughts. “I’ll return you and you can forget all about me. You may keep your artifacts. I release you from your obligations. Go home to New York. Have a nice life,” he added coolly.

  “Oh!” Chloe snapped, leaping to her feet. “You are so cold. And you certainly managed to pick up your share of modern colloquialisms, didn’t you? Have a nice life, my ass. Do you really think I’m not in this up to my ears now? Do you really think that if I’m in sixteenth-century Scotland I’m letting you send me away?”

  His smile was chillingly predatory, carnal and possessive. “Do you really think I brought you this far to be letting you go, Chloe-lass?”

  Chloe had a sudden urge to fan herself. He knew her, she realized. He’d learned a bit about what made her tick. If, when she’d come downstairs pretending it was a dream, he’d coddled her, she might have trundled back upstairs and tried to convince herself that if she went back to sleep everything would be okay.

  Instead, he’d pushed her, threatened to send her away, knowing she had a mile-wide stubborn streak and would fight to remain.

  “I’m really in the sixteenth century?”

  Three people said “aye” with calm assurance.

  “And I haven’t gone crazy?”

  Three firm “nays.”

  “And you could really send me back that easily? Any time I wish?”

  “Aye, lass. ’Tis that easy. Though I would endeavor to talk you out of it.”

  She’d come to know him a little, too, what made him tick. And from the deceptive gentleness of his voice and the look on his face, she knew he’d tie her to the bed again if she tried to leave, not attempt reason. She peered at him intently. He was still. Implacable. Hands fisted at his sides.

  He cared about her. She had no idea how much of it was just that mind-boggling attraction between them, but it was a start. And he obviously had a high opinion of her, if he’d thought she could handle this. She felt a little flush of pride. No, she wasn’t going anywhere.

  However, he owed her some serious explanations.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, she thought with droll exasperation, this certainly explains a lot. It’s no wonder I haven’t been able to keep my hands off the blasted man since the day I met him. He’s an artifact! A Celtic one at that!

  “Well, that’s one way of thinking of me, lass,” Dageus purred, his dark eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

  “Tell me I didn’t just say that aloud!” Chloe was horrified.

  Silvan cleared his throat. “You did. He’s an artifact.”

  Chloe groaned, wishing she could just sink into the floor and be swallowed up.

  “I’m Silvan’s wife, Nell, by the bye,” the pretty fortyish woman said. “Dageus’s next-mother. Would ye be liking some kippers and tatties, lass?”

  She decided next-mother must be the medieval equivalent of second wife. “It’s, er, very nice t-to meet you. And yes, I would,” Chloe stammered, sinking limply down into her chair.

  Only then did Dageus reclaim his seat. He was staring at her intensely, his gaze full of sensual promise. She shivered. His expression couldn’t have said any more clearly that Chloe Zanders had kept her virginity quite long enough.

  “You look lovely this morn, lass,” he said silkily, as he passed her first a platter of potatoes and eggs, then one of fat wedges of ham and kippers. “I fancy you in a gown.” His eyes added that he knew there’d been nothing to put beneath it when she’d gotten dressed, intimating that he was the one who’d chosen her gown and brought it to her room while she’d slept.

  Her erotic awareness of the man—an eleven on a scale of one to ten—rocketed to a twenty. Chloe took a deep breath, managed a “thank-you” and turned her attention toward something tangible to tackle: food.

  Simon Barton-Drew’s face was grim as he replaced the phone in the cradle.

  Trevor hadn’t phoned in for fourteen hours. Simon had been trying to reach him on his cell since early that morning, with no success.

  And that could mean only one thing.

  Scowling, he kicked a chair across the room. Trevor had better be dead, he brooded.

  Stalking to the outer door of his office, he swiftly locked it. Before closing the blinds, he glanced out at the rain-slicked street. With the exception of a mangy alley cat noisily wrestling a bit of trash from a nearby Dumpster, the area was deserted, the street lamps buzzing as they flickered on. As much time as he spent in the dilapidated Belthew Building on Morgan Street in a seedy section on London’s outskirts, Simon felt more at home there than in the elegant brownstone where his wife had stopped waiting dinner for him twenty years ago.

  The land on which The Belthew Building stood had been owned by the Druid sect of the Draghar for centuries. Constructed above ancient labyrinthine crypts, it had served as their headquarters for nearly a millennia, in various incarnations. Once an apothecary, then a bookstore specializing in rare books, then a butcher’s shop, once even a brothel, it now housed a small printing business that drew little notice, and there was no paper trail connecting it to the powerful Triton Corporation.

  Their members were the elite, well-placed in society, many in government, more still in the upper echelons of large holding companies. They were wealthy, learned men with impeccable pedigrees.

  And they would be furious to know that he’d lost contact with Trevor. Though Simon was Master of the Order, he was nonetheless accountable. Highly accountable, in this sensitive time. His followers had not funneled so much money and time into the sect for anything less than the promise of absolute power. They all possessed a certain degree of ruthlessness that would come to the fore should they think him incapable of controlling his minions.

  Flipping off the lights, he moved through his darkened office by rote. He removed a painting mounted on one of the many recessed wood panels of the wall and typed in a sequence of numbers. He replaced the painting and, as the paneling slid up behind his desk, he opened a second door and strode down a narrow hallway.

  Several minutes and several additional complex passkeys later, he entered a passageway that sloped sharply downward, where it met a precipitous fall of worn stone stairs. When he reached the bottom, he turned and took the next flight, then a third, then hurried through a maze of dimly lit, damp tunnels.

  He had to send someone to Inverness to discover if Trevor had been taken alive. And if so—to tidy up. It would require the most loyal and committed men he had. Men who would never let themselves be taken alive. Men who would die for him without hesitation. The best men he had.

  His sons were where they could nearly always be found, in the electronic heart of their operation, monitoring innumerable facets of their business.

  And they were, as always, eager to serve.

  After breakfast, Dageus asked Nell to take Chloe to find a light cloak suitable for her to ride in. Chloe, her inquisitive gaze darting everywhere, allowed herself to be led from the great hall.

  After the women departed, Silvan arched an inquiring brow. “Doona you wish to be starting with the texts, lad?”

  Dageus shook his head. “I need this day. I need to show Chloe my world, Da. What it was like. What I was like. If only for a day.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. The truth was the night had been hellish and the morn wasn’t getting any better. He’d not been able to sleep, strung tight as a corded bow. He’d passed the time till dawn fantasizing about Chloe and all the ways he would seduce her. He’d scarce maintained his tight façade of calm through breakfast. And when Chloe had admitted what a battle she’d been fighting to keep her
hands off him, it had been all he could do not to toss her over his shoulder and drag her off to his bed.

  He’d studied himself in a small mirror this morn, while shaving with a hand that shook more than was safe when a man had an open blade at his own neck. He’d seen eyes a darker shade of brown. He’d been nigh a sennight without a woman. Too long. Far too long.

  How long, he wondered almost idly, till his eyes would turn full black? Another day, mayhap two? And what would happen then? he mused, a part of him afraid, another part of him aware that he wasn’t as afraid as he ought to be.

  The voices yestreen in the stones had caught him by surprise. ’Twas the first time he’d ever heard the beings inside him speak, the first time he’d ever perceived them as individual entities. And though feeling them so intensely had been horrifying, had made him feel as if he were choking on some dead thing in the back of his throat that he couldn’t scrape out, it had also been . . . intriguing.

  Part of him was curious to know their language, to hear what they might say. He had thirteen ancient beings inside him! What might they tell him of ancient history? Of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, and what the world had been like four thousand years ago? Of what it was like to hold so much power. . . .

  Inviting a dialogue with them would be your first step through the gates of hell, his honor hissed.

  Aye, he knew that.

  You can’t trust a thing they might say!

  Still . . .

  No “still” about it, his honor seethed. I doona care who you fuck today, just do it.

  That jarred him a bit.

  It would be Chloe. If he went to another woman—even if only out of deference to her, to spare her his brutal need—and she found out, she would never have him. Things could get very bad, very fast, then. He was afraid that if he went to her and she denied him, he might force her. He didn’t want to do that to Chloe. He didn’t want to hurt Chloe.

  The antithesis of his honor scoffed: So what? If she doesn’t care for something you do, use the Voice of Power on her. Tell her to forget what she may not like. Tell her she adores you, worships you. You need but tell her she loves you to make it so. ’Tis so easy. The world can be anything you want it—

  “Dageus!” Silvan shouted, slamming his fists down on the table in front of him.

  Dageus jerked and stared at his father.

  “Where were you?” Silvan exclaimed, looking both frightened and furious.

  “Right here,” Dageus said, shaking his head. A soft whisper, a rustle stirred inside him. Faint voices murmured.

  “I shouted your name three times, and you dinna so much as blink a lash,” Silvan snapped. “What were you doing?”

  “I . . . I was merely thinking.”

  Silvan regarded him intensely for a strained moment. “You had the strangest look on your face, son,” he said finally.

  Dageus didn’t want to know what kind of look. “I’m fine, Da,” he said, pushing himself from the table. “I doona know how late we’ll be. Doona wait a meal for us.”

  Silvan’s piercing gaze followed him as he walked away.

  Nell placed two mugs of cocoa (one specially supplemented with herbs for an absent-minded man who too oft forgot to eat) on a tray and went in search of her husband.

  Her husband. The words never failed to bring a smile to her lips. When Silvan had found her lying on the road nearly fifteen years ago, on the brink of death, he’d brought her back to Castle Keltar and sat at her bedside, demanding she fight for her life at a time when she’d wanted naught more than to die.

  Before Silvan had found her, she’d been mistress to a married laird whom she’d loved unwisely and deeply, incurring the wrath and jealousy of his barren wife. While he’d lived, he’d been there to protect her, but when he’d been killed in a hunting accident, his wife had stolen Nell’s babies, had her driven out, beaten and left for dead.

  Upon recovering, for the next twelve years she’d been Silvan’s housekeeper, caring for him and mothering his young sons in lieu of her own. Despite her firm resolve to never again get involved with a laird—wed or no’—she’d fallen in love with the eccentric, gentle, brilliant man. Verily, the day she’d opened her mud- and blood-caked eyes to find him bending over her in the roadway, something inexplicable had quickened inside her. She’d contented herself with loving him from a distance, hiding it behind a caustic demeanor and sparring words. Then three and a half years ago, events with Gwen and Drustan had thrown them together, stirring a passion that she’d been elated to discover Silvan had been hiding as well, and life had been sweeter than aught she’d ever known. Though nothing could replace the babies she’d lost so long ago, fate had blessed her in her late years with a second chance, and their twins were currently sleeping in the nursery under careful watch of their nanny, Maeve.

  She loved Silvan more than life itself, though she rarely let him know that. There was something stuck in her craw, a thing she’d never make peace with. Silvan hadn’t given his first wife the binding Druid vows of mating. That had heartened her when he’d asked her to wed him, but in three and a half long years, he’d not offered them to her either. And so long as that distance was betwixt them, she would never be able to make completely free with her heart. She would always wonder why, always wonder how come he didn’t love her enough. A woman hated knowing she loved her man more deeply than he loved her.

  Silvan was, as she’d expected, in his tower library, one hundred and three steps above the castle proper.

  He was also, as she’d expected, downright broody.

  “I brought ye cocoa,” she announced, placing the tray on a small table.

  He glanced up and smiled at her, though with an utterly distracted air. For a change, there was no book on his lap. Nor was he seated at his desk, scribing away. Nay, he was in a chair near the open window and had been staring sightlessly out it.

  “’Tis Dageus, is it no?” Nell drew a chair close to his and sipped at her cocoa. Silvan had long had a fondness for the costly chocolate drink, and during her pregnancy she’d developed a taste for it herself. “Why dinna ye tell me all about it, Silvan,” she encouraged gently. She knew what he was thinking, for she was worrying the same things. Dageus had always been her favorite of the Keltar lads, with his wild passionate heart and private pains. As she’d watched him grow, watched the world harden him, she’d prayed a special lass might someday come along for him, as Gwen had for Drustan. (Gwen who’d gotten the blethering binding vows from her husband!)

  Silvan’s brown eyes sobered and he raked a hand through his snowy mane. “Och, Nellie, what am I to do? What I felt in him six moons past, before he left, is naught compared to what I now sense.”

  “And there’s naught in the tomes ye’ve been searching that tells how to reimprison them?”

  Silvan shook his head and exhaled dismally. “Not a blethering thing.”

  “Have ye checked all the tomes?” she pressed. Since the day Dageus had left, Silvan had been a man fair obsessed, laboring from dawn till dusk on his studies, determined to find something to pass on to Drustan, where they’d both suspected Dageus had gone.

  Silvan replied that he’d thoroughly searched both his tower library and the study belowstairs.

  “Did ye check the chamber library?” Nell asked, frowning.

  “I told you I checked the study.”

  “I dinna say the study. I said the chamber library.”

  “What are you talking about, Nellie?”

  “The one beneath the study.”

  Silvan went very still. “What one beneath the study?”

  “The one behind the hearth,” she said impatiently.

  “What one behind the hearth?” Silvan snapped, surging to his feet.

  Nell’s eyes flew wide. “Och, for heaven’s sake, Silvan, dinna ye know about it?”

  Silvan grabbed her hand, his brown eyes flashing. “Show me.”

  19

  Chloe clutched the stallion’s mane as they sped across heathe
r-covered fields toward a lush, overgrown forest.

  When she and Dageus had ridden out from the castle half an hour ago, she’d seen more evidence that she was truly in the past. A towering wall that hadn’t been there yesterday, patrolled by guards, encircled the perimeter of the estate. Clad in authentic medieval garb and armor, the guards had been toting weapons that made her fingers curl. She’d barely resisted the temptation to pluck them from their hands and lock them up somewhere safe.

  When they’d exited the gates she’d peered curiously down into the valley, not really expecting to see the city of Alborath. Still, seeing the vast vale, that twenty-four hours earlier had been filled with thousands of homes and shops, currently occupied by contentedly grazing, fat sheep, had left her feeling utterly discombobulated.

  Face it, Zanders, however he did it—physics, Druidry, archeoastronomy—he took you back.

  Which meant that the man behind her on the horse, who’d not spoken a word since they’d ridden out, guiding them at a dizzying speed across wide-open fields, was a man who possessed the knowledge to command time itself.

  Wow. Not exactly what she’d expected the day she’d stood in his penthouse fantasizing about what kind of man Dageus MacKeltar might be. Nope, not once had she thought “time-travelling Druid.” It was making her reevaluate her entire concept of history—how little historians really knew! She felt as if she’d been sucked into one of Joss Whedon’s scripts, into a world where nothing was what it seemed. Where girls discovered they were vampire-slayers and fell for men who didn’t have souls. A Buffy addict to the bone, she wondered who Dageus was more like, Spike or Angel?

  The answer came with swift certainty: There was something about him that was far more Spike than Angel, a tortured duality, a driving, underlying darkness.