Kiss of the Highlander

He laughed aloud and pulled her closer. He craved her touch, wanted desperately to make love to her, but sensed that if he pressed her now, he would lose the comfort of her embrace. “That was fine, lass. Yer no bampot, and I’m thinkin’ we may make a wee douce Highland lass out o’ ye yet.”

Gwen slept that night curled in the arms of a Highlander, in a field of sillar shakles and gowan, beneath a silvery spoon of a moon, peaceful as a lamb. And if Drustan was feeling wolfish, he bid himself be content merely to hold her.

SEPTEMBER 21

10:23 P.M.

9

They searched all day but didn’t find the tablets.

When the sky darkened to indigo, pierced by glittering stars, Drustan gave up and constructed a bonfire within the circle of stones so he would have light by which to perform the ritual.

If the worst occurred tonight, he wanted her to know as much about what had happened to him as possible. And her backpack would be an added boon. While digging in the ruins, he’d told her everything that had transpired just prior to his abduction.

One disbelieving brow arched, she’d nevertheless listened as he explained how he’d received a note bearing an urgent summons to come to the clearing behind the little loch if ye wish tae ken the name of the Campbell who murdered yer brother. His grief fever-hot, he’d donned his weapons and rushed off, without summoning his guard; the thirst to avenge his brother’s death had overridden all intelligent thought.

He told her how he’d grown light-headed and weary while racing toward the loch and that he now believed he’d somehow been drugged. He told her how he’d collapsed just outside the forest on the banks of the loch, how his limbs had locked, his eyes had closed as if weighted by heavy gold coins. He told her he’d felt his armor and weapons being removed, then symbols being painted on his chest, then felt nothing more until she’d wakened him.

Then he told her of his family, of his brilliant and bristly father, of their beloved housekeeper and substitute mother, Nell. He told her of his young priest, whose nagging, fortune-telling mother was wont to chase him ceaselessly about the estate trying to get a look at his palm.

He forgot his sorrow for a time and regaled her with tales of his childhood with Dageus. When he spoke of his family, her skeptical gaze had softened a bit, and she’d listened with marked fascination, laughing over the antics of Drustan and his brother, smiling gently over the ongoing sparring between Silvan and Nell. He deduced from her wistful expression that, even when her family had been alive, there’d not been much laughter and loving in her life.

Have you no brothers and sisters, lass? he’d asked.

She’d shaken her head. My mother had fertility problems and had me late in life. After she had me, the doctors said she couldn’t have any more.

Why have you not wed and had bairn of your own?

She’d shifted and averted her gaze. I never found the right man.

Nay, she’d not had much pleasure in her life, and he’d like the chance to change that. He’d like to make her eyes sparkle with happiness.

He wanted Gwen Cassidy. He wanted to be her “right man.” The mere scent of her as she walked by brought every inch of him to attention. He wanted her to become so familiar with his body and the pleasure he could give her with it that a simple glance would make her limp with desire. He wanted to pass a fortnight, uninterrupted, in his bedchamber, exploring her hidden passion, unleashing the eroticism that simmered just beneath her surface.

But it might never come to pass, because once he performed the ritual and she discovered what he was, and what he’d done to her, she would have every reason to despise him.

Still, he had no other choice.

Casting a worried glance at the arc of the moon against the black sky, he inhaled deeply, greedily, of the sweet Highland night air. The time was nearly upon them.

“Let it rest, Gwen,” he called. He was moved that she refused to give up. Mad though she might think him, she was still digging about in the ruins. “Come join me in the stones,” he beckoned. He wanted to spend what might be his last hour with her, close to the fire, holding her in his arms. His druthers were to strip off her clothes and bury himself inside her, brand himself into her memory with what time he had left, but that seemed as likely as the tablets suddenly manifesting themselves in his hands.

“But we haven’t found the tablets.” She turned toward him, smudging dirt on her cheek when she pushed back her hair.

“ ‘Tis too late now, lass. The time is nearly upon us, and that tube of light”—he gestured at her flashlight—“won’t help us see what isn’t there to be found. ’Twas a vain and foolish hope that they might have survived intact on the estate. If we haven’t found them yet, the next hour will accomplish naught. Come. Spend it with me.” He held out his arms.