The Dark Highlander

Och, aye, the men in the room looked decidedly uneasy. Uneasy was good. Violent dissension would be even better.

“You’ll be releasing a power that you can’t possibly begin to understand and have no hope of mastering.” Dageus gave him a chilling smile.

After a tense silence, Simon waved a dismissive hand. “Enough. I am not going to fall for your ruse. The Draghar would not try to return because they would run the risk of being imprisoned again. They will never risk that.”

“So you say, when in truth, you know nothing about them. I do.”

Simon’s jaw set and he motioned to two of the men standing nearby. “I will not be swayed from the course of the Prophecy. It is my sworn duty to fulfill it. And I may not know as much about the Draghar as I’d like, but I do know much about you.” He glanced at the men. “Bring her,” he ordered.

The men hastened from the chamber.

Dageus went rigid. Her—who? he nearly roared. There was no way, he told himself. Chloe was safe and sleeping within the castle’s warded walls.

He was so very wrong.

When they returned a few moments later, his gut clenched. “Nay,” he whispered, lips scarce moving. “Och, nay, lass.”

“Och, aye, Keltar,” Simon mocked. “A lovely woman, isn’t she? We tried to get to her in Manhattan. But fear not, you may have all of her you want once you’ve yielded to the inevitable. I suspect the Draghar will be hungry for a woman after four thousand years.”

The men roughly half-dragged, half-carried Chloe forward. Her hands and feet were bound and her face ashen, streaked with tears.

“I’m so sorry, Dageus,” she gasped. “I woke up when I heard the car door slam and ran outside, trying to catch you—”

One of the men cuffed her into silence, and every muscle in Dageus’s body screamed. He closed his eyes, fighting the dark storm rising in him. I am a man and a Keltar. I will not lash out blindly, he told himself over and again. It was several moments before he managed to open them again and when he did, their gazes locked.

I love you, she mouthed. I’m so sorry!

He shook his head, rejecting her apology, hoping she understood that he was saying no apology was necessary. It was his fault, not hers. I love you too, lass, he shaped the words silently.

“How touching,” Simon said dryly. He motioned the men holding Chloe to bring her forward, stopping them half a dozen paces from the column to which Dageus was bound. “Having a private plane has its uses,” he said, smiling. “She was here before you’d even landed in London. And now my men will kill her unless you’d care to prevent it. Being bound should present no obstacle for a man with such power.”

“You son of a bitch.” Dageus strained violently against the chains, but to no avail. Without magic, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Rage consumed him, accompanied by the fierce temptation to use the most horrific power at his disposal. He could taste the potency of the ancient ones, piling up in the back of his throat, begging to be freed. The words that brought death coiled on the tip of his tongue. He wanted blood, and the beings inside him were lusting to spill it.

Simon had planned his strategy well. He’d drugged Dageus so he wouldn’t be able to control the amount of magic he used, taken captive the woman Dageus loved more than life itself, and was now going to kill her, unless Dageus used magic to prevent it.

And if he used magic to save her, he would transform.

It was inevitable, he realized with a peculiar detachment. This was it. He was backed into a corner with no way out. There was no way he would permit Chloe to be harmed. Ever. She was his mate, she held his Selvar. His life was her shield.

For a split second, a curiously suspended instant in time, it was as if he were there in the catacombs, yet not there. His mind slipped to a quiet place where memories flashed in swift conjunction.

He was seeing Chloe for the first time, standing in the misting rain on a bustling street in Manhattan. He was discovering her beneath his bed. He was feeling the lushness of her lips when he’d stolen that first kiss.

He was feeding her bites of salmon. Listening to her haver incessantly away about some obscure tome, her eyes sparkling. Watching her puff on a fat cigar.

He was seeing her sleepy-sexy eyes when he’d brought her to her first peak on the airplane. Making love to her in a sparkling pool beneath an endless blue sky in his beloved Highlands. Spilling inside her, becoming part of her. Watching, as she perched on a chair and practiced saying that she loved him to a shield, then turning to shout it at him. Saying it again, after he’d told her his darkest secret. Remaining steadfastly at his side.