The Dark Highlander

“Because you’re holding me captive!”

“And it’s been awful, has if no’?” he mocked lightly.

“Just step back,” she hissed. When he deliberately pressed his body forward against the tip of the sword and she felt his skin give beneath the blade, she gasped. His lips curved in a chilling smile.

And she knew if she drew the blade back, it would gleam red with his blood. The awful knot was joined by nausea.

“Kill me or put down the sword,” he said with deadly intensity. “Those are your options. Your only options.”

Chloe searched his eyes, those glittering golden eyes. They seemed to be swirling with shadows, changing color, dimming from molten amber to burnt copper, but that wasn’t possible. The moment was taut with danger, and she had the sudden bizarre feeling that something … else … was in the penthouse with them. Something ancient and very, very cold.

Or was it just the coldness in those eyes? She shook herself, scattering her absurd thoughts.

He was serious. He would make her kill him to leave.

She couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t even remotely possible. She didn’t want Dageus MacKeltar dead. She didn’t ever want him dead. Even if it meant he was out there, a rogue thief, beautiful as a fallen angel, breaking laws and stealing artifacts.

When she let the sword dip, his hand moved in a lightning-fast blur of motion. She screamed, dropping the sword as the silver flash of a blade arced up toward her face.

It sank into the door beside her ear.

“Look at it, lass,” he ordered.

“Wh-what?”

“The dirk. ’Tis a fourteenth-century skean dhu.”

She turned her head gingerly and peered at the blade protruding from the door, then glanced back at him. She was walled in by six feet plus of muscle and man, palms on either side of her head. A knife by her ear. He’d had it somewhere on his body all along. Could have used it on her at any moment. But hadn’t.

“You like your artifacts, doona you, lass?”

She nodded.

“Take it.”

Chloe blinked.

He dropped his hands suddenly and stepped back. “Go on, take it.”

Eyeing him warily, Chloe tugged the blade from the door with a little grunt. It required both her hands to free it. “Oh,” she breathed. Hilt studded with emeralds and rubies, it was exquisite. The finest blade she’d ever seen. “This must be worth a fortune! It’s in mint condition. There’s not even the teeniest nick on the blade! Tom would give anything for this.”

So, she was afraid, might she.

“ ’Tis my own. ’Tis the crest of the Keltar on the hilt. Now ’tis yours. For when you leave. Should you lose your job.”

He turned around and stalked back to the sofa.

When he sat down and resumed working on the text, Chloe stood in stunned silence, her gaze drifting from him to the skean dhu and back again. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

His actions had just demonstrated, more persuasively than any words he might have used, that he’d meant it when he’d said he wouldn’t hurt her. What words had he used last night? Naught will be done to you that you doona wish done.

She didn’t find that quite as comforting as she might have, had her own wishes been a bit purer.

He’d just put an ancient Celtic artifact in her hands and called it hers.

Her fingers curled possessively around the hilt of the dagger. She should object strenuously. Or at least, protest politely. And she was going to, anytime now.

She waited. Anytime now.

Sighing dismally, she acknowledged that some things just weren’t humanly possible—not even Martha Stewart could fold fitted sheets.

Oh, Grandda, why didn’t you ever tell me Scotsmen were so fascinating? He knows just how to get to me.

She almost thought she heard Evan MacGregor’s soft laughter. As if he’d answered her from somewhere beyond the stars, You wouldn’t be satisfied with less, Chloe. You’ve got your share of wild blood in you too.

Did she? Was that why, lately, she’d been waking up in the middle of the night, full of energy that desperately needed an outlet? Why, despite how well her job was going (she knew she was going to be promoted soon), she’d been growing increasingly restless? For months now, a small but insistent voice inside her had been murmuring, “Is this all there is of my life?”

The Gaulish Ghost was offering her a bribe, a payoff of sorts. Be a “good lass” and leave with a prize. Her very own Celtic artifact.

In exchange for her silence and cooperation.