The Dark Highlander

“I’ll deal with that. She knows there’s something no’ quite right with me.”

“But what if she . . .” Drustan trailed off, but Dageus knew he’d been about to voice the fear that he’d been forced to face when he’d sent Gwen back.

“What if she runs screaming from me? Cries ‘pagan sorcerer’ and hates me?” Dageus said with a chilly smile. “ ’Tis my worry, no’ yours.”

“Dageus—”

“Drustan, I need her. I need her.”

Drustan stared at the scarce-concealed despair in his brother’s eyes, and had a sudden flash of insight: Dageus was walking a razor’s edge, and he knew it. He knew he had no right to take Chloe, verily, he knew he had no right to have brought her this far. But were Dageus to give up on those things he wanted—to accept that, because he was dark, he had no promise of a future, no true rights to anything—he would have nothing left to live for. There would be nothing to keep him fighting another day.

And which would win then? Honor? Or the seduction of absolute power?

Christ, Drustan thought, a chill seeping through his veins, the day his brother stopped wanting, the day he stopped believing there was hope, he would have to face the fact that his only choices were to become utterly evil … or …

Drustan couldn’t make himself finish that thought. And in Dageus’s tortured gaze, he could see that his twin had figured this all out long ago, and was fighting the only way he could. If Dageus’s desire for Chloe was the thing standing most firmly betwixt he and the gates of hell itself, Drustan would chain the wee lass to his brother himself.

A bitter smile curved Dageus’s lips, as if he sensed Drustan’s thoughts. “Besides,” Dageus said with light mockery, “at least I know I can return her. Gwen had no such assurance, yet you took her. If aught goes awry with me, I promise to send Chloe back, one way or another.”

It would mean he was dying, for that was the only way he’d let her go. Even then, she might have to be pried from his fingers as the life fled his body.

“All right.” Drustan nodded slowly. “When will you return?”

“Look for us three days hence. ’Tis as close as I care to pass myself.”

They regarded each other in silence, much unsaid between them. Then there was no further opportunity, for Chloe and Gwen joined them in the circle.

“What are you doing?” Chloe asked curiously, peering at them. “Why are you writing on those stones, Dageus?”

Dageus looked at her a long moment, drinking her in greedily. Och, she was beautiful, so unselfconscious, standing there in her slim blue trews, sweater, and hiking boots, her hair a riot of curls tucked into a loose knot that was already falling out. Huge eyes, wide and full of innocent joy. She wore Scotland well. With a flush in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes.

Eyes that, in a short time, might regard him with fear and loathing, as the lasses in his century would have, had he ever revealed the extent of his Druid power.

And if such comes to pass? his honor prodded.

I’ll do aught I can to seduce her back out of it, he thought, shrugging, using every underhanded trick I’ve got. He’d give up when he was dead.

If anyone could accept it, she could. Modern women were different from the lasses of his time. While sixteenth-century lasses were quick to see “magycks” in the inexplicable, twenty-first-century women sought scientific explanations, were better able to abide the thought of natural laws and physics beyond their understanding. He suspected ’twas because so much progress had been made into scientific inquiry in the past century, explaining previously inexplicable things and exposing a whole new realm of mystery.

Chloe was a strong, curious, resilient lass. Though not a physicist like Gwen, she was clever and had knowledge of both the Old World and the new. An added boon was her insatiable curiosity, which had already led her into places most would not have ventured. She had all the right ingredients to be able to accept what she was soon going to experience.

And he would be there to help her understand. If he knew Chloe half as well as he thought he did, once she recovered from shock, she would be positively giddy with excitement.

Averting his gaze from Chloe’s inquisitive look, he glanced at Gwen. “Be well, lass,” he said. He hugged her, then Drustan, and stepped away.

“What’s going on?” Chloe asked. “Why are you saying good-bye to Gwen and Drustan? Aren’t we staying here to work on his books?” When Dageus didn’t answer, she looked at Gwen, but Gwen and Drustan had turned and were walking out of the circle.