The Dark Highlander

Yes, she acknowledged, awed. It was conceivable.

He’d said “Druids,” as in he was a Druid. So, she mused wryly, the tricky man had actually told her the truth back in his Manhattan penthouse. She’d simply not believed it.

She’d studied Druids as part of her course work in the master’s program. She’d waded through the scant facts and stranger fictions. What was it Caesar had written in the first century C.E. during the Gallic War? Druids have much knowledge of the stars and their motion, of the size of the world and of the earth, of natural philosophy, and of the powers and spheres of action of the immortal gods.

Caesar himself had said it. Who was she to argue?

Pliny, Tacitus, Lucan, and many other classical writers had also written about the Druids. The Romans had persecuted the Druids for centuries (while their emperors privately availed themselves of their prophetesses), forcing them into hiding. Christianity had further forced them to adapt or disappear. Had it been because they’d feared the power the Druids possessed? Were Druids perhaps like the Templars? Hiding throughout the centuries, protecting fabulous secrets?

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.