“What do you mean, ‘all’ of you?” she panted, arching her back to give him the best possible access.
“I’m not fool enough to tup you. Silvan would indeed have the final say if I went that far.”
Oooh, she was suddenly furious. “Get off me, you oaf!”
He gave her a lazy, incredibly hot grin. “Hush, wee English. I will not leave you wanting. I told you I’d ease your discomfort with my body. I simply didn’t tell you which parts of my body I’d be using to do it.”
“I will not play childish games with you.”
“You’ll play any games I ask of you. I doona understand this thing between us, but I know you need what I offer you. And you cannot resist me any more than I can you. I think you’ve done some witchery to me.”
With his demanding mouth, he silenced any reply she might have made and when his hand slipped beneath her gown and up her thigh to the wetness between them, she decided to temporarily abandon her angry thoughts. She’d be angry afterward, she decided, finding a tidy mental compartment for the things she knew she should be feeling, but refused to feel until he was done feeling her.
Ha, she thought—and men think women can’t compartmentalize sex and emotions.
It took her less than a minute beneath his expert hand to come in shuddering little spasms against him.
He held her for a moment, until her shudders subsided, then placed a finger beneath her chin and tipped her head back.
They stared in silence while time stretched out. His face was tight with lust and she could feel him, rock hard against her thigh. He looked almost angry.
Finally he said, “Come to my bedroom tonight, English.”
“To make love? Or for more of this child’s play?” Anger popped its unruly head out of its compartment. Perhaps the difference between men and women was not that they didn’t compartmentalize, but that women remembered what they’d boxed up for later, while men—with scientifically documented inferior short-term memory—forgot.
“Nay. I cannot bed you. But I promise I will not leave you wanting. Nor will you leave me wanting tonight.”
“Dream on.” Gwen gathered the tatters of dignity about her and flounced down the hall away from him.
But despite her irritation, she was elated. His attraction to her, his inability to turn away from her even though he knew it put him in peril of being forced to wed by his father, was a promising sign. He desired her, and by God, if it was the only way to get his attention, she was going to flounce until she drove him crazy.
Drustan leaned back against the wall, folded his arms over his chest, and watched her retreat. He was painfully hard. He rubbed his jaw then caught the scent of her on his hand and got even harder. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
Christ, how could such a tiny woman—the very one he knew he should stay away from if he wished to convince Silvan he hadn’t raped her—have such a monumental impact on him? When he’d returned from the village, having learned nothing useful, opened the door and glimpsed her at the top of the stairs, he’d frozen. His tongue had stuck to the roof of his mouth, so dry it had become, and he’d stared like a lovesick lad.
Her body cried out to his in a language that needed no words.
You doona even know her, his mind argued. ’Tis momentary lust, nothing more.
He shook his head. He’d never felt lust so strong. He’d had no intention of going anywhere near her, then she’d started pinching that luscious lower lip between her finger and thumb, then he’d started imagining nibbling on that lip, and the next thing he’d known, he’d been stalking her with every intention of getting a taste of what he’d been accused of having had already.
He shook his head, furious with himself.
He should stay as far away from her as possible.
He should never touch her again.
He could scarcely wait to touch her again …
CHAPTER 13
Dinner that night was a disaster. Full-fledged nicotine withdrawal had kicked in, and she was so irritable between pent-up sexual frustration and withdrawal that she doubted her ability to carry on a civil conversation.
The only thought that kept her going was that she knew the physical craving would be greatly diminished in another twenty-four hours. Psychological craving she could handle. It took only about three days to get over the physical withdrawal, but oh, God, it was proving to be a terrible three days. Earlier, while she’d been pacing the castle trying to walk off her irritation, she’d stumbled into a study in the east wing, and had found a box of unusual cigars.
She had taken one out and rolled it in her palms. Sniffed it. Stuck it in her mouth.
But she hadn’t smoked it. The only thing that had prevented her was the realization that if she struggled through the next day and a half, the craving would fade, but if she smoked the stupid cigar, she’d only want another one and never break the vicious cycle.
Besides, who wanted cigar breath when she had no toothbrush?
And now, she sat in the Greathall at one of seven long tables. Over a hundred men had come blustering into the keep for dinner. They sat at six of the tables, and absurdly, the seventh long table held only Gwen, Drustan, Silvan, and a young boy named Tristan, whom Silvan had introduced as his protégé.
Drustan had arrived late, and had kicked out the chair at the farthest end of the table from her in silence.
“Brooding, Drustan?” Silvan asked.
Drustan arched a brow. “It depends on what I’m getting for dinner. If it’s more pork pie, I’ll not just be brooding. I’ll be hiring a new cook.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Silvan snapped. “And if you hurt Nell’s feelings, I’ll make certain you regret it.”
“Do the two of you always fight?” Gwen asked. She’d gotten the impression that Drustan admired his father, yet they seemed forever at each other’s throats.
They both looked suddenly abashed.
“Nay,” Drustan said. “ ’Tis just that he picks at me of late—”
“Oh, I pick at you?” Silvan grunted around a mouthful of soup.
Drustan dropped his spoon and held an imaginary hair thong up in his hand. “Tie your hair back, old man. It annoys me.”
“Well it does,” Drustan said defensively.
“I like Silvan’s hair,” Gwen said. And she did. She thought he looked wonderfully like a brilliant philosopher or scientist, and he was quite handsome in his own way.
Drustan snorted. “Careful or she’ll charm the trews right off you, da.”
“Is that what she did to you?” Silvan asked coolly.
Gwen blushed, and Drustan looked down at the table guiltily.
They were saved by the arrival of a gaggle of maids, bearing platters. As they deposited dishes, Gwen dragged her chair closer to Silvan’s.
“Who are all these men?” she asked, waving at the other tables.
“Our men-at-arms,” he replied, digging into a basket of fresh, warm bread.
“Do they live in the castle?”
“Nay, the garrison is behind the keep. We have over two hundred and fifty men housed in the garrison, and the village of Tillybrand has just under a thousand more. We are a strong clan, and own four manors beyond Tillybrand. Dageus oversees the far-flung ones.”
Gwen winced. It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed that Silvan, for all his cleverness, still referred to his other son as if he were alive. People had their own ways of dealing with grief, and she supposed his was outright denial.
“What are you two whispering about down there?” Drustan said irritably.
Silvan cocked his head and scowled. “If you’d like to know, join us,” he said, gesturing to a seat near Tristan, who was eating in silence.
When Drustan rose from the chair, Gwen’s eyes lingered on him hungrily. She couldn’t help it. He was wearing his usual tartan, and no leather armor, just a drape of fabric over one shoulder. Powerful dark arms and a sinful glimpse of his rippling abdomen made her bite o
f bread stick to the roof of her mouth.
“I can see I’m going to have to,” he said, tossing a chunk of bread to the floor. It hit with considerable force, and shattered into crusty pieces. “The food isn’t as good down at this end,” he said, shooting a dark look at Nell who was walking by.
“Maybe that’s because the man down at that end isn’t as good either,” she retorted sharply, before bending to scoop the crumbs out of the rushes.
As she was finishing, Drustan tossed a bone from his platter of ribs over his shoulder.
Only Gwen seemed to notice her sigh as she bent to pick that up, too.
Her eyes narrowed, and she realized Tristan, Silvan—all the men—were doing the same. Whatever they didn’t find palatable got chucked over a shoulder. It was no wonder there were rats in the rushes. Poor Nell, as if she didn’t have enough to do cooking for hundreds of hungry men. No wonder there were fifty maids in the castle.
“Why are you throwing food on the floor?” she asked Drustan.
“Bones,” he said. “I doona eat the bones. Of pigs,” he clarified. “Only those of wee young lasses.” He flashed an evil grin.
“Do you think Nell enjoys picking them up?” she asked in a voice that dripped icicles. Behind Drustan’s shoulder, Nell paused and glanced at Gwen, obviously interested in this.
“What?” Drustan said, pretending not to understand.
“Nell. The sweet, kind woman who is in her fifties and probably can’t bend over with the same agility she had twenty years ago. Nothing against you, Nell,” she added as an afterthought. “On that note,” she said, rising to her feet as her temper rose, “do you think the maids enjoy having to clean out rat-infested rushes every week? Has it occurred to you that you could do without the rushes entirely if you simply quit throwing things on the floor? And maybe then the maids could scrub these stones down and have a hope of keeping them clean. Perhaps it wouldn’t smell like a pigsty in here. Do you think it might not be beyond you to simply lay the pieces you don’t want beside your plate?” By the time she’d finished, every maid in the room had stopped serving and was looking at Drustan who looked absolutely bewildered by her assault.
“We’ve always—”
“I don’t care what you’ve always done. It’s rude and inconsiderate.”
In the pregnant silence that followed, in which nearly every maid in the room and most of the guards placed mental bets on how long it would take the laird to kill the wee lass, Silvan broke the tension by laughing. His shoulders shook with merriment, and in a few moments, Nell came to stand behind him and joined him.
They laughed and laughed while everyone in the hall stared at them as if they’d gone mad. When finally they stopped laughing and Silvan patted Nell’s hand, which had somehow ended upon his shoulder, Drustan said, “You would let her speak to us like that? You will explain yourself, da.”
“Nay. I’ll do no such thing.” Silvan returned to his soup with gusto. “However, I do believe the lass has a point. We have been making more work for Nell, and I personally would like to see the end of these damned rushes, perhaps a few rugs on clean stones. The new rule is: If you doona like it, lie it beside your plate. Anyone who tosses food on the floor, sleeps on the floor.”
“I already sleep on the floor,” Tristan said. Then he looked horrified, as if he’d spoken when he wasn’t supposed to.
“He does?” Gwen was appalled.
“On a pallet on the floor, outside my chamber. ’Tis standard for an apprentice.” He cut Tristan a look. “Explain to her that you’re happy to do it.”
“It’s all right, milady.” Tristan glanced guiltily at Silvan. “To become a Druid, I’d sleep in the snow, if I had to.”
A tense silence blanketed the table, and she saw a muscle in Silvan’s jaw twitch before he dropped his head so she couldn’t see his expression. She glanced at Drustan, whose face had gone pale.
Finally, Silvan raised his head from his soup and said brightly, “He’s a fanciful lad, my Tristan. I’m teaching him numbers.”
Gwen inclined her head, something inside her going very still. Pretending nothing was amiss, she helped herself to a selection of ribs and roasted potatoes, all the while her mind was churning.
To become a Druid, Tristan had said. Druids. These men are Druids. Now I’m getting somewhere.
The rest of the dinner passed in uneventful silence, which was fine with her, because she was tired and needed to get back to her room to make some notes.
First plan on the agenda tomorrow: get that boy Tristan alone.
It’s enough that I know that you’re out there somewhere, buying a used copy of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil from a street vendor for a quarter.
This one’s for you, my most worthy adversary.
Dear Reader,
I call this The Dark Highlander Lite.
My fourth novel, Kiss of the Highlander was released on September 4, 2001. Precisely one week later, it hit the New York Times extended bestseller list. It stayed on the list for three weeks, a rarity for a romance novel in those times. The day it hit the list was 9/11/01, a day so filled with tragedy that it eclipsed any personal joy I might have felt. Instead, I felt guilt that took me a long time to shake. How could one of my books hit the New York Times bestseller list the same day New York, and the whole country, suffered such tragic loss? Rationally the two had nothing to do with each other. My heart remained unconvinced and refused to celebrate.
Shortly after 9/11, I moved from inner city Cincinnati to a quieter place in rural Indiana. In the months following the attack, I struggled to re-acclimate to the world I’d thought I knew. I had a book due and wasn’t remotely in the mood to start writing, but meeting my deadlines pays my bills, so I sat down to write when the last thing I wanted was danger and adventure. I wanted comfort.
During November, December, and part of January I wrote two hundred and fifty pages of The Dark Highlander, version one. Sometime in February, I took a hard look at it and was stunned at how wrong it had come out. It wasn’t the version I’d intended to write at all. I’d written a clone of Drustan because Drustan was comforting to me. Dageus isn’t comforting. He’s dark, tortured, and intensely sexual. Though twins, the brothers are night and day. Drustan is noble, honorable, and would never tell a lie. Dageus would break any rule for love. Drustan is comfort. Dageus is excitement. Drustan makes love. Dageus fucks. I wanted my reader to put The Dark Highlander down when they were done and think “Wow, there were three main characters in that book: Dageus, Chloe, and Sex.” Version one was so far off track I was astounded, as if I’d been writing in a daze, which I was. A lot of us wandered in various degrees of disconnect for months after 9/11.
There I sat with nearly two-thirds of a book that was due in a month, and it was the wrong book. I called my editor and told her I was throwing it away and starting over. After she finished completely freaking out, she asked me to send it in anyway, let her take a look at it and decide. I refused because I was afraid if I sent it in she would try to publish it, and there was no way I was going to let that happen. She promised me they wouldn’t unless they thought it was good enough and I told her that was the problem: It was good enough.
It wasn’t the right story.
It was easier before I became a fairly decent writer to decide what to throw away and what to keep. Once your writing achieves a certain level of competence, it can be tricky to discern if it also has the right stuff. Version one was more than competent; it was fun and entertaining but it didn’t have the darkness or the magic that I could see in my head, yet had failed to translate to the page.
It was a terrifying moment for me. I’d never missed a deadline. I didn’t have time to miss a deadline because I get paid when I turn the book in and I needed the money. Delaying it six months meant hard financial times and a great deal of uncertainty. Still, the book wasn’t what I wanted for Dageus. It wasn’t true to the vision I’d had when I first decided to tell the story of my Keltar brothers. I
remember feeling poised on a precipice. If I jumped off into the land of “okay, I let the wrong version get published and I’ll live with it,” I might never be able to stand on the edge of that precipice and hold my ground. It was a defining moment. I’ve never regretted the choice I made. You have to draw your lines in the sand and stay them.
We agreed that I would take a week, start the “right” version, and I would send her fifty pages of each. What she didn’t know was that I burned all but fifty pages of version one so I wouldn’t be tempted.
After she read them both, she extended my deadline, and I started over. She said if she’d never read the first fifty pages of version two she might have thought I was crazy, but once she read it, she saw exactly what I meant. The Dark Highlander Lite was good. But The Dark Highlander Dark rocked it.
I thought version one was gone forever but recently my computer guys restored a few dead hard drives and old Zip discs and guess what I’d backed up? Here’s the first part of The Dark Highlander Lite that was never published. It’s a rough draft, unedited. That means no line or conceptual editing, so you’ve been warned.
It’s fun stuff, warm and sexy, with glimpses into the world of the Keltar you won’t find anywhere else. And it was the wrong story. Email me at
[email protected] after you read it and let me know what you think.
Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a Shadow …
—Carl Jung
’Tis no’ the way of Evil to assault.
True Evil seduces.
—Book of Midhe
PROLOGUE
THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE THE BIRTH OF CHRIST, THERE settled in Ireland a race called the Tuatha Dé Danann who, over time, became known as the True Race or the Fairy.
An advanced civilization from a faraway place, the Tuatha Dé Danann educated in Druid ways some of the more promising humans they encountered. For a time, man and “fairy” shared the earth in peace, but sadly, bitter dissension arose between them, and the Tuatha Dé Danann decided to move on. Legend claims they were driven “under the hills” into “fairy mounds.” The truth is they never left our world, but hold their fantastic court in places difficult for humans to find.