As if that made any difference.
Cian MacKeltar had indeed returned to the Highlands. As Lucan had known he would. The bastard wanted to die in Scotland. As Lucan had known he would.
According to his late employee, the castle the ninth-century Highlander had once lived in was now occupied by Christopher and Maggie MacKeltar and their children.
But it was not that castle and its occupants that concerned him.
It was the other one. The one he’d not known existed.
A second castle had been constructed on a distant part of the MacKeltar estate at some time during the sixteenth century, years after he’d quit paying attention to that rocky, barbaric little corner of the Highlands. It was currently occupied by twin Keltar males.
With old names.
Dageus and Drustan.
Who the fuck were they and from beneath what fucking rock had they crawled?
It was in that castle, or so Hans had suspected, that the mirror was being kept. A man and a woman fitting Cian and Jessi St. James’s description had been seen in a store in Inverness. There Hans had encountered the confusion typical of the aftereffects of Voice, but he’d managed to obtain the information that a heretofore unknown Keltar, one of the twins, Dageus, had driven off in a vehicle with a large, ornate mirror in the back of it. The employee had recalled the mirror because “that tattooed guy” had been obsessive about it not getting broken, rearranging it three times and padding it with blankets before permitting other items to be loaded in with it.
Lucan had not anticipated this.
He’d expected Cian to head for the hills. To be in the wide open. He’d expected to be facing one MacKeltar, not three; two of them complete unknowns. In a castle that was probably warded to the fucking rafters.
He frowned over his shoulder at the crisply blackened remains of Hans. It would remain concealed by his spell for a few moments more. Then one pubgoer or another would take note of the grisly corpse on the floor, women would scream, and men would mill about, gaping, readying their stories for watercooler chats in the morning. Law enforcement would be rung. Lucan quickened his pace, pushing his way through the boisterous after-work crowd.
It was damned inconvenient for Hans to be dead right now.
There were other matters to which Lucan would have liked him to attend. He’d not killed him—oh no, not he—he’d brooked no quarrel with Hans. The power within him was occasionally wont to act with a will of its own. It was part of being such a great sorcerer. The vessel of his tattooed body was no longer sufficient to completely contain his greatness. Magic sometimes overflowed, leaked out, and someone got burned. Literally. Lucan chuckled dryly.
Surely he was the greater sorcerer by now.
Fourteen days.
His crimson eyes lit with mirth and he was taken by a sharp bark of laughter, struck by the sheer absurdity of the thought that he—Lucan Myrddin Trevayne—could die.
Impossible.
As he quit the pub and stepped into the chilly London evening, he considered his next step. A cry of shock and horror chased him through the closing tavern door into the drizzly night beyond.
He would return to his residence and take another stab at securing a connection with the St. James woman. He’d been attempting regularly to reach her again, but either she was not logging into her account, or he was missing those windows of opportunity when she was.
Women were weak links. There was always something in them begging to be exploited. He just had to find it. Exploit it.
He would punish the Keltar for this. Wasting his time. Taking him away from his true purpose. His destiny.
Only this morning an unusual man with long coppery hair and shimmering copper eyes had sought him out, claiming to have knowledge of the ciphers in which the Dark Book was written. The man had dripped a deep-seated arrogance that could only have been born of some kind of power—either his own, or close association with someone who made him feel fearless. Lucan’s first instinct had been to eliminate the man. From time to time an apprentice petitioned mentoring, or a rival sorcerer dispatched a spy. Lucan never suffered such fools to live. He didn’t trust anyone who’d managed to learn of him, penetrate the layers of his many identities, and locate him.
But then the man had told him he’d actually lived among the Fae for a time, he’d been familiar with the runes on the Hallows, and he’d spoken a tongue he’d alleged was that of the Tuatha Dé themselves. He’d also displayed an intimate knowledge of the Seelie and Unseelie courts. It had been enough to stay Lucan’s hand.
Whoever, whatever, the man was, he needed him alive until he’d stripped from him what knowledge he possessed. It took time to perform a ruthless deep-probing. And until the Dark Glass was secured, such critical matters had to be suspended. He’d been forced to allow the man to leave, telling him he’d get in touch.
Oh yes, Cian would be punished. For delaying his plans, wasting his time, and tying up his resources at such a crucial hour. The men Hans had been searching with in the Highlands, those who’d been watching the airports and others he’d been preparing to ward around the Highlander when he found him, if necessary, all were men who could have been following the latest lead on the Dark Book.
He wondered how the arrogant Keltar would like spending the next thousand years hung in a deep, dark cavern, flush to a stone wall. He’d only kept the mirror in his study for the amusement it had given, and because, on occasion, he’d needed his captive to perform some deed he’d not yet possessed the power to do himself. But once he had the Dark Book, he would never need the Druid again.
And then Cian MacKeltar was going to rot in the deepest, coldest, blackest hell Lucan could find for him.
24
Under ideal circumstances, Jessi might have spent days brooding. Weeks, even. When she was hurt, she preferred to hole up and lick her wounds alone.
But circumstances were far from ideal, and days were precisely what she didn’t have. As for weeks—she had two. Period. By the time she finished licking wounds, she would have a much bigger one to tend.
And then she would despise herself for time wasted.
Cian had either finished placing his wards, or the mirror had reclaimed him again. She knew because, a little while ago, she’d heard people out on the lawn, laughing and talking. She’d pushed aside the drapes to find diffident rays of late-afternoon sunlight trying to push through thick gray clouds and several castle maids standing about, hands on hips, eyes sparkling, flirting with a handful of well-muscled gardeners who were trimming hedges on the still-damp lawn.
She’d been startled to realize how late in the day it was. She’d passed most of it staring into space, trying to mull through thoughts hopelessly muddied by emotions, and decide if Cian was a callous bastard who’d just wanted to have sex before he [insert word she refused to say, even in her mind] or if he cared for her at all.
She could argue the case both ways.
You fit me here, woman, he’d said.
And when she remembered him saying those words, and the look on his face as he’d said them, she believed him.
Especially when she remembered it, coupled with the way he’d made love to her in front of the fire. And again later, in the shower. She could have sworn she’d felt a part of him bleeding into her through his hands, that he’d been cherishing every last cell of her being with his caresses.
Yet there was a cynical part of her that said a dying man after a millennia-old blood-vengeance might say just about anything to get: a) somewhere safe so he could have his vengeance; and b) hey, what about a little great sex along the way with the big-boobed babe?
Bottom line was, the big-boobed babe had finally realized that she wasn’t going to get anywhere sitting in her room alone, groping blindly through her thoughts.
So she decided to go find him, and grope blindly through his thoughts—assuming he would cooperate—and see what might come of it.
It ended up being far more than his thoughts she grop
ed.
Cian stood in the library, near the fire, and finished plaiting the last of the braids into his hair.
He slipped the remaining tricolored bead around it, compressing the soft metal between his finger and thumb, molding it to the end. A sorcerer did not risk any other elements on his body when working dark alchemy. He gathered his arm cuffs from the mantel and refastened them around his wrists.
The warding was now complete, the castle grounds protected. There hadn’t been as many dead things in the soil as he’d expected, likely due to the lesser, ancient wards he’d discovered, and removed, before sowing his own.
Keltar soil was clean earth, strong and potent. His wards had intensified that potency to a nearly palpable degree. Indeed, as he’d walked over it, returning to the castle proper, he’d felt the power of his wards humming beneath his heels.
None of Lucan’s sorcery would be of any avail to him on the castle-proper portion of the estate now.
Upon completing his task, he’d washed up and hurried to the library to advise his descendants that the job was done. He’d found the twins and their wives cozied up to a crackling fire.
There was not a single place he could look in the book-lined room that did not bring to mind intoxicatingly sensual, carnal memories of his night with Jessica. Their bodies had come together with every bit of the explosive passion he’d known they would.
The entire time he’d been laying wards, he’d kept his thoughts tightly focused on the task at hand. But now they burst free of his tight rein and turned hungrily, desperately to his woman.
“How is she?” he asked.
It was Gwen who answered. “Furious. Hurt.”
“And hurt. And furious,” Chloe added.
“What did you expect?” Drustan said stiffly. “You seduce her and doona tell her you’re dying? Have you no honor, kinsman?”
Cian said nothing. He’d not explain himself to Drustan, nor to any man. Only one woman’s opinion of him mattered, and even that wouldn’t have stopped him. He’d done what he’d done and didn’t wish it undone. Undone, he’d not have gotten his night. And though Jessica may think him a thousand kinds of bastard, he would have another night with her, and another still.
As many nights as he could beg, borrow, or steal from her until he was naught but dust blowing on a dark Scots wind.
“Where is she?” The mirror still hadn’t reclaimed him. It had been imperative he lay the warding, but now that ’twas done, he wasn’t about to fritter away another precious moment of his time free of the glass.
As Gwen opened her mouth to reply, the library door eased open and Jessica poked her head in.
Her broody jade gaze fixed on Gwen. She didn’t see Cian at first.
Faded blue jeans cased those sexy legs that had so recently been wrapped around his ass, her ankles locked in the small of his back, while he’d pounded into her. They hugged low on her hips, revealing the creamy sun-kissed skin of her belly, upon which he’d spilled drops of his seed. A soft, dainty, lacy-woven pale green sweater was buttoned over her heavy, round breasts.
It seemed an eternity since he’d touched her.
“I was wondering where— Oh!” The words died on her tongue when she saw him. “There you are.”
Cian assessed her with the instincts of a hunter born for the kill. He’d slammed up against that sleek cool wall inside her skull so many times he no longer bothered trying to read her that way. He read her body instead.
So that was the way of it. The same way it was for him. Mindless, thoughtless need. It had her by the balls too. So to speak.
He devoured the space between them in a few aggressive strides.
Her eyes widened. She wet her lips and they parted—not in protest, but in instinctive preparation. Her eyes dilated, her legs moved slightly apart, her breasts lifted. Christ, he felt just the same way.
He saw her—he needed her.
He closed a hand on her shoulder, opened the door, backed her out into the corridor, and yanked the door shut behind them, dispensing with the MacKeltar with a single slam. Just like that, they ceased to exist.
There was only Jessica.
The corridor was long, high-ceilinged, lit by pale yellow wall torches and the fiery glow of a crimson sun sinking beyond tall mullioned windows. He backed her across the hall, pushing her up against the wall. He could feel the heat rolling off her, knew it was coming off him too. He could smell her arousal, could smell his own. What was between them was quite simply a force of nature.
As she hit stone, she gritted, with a little oomph of breath, “You son of a bitch!”
“You said that yesterday. I heard you then.” If he’d had enough time—like a lifetime—to do things differently, he’d never have given her a reason to call him such a thing. If only he’d met her when he’d been but a score of years, or nay, if they’d been betrothed at birth, grown up together, hand in hand in the Highlands, his life would have been so different. He would have been a deeply contented man, and on that snowy night Lucan had knocked, he’d have been in bed with his wife. With a babe or two nearby. A sorcerer’s spells and enchantments would have held no lure for him. Nothing would have, not beyond this woman. He would never have accompanied Trevayne to Ireland, would never have ridden beside him for Capscorth on a sweet spring day, only to usher in the night with the blood of an entire village on his hands.
“You ruthless bastard!”
“I know.” There was no denying it. What he’d done was wrong. He should have told her from the beginning. He should have given her the choice to decide whether she was willing to give any part of herself to a man condemned to die.
“You heartless prick!”
“Aye, woman. All that and more.” He’d known who she was all along. He’d known from the moment he’d first laid a hand on her, back there in the office of her university, when he’d swept her behind him to protect her from Roman.
He’d felt it right then, in the marrow of his bones.
That thing he’d waited so damned long to feel, that had never come. He’d thought thirty years so unbearably long to wait. He’d never have imagined it might take him 1,133 more years to find her, and then he’d only get twenty days into which he’d have to cram a lifetime. Och, aye, he’d felt it that night. His hand had closed on her upper arm and his entire being had hissed a single, silent word.
Mine.
He’d blinded himself to the truth, all the while determinedly pursuing her, because if, at any moment, he’d admitted she was his one true mate, he might have wavered in his resolve. And he was a man who never wavered. He decided. He committed. He paid for what he purchased. For this sin, he had no doubt he would pay with his soul.
And consider it worth it.
“I can’t believe you lied to me!”
“I know.” Knowing she was his mate, knowing she would live on after him, and undoubtedly find a husband and make a family with some other man, he’d tried to burn himself into her, to conquer some small corner of her heart.
He was supposed to have been her man. He was supposed to have been the father of her children. Not some twenty-first-century asshole that would touch her breasts and kiss her soft mouth and fill her up and never be good enough for her.
Not that he was good enough for her. Still, it was supposed to have been him.
“I hate you for this!”
He flinched, hating those words. “I know.”
“So what the hell do you have to say for yourself?”
He clamped her face between his hands and stared into her eyes. “Fourteen days,” he hissed. “‘Tis all I’ve left. What would you have of me? Apologies? Self-recrimination? You’ll get none.”
“Why?” she cried, tears springing to her eyes.
“Because I knew the moment I saw you,” he ground out savagely, her “I hate you” still ringing in his ears, “that in another life—a life where I didn’t become a dark sorcerer—you were my wife. I cherished you. I adored you. I loved you until th
e end of time, Jessica MacKeltar. But I doona get to have that life. So I’ll take you any fucking way I can get you. And I’ll not apologize for one moment of it.”
She went motionless in his arms. She stared up at him, her lovely green eyes wide. “Y-you l-loved me?”
He inhaled sharply. “Aye.” Staring down at her, something in him melted. “Och, lass,” he relented, “I will rue for all eternity every moment of suffering I’ve caused you. The entire time I’m burning in Hell, I’ll regret each tear I made you weep. But if Hell were the price for twenty days with you, I’d condemn myself again and again.”
She sagged back against the wall, her lashes fluttering down, her eyes closing.
He waited, watching her, committing every last cell of her face to his memory. From her tousled raven curls to her thick, dark lashes staining sooty crescents on her cheeks, glistening with a sheen of unshed tears, to her dainty, crooked nose to her luscious, soft lips to the stubborn thrust of her chin. He was going to die remembering it. He felt as if he’d been born already knowing her face. That he’d been watching, always waiting to see it coming at him from just around the next corner.
But it hadn’t come.
And he’d stopped believing in the Keltar legends of a true mate.
And he strayed into Dark Magycks.
“Mine,” he whispered fiercely, looking down at her.
Her eyes fluttered open then. In their jade depths he saw pain, rawness, and grief, but he also saw understanding.
“You know what the sad thing is?” she said softly.
He shook his head.
“I think that if you’d told me the truth from the beginning, I’d just have slept with you sooner.”
He winced, as time-lost-never-to-be-regained sliced like a knife through his heart. Then he realized that she’d just granted him an absolution he could never deserve. She’d said, Even knowing, I would have anyway. Wee woman, heart of a warrior.
“So take me, Cian. Take me as many times as you can.” Her voice broke on the next words. “Because no matter how many times we get to have, it’s not going to be enough.”