Better Off Dead: The Lily Harper Series, Book 1

  He chuckled again, this time softer and I could feel his breath on the naked skin of my neck. My entire body responded with goose bumps.

  “Hoo is the ache in yer neck now, Besom?”

  “It’s gone, thanks,” I answered, deciding to ignore my nickname for the time being. Frankly, I was embarrassed that he’d had to ask me about the pain at all. It had to be pretty obvious that I didn’t want him to stop touching me.

  He pulled his hands from my neck and I couldn’t staunch the disappointment that rose up inside me. Instead, I turned around to face him and offered him a small, hurried smile of gratitude, as a creeping blush heated my cheeks. He didn’t make any motion to stand up from where he’d been kneeling over me. Instead, he just leaned back on his haunches and stared at me. He was wearing a kilt, but a different one to what he’d worn earlier, or maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention. In the low light of the fire, I could make out the deep blue and green shades of his tartan. He crossed his arms over his bare chest and I wondered how he maintained his incredible physique. His muscles were the type that men would kill for, dedicating hours upon hours at the gym. One thing I knew for sure, though, was that Tallis Black definitely didn’t go to the gym.

  “If you aren’t a demon, then what are you?” I repeated, trying to wipe the awe from my expression. I was just so obvious sometimes.

  Well, it’s not like you’ve had much experience with the opposite sex, I reprimanded myself. Give yourself a break!

  “Ah Celt,” Tallis answered in a steely tone.

  “A Celt?” I reiterated, baffled by his response. I even felt my eyebrows drawing into the middle of my face. “As in a Druid?”

  “Aye,” he said, as if it was nothing to raise one’s eyebrows at. He narrowed his gaze as he studied me and a slight smile played with the corners of his lips. Perhaps his smile was because he found it amusing when my mouth dropped open and my forehead furrowed into a unibrow.

  “You mean you’re a direct descendent of the Celts?” I corrected him, more than aware that the Celts were long extinct. “As in—your ancestors were Celts?”

  He shook his head. “Nae. Ah, mahself, am ah Celt.”

  “But the Celts don’t exist anymore?” I argued, shaking my head as I tried to understand what in the hell he was getting at. Despite speaking the same language, his ship had passed mine a while back where this conversation was concerned. Yep, his crazy Scottish brogue was definitely a hindrance.

  “Aye, fur the moost part ’tis true that the Celts nae longer exist. An’ ’tis ah damn shame,” he continued. “Ah am the last ah mah line.”

  I closed my eyes and brought my hand to my forehead as I tried to decipher if his words could possibly mean anything else. I opened my eyes when I realized exactly what he was trying to tell me. “If I remember correctly, the Celts existed around the time of the Romans,” I started, shaking my head with disbelief. “And that was, what? Two thousand years ago?”

  “Aye, yer memory serves ye weel, lass.”

  My mouth was still agape. “So you’re saying you are two thousand years old?”

  Cocking his head to the side, he appeared to ponder the question before facing me again. There was no sign of jocularity in his features; nope, none at all. He was back to that stoic, poker face that I was beginning to know so well. “Thereaboots, aye.”

  I shook my head. “If you aren’t a demon and you aren’t an angel, how is it possible that you could be two thousand years old? I guess next you’ll tell me you’re a god?”

  He shook his head and that smile of amusement returned to his lips. “Ah am nae god, Besom.”

  “Then what are you?” I demanded, irritated that he seemed to be talking in riddles.

  “The Romans called us Galli.”

  “Galli?”

  He nodded again, his eyes suddenly appearing harder than they were a moment ago. The smirk on his lips vanished just as quickly as it had materialized. His expression was now harsh, as if he’d just recalled an unhappy memory. Then I remembered that the Celts and the Romans had pretty much been at war with one another throughout history. So if Tallis really were an ancient Celt, he must have despised the Romans and, apparently, still did.

  “Aye, Galli … Barbarian,” he answered in a low, heated voice. “Ah prefer the term warriur.”

  Suddenly the scar bisecting the left side of his face made sense. A warrior … It fit. Tallis Black was the epitome of a warrior—not only visibly, but also in his speech and his disposition. He was intimidating by any and all accounts. And yet, there were moments, such as this one, where I sensed a softer side to him. It was a side I’d only seen a few times. He definitely appeared to be more comfortable playing the role of the daunting, controlling brute.

  Looking back at his scar, I traced it with my eyes. It started at his outer eyebrow, now reduced to just a faint, pink line. It grazed his eye, moving down his angular cheek and widening to maybe an inch in width at the base of his cheek. Then it narrowed again before disappearing into his lower jaw. The scar was about a half an inch from his full lips making me instantly thankful that it didn’t traverse the perfect arc of his cupid’s bow. Without realizing it, I brought my index finger up to his face, to touch the tissue of his scar.

  He nearly doubled over on himself to escape my reach. When he seemed a safe distance away, he speared me with eyes that were suddenly ignited with anger. “Whit the bludy hell dae ye fink yer daein’?”

  I shook my head, flushing with indignation as well as mortification, demanding the same question of myself. What in the hell was I doing? It was as if I’d fallen into some sort of trance while looking at him. I couldn’t remember a moment, (well, in recent history anyway,) when I’d been more embarrassed. “I, I’m sorry,” I said, dropping my eyes to the dirt floor beneath me.

  “Ah dinnae like tae be tooched,” he explained. The fire in his eyes no longer burned and his tone of voice became slightly softer. Perhaps it was his way of apologizing.

  I just nodded, still angry with myself that I’d tried to touch him. It was a totally weird thing to do, especially since Tallis and I weren’t exactly friends. Shoot! We weren’t even acquaintances. With the weight of silence closing in on me, I glanced up at him again. I suddenly wanted to break the quiet between us, so I asked the only question that still baffled me. “How did you get that scar?”

  “Ask me nae questions, Ah'll teel ye nae lies.”

  So, back to being evasive. I couldn’t understand this man at all. Sometimes, he was almost forthcoming with information about himself, and other times, seemed to want nothing to do with me. Well, call me nosy, but I wasn’t about to let him get away with it. “Why were you nice to me just now?” I demanded, shaking my head for emphasis.

  Tallis didn’t respond but offered me a bemused grin as if to say my question was a silly one. His response made me feel like I had to explain myself. “I just don’t know what to make of you. Sometimes you’re a horrible bully, whom I can’t stand; and other times, you actually seem … nice.”

  Tallis eyed me from where he leaned against the wall of the cabin, his arms crossed over his chest. His short, black hair nearly reached the ceiling. In the low light of the fire glow, I could just see myriad tiny scars, like tattoos, over his chest and upper arms. There were hundreds of them, like tiny, pink ants marching this way and that. Why I hadn’t noticed them before? No clue.

  “Ye ur the daftest lass Ah hae ever mit,” he said, shaking his head as if he didn’t get me. “Ye jist say whutever coomes tae yer mind.”

  I frowned at him, cocking a brow to show I didn’t appreciate being called “daft.” Then I put on as haughty an expression as I could muster and answered: “As Confucius says, ‘Speak the truth.’”

  A slight smile curved Tallis’s lips and I was left with the sudden observation that when he was borderline happy, he was incredibly handsome. The smile managed to imbue him with an innocence he otherwise lacked. It gave him a certain boyishness. After thinking about it
, I realized when Tallis wasn’t glowering, frowning, yelling or lecturing me, he was easily one of the handsomest men I’d ever seen.

  “Och aye, an’ it was yer sixteenth president who said, ‘Better tae remain silent an’ be fought ah fool than tae speak oot, an’ remove all doubt.’” He chuckled and appeared pleased with himself.

  For myself, I hadn’t realized Lincoln was the author of the quote but I filed it away in my memory all the same. It was a good one.

  “Ye saw Alba, mah homeland,” Tallis suddenly said, like he was responding to a question I’d just asked.

  “Excuse me? I thought we were talking about fools and presidents?”

  “Alba … Scootland.”

  I furrowed my brows, still lost. “Yes, I get it—Alba means Scotland. And yes, I have seen it. I live in Edinburgh now, so it naturally follows that I have seen Scotland.” I couldn’t keep the irritation from seeping into my tone. Truth be told, he had me at my wit’s end.

  Tallis shook his head, a smile still playing on his lips. “Nae. Ye asked me why Ah was suddenly bein’ nice tae ye. Mah answer was that ye saw mah hoomeland ah Scootlund when ye tooched yer sword.”

  “I saw a castle,” I said simply.

  “Aye,” Tallis nodded. “It is knoon as Fearghus Castle, in Gaelic.”

  “Oh.” Although we were finally on the same page, I was only precariously hanging onto a letter or two.

  “Fearghus castle has bin in mah family fur generations.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should congratulate him or what. “So what did it mean when I saw Fergus Castle after I touched the sword?”

  He shook his head again. “Ye need nae concern yerself, lass, ye need nae concern yerself.”

  I threw my hands up in the air and glared at him. “Forget I ever asked anything! You are so frustrating sometimes! Why don’t you just stay the jerk bladesmith that I’ve come to know so well, because then at least, I’ll know what to expect!”

  He shook his head as if my outburst were completely unwarranted. Then he brought his beautiful blue eyes to mine, but they seemed heavier somehow, as if a weight had descended on the otherwise lovely navy. “It takes ah lang spoon tae sup wif the devil.”

  All I could do was shake my head. “I give up.” Then I stood and went over to Bill’s corner of the small room. He was still snoring blissfully, completely unaware of the frustration consuming me. He twitched a few times before a serene smile plastered itself across his pasty face. I sat down next to him, unhappy to discover there wasn’t another fur on the floor. When I looked back at Tallis, his eyes were narrowed on mine.

  “Keep yer distance when dealin’ wi’ the devil,” he said in a soft, but arctic tone. There was no expression on his face so it took me a second or two to understand he was translating his last bizarre statement. Before I could tell him to put a sock in it, he turned on his heel and approached the door. When he opened it, a wintry breeze invaded the house and I heard the sounds of the Grevels’ paws hurrying over to him. Saying nothing, our eyes met before he shut the door.

  ***

  I awoke in tears with a sob trapped in my throat. Sitting up immediately, I found night was still upon me. The room was dark except for the fire’s embers dying in the fireplace. They created a muted, yellow glow and sent strange shadows all around the room.

  Orienting myself, I discovered I was lying in the middle of Tallis’s bed. I shook my head, wondering how I’d ended up here when I remembered going to sleep on the ground, beside Bill. Speaking of whom, Bill remained in the same position I’d left him, still snoring away, his thick body twitching spasmodically. Tallis was nowhere to be seen.

  I couldn’t stop wondering why Tallis had put me in his bed. It was the second time he’d done it and I was as shocked this time as I had been the first.

  I wonder if that’s all he did to you? my inner voice interjected from inside my head. I looked down at myself, noticing I was still dressed in the clothes I’d gone to sleep in. It didn’t look as though I was in any way disheveled. Additionally, I was all buttoned up. And, really, if Tallis wanted to take advantage of me, wouldn’t I have woken up?

  Not necessarily, that voice barked back at me. You heard him, he’s a two-thousand-year-old Druid so he must possess some type of magic. For all you know, he could have been sexually molesting you all along.

  Somehow, I couldn’t believe that. Not after Tallis appeared to want absolutely nothing to do with me from a physical standpoint. Shaking my head, I banished the thoughts right out of my brain. Instead, I exhaled a deep, pent-up breath and felt a tear slide from my left eye. I caught it with the back of my hand as I tried to ignore the dreams that had plagued me all night.

  They were dreams of my mother, dreams of her realizing her only child was dead. There was a huge hole within me, a hole that had been growing since the death of the old me. It seemed to grow larger every time I thought about my mother and the sheer grief she’d been enduring all this time. All I wanted to do was call her and tell her that I wasn’t dead, that I was all right, but I knew I couldn’t make that phone call. Yes, I was well aware that Jason Streethorn had also insisted as much, but it wasn’t Jason’s dictum that concerned me. It was because I couldn’t show up on my mother’s doorstep and announce I was her daughter. Not when I looked nothing like the old Lily Harper. Besides, even if she bought the whole reincarnation thing, how would she take the news that I was a Soul Retriever, now living in the equivalent of hell? She wouldn’t be able to handle it.

  Sadly, I had to continue allowing my mother to believe I was dead, and it was that thought which ate at me. I clenched my eyes shut tightly and gritted my teeth, trying to ignore all thoughts of Josephine Harper. They would do me no good. Since I couldn’t do anything to improve the situation, there was no point in hurting myself even more by dwelling on it.

  “Either you run the day or the day runs you,” I whispered. The words belonged to the self-help guru Jim Rohn, and they made me feel a little bit better.

  I had to focus on my own survival, and whatever it took to ensure my first mission to the Underground was successful. As much as I loved my mother, and would always love her, and despite missing her with my entire being, I had to close that chapter of my life. I had to move on or risk the chance of failing.

  Failing wasn’t an option.

  Lying back down, I stared at the log ceiling of Tallis’s home. I tried to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but my mind was racing, my heartbeat just a few paces behind. I sighed and sat up again, stretching my hands over my head. Then I stood up and approached the nearest window. I pulled the dark muslin curtain to the side and noticed the moon still lighting the sky, although some nimbus storm clouds obscured its milky glow. The branches of the trees seemed more skeletal and the overall vibe outside the window was menacing. If the woods didn’t look haunted before, they definitely did now.

  As I continued to watch the branches of the trees scraping against one another in the ruthless wind, I caught something moving just beyond the tree line. I brought my face closer to the window pane and saw the glint of steel reflecting in the dull moonlight.

  Tallis.

  I didn’t know why, but I immediately started for the door, throwing it open as I shivered in the cold wind. I knew it was only my imagination, but the sudden gust of wind seemed like it was trying to keep me inside the sanctuary of Tallis’s home, to keep me from taking a step outside into the haunted woods.

  Treading onto the dark earth, I took a few more steps toward the trees, still watching the blade’s silver flashing in the moonlight. I continued forward until I was shrouded by the darkness of a tree. I leaned against it and watched Tallis slice the air with an incredibly long blade. It had to have been five or six feet long, and was balanced by two handles of solid steel, with the grip of the sword bound in black leather.

  As always, Tallis wore only a kilt. This time, however, his sandals were missing. As he turned his back to me, I could see red blood staining the tattooed image
of the tree on his back. My stomach dropped as I realized what the crimson stain meant—he’d whipped himself again. Images of Tallis brandishing the cat o’ nine tails in the snow flashed through my mind and I swallowed down a sour taste.

  Tallis whirled around, wielding the sword high above his head, and the lacerations and blood on his back simply disappeared. Just as before, Tallis’s body managed to heal itself. I watched, transfixed, as Tallis sliced the air with his sword repeatedly, above his head, in front of him, and to his right and left. He moved with incredible fluidity, as though gliding along the earth, his feet never touching it. He kept his feet shoulder-width the entire time. When he moved, he appeared to slide over the dirt. His posture rigidly straight, he kept his chest and torso forward to aid his equilibrium. With every thrust and parry, Tallis’s elbows were bent and close to his sides.

  Watching his grace and skill with the sword, I realized his was an art form equal to any ballet. The effortless way in which he wielded the blade was stunning and, more so, awe inspiring.

  He suddenly stiffened and dropped his sword into the earth while wheeling around on the ball of his foot, his eyes focused directly on mine. With my breath in my throat, I thought of hiding behind the tree, but it was too late. He’d already seen me.

  “Ah dinnae appreciate ye skulkin’ behind the trees an’ watchin’ meh.”

  “Oh, I, uh,” I stammered, feeling embarrassment hot on my cheeks. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t sleep and, uh, saw you out here and I, uh, didn’t want to interrupt you so …”

  “Aye, Ah git it,” he said, silencing me with a wave of his hand. “Perhaps yer inability tae sleep is fortuitoos.”