Beyond the Highland Myst(179)

"No man could survive that." Jillian eyed the inferno. Flames shot up, tall as the castle, brilliant orange against the black sky. The wall of fire was so intense that it was nearly impossible to look at. Jillian narrowed her eyes in a desperate bid to make out the low rectangular shape of the stable, to no avail. She could see nothing but fire.

"You're right, Jillian," Quinn said slowly. "No man could."

As if in a dream, she saw a shape coalesce within the flames. Like some nightmare vision the white-orange flames shimmered, a blurred form of darkness rippled behind them, and a rider burst forth, wreathed in flames, streaking straight for the loch, where both horse and rider plunged into the cool waters, hissing as they submerged. She held her breath until horse and rider surfaced.

Quinn spared her a quick nod of reassurance before racing off to join the fight against the inferno that threatened Caithness.

Jillian darted for the loch, tripping over her feet in her haste to reach his side. As Grimm rose from the water and led Occam up the rocky bank, she flung herself at him, burrowed into his arms, and buried her face against his sodden chest. He held her for a long moment until she stopped shuddering, then drew back, wiping gently at her tears. "Jillian," he said sadly.

"Grimm, I thought I'd lost you!" She pressed frantic kisses to his face while she searched his body with her hands to assure herself he was unharmed. "Why, you're not even burned," she said, puzzled. Although his clothing hung in charred tatters and his skin was a bit pinkened, there wasn't so much as a blister marring his smooth skin. She peered past him at Occam, who also seemed to have been spared. "How can this be?" she wondered.

"His coat has been singed, but overall he's fine. We rode fast," Grimm said quickly.

"I thought I'd lost you," Jillian repeated. Gazing into his eyes, she was struck by the sudden and terrible understanding that although he'd burst from the flames, miraculously whole, her words had never been truer. She had lost him. She had no idea how or why, but his glittering gaze was teeming with distance and sorrow. With goodbye.

"No," she shouted. "No. I won't let you go. You are not leaving me!"

Grimm dropped his gaze to the ground.

"No," she insisted. "Look at me."

His gaze was dark. "I have to go, lass. I will not bring destruction to this place again."

"What makes you think this fire is about you?" she demanded, battling her every instinct that told her the fire had indeed been about him. She didn't know why, but she knew it was true. "Oh! You are so arrogant," she pressed on bravely, determined to convince him that the truth was not the truth. She would use every weapon, fair or unfair, to keep him.

"Jillian." He blew out a breath of frustration and reached for her.

She beat at him with her fists. "No! Don't touch me, don't hold me, not if it means you're going to say goodbye!"

"I must, lass. I've tried to tell you—Christ, I tried to tell myself! I have nothing to offer you. You doona understand; it can never be. No matter how much I might wish to, I can't offer you the kind of life you deserve. Things like this fire happen to me all the time, Jillian. It's not safe for anyone to be around me. They hunt me!"

"Who hunts you?" she wailed as her world crumbled around her.

He made an angry gesture. "I can't explain, lass. You'll simply have to take my word on this. I'm not a normal man. Could a normal man have survived that?" He flung his arm toward the blaze.

"Then what are you?" she shouted. "Why don't you just tell me?"

He shook his head and closed his eyes. After a long pause, he opened them. His eyes were burning, incandescent, and Jillian gasped as a fleeting memory surfaced. It was the memory of a fifteen-year-old who'd watched this man battle the McKane. Watching as he'd seemed to grow larger, broader, stronger with every drop of blood that was shed. Watching his eyes burn like banked coals, listening to his chilling laughter, wondering how any man could slay so many yet remain unharmed.

"What are you?" she repeated in a whisper, begging him for comfort. Begging him to be nothing more than a man.

"The warrior who has always—" He closed his eyes. Loved you. But he couldn't offer her those words, because he couldn't follow up on what they promised. "Adored you, Jillian St. Clair. A man who isn't quite a man, who knows he can never have you." He drew a shuddering breath. "You must marry Quinn. Marry him and free me. Doona marry Ramsay—he's not good enough for you. But you must let me go, because I cannot suffer your death on my hands, and that's all that could ever come of you and me being together." He met her gaze, wordlessly beseeching her not to make his leaving any harder than it already was.