Beyond the Highland Myst(484)

"What is that stuff?" Chloe asked, wincing.

"Easy, lass. 'Tis but a salve that will speed the healing." Dageus smoothed it on her myriad cuts, murmuring healing spells in an ancient tongue she'd not know. A language so long dead that the scholars of her century had no name for it. The sticky red on her clothing had been wine not blood. She'd come away remarkably unscathed, all considered, with cuts on her hands and feet, a few scratches on her arms, but no debilitating injury.

"That does feel better," she exclaimed.

He glanced at her, forcing himself to look in her eyes, not at the lush, delectable curves scarce concealed by her delicate, lacy bra and panties. After the man had jumped, Dageus had stripped Chloe more roughly than he'd intended, frantic to know the extent of her wounds. Now she sat beside him on the sofa, facing him, her wee feet in his lap as he tended them.

"Here, lass." He snatched the cashmere throw from the back of the sofa and draped it around her shoulders, pulling it snugly about her so it covered her from neck to ankles. She blinked slowly, as if only now realizing her state of undress, and he knew her mind was still numb from her ordeal.

He forced his attention back to her feet. The healing spells were pushing him ever nearer the limits of his control. He'd used too much magic in the past few days. He needed a long space of time with no spells to recover.

Or her.

The longest he'd ever gone without a woman, since the eve he'd turned dark, was a sennight. At the end of it, he'd been up on that terrace wall himself. Clutching a bottle of whisky, dancing a Scots reel atop the slippery stones in the midst of an ice storm, letting fate choose which side he fell off first.

"He lied to me," she said, raking her hair, still damp from the shower, back from her face with a bandaged hand. "He said he was a friend of yours and I told him you wouldn't be back for an hour." Her eyes widened. "Why did you come back?"

"I forgot the key, lass."

"Oh, God," she breathed, looking panicked all over again. "What if you hadn't?"

"But I did. You're safe now." Never again will I permit danger to touch you.

"You didn't know him, did you? I mean, he just said that to find out how long you'd be gone, right?"

"Nay, lass, I'd never seen the man before." That much was true. " 'Tis as you thought, he lied to find out when I'd be returning, how long you'd be alone. He may have gotten my name anywhere. The mail call, the phone book." He wasn't listed in either of those places. But she didn't need to know that.

"Why would Security let him up?"

Dageus shrugged. "I'm sure they didn't. There are ways to circumvent Security," he evaded, scanning the damage resultant from the attack. He needed to tidy the kitchen before the police inevitably came to question the occupants on his side of the building. Fortunately, there were twenty-eight terraces below his, down to the fourteenth level, and the police would, he knew, in that wide berth the rich were ceded in any century, leave the penthouse level for last.

His mind raced over details: eradicate all sign of a tussle, pack up the last two tomes, stop at her place for her passport, take her artifacts to the bank, get them to the airport. He was glad they were leaving today. He'd dragged her into something even he didn't understand, and only he could protect her.

And he would protect her. She was keeper of his Selvar. His life was now her shield.

May I serve the Draghar… the man had said.

It made no sense to him. He'd been so startled to hear those words on the man's lips that he'd stared blankly. He was furious with himself because, had he moved or spoken more quickly, he could have forced answers from the man. Apparently, someone knew more about his problem than he himself did. How? Who could possibly know what he'd gotten himself into? Not even Drustan knew for certain! Who the blethering hell were the Draghar? And in what fashion had the man been serving them?

If they were, as he'd considered earlier, some part of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, and if they had indeed decided to hunt him down, why harm an innocent woman? And if they were the allegedly immortal race, why send a mortal to do their bidding? There was no question the man had been mortal. Dageus had seen him. He'd landed on a car, or rather, merged with the car.

While he'd cleansed Chloe's wounds, he'd quizzed her thoroughly about the intruder, in part to keep her talking so she wouldn't go into shock. The man had identified himself to her as Giles Jones, though Dageus suffered no illusions'twas his real name. The man had recognized him somehow. He might not have known Giles Jones, but Giles Jones had known him. How long had the man been watching him? Spying on him. Waiting for a moment to strike.