Beyond the Highland Myst(712)

He’d been wrong. Dead wrong.

He simply couldn’t fathom the bird’s-eye view of her world. He might be familiar with the statistics, he might be cognizant of modern inventions, but he couldn’t feel the way things were put together. All the book learning in the world wouldn’t keep a man alive in battle. A warrior had to know and understand his terrain.

And he didn’t.

He needed to get her somewhere he did. Lucan would not take this woman. He would not let the bastard harm so much as a hair on her lovely head. “I doona ken how he found us,” he muttered darkly.

There was a gusty sigh beside him. “I do. I’m a dick,” Jessi informed him glumly.

He glanced over at her, lips twitching. Modern idioms were confounding, but at least he recognized them for what they were. “Nay, lass, I doona see that. Naught about you resembles any portion of my anatomy,” he said playfully, seeking to lighten her mood and prevent her from dwelling on the horrifying scene that had played out so recently in front of her.

He’d never been so frustrated in his life as he’d felt, trapped inside the glass, having to push her, goad her by threatening to let her go to jail to get her to stop screaming, when all he’d really wanted to do was pull her into his arms and gentle her with his body. Take her cries with his kisses, comfort her. Remove the damned offending corpse from her environ.

Instead, he’d told her stories from his childhood to try to take her mind away and help her pass the time. Speaking soft and low, he’s woven what Highland magic for her he could. He’d left out the grimmer memories, those of a lad at a tender ten years of age who’d been responsible for choosing battles and sides and sending men who’d been his father’s closest companions, men who’d been as fathers to him, off to die.

A lad made laird in the Highlands at birth grew up fast. Or lost his clan. Or died. He accepted neither loss nor death easily.

He’d told her instead of summer days of sunshine and heather, of the icy pleasure of a cool loch on a hot day, of tales of his seven bonny sisters and their endless quests for husbands of whom he would approve.

At last, the panicked expression had receded from her eyes. She was no willy-nilly peahen. In fact, by the hour, his estimation of her continued to rise.

She was a fascinating woman.

And not for you, the tatters of his humanity warned.

Nay, not for him, he agreed with those tatters, glad they were tatters and not capable of mounting a compelling argument.

For he would have her. Despite the feeble protests of his honor, he was going to seduce her the moment he got her somewhere safe. He’d known since the night she’d licked him that he was going to make her his woman. Consequences be damned.

Why not? He already was.

Before disposing of the assassin’s body, he’d searched the dead woman thoroughly. She’d carried nothing but weapons. He’d relieved her of a knife and two guns, which were now concealed in his boots.

The woman had not meant to kill his Jessica.

Had she, she would have used one of the guns. He knew a great deal about modern weapons; they fascinated him. He’d long itched to get his hands on a gun and test its capabilities. There was a ninth-century warrior in him that would never lose his love of a good battle and fine armament.

No, the assassin had intended to subdue his woman, not kill her. ’Twas the why of the needle, not the blade or the bullet.

The realization had given birth to a whole new wellspring of hatred for his long-time gaoler. Somehow Lucan had learned of Jessica St. James and wanted her alive. From time to time, Lucan had entertained himself with a woman before the Dark Glass, uncaring if she saw or heard Cian, because the woman didn’t survive to tell of it anyway. Lucan liked to break things. He always had. The harder it was to break, the more he enjoyed it.

But those were dark thoughts. Thoughts from a time that would never be again, for he would never again be owned by Lucan Trevayne. Never again be forced to hang on that bastard’s wall and watch an innocent woman sexually brutalized and murdered.

No matter the price of vengeance. Of freedom.

He’d come to terms with that price long ago.

“Don’t you want to know what I did?” she was saying.

“Aye, I do.” His gaze fixed on her profile. She nibbled her lower lip a moment and it made him abruptly rock-hard at the mere thought of her luscious mouth nibbling on him.

“I used a credit card.” She sounded disgusted with herself. “I know in books and movies the bad guys always track you by credit or ATM transactions, but I thought that was just an exaggeration cultivated by the media to facilitate plot momentum. That if it could really be done, it would take time—like days or a week.” She frowned up at him. “I mean, come on, how powerful is this Lucan-guy that he can find out where I’ve used my credit card within hours of my using it?”