Just when she thought she might get on course, something else occurred to send her back out into the storm. At least now Jason’s magic was easing its hold on her and she knew who was evil and who wasn’t.
She was overjoyed in seeing Charon alive. She wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him close.
“Where is your magic?”
Laura slid off the high bed, the stones beneath her bare feet cool as she stood. “I don’t have it.”
“It was you who used magic at the cabin.”
It wasn’t a question. Laura couldn’t look at him because it hurt too much. There was too much between them now, and no matter how much her body—and her heart—might want him, they could never be together now.
“I saw you and Dale fighting. I saw you winning. Until something kept you from moving. I know now it was magic, but all I knew then was that you couldn’t defend yourself. Then I saw Jason pour his blood in you. I heard … I heard you bellow. The next thing I knew, I had something inside me, almost like a presence. It built the longer they held you, until it exploded from my hands.”
“Your magic saved me. Drough blood is poisonous to Warriors. I was dying.”
Laura swallowed as tears threatened. She hadn’t been wrong. He had been dying. It was that emotion that had fueled her magic.
But what had caused her to be able to use it after all those years without even knowing she had it? Could it have been the fact Charon was hurting?
Or was it something else entirely?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Britt looked at Aiden MacLeod over the rim of her wineglass as she let the deep red liquid slide down her throat. Aiden’s green eyes were warm and smiling as they stared at her.
Yet, several times during their dinner she had seen him glancing around the restaurant, his gaze intent and probing. He wasn’t ignoring her. Not once did he fail to respond to something she said or asked.
Aiden nodded to the waiter who removed their plates. Then Aiden turned those amazing eyes to her. He smiled, his wide, full lips snagging her attention.
He had a mouth she’d dreamed of kissing since the moment she looked up from the microscope to see him standing in the lab. It wasn’t just his mouth either. It was all of him.
She came across many good-looking Scots during her time in Edinburgh, but there was something about Aiden the others lacked. He had confidence, but it was some unnamable thing that gave him an edge other men would never have.
“You’ve been different since Quinn showed up,” she said as she set aside her wine.
“I doona know what you mean,” Aiden answered, and ran a hand casually through his wavy, light brown hair.
Britt leaned forward and moved aside a lock of his hair that had fallen onto his forehead. She itched to run her own fingers through the strands that fell haphazardly around his face and brushed the rim of his jaw.
He caught her hand, his eyes darkening as he captured her gaze and held it while he placed a kiss atop her knuckles.
Britt’s heart raced from the feel of his lips on her skin. They had shared many dinners and lunches before this, but always while working. This night was different, special.
If she let it, she knew something could develop between them. And how she wanted it to. Even with his secrets, she wanted him.
“You know exactly what I mean,” Britt said, and reluctantly pulled her hand away. “You look so much like Quinn. I know he’s related to you. Why won’t you tell me how?”
Aiden shrugged and leaned back as the dessert was placed on the table. “Because it doesna matter.”
“Doesn’t matter, huh?” she asked, and reached for the fork. She slid the utensil into the cheesecake and placed it in her mouth as she considered the man across from her. “You tell me you have magic, prove it to me even, and yet tell me it doesn’t matter who Quinn is.”
“Britt, please,” he whispered, his face closed off.
“What is it about you that’s so different from everyone else? You dress the same, but that’s where the similarities end. Some of the words you use are from another century. The way you stand and watch people. It’s as if you’re waiting for something to attack.”
He looked down at the plate of mousse. “I’m just a man.”
“A man with magic and secrets. It makes you different, but without it, you’d still stand out in a crowd. I’ve seen the way people clear a path around you, almost as if they sense something that marks you as someone they need to stay away from.”
“You doona stay away from me.”
“Because I don’t want to. I’m not sure I could even if I tried. Who are you really, Aiden MacLeod?”