Dangerous Highlander

CHAPTER SIX

Cara waited while Lucan stared at the vial. He leaned close, but he never touched it. She wasn’t sure if what the ash-colored Warrior had called the Demon’s Kiss was the vial around her neck, but a nagging memory she couldn’t bring into focus told her it was.

She swallowed and tried to think past his question of whether she had magic. She didn’t know what magic was, so how could she know if she had it?

What about when the vial warms?

There was the possibility the vial was magic. She had been so young when her parents were murdered, but she never heard her parents speak of magic. She would have remembered that.

Yet . . . there was something about Lucan’s question that made her remember the tingling in her fingers and the sprouts in the cell that hadn’t been there before she’d placed her hands on the dirt.

It was enough to give her pause.

“What is so important about your mother’s blood?” Lucan asked.

She shrugged, jerking her attention back to Lucan. “I wish I knew.”

His gaze narrowed as he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me of your parents, Cara. Where are they?”

“Dead.” She dropped the vial, the weight of it landing against her chest with a soft thud.

“Were they MacClures?”

She hesitated. She had never told anyone she recalled her surname, but Lucan had been honest with her. “Nay. My parents were Sinclairs. The nuns found me wandering the forest and brought me back with them to the nunnery where they raised me.”

Lucan shifted and turned toward her on the bed. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, then laid his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to keep you safe, Cara. I vow it to you. But I need to know about your parents and the vial. The more I know, the better I can protect you.”

“I understand.” And she did, but the thought of opening up the memories of her parents’ deaths left her shaking with dread. She wrapped her arms around herself to try to remain calm.

“They’re just memories, Cara. They can’t hurt you.”

She swallowed and looked into Lucan’s sea green eyes. There was such warmth and compassion in them. He had shared his story with her. The least she could do was share hers. “I was only five summers. I remember always being happy, my mother always laughing. I can’t recall her or my da’s face anymore, but I do remember the laughter. And her smile.”

Lucan gave Cara an encouraging nod.

“Da was late for supper one night. Mum paced our cottage, wringing her hands in between telling me to eat. I knew something was wrong.”

“Do you remember what clan you belonged to?” Lucan’s hands began to rub up and down her arms, giving her warmth.

She shook her head.

“It doesna matter. Go on.”

“When Da finally returned, he was sweaty and breathing hard. He held his sword and it dripped with blood.” She remembered watching the blood drop from the blade to a puddle on the floor. It had been so bright, so thick. “Da was scared. Mum began to cry, her tears silent as they turned to look at me.”

Cara didn’t pull away when Lucan drew her against him. She inhaled his scent and his heat, letting it relax her. Her arms wrapped around him, her hands gripping his tunic as if he were her lifeline.

“What happened?”

She laid her forehead on his shoulder and drew in a shaky breath. “Mum put me in a hole we’d dug beneath the floor of our cottage. It was large enough for all of us, but they wouldn’t come with me. I started to cry, begging them not to leave me.

“Mum kissed me and put her necklace around my neck. She told me to stay safe, to stay quiet no matter what I heard. She then whispered words I couldn’t understand, but she told me it didn’t matter.”

Cara couldn’t stop trembling. Lucan’s hands were firm and gentle, soothing and encouraging.

“They were protecting you,” he said. “Did you hear what they thought was coming for them?”

“Nay. Da faced the door, his sword ready. He winked at me over his shoulder and told me everything would be all right. He had never lied to me, so I let Mum shut me in the hole. She pulled the rug over the small door and whispered that she loved me.”

Lucan’s hands had moved to her hair, stroking the long, thick strands and massaging her scalp. His touch helped control the horror that filled her with every memory that surfaced. Shivers of delight ran from her head down to her fingers and toes. She liked Lucan’s touch. She liked it too much.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “I didn’t let the Warrior get you before, and I won’t let the memories harm you now.” He turned her so that she lay across his legs, his arms supporting her.

With her head resting on his chest, his heart beating beneath her ear, she found the strength to continue. “I heard the eerie screeches and screams long before they attacked the house. I tried to see through the slats of the floor, but the rug hid everything.

“I heard Mum and Da whisper that they loved each other a heartbeat before the door burst open. I screamed, but they never heard me. My parents fought them, but it was over so quickly. Then there was silence.”

“Did you leave then?”

She shook her head. “There was silence, but I knew whatever had killed my parents was still there. It wasn’t long before I could hear cloth ripping and the beds being overturned. I sat huddled in the hole with the screams of my parents echoing in my ears.”

Lucan’s hand held her head against him, his thumb rubbing slow circles behind her ear. Her skin prickled and warmed with his touch. “How long did you stay?”

“I don’t remember. I was too afraid to leave at first, but hunger drove me out. When I stepped out of the hole and saw what they had done to my home and my parents, I knew I had to get as far away as I could.”

Cara swallowed and squeezed her eyes closed as she recalled seeing her mother on her stomach, blood dripping from her mouth as her empty eyes stared into nothing.

“That’s when the nuns found you?” Lucan asked.

“Aye. I don’t know how long I walked,” she said, guessing what he would ask next. Tears clogged her throat. Her eyes grew heavy with each stroke of Lucan’s large fingers through her hair.

No one had ever touched her with such tenderness before. The nuns had been kind, but they could never replace her parents. And because she planned to take her vows, the men of clan MacClure gave her a wide berth.

“The screams I heard tonight. They remind me of what killed my parents.”

Lucan stiffened. His warm breath fanned her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Cara tried to open her eyes. There was so much she needed to know, so many questions she had, but her eyes refused to obey. Her body was exhausted. For the first time in years, she found she wasn’t afraid of the dark. Not when Lucan held her.

Just as she drifted off to sleep she thought she felt Lucan’s lips on her forehead.

* * *

Lucan stared at the beauty in his arms. Cara had endured a terrible blow with the loss of her parents. Any number of things could have happened to her while she wandered the Highlands. Thankfully, the nuns had found her.

It was the wyrran that had killed her parents. But why? And he was relatively sure her mother had used some Druid magic to hide Cara, and maybe even the necklace, from the wyrran.

Lucan didn’t know much about Druids. In fact, he knew hardly anything other than that there were good ones and evil ones, which didn’t help Cara. As far as he knew, only Druids could use magic like Cara had explained. But if her parents were Druids, why did Deirdre want them killed?

He threaded his fingers in Cara’s chestnut tresses again, letting the cool, silky mass glide over his hands. He couldn’t remember the last time he had touched a woman’s hair, or even cared to.

The past three hundred years had made him think of many things he had taken for granted. Like touching someone. Lucan hadn’t trusted himself near a woman since Deirdre had unleashed the god within him.

No matter how great his need became, he always took care of it himself. He couldn’t take the chance of exposing what he was to anyone. Yet in his arms was a woman who not only had seen what he could become but also still trusted him enough to let him hold her while she relived painful memories.

She had heard his story, knew the truth, and still looked at him with trust in her dark, fathomless eyes. He had never seen someone so beautiful, so breathtaking. If he had seen her before Deirdre, he would have claimed Cara for his wife. There was something special about her, something innately pure that called to him on a level he couldn’t—and wouldn’t—ignore.

In all his three hundred and some odd years, no one had affected him like Cara did. He shifted and groaned as his cock rubbed against her hip. Desire, white-hot and violent, shot through him, making his rod ache.

Cara murmured and nestled against him. Her lips were parted, her breathing even as she slept. He knew he should set her aside and let her sleep, but he couldn’t let go. Her curves were too soft, her scent too sweet.

His hunger too great.

Nay. He wouldn’t let go of Cara. Not now. Mayhap not ever.

* * *

Fallon watched Lucan from the shadows of the corridor. The way he stroked Cara’s hair and held her gently against him made Fallon realize their existence couldn’t continue as it was any longer—at least not for Lucan.

Fallon watched his brother’s face, the longing and desire and need mixed together as he stared at Cara. Fallon had never seen Lucan look at a woman so, and whether Fallon wanted it or not, Cara was now a part of them.

Only time would tell for how long, though.

There was no way Fallon would allow himself to care for any woman, not with the god inside him. For one thing, he was immortal and would outlive everyone. For another, he was a monster. No woman would be able to tolerate what he became when he wasn’t drunk from the wine.

And no woman wanted an intoxicated fool.

Fallon turned away from the scene with Lucan and Cara. It hurt too much to see how desperately his brother wanted the woman. If it were in Fallon’s power to give her to Lucan, he would.

At one time Fallon had thought himself invincible. He would be the next laird of the feared and respected MacLeods. How quickly everything had changed, in a matter of hours.

He was laird now, but laird to no clan or lands. He was nothing.

Nay. You’re a monster, unable to control your own feelings.

Rage and hopelessness ripped through Fallon. He felt the god stir within him, longing to be free, to use the powers that were his. Fallon hurried to the hall and reached for the half-empty bottle of wine. He drank deeply until he could no longer feel the god.

Only then did the anger inside Fallon ease. He rested his head on his arms and realized he had failed his brothers. As the eldest, he should have been the one to learn to control the god as Lucan had. As eldest, Fallon should have been able to help Quinn with his rage and grief. As eldest, Fallon should be the one shouldering the problems of their family instead of turning to the wine.

But he couldn’t.

The torment of what he had become after Deirdre unbound the god had left a deep scar on Fallon’s soul. He no longer trusted his own judgment. He was unfit to use the title of laird or attempt to lead his small family.

His father would be ashamed of him, but then again his father hadn’t seen what Fallon had done with the god raging inside him. Fallon had slaughtered animals, destroyed anything in his path. God’s blood, he had attacked his own brothers!

Thank God they were also immortal, or he would have their deaths on his conscience as well.