Kitabı oku: «The Masters of Time», sayfa 4

CHAPTER THREE

HE WAS A MAN, NOT A WOLF, and he was bleeding from his gunshot wounds. His blue eyes blazed with rage and fury.

Brie cried out, pressing her back into her door. This man bore no resemblance to the Master she’d met last year and she couldn’t breathe, choking on fear. She looked from his beautiful, furious and ravaged face to his bloody body, utterly naked, and then at the gold chain he wore, the fang hanging on it. She inhaled. He was all hard, rippling muscle and his entire body throbbed with tension.

She tore her gaze upward. “You’re alive,” she gasped. “You’re hurt!”

His blue eyes were livid. “Never summon me again.”

His anger enveloped her. It was terrifying, for there was so much hatred in it. Brie shuddered. The power of his hatred made her begin to feel sick. She tried to shake her head. She hadn’t summoned him!

He was the Wolf of Awe.

What had happened to him?

The Wolf wanted blood and death. Brie felt the bloodlust. And she had seen the evil.

Her mind was reeling. “You’ve been shot.” She realized she was whispering. “Let me help you…Aidan.”

He snarled at her. “Come closer an’ see how ye can really help me, Brianna.”

He remembered her.

His mouth curled unpleasantly.

She exhaled harshly. She didn’t move, not convinced that he wouldn’t turn into that wolf and rip her to death. But he had saved her from the gang. If he was going to hurt her, wouldn’t he have done so already?

Her temples pounded with the pain of having taken in so much of his rage and hatred. Feeling faint, perhaps from uncertainty, she met his glittering blue gaze. His hard stare was cold, menacing. How could a man change so much in a single year?

She was terrified of him, but she was supposed to help him, wasn’t she? “You’re bleeding,” she whispered. “You could bleed to death.”

He barked at her, a dark, bitter laugh. “I willna die. Not yet.”

She tried to feel past the hatred and anger, the lust for more blood, but if he was weakened or in pain, it eluded her. He was probably too full of adrenaline just then.

She pushed the fear aside. She would not risk him bleeding to death. She turned and opened the linen closet, not far from the kitchen. She took several towels out and faced him. His gaze moved from the towels in her hands to her face.

The distance of a small kitchenette separated them. She started forward slowly, in case he tried to seize her, or worse, turned into the Wolf and leapt at her.

“Dinna!”

She faltered by the kitchen counter. “Here.” She held out the largest towel.

He looked even angrier.

Brie tossed it at him.

She thought he meant to catch it. Instead, he batted it away with one hand. Her gaze dropped of its own accord and she knew she flushed. “You need clothes—and medical attention,” she whispered, dragging her eyes upward. Their gazes locked.

“I need power,” he said dangerously.

Demons lusted for power. All evil did. Brie felt tears of fear and despair well. She somehow shook her head. “No.” That Wolf had been evil. That Wolf had destroyed those teenagers. How could this be her Aidan?

He suddenly turned and picked up the towel, his every movement filled with raw fury. He wrapped it around his waist. When he looked at her with his blazing eyes, he said, “They were lost.”

She trembled. He had just read her thoughts. “You don’t know that their souls couldn’t be reclaimed.”

He snarled at her.

“Are they all dead?”

“Every last one,” he said savagely, as if triumphant.

She wiped at her tears.

“Ye cry for the deamhan boys?”

She was crying for him. “No. I’m sorry. You saved me, and I’m judging you.”

It was a moment before he spoke. “I hardly saved ye, Brianna,” he said, so softly that her heart skipped.

Brie found her gaze fixed on his. Her tension changed. Desire charged through her body in response to his blatantly seductive tone.

He knew. He smiled. “Ye ran. I hunted ye here,” he said as softly.

He spoke as if he meant to take her to bed, not maul her to pieces. She became still, her body tight now, quivering, while fear surged. She began shaking her head. She wouldn’t believe it. She would never believe him capable of hurting her.

She prayed that he had not fallen so far into black evil that he could do such a thing.

But, dear God, she was standing face-to-face with the man she had just spent the past year dreaming of.

Brie wet her lips and backed up.

His lust escalated dangerously, changing. It overshadowed the anger, the hatred. The need to draw blood vanished. She began to feel dizzy, hollow and faint. Her heart was pounding so hard, it hurt. His gaze was on her face now, and the tension that throbbed between them seemed so charged, Brie thought the air might blaze.

Brie closed her eyes. So much emotion and tension were swirling in the room, she was becoming confused. She had to keep a grip on her mind. She couldn’t desire him now! He was simply too dangerous.

She fought for control, and when she opened her eyes, he looked oddly satisfied, as if he sensed her internal struggles. “Aidan, please sit down.” She swallowed, knowing she’d sounded like Tabby with her first-graders. “I can stop the bleeding until the medics get here.” Keeping up the pretense, she nodded toward the sofa.

He laughed at her. “Dinna speak as if I’m a small boy. Three bullets can’t kill the son of a deamhan.”

She went rigid. He could not be the son of a demon. Was this a bad, bad joke?

“Aye,” he said, growling. “The greatest deamhan to ever walk Alba spawned me.”

More tears rose. How could this be happening? “You’re a Master!”

“Damn the gods,” he roared.

She cringed, shocked. “They’ll hear you!”

“I dinna care!”

Brie did not move, searching his furious gaze. He hated the gods. She trembled, afraid for him.

His blue eyes changed, becoming brilliant now, blinding. “Ah, Brianna,” he murmured. “Ye care so much.”

His lust for power and sex made her reel. Her body fired on every possible cylinder, but she was also sickened in her heart. The rage and hatred, the lust, the frenzy of it all was too much for her to bear. “What happened to you?”

“Come here,” he said softly.

She tensed, instantly aware of what he intended.

“Ye want to come to me, Brianna.”

She did. She wanted nothing more, and suddenly she wasn’t sure why she was hesitating.

He started.

Brie thought his surprise was a response to her hesitation until her front door blew open and Nick stood there with his gun drawn.

Brie came out of her trance. Before she could scream at Nick, Aidan seized her, his strength shocking, fury blazing through him into her. Brie gasped as he pulled her up against his rigid body, her back to his chest.

Instead of feeling terror, a shocking sense of familiarity struck her.

When he spoke to Nick, his breath feathered the side of her neck and ear, leaving her breathless. “Do ye really wish to see if ye can murder me…afore I murder her?” Aidan taunted.

Brie clung to his strong forearm, which was locked beneath her breasts. His arm hurt her ribs terribly, reminding her that the sub might have bruised or fractured one of them. It was a welcome distraction from her conflicted senses, because she was acutely aware of his heart pounding slow and thick against her shoulder blades. Worse, he was only wearing her towel. There was no mistaking what was pulsing against her hip.

But, blended with the sexual desire she felt from him, there was murderous intention.

He seemed to hate Nick.

“Brie, don’t move,” Nick ordered calmly, his blue eyes the coldest she had ever seen.

“Nick, he saved me. Don’t kill him!” she cried, terrified for them both.

Aidan jerked on her, clearly wanting her silent. “Ye seem fond o’ yer little woman,” he said to Nick mockingly. “Mayhap she should have summoned ye to her side, instead o’ me.”

“Let her go. She’s an Innocent. You and I, we need to talk, calmly and reasonably, Aidan.”

Aidan’s answer was immediate. Brie cried out as Nick was blasted with blazing, visibly silver energy. Nick was pushed back against the wall as if by a huge gale.

She felt Aidan’s focus shift entirely to Nick. “Well, well,” he said softly, with great relish.

She was surprised. Demons could hurl their power so strongly that they’d send ordinary humans across entire football fields. HadAidan withheld his power with Nick?

She knew what he meant to do before he hurled another kinetic blast at her boss. “Don’t,” she began, but it was too late.

The silver lightning blazed into Nick. To Brie’s shock, Nick seemed to absorb the impact this time, reeling but remaining upright. He pointed the .45 at them and said dangerously, “I’m trying really hard not to blow your brains out. Oh, and I’m a dead shot.”

Brie gasped, “Aidan, we’re all on the same side. Please, don’t do this.”

Aidan nuzzled her cheek, which made her body explode with urgency. “I’m enjoyin’ myself too much to cease now,” he murmured.

Brie felt her body scream for his in spite of the terrible crisis. She somehow looked at Nick. “He is good, not evil, Nick. Don’t shoot.”

“He’s turned, Brie. He turned a long time ago. If you can’t feel the black power in this room, it’s because you’ve been brainwashed.”

Brie shook her head desperately. “No.”

Nick said, “Let her go, Aidan, and I’ll let you go.”

Brie knew it was a lie. So did Aidan, because he laughed. “Ye forget, Nick, I can leap away whenever I choose. Ye canna stop me. I stay here to war with ye because it pleasures me.” More silver energy blazed.

Nick grunted, going down to his knees, but he somehow kept the gun in his hand.

And Tabby and Sam appeared on the threshold of the loft, both of them breathless. As they halted, Sam’s favorite weapon appeared in her hand, a steel Frisbee with a dozen knifelike teeth. She could sever a man’s head from his body with it—a great way to bring even the purest demons down. But she said, in disbelief, “Aidan?”

“Sam, he saved me. Don’t hurt him,” Brie cried.

Aidan jerked her closer to his hard body. “Be quiet.”

Nick was back on his feet now. “How good are you with that thing?” he asked Sam.

“Good, but I won’t risk hurting Brie, too,” Sam said, never taking her gaze from Brie and Aidan.

Tabby, who was amazing in crises, now sank to her knees and started chanting a spell. The Book of Roses had been translated long ago from Gaelic to English, but her spells were always spoken in the language of their foremothers, which gave her magic all the power the Ancients would allow.

Aidan’s body filled with a new tension. Brie glanced up, and for the first time saw wariness reflected in his eyes.

He didn’t fear Nick or Sam and their weapons, but he feared Tabby’s magic. Brie instantly guessed her cousin’s intentions. Aidan could not be restrained with ropes, shackles or steel bars. Tabby intended to bind him with a spell, making him an impotent, virtual prisoner.

Aidan snarled and his grasp on her tightened.

“Don’t,” Nick snapped.

It was too late. Brie gasped as the force began. They whirled through the room, through the loft’s walls, through the building, across the city skyline. And then, as they were hurled with the speed of light through the atmosphere, past suns and stars, she screamed, the velocity ripping her body to shreds.

He did not make a sound.

HE HELD HER TIGHTLY, his senses furiously ablaze as never before. He was acutely aware of the woman in his arms—the Innocent he had leapt through time to rescue. As they landed, he instinctively shifted his body to break her fall. He did not know why he did so. He shouldn’t care if she was hurt.

She screamed from the impact anyway.

He welcomed the pain of landing on the stone floor.

He had leapt time, against his own will, to protect her from evil. He had just served the gods.

His rage increased.

They had landed in the tower room, which remained in absolute darkness. She wept in his arms now, sobbing from the torment of the leap through so many centuries, her body atop his. He was acutely aware of her torment.

He did not want her in his arms. He did not want to feel her pain or be aware of her body. He hated her hair in his face. And he hated her for what she had done to him.

When he had forsaken the gods, he’d done so by spilling his own blood all over Iona’s holiest shrine, where the Brotherhood lived. His defiance was written in blood and death, and not just his own. He’d poured the blood from the Innocent at Elgin all over the shrine, too.

“Ye canna walk away from yer vows.”

Aidan knelt in the blood of his victims, breathing hard. “Get away,” he warned the greatest Master of them all—MacNeil, the Abbot of Iona.

MacNeil came closer. “Yer in grief. I’m sorry, Aidan, sorry fer what was done.”

“What was done?” He leapt to his feet, enraged. “Do ye speak of my son’s murder at my own father’s hands? Did ye see the murder in yer precious crystal? Did ye ken Moray would come an’ steal his life from me?”

Tall, muscular and golden, MacNeil looked at Aidan with compassion. “I canna see all, Aidan. Ye must let Ian go, lad.”

“I will never let him go!” he shouted.

“His death was written,” MacNeil began, clasping his shoulder grimly. “In time, ye’ll ken the truth.”

Aidan wrenched away from the man who had chosen him. “Written? Is that why the gods wouldna let me leap to save him? Did they block my powers so my boy would die?”

MacNeil did not answer. It was answer enough.

“Aidan?” Brianna breathed.

He jerked, shocked that such a painful memory would dare to claim him again. He had just served the damned gods, he thought, as if Ian hadn’t been taken from him.

“Aidan?”

He turned to stare into a pair of beautiful green eyes, framed with lush, dark lashes. He felt her heart now, beating against his, and he was so aware of her it was almost as if he’d never held a woman before. A vaguely familiar tension began as he stared at her, along with a flutter of anticipation. It had been so long that he could barely recognize the sensation, and he was confused.

Did he desire her sexually?

His hands were on her waist. Beneath the baggy garments, her waist was small, with no flesh to spare. Their gazes held, hers wide, and he moved his hands up her rib cage, beneath her clothes, until her heavy breasts bumped them.

She gasped.

His manhood surged between them, against her belly. His mouth felt dry. He was tempted to touch her breasts.

His blood coursed even faster now. What was he doing? Although he had been shot three times and the leap was weakening, he had the ability to heal unnaturally and quickly. In a short time, his wounds would be gone. But her power could restore him instantly. Holding her, he could almost taste her power. He could take her now; she deserved such abuse for daring to interfere in his life.

He was indifferent to sexual pleasure, indifferent to a woman’s face, her hair, her eyes. He desired no one. He lived with lust; it was entirely different. Power served him so well.

He didn’t want to be aware of the feeling of her body against his.

He should never have taken her with him.

If he took her power now, she wouldn’t look at him with any faith or hope at all. In fact, she’d be incapable of doing very much of anything for days afterward, until her body had recovered from his rampage. That knowledge served him well, because he hated hearing her thoughts; he hated her wondering about what had happened; he hated her compassion and pity—just as he hated her.

He reached for the snap on her jeans and bent her mind to his.

She moaned, long and low, eyes closing.

The sound was familiar. All women instantly succumbed. Suddenly he was even more furious—with her, with himself, with the gods, the deamhanain—with everyone. He pulled her down angrily and moved over her, and she looked up at him, her eyes glazed with the desire he had deliberately instilled in her.

Now she would not pity him or believe in him, or anything else. She would be his sexual slave until he released her from the enchantment.

Moments ago, at her home in the future, she had desired him—and he hadn’t enchanted her. But she had loved him for a long time….

He didn’t want her love, either!

For one moment he stared at her face.

She was everything he was not, everything he had once been.

He cried out, cursing, and leapt to his feet. He breathed hard. “Return to yer senses.” He whirled and strode from the tower, slamming the door so hard behind him that the wood splintered, the panels shearing apart.

His mind spun incoherently as he rushed down the corridor. When he opened his chamber door, Anna Marie sat up in the bed, clad only in a silk chemise.

“Get out,” he roared at her.

Her eyes widened in shock.

He decided he would murder her on the spot if she didn’t leave immediately. She understood and paled, slipping from the bed. Circling him, she fled.

He slammed the chamber door closed and the stone walls reverberated.

Then he leaned against the wall, and for the first time in decades, he succumbed to a moment of utter confusion.

What had just happened to him?

Why hadn’t he taken her, using her for the power he needed and craved, as he did them all?

Deep inside his body, something flickered, and he feared it was his soul.

His answer to the unfamiliar, unwanted feeling was instantaneous. He took a crooked chair and threw it at the wall, breaking it in pieces. A memory came swiftly, one long forgotten. Once, before his son’s murder, his home had been filled with beautiful furnishings and treasures collected from all over the world, from many different times. His brother Malcolm had broken a Louis XIV chair in a fit of rage over the woman who was now his wife, Claire.

Aidan clutched his temples. He did not want to remember having once had a home filled with beauty. After Awe had been burned to the ground in 1458, he had never considered refurbishing it with any luxury.

Very deliberately, he shut his mind down. The past was finished. He would never enjoy such a home again, nor did he care to. As for the woman in the tower, he did not know what had just happened, but it did not matter. He’d lost his soul long ago and that was exactly what he wanted.

The woman, Brianna, had to go back to where she had come from as soon as she was strong enough to withstand another leap. She had brought forth memories he had no wish to entertain, and he did not like the fact that he had hesitated to satisfy his lust for power and life. He was a half deamhan. He decided that if she came close another time, he’d make certain she feared him as much as the rest of Alba. The next time, he would take her. Maybe he’d go so far as to take pleasure in her death.

The idea was disturbing.

BRIE SAT UP IN THE COLD DARKNESS, stunned.

Aidan had just slammed from the room. She couldn’t breathe, but not because every movement caused her ribs to really hurt.

Aidan had just mesmerized her the way the demons did.

There was no doubt. Her body had been on fire a moment ago and she had lost her ability to think. She had been frantic for their union. But he had walked away, and the spell was broken.

She hugged herself, trying not to panic, her teeth chattering from the cold. He hadn’t seduced her against her will, and she tried to reassure herself. But he was the son of a demon—he had told her so. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, but she was starting to now.

How far had the Wolf gone?

How could the son of a demon ever have been a Master?

“He’s turned, Brie. If you can’t feel the black power in this room, he’s brainwashed you.”

Images of the Wolf viciously mauling those boys to death filled her.

But he hadn’t hurt her—yet. He had saved her, even if he’d viciously destroyed the subs, even if he was so angry it was terrifying.

Demons did not save Innocence. They ruthlessly destroyed it. He wasn’t as evil as Nick claimed. He had a conscience. Didn’t he?

She was not reassured. They’d obviously leapt through time, and she had a pretty good idea of where they might be. Her heart hammered uneasily. He’d taken her hostage, or prisoner, or something. She was in over her head.

And where were her eyeglasses?

Her panic was complete. If she’d lost her glasses, she was almost as blind as a bat. If she couldn’t see, how was she going to protect herself? The room was pitch-black and she groped the floor carefully, immediately realizing they’d landed on rough, uneven stone. If she wasn’t in a castle chamber, she didn’t know where she was.

She had to find calm—no easy task when the son of a demon had just abducted her for no apparent reason. She did not know his motives and couldn’t even guess them. Brie tried deep, slow breathing, ignoring the pain in her rib cage. She reminded herself that she was here because of her sudden empathy across time for Aidan. He had rescued her from evil and brought her to the past. There was a reason for it all.

Brie shuddered. He bore little resemblance to the man she’d been infatuated with for the past year. He was frightening in every possible way—his anger, his sexuality, his hatred. His face might be as beautiful as ever, but his eyes were so flat, without light—almost like the eyes of demons, except that their eyes were black and soulless and Aidan’s remained sharply blue.

If he had a conscience, could he be redeemed?

Brie sat up straighter, wincing against the pain. Aidan did not appear to be redeemable. Surely she was not his salvation!

Shocked that she would even think such a thing, Brie managed to get to her feet, holding the aching side of her ribs. She leaned against the cold stone wall, certain he’d gone out of the room. She didn’t know what she was going to do when she found the door and stepped out of it.

She prayed that she would step out into a bright New York City summer day.

She was pretty sure Hudson Street was not outside that door.

She started forward, staying close to the wall, until it turned at a right angle. She followed the wall until her hands slid over a coarse wooden door, with some of the panels splintered off the frame. She fumbled for a doorknob or latch. When she found it, she hesitated. Once she walked through that door, there was no turning back.

Aidan was outside that door, somewhere.

Brie opened it, revealing a shadowy hall. The corridor was a blur, but there was no mistaking the flickering lights on the walls. The hallway was lit with candles in sconces. She was definitely in a castle in the past.

It crossed her mind that, if that historian had his facts right, it was before December 1502, because Aidan clearly hadn’t been hanged yet.

She turned and saw an open embrasure. Outside, the night was blue-black. She inhaled, and the air was scented with pine and the sea. Brie walked over to the loophole. Ebony water gleamed below, and the distant shores were pale with snow.

She’d been transported to the Highlands. The last time she’d smelled such invigorating air had been on a summer vacation spent trekking across the northern half of Scotland. In spite of her trepidation, some excitement began. The Highlands would always be home to a Rose woman.

It was freezing cold out—and inside the castle, too. She shivered, wishing she had a coat.

A door farther down the hall opened. Brie instantly felt Adam’s hot, hard power. It didn’t feel evil—but it didn’t feel white, either. She jerked back against the wall, wishing she could vanish into the stone. Even though she couldn’t see clearly, she knew it was Aidan stepping out from the chamber.

He turned toward her and stared.

Her mouth went unbearably dry. Why had he taken her back in time with him? What did he want? What was her purpose?

He started toward her. She didn’t have to make out his features to know that he was unsmiling. She realized he’d put some kind of wall up. His anger felt distant, not as violent or threatening. His shocking sexual urges were gone, along with the bloodlust. She was only slightly relieved.

As he came closer, she realized he was clad as a medieval Highlander in a belted tunic, a long and short sword, his legs pale and bare over knee-high boots. In fact, he was dressed just like her vision of him in effigy, except she couldn’t see if he wore the fang necklace.

She tensed as he paused before her. It was a moment before he spoke. “I’ll have a chamber readied fer ye.” His tone was carefully neutral.

She was relieved he was exercising self-control over his emotions. “Where am I?”

“Yer at my home, Castle Awe. I’ll have ye sent back to yer time when yer stronger,” he said brusquely.

His gaze was so hard and unwavering, she flushed. Maybe it was better that she couldn’t see his expression, because even blurred, his regard was unnerving. She felt almost as if she’d been trapped in a cage with a wild animal and that she didn’t dare move, for fear of provoking him.

But with the two of them alone in the hall, it was impossible not to recall being in his arms. Even shielded, his power was so male and sexual that her pulse raced. She would always find him terribly, unbearably attractive, she thought.

What she hadn’t felt earlier, though, was his magnetic pull. A force pulsed between them, urging her toward him. She probably hadn’t noticed it before because of her empathy. His turbulent emotions had been an overwhelming distraction, but his magnetism was shockingly strong now.

She would ignore his pull. “Are you okay?” she asked carefully. She couldn’t discern any bandages beneath the tunic.

His gaze narrowed. “Ye ask after my welfare?”

She wet her lips. “You’re the one who got shot.” Because of her, she thought.

His anger roiled, pushing at her. “I’m almost healed.” He was harsh.

So he had an extraordinary recuperative power, she thought. That was not demonic, either. Demons didn’t heal, not even themselves—they destroyed.

“A maid will show ye to yer chamber. Ye can stay there.” He whirled, striding down the corridor.

She had no intention of remaining in the hall, alone in the dark of the night—especially with her impaired vision. He had started down a dark hole that was obviously a spiral staircase. “Wait, please,” she cried, rushing after him.

He began to vanish down the spiraling steps, as if he hadn’t heard her. He was obviously ignoring her.

Brie rushed forward, pain erupting from her ribs. Her depth perception gone, she tripped and went flying down the stairs.

She landed hard. After the agony of their journey through time and her bruised or fractured ribs, it hurt impossibly and she cried out, tears finally filling her eyes. For one moment, as his hands instantly closed on her arms, she felt dizzy and faint. And then she felt only his large hands and the strength coming from them.

His grasp was reassuring, she managed to think. But that was impossible, because of what he had become.

“Will ye nay watch where ye go?” he demanded with heat. “Do ye have two left feet?”

Her ribs throbbed and she looked up into his vivid blue eyes. His mouth was inches from hers. She was almost in his arms, so close she could see him perfectly. What was she going to do with her attraction to him?

His eyes changed, smoldering.

“I can hardly see at all. I need my eyeglasses,” she managed. Had he just looked at her mouth?

“Yer hurt,” he said flatly, his gaze on hers. “The possessed boys hurt ye.”

She nodded, biting her lip, wanting, absurdly, to apologize for being a klutz. Even more absurdly, she wanted to move closer to him. He simply didn’t feel that dangerous now. She felt like putting his hand on her throbbing ribs, as if his touch would soothe them. And she felt like touching his perfect face. The urge to reach out to him was so strong, she began to lift her hand.

He became very still, his face hardening, his eyes brilliant now. Abruptly, he put his arm around her and hefted her to her feet, then pushed her away, against the wall.

His anger spewed, filling her. She began to feel sick, his emotions too much to bear. “Stop,” she begged. “What is wrong?”

“Ye stay far from me,” he warned. “I dinna wish to have ye here. I dinna wish fer ye to have any cares fer me an’ I dinna wish to converse! Do ye ken?”

She gasped. “You brought me here! I wasn’t given a say in the matter.”

His mouth curled unpleasantly. “Yer friend Nick needed a reminder. He canna triumph over me.”

Their gazes were locked, his blue eyes ablaze. “Is that why I’m here?” Brie didn’t believe it.

He stared, his eyes harder now. “Ye summoned me against my will. I dinna care fer any summons, ever. And I dinna like yer man, Nick.”

Brie stared back, perturbed. “I do not have the power to summon anyone. You heard me, and you rescued me,” she said slowly. “For all that anger, you did the right thing. Oh…and Nick is not my man. He’s my boss.”

“I dinna care,” he snarled. His sudden anger shifted, a mask settling over his features. “Claire’s below. She’ll heal yer ribs.” He turned to go.

He knew she was hurt, and somehow, he knew exactly where. “Aidan, wait.”

He faced her. “Will ye ever cease yer talk?”

She took a breath. “You saved me from the subs. I haven’t said thank you. Thank you, Aidan,” she added firmly, and she smiled hesitantly at him.

His eyes widened. Angered all over again, he whirled and started down the stairs.

He was a powder keg, she thought, and it took only a word or a look to set him off. She started after him, but didn’t dare rush. There was more light on the landing below, and she saw his shape far ahead, vanishing into another room. A moment later she paused on the threshold of the great hall.