“Priceless,” Jason said with a satisfied grin.
That grin faltered when the picture shifted and showed Malcolm jumping out of an opening in the mountain and sprinting away from Evangeline.
“This willna do. I need them together.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair as he tried to think of a way to get Malcolm back to Evangeline. Or the Druid to him.
Jason sat up straight and said, “Show me anyone close to Evangeline.”
The image of a teenage boy with dark hair and dark eyes popped up. Jason leaned in close to the likeness and drummed his fingers on the desktop.
“Who are you, lad?”
Colors blurred as the image faded and another took its place. This picture was of a file folder from a private school with the name Brian Smyth.
Jason leaned back in his chair and considered this new evidence. How was this Brian connected to Evangeline? He was too old to be her son.
“Show me the connection to Evangeline.”
In the next image the file folder was open and focused on two lines of a form.
“Guardian,” Jason read, “Evangeline Walker. Relationship: half-sister.” He smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, sweet Evangeline, looks like I’ve found the perfect way to send you straight to me. And Malcolm straight to you.”
Jason rose from his chair and walked around his desk. He hurried to his Jaguar XF and slid behind the wheel. The school was only a few hours’ drive. He’d be there and have the kid in his dungeon before dinner.
He started the engine and drove down his long driveway wishing the spell he’d found to teleport would work. For some reason the spell did nothing for him. Every other spell he’d tried worked without much effort. The teleportation was an entirely different matter.
But he would master it as he had everything else. He just needed more time, which was in great supply. Once Evangeline was
drough,
she would convince Malcolm to stay near her. The child would come about soon after.
Then all hell would break loose. There would be nothing the Warriors and Druids could do to stop it either.
Jason couldn’t stop smiling as he drove toward the school.
* * *
Evie dried off after her bath and changed into yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt. Her body was still languid from the pleasure Malcolm had given her.
She couldn’t believe he’d been able to touch her so expertly and bring her to orgasm as quickly as he had. Not once had she felt such decadent sensuality from a man before. He’d taken her to heights of pleasure she hadn’t known existed.
She touched her lips where they still tingled from his kisses. He had the body of chiseled marble, each muscle hard and powerful. Yet, to touch him was to find molten heat. He looked at the world with an azure gaze that was as barren as a desert.
But he caressed her as a man driven by desire and need. She felt his desperation and hunger, his need and longing in his kisses, knew pleasure from his deft fingers.
Malcolm Munro was a contradiction. She wanted to hate him or fear him, but she could do neither. He’d told her part of his story and it ripped at her heart.
Deirdre had tried to have him killed. In the end, she maimed him in such a way that Malcolm thought he could never return to his clan. Since Highlanders prized strength, he’d known his clan might accept him back in, but he’d never be laird.
Evie pulled her hair into a ponytail and sighed. He’d been groomed to be a leader. He’d gone from having a future as laird to simply … existing. That would be a blow to any man, but one that could destroy someone like Malcolm.
She walked to the sitting room and stared at her laptop. There was no sense trying to work when her mind was filled with him. Even when he wasn’t near, he occupied every inch of available space.
“He’s a Warrior.”
She’d never even considered it. A Druid, maybe, but never a Warrior. He had scared her witless when he’d transformed, but he hadn’t come near her. If he really wanted to put the fear of God in her, all he needed to do was move toward her.
A Warrior. She recalled how the torchlight had shone upon his skin that turned the deepest maroon. The claws he’d held up were long and deadly. The fangs gave him a fearsome look.
She’d thought it all some trick until she looked into his eyes expecting to see his beautiful azure gaze and found herself mirrored in maroon eyes.
The stones had yelled at her to run, but she couldn’t. The raw emotion reflected in his maroon eyes kept her rooted to the spot. She saw grief, remorse, and self-loathing.
Inwardly, she winced when she recalled how he’d plunged his claws into the stones. The stones themselves had screamed in pain, nearly drowning out the growls coming from Malcolm.
Every word Malcolm uttered held a wealth of emotions. They battered him endlessly, ceaselessly tugging feelings he was desperately trying to keep locked away.
But those emotions were breaking free.
Evie didn’t know how to help him. If he even wanted her help. And that was a big if. Malcolm pushed her away at every opportunity.
Had she left Cairn Toul that first night he arrived, she was sure she’d never have seen him again. He might infuriate her by not answering her questions fully, or annoy her by not being able to read his emotions.
Yet, the idea of not knowing him or his story didn’t seem right. It was as if she was meant to stumble across Malcolm and learn the history of her ancestors and Deirdre.
When her mind turned to Deirdre, she recalled the images that had assaulted her after the last spell she’d performed. Who was the woman with the long white hair and white eyes?
There was one person she knew could tell her what Deirdre looked like. Malcolm. And if the woman’s image who now filled her mind wasn’t Deirdre, then Evie wanted to know who she was.
Evie began to rise from the sofa when there was a ding from her laptop announcing a new e-mail. She was going to ignore it when she saw it was from J.
She’d meant to return his message earlier but had gotten sidetracked with Malcolm. No doubt J was thinking she didn’t want to hear from him again. Quite the opposite really.
“Except for the spell.”
There was something about the spell he’d given her. If it was supposed to relax her, why had it done the opposite? Unless she had messed it up. Or he wrote it down wrong in the e-mail. Whatever the reason, she needed to give him a second chance.
He was the only other Druid she knew, after all.
She clicked on the e-mail to find three simple words: “How are you?”
Now she felt really bad for not answering him. Evie quickly wrote a note to let him know she was busy and apologized for taking so long to get back with him. She hoped it was enough to keep him sending the e-mails.
Before she could set her laptop aside, J answered her. She blew out a frustrated breath. He wanted to know how the spell had gone.
Evie bit her bottom lip as she tried to decide if she should lie to him. She finally settled on the truth. It would be good to know if she’d done something wrong with the spell. Especially now since she could really use some relaxation after her last run-in with Malcolm.
She was holding out hope that J would be able to tell her what she’d done wrong. Yet, he assured her that he’d written the spell correctly. Which meant she was the one who’d screwed it up.
“I’ll have to give it another go,” Evie said as she signed off the e-mails.
Her mind was too jumbled with Malcolm, desire, and the image of that woman. If she could just clear her head for a bit, she’d be able to figure everything out.
Evie read over J’s spell and instructions twice more. Then she set her laptop on the coffee table and moved to sit cross-legged on the floor.
She took a deep breath and slowly read the words of the spell over and over until she knew them by heart. With her eyes closed and her thoughts centered on her magic, Evie kept repeating the spell.
Time ceased to exist as she felt her mind clearing itself of everything. She took a deep breath and simply let her magic surround her.
Evie didn’t know how long she stayed like that until the evil laughter sounded as if it came from right beside her. She tried to open her eyes and break out of the spell, but there were hands grabbing her from behind and keeping her from moving.
Strands of long white hair suddenly wrapped around each wrist. Evie tried to scream. She even tried to call out for Malcolm, but it was like her body was no longer her own.
Her heart raced, her blood turned to ice. Panic set in until she remembered she was the one with magic. Evie gathered her magic close and waited.
She wanted to know who the woman was and why she kept showing up when Evie did this spell. Her eyes opened then. Evie had to stop herself from using her magic when she found white eyes staring at her.
“Who are you?”
The woman simply smiled, the action chilling Evie to her bones because of the malice and evil she glimpsed.
White hair curled around Evie’s throat and began to choke her. Evie let loose her magic into one powerful blast at the woman.
Immediately, the hair was gone. Evie fell to the side and coughed as she dragged in huge gulps of air. She looked to where the woman had been, but she was no longer there.
The eerie trepidation that settled around her like a warm coat hadn’t departed with the apparition, however. Whatever was going on with the spell, Evie had no plans of trying it again.
Twice was more than enough.
Evie climbed to her feet and went to get some water. She downed two full glasses before her heart ceased to race. Though her knees kept knocking together.
She looked at the clock to discover almost five hours had passed. Surely it had only been an hour at the most. But her watch, iPhone, and computer all read the same time.
There was no denying that the spell had taken her far longer than she had expected.
Evie realized belatedly that there hadn’t been a text from Brian after school finished for the day. With her laptop battery dead, she couldn’t work or watch a movie.
“Luckily Malcolm solved the issue of recharging for me,” she said as she dug out her power cord and plugged it into the generator.
She put on some shoes and walked into the hallway. “Show me the dungeon,” she told the stones.
It was no surprise when she found herself walking lower into the mountain. The air became cooler and staler the deeper she went. When she came to a door, she opened it and saw the compartments with walls of rock separating them. The front of each cell was also rock fashioned like iron bars.
“This is where Deirdre kept the Warriors?”
“This dungeon was for the Druidssssss.”
Evie shivered. Malcolm had said Deirdre killed Druids for their magic. Had Deirdre been so powerful that none could fight against her? It was another question she had for Malcolm.
She walked out of the dungeon and leaned her hand against the stones to find them wet. Water trickled down from the ceiling in a steady flow that looked as if it hadn’t stopped in hundreds of years.
Evie wiped her hand on her pants and took two steps when her mobile rang. She hurriedly dug it out of her sweatshirt pocket expecting to see a text from Brian.
Instead, it was from an unknown number. Evie read the message twice, thinking it was a practical joke. But as she read how her brother had been kidnapped, she knew it was no jest. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand when a second message popped up, this one a picture of Brian with his hands tied behind his back.
“Oh, God,” Evie murmured.
Her fingers shook as she tried to type. It took her four tries before she was able to ask what the kidnappers wanted.
“You know,” she read their response aloud.
The necklace. They wanted the necklace in exchange for Brian.
Her legs gave out as she crumpled to the ground. How had they found Brian? It was bad enough they had been after her. It had never entered her mind they would seek out her brother.
The first instinct was to rescue him. Then she held the pendant in her hand. The spell housed in the necklace was important and could be deadly to some. That much she knew from her grandmother.
Could Evie trade it so easily and be responsible for thousands of deaths? Could she live with that?
There was no way. Nor could she leave her brother in the hands of the kidnappers who showed they were willing to do whatever it took to get the necklace.
She dropped her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Whatever decision she made would have repercussions that rippled outward.
Evie tried to convince herself that the necklace could hold nothing but a simple spell that did no harm.
That was quickly shot out of the water as her conscience pointed out that no one would resort to kidnapping for a simple spell.
“Oh, God,” she said as she lifted her head. “Brian or the necklace. What do I do?”
She couldn’t let the kidnappers think she was going to leave her brother with them. With shaking fingers, she typed: “When and where?”
Evie tried to swallow around her tightening throat when the next text appeared telling her they’d be in touch.
“Malcolm!” she yelled. “Malcolm, I need you!”
She stood and raced through the mountain shouting his name until her throat was raw. Only then did she hear the stones screaming that Malcolm was gone.
Evie’s legs gave out as she collapsed in the corridor and let the tears fall.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
“I know you can no’ talk,” Jason said as he drove away from the school with Brian bound in the backseat of his Jaguar. He glanced in the rearview mirror to find Brian glaring at him. “But you can listen.”
It had taken very little magic to get the schoolmaster to turn Brian over to his care. The teenager, however, had been another matter.
Jason had wanted to knock him out, but the picture he sent Evangeline with Brian awake had been perfect. The only thing that would’ve made it better was if he had been there to see her reaction.
“I’ve no intention of harming you,” Jason continued. “That is, unless you give me a reason. I’m after your sister. Once I have her, I’ll let you go.”