LOCH MORAR, SCOTLAND
The Past
Both were shaking when the vision dissolved this time. Now she definitely knew the dagger in her boot was the one Clarion was looking for and she was going to tell him.
“I need to…”
“Aye, I know,” he said gruffly and then lowered his head and placed his lips against hers.
At first, Paige was in a bit of shock and intended to push him away, but as he deepened the kiss, the only thing she could do was feel. His tongue delved deeply, suckling…his hands were in her hair, and then over her breasts. Her betraying body responded immediately, making her nipples puckered into hard buds.
He groaned and lowered his face to the softness of her breasts, pulling her gown down as he went. The scruff of his beard rasped against the delicate flesh as his tongue flattened out over the top and then suckled like a babe.
Arching in response, her hands went to his hair, holding him there, captive.
Rough calloused hands, slid under her gown and she gasped from the sensation.
He lifted her leg, whispering some foreign language that she never heard before. It poured over her like honey… sweet and warm.
It was like a dream, Paige thought, but when he entered her, she knew it was real. And even though her heart belonged to Gavin, Paige couldn’t seem to find the strength to stop.
Lowering to the ground, he took her with him, and placed her gently on the mossy floor of the forest; the squishiness of it pressed against her bare bottom.
On some level, she knew she should feel shame for what she was doing but it almost seemed to Paige that it wasn’t her. That it was another her, one that belonged with the man she now held in her arms. She wasn’t Paige, but a darker form of herself that wasn’t quite real.
Back and forth, they took and gave to one another. Their bodies melding as one in a daze of unbridled ecstasy, until at last, they could give no more and they both succumbed to their mutual explosive release.
♦
Gavin remembered.
He remembered everything.
Now as he stood on the edge of the Loch looking out past his men and beyond where the eye could not see. He was not certain of his destiny but by God, he was certain where his heart belonged and that was with his lass, Paige.
He also remembered trying to kill her and the pain he saw etched on her face as he did so.
Again, a vision of her face assailed him from when he shoved her in the filthy pit below the castle. He felt sick suddenly and especially mortified by his own actions or lack thereof in her time of need.
Dressing quickly, he redonned his kilt and boots. Without a word to his men, he raced back to the castle.
♦
By the time Gavin made it back up the hill, he caught sight of Jillian as she made her way towards the barbican gates. Part of him wanted to go and confront her, tell her he knew she had tried to cast her spells of witchery against his person and that she had no hold on him any longer but at the last moment, he found he did not even care.
The only thing that mattered was Paige, and he had to tell her, had to say sorry for the abysmal way he had treated her. And beg for her forgiveness. He hoped she would accept his apology for if not, he was going to lose the only thing that truly mattered to him now.
Turning the corner, he raced down the path to the door that led under the castle. It stood ajar and that in itself set his heart to racing a bit faster.
Ducking inside, he made his way down the slippery passageways and got lost a few times in the process. By the time he made it to the cell he had imprisoned her in, he was winded and the stench of death permeated the air.
Taking shallow breaths so as not to inhale the smell of rot too deeply into his lungs, he stood outside of her cell.
Before he entered the dank room, he already knew on some level that she was gone. But he had to check to make sure.
Opening the door, he stepped inside. “Lass,” he called.
There was no answer.
“Lass,” he called again, stepping further into the darkened room.
Even though light was scarce down here, he could see enough. She was gone, just as he knew she would be before he entered the room.
With a heavy heart, he left the room, and made his way back the way he had just come.
As Gavin came back out from the passageways and stepped outside, it was nearly dark and the full blood moon was already rising in the sky. Without looking, he had a feeling she was not in the castle either, but decided to go and check just to be sure.
Frantic now, he ran back round the side of the castle and up the stairs. When he got in the hall, he saw the men had returned from the loch and were now sitting around the table drinking ale.
“Where is the lass?” he asked.
Callum looked at Muir, who looked at Alec.
“Which lass might that be, laird?” Alec asked.
“Paige, where is she?”
“She is no here,” Graham said.
“Ye put her in the dungeon, remember?” Callum interjected.
“Och, I know where I put her but she is no there.”
“Mayhap she decided ta leave,” Muir said. “I can no say as I blame her with the awful way ye have treated her of late.”
“Aye, I know she left, but where did she go?”
“Mayhap Jillian did something with her,” Callum said.
“I saw Jillian, she was alone.”
“Why did ye no ask her what she did with the lass?” Muir asked.
“Never mind.” Gavin knew this conversation was not getting him anywhere and he was wasting time. There was an urgency to his manner, as though he knew that time was not on his side.
Still, he ran across the hall and took the stairs two at a time to his room. When he got to the doorway, his heart sunk even more, as he took in the mess his room was now in.
It disgusted him to think that he had shared that bed with Jillian just a short while ago and even though she had given him some basic pleasure, the act with her was not comparable to being intimate with his lass, Paige. To make matters even worse, he had a terrible feeling she would never forgive him.
Leaving his room, he made his way back down to the hall. “I have ta go to the Loch, ta find the lass,” he told the men.
“What can we do?” Muir asked.
“It is up to ye but I feel I should go to the Loch. I have a feeling Morag has her,” he said.
“Och, who is Morag?” Callum asked.
“I do no know for sure, but I think she is the creature from the Loch.”
Callum did a double take. “Ye think the monster in the loch is this woman Morag?”
“She is a witch,” Gavin explained.
“I think he has a fever again,” Callum muttered to Muir under his breath.
Muir shook his head. “I do no think so.”
“Och, Muir. O’ course he does. Why else would he be speaking such gibberish?”
“Mayhap because it is true. People have been going missing for quite some time if ye recall,” he said, looking pointedly at Callum.
“But ta say a woman is the creature that makes no sense.”
“He said she was a witch,” Muir said and then added, “What say you, Alec?”
Alec shook his head. “I do no know what ta believe any longer.”
Graham finished off his tankard of ale and stood. “Well, it looks like there is only one way ta find out and besides he is still our laird, and if he needs our help, I will be one ta give it ta him.”
“But if he is right and the creature is there, what it stopping it from eating us?” Callum asked.
Alec shrugged and stood as well. “I guess we cross that bridge when we come ta it.”
♦
Faint shafts of moonlight flitted down through the treetops, flickering dots of light behind her closed lids. Paige didn’t want to open her eyes. If she did, she knew she would have to accept what she just let happen with a practical stranger, no less.
Still, her body felt rested and well loved, so she couldn’t regret it all. And she did try to justify her actions because she knew Gavin had sex with the bimbo. But that still didn’t stop tears from clogging her throat or embarrassment from heating her face as she sat up and put her clothing to rights.
The cool evening air gently lifted her hair and brought goose bumps to her skin as she stood up. At first, she did not see Clarion and for a moment, she wondered if he left her but then she saw him standing about ten feet away with his back to her.
Seeing him like that brought the vision back to Paige and the purpose for them being here to begin with. Stepping forward, she took a breath, deciding to tell him that she was pretty sure she had the dagger he was looking for. It certainly looked like the one the man Nathanial had in the dream and with a shuddering of revulsion, she also remembered the white things she had seen in the handle, which now she was pretty sure were Morag’s teeth.
“I’ve seen that dagger before…I…”
Turning abruptly, and shaking his head, Clarion lifted his finger to his mouth. “Shhh,” he whispered.
Paige wasn’t sure what was going on but she did as he asked and stayed quiet.
That is when she heard, rather than saw, the sound of several horses’ hooves thumping across the carpeted floor of the forest they were both standing in.
Her heart picked up pace not only from the sound but from the look on Clarion’s face. It was a cross between apprehension and something dark that she did not like seeing.
He reached out and grabbed her hand and she had a sudden urge to run. In fact, everything in her was telling her to do just that, to go back to Gavin, but when she looked up at Clarion, something else in his gaze made her stay where she was. Paige wasn’t sure why but she felt like he needed her to stay right where she was or something bad would happen to him. It was the strangest thing and it didn’t make a bit of sense.
After a few minutes the sound slowly disappeared and she knew whoever was in the woods had now gone.
Clarion looked down at their hands and then back to her face. “If ye have a mind ta go home, I can send ye back through the mist when it comes.”
“What? She released his hand. “When is that happening?”
“Sooner, rather than later. Come, lass.” He held out his hand. “Take my hand again, and I will help ye get back ta yer own time.”
Paige twisted her fingers to the point it was causing her pain. She knew what she would have said a few minutes before, but what was really waiting for her back home?
Her house, her clay, and her friends, but other than that, what did she have?
You will have your life back; her mind threw in its two cents.
“Ye may leave, if that is your wish.”
Paige shook her head. “What?”
“If you want ta leave, ye may.”
His eyes had turned darker, more intense and a shiver of awareness shot through her. “I thought you needed me…I thought…”
“I can see ye want ta leave. I can no ask ye ta stay if ye do no want ta stay. Do ye ken what I am saying ta ye, lass?”
“If I leave, what will happen to you?”
“I suppose I will find out soon enough.”
Confused by his sudden turnaround, Paige stared up at him, half expecting him to say he was kidding, that he didn’t want her to go. But he didn’t say that. And for some reason that made her really sad and mad.
“So that’s it? You have your way with me and cast me aside as if I am no consequence?”
That look appeared in his eyes again. The one that made Paige very aware of their proximity to one another.
“Lass, I know yer heart belongs to my brother.”
Paige felt the weight of his words settle against her and found it hard to take a breath, let alone, respond. She knew what he said was true, but she didn’t realize that he knew it as well. “What if I don’t want to go?”
His lips lifted a bit but it was more of a sad smile. “Take my hand, lass,” Clarion said, holding out his hand with palm side up.
Paige looked at his outstretched hand. So like Gavin’s, it was hard to tell where one feeling stopped and another started. She was torn in two. She loved Gavin, so much, but she now also had feelings for the man standing in front of her. She didn’t know what to do. She wished suddenly she could be two people at one time. One that could stay with this man who evoked so much emotion from her and also with Gavin, the man who held her heart.
Before she could second-guess her decision, Paige reached out across the space between them and placed her hand in his.
Immediately, his fingers circled around hers, and tightened.