“We’re going to end up paying to replace that throw rug if you don’t stop pacing on it,” I muttered from my bed, my arm thrown over my eyes.

“How do you know I’m pacing?” Gate asked.

“Because I have ears, brother mine. And you’ve never been one to walk quietly when stomping would do just as well.”

“I need to get rid of all this pent-up bullshit inside,” he growled.

“You and me both, but you don’t see me wearing holes in the décor.” I moved my arm and looked over to where he was still walking back and forth, over and over, following the same route with each pass. “I have to say, I think you’re taking this a little too seriously.”

“You can’t mean that.” He stopped dead in his tracks, glaring at me in surprise. “You don’t see how important this girl is? Who the hell spends their graduate studies on the ancient clans of Scotland and winds up studying ours, for Christ’s sake?”

“She does, apparently.” I rubbed my temples, unsure if it was his incessant worry or the dragon’s raging that brought on the stirrings of a headache. It was likely a combination of the two.

“What are we supposed to do about her?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m thinking about it.”

“I know what we’re supposed to do.”

“Shut up.” I sat up, glaring. “Just shut up with that. You and I both know it’s not going to happen. Not just because it’s ridiculous, but because we’re not murderers. You’re talking about murder here.”

“Who’s talking about murder?” Miles entered the room with his arms full of paper sacks. I could just imagine what the people at the pub thought when he came in to pick up a dozen double burgers. All rare.

I dug into the food with relish, still talking. “My brother. He’s the one talking about it.”

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he challenged Miles.

“You’re wrong,” Miles said, his voice flat. “That would be the worst move.”

My dragon approved of this and let up with the frenzy, which allowed the pressure in my head to lessen. Now, I could actually taste the food and enjoy it.

“How’s that?” Gate demanded.

“The girl is a student, correct? She even has a research grant, which allows her to do her work without having to take focus from her studies. She can’t simply disappear without a trace. There will be questions, police involvement.” He lowered what was left of his first burger. “And if anyone has so much as a clue of where she was headed, that’ll be the first place the police start looking.”

“Damn it all.” Gate crumpled up one of the empty sacks and threw it at the wall.

I bit back the impulse to tell him to destroy his own room and leave mine alone, because I understood his frustration.

On the other hand, I appreciated the excuse to protect Ciera instead of seeking her destruction. I couldn’t deny the strong pull she had on me—even back in the cave, I’d needed to fight the urge to ask her everything about herself. Where did she live? What did she like? What made her happy? What was she planning on doing for the rest of her life?

Not that hearts and flowers had anything to do with it. I hadn’t changed my base nature simply because a beautiful, clumsy, intelligent girl tripped and fell into my life. I found her fascinating, was all. Romance was about as far from my thoughts as the cave in West Virginia was from the one we’d just explored earlier in the day.

“How are we supposed to deal with her, then?” Gate posed the question to the two of us. From the bright sparkling of his eyes and the color in his cheeks, it was clear he was on edge. I knew better than to push him, but babying him would be just as tragic for me. I could still remember the sting from when he’d punched me straight in the jaw one time, decades earlier, after trying to be kind to him when he was in a foul mood.

Miles shot me a look. “Well? What do you think?”

“Why are you asking me?”

He scoffed. “Please. Why bother wasting time with such silly questions? It’s obvious you like the girl, and she likes you.”

“Maybe she likes me best because I was the only one of the three of us who didn’t overtly look or sound like I wanted to murder her,” I growled. “The two of you were just about as sympathetic as a lynch mob.”

“Sorry we don’t have your soft touch with the ladies,” Gate sneered with a roll of his eyes.

“Soft touch, hell. I wanted to be sure the girl didn’t run screaming to everybody who’d listen about the three big, bad men in the cave which—by the way—shouldn’t be nearly as tricked out as it is. My actions were an example of self-preservation.”

“Bullshit.” But Miles let it lie there, rather than pressing the subject. He could be a real pain in the ass, but he could also show remarkable judgment. “At any rate, there’s still the question of how to handle her. And you’re the one who developed rapport. You never stopped chatting the entire way back to the car.”

He was right on that point, and I would’ve gladly spent hours more finding out about her. The amount of interest she sparked in me was downright disturbing. We hadn’t touched on anything important, however. I was careful not to. She’d taken an apartment in town, though she hadn’t said where, and planned to be another month in completing her thesis. It was the last piece of her requirements. After that, she’d explained with a wry smile, it was a matter of finding a job where her unique knowledge would be appreciated.

“Maybe I should’ve thought out my major a little better,” she’d admitted before stumbling over a half-hidden tree root and falling into me.

I’d borne her weight easily, throwing an arm around her waist to keep her upright this time. Blood had rushed to her cheeks. “I told you. I’m clumsy.”

“It’s all right, so long as you have someone here to catch you.” I was more concerned with how she’d hiked all that way while wearing a backpack which surely weighed a ton. She was stronger than her frame let on.

“I’m always doing things like that. I can’t tell you how many pairs of glasses I destroyed when I was growing up.”

“You don’t wear them now.”

“Lasik surgery was cheaper in the long run,” she’d laughed.

I’d always enjoyed a person who could laugh at themselves, and she’d put me at ease in spite of all the questions surrounding her presence.

“Glasses would make you look like the academic you are,” I’d teased, and immediately had regretted it. I had no business teasing and flirting with her.

“I could wear glasses without prescription lenses if it would make me seem more legitimate,” she’d teased back, but had then grown serious. “If it makes me seem more legitimate, I’ll do just about anything.”

I’d caught the sour note in her voice. “You’re not taken seriously?”

“Not by a bunch of dried-up old jerks who look at what I do as a glorified fairytale hunt,” she’d informed me, and the sting of the anger in her voice had impressed me quite a lot.

There was more to her than surprising physical strength. She had a depth of strength in her core as well.

“Why do it, then? Why spent all the time and resources on things which might not even be true?”

She’d frowned. “It’s all true, of course. There’s proof. It’s just a matter of finding it. I mean, did people once laugh at those who claimed the world is round? Of course. But now, we laugh at those people.”

“And you’ll have the last laugh.”

“I will.” She’d jerked her chin up just a little then. Just far enough to work her way into my admiration, even if her curiosity and stubbornness would likely wind up getting us all in trouble.

“What makes you so interested in researching the old clans?” I had asked, hoping I wasn’t overplaying my hand. There was nothing wrong with interest—or so I’d told myself.

She’d shrugged, waving her hands. “They’ve always been part of my life. The old stories my Seanmhair told me, I mean.”

The way the old word for “grandmother” tripped off her tongue, pronounced “shenivar,” I could tell she’d been saying it all her life. Just another layer to the girl. She was American, or so she’d told us, which meant the old woman must’ve been Scottish if she’d taught the girl the words, the stories.

“She told you of the clans?”

“What she’d learned of them, which was what her parents had learned and their parents, and on and on. I mean, don’t you feel the power of that connection?” She’d cast her gaze on me, eyes wide with wonder. “It’s our history—I mean, the history of so much of the Scottish people. She always claimed she was of one of the ancient bloodlines, but I doubt there’s any way to prove that now.”

“She sounds like an interesting woman.”

“In so many ways,” she’d sighed.

The longing in her voice told me the woman was dead. The final piece of the puzzle. She felt a strong pull to the clans and their legends thanks to the stories the old woman had told. They had become part of her life—part of her, even. And the work she did would bring a beloved grandparent back, at least in some small way.

I couldn’t help but sympathize, even though she’d already proven to be a hassle.

I tuned back into the conversation between Gate and Miles, both of them well ahead of me in terms of eating. I’d let my thoughts wander to the point that what was left of my second burger had gone cold. I finished it anyway before moving on to the next.

“She wants to meet at the library, someplace public, but safe for all parties,” I reported. “I don’t see any reason why I couldn’t go to see what she has. There’s a chance none of this has panned out to anything.”

Miles fixed his irritatingly all-seeing, all-knowing eye on me. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

I stayed silent.