KINLEY WOKE FEELING as if she’d slept for a thousand years. For a moment she wondered if she had actually come out of the coma, and waited for the pain of her injuries to flare. Nothing but a dull throb at the base of her neck registered. She smelled wood smoke, and herbs, and something like cool, clear water. She felt like she had a headache building on top of the neck pain, but what she mostly felt was wonderfully warm. Slowly she opened her eyes to find a man sitting on her bed.

One thing she knew immediately: she wasn’t at the VA hospital anymore.

He wasn’t a fellow soldier, not with that long, dark hair. His deep tan hinted he’d been over in the Sand Pit, but she didn’t recognize his handsome face…or did she? She’d seen him somewhere before, in the rain…

A rush of flashing, snapshot memories flooded Kinley’s mind, beginning from the moment she’d tried to kill herself in Horsethief Canyon, and ending when she’d fallen asleep while tied to the laird’s bed. She turned her head to see if the bodyguard (Rain?) was around, but it looked as if they were alone—and someone had untied her wrists.

With her bare hands she’d burned six men to death last night, and they’d just tied her up? No, they were definitely not military.

“Dinnae run again, faodail,” Lachlan said, his voice rumbling deep. “I’m too jeeked to chase after you. Go back to sleep.”

She should have screamed, jumped from the bed, yelled for help—something—and she would have if she were awake. All of her injuries were gone, which meant she was dreaming, or still in that coma. Whichever it was that had landed her in the big highlander’s bed, it seemed pretty stupid to fight it. She might wake up on the psych ward at the VA hospital with Dr. Stevens hovering and wanting to know why she’d attempted suicide by cliff.

Or Kinley had gone over the cliff, and this was some kind of very odd afterlife.

“Dinnae be so quiet,” Lachlan said softly. “’Tis making me nervous.”

Freaking out again would serve no purpose other than getting her tied to the bed again. She also felt none of the terror she had on the battlefield or when she’d tried to escape. On some level being in the big man’s bed even felt right. She let her eyes roam over the thick muscles of his broad, bare chest, as well as his chiseled biceps.

She was imagining the whole thing. Had to be that.

“All right,” she said, sitting up. “Let’s work this out.” She arranged her strange shirt as best as she could. “My grandmother was Scottish. You’ve got to be from one of the stories she told me. That means you’re going to, what? Turn into a seal and bite me or drag me into the sea?” That might explain the way he smelled, too.

Now his dark brown eyes regarded her sternly and he frowned. “I’m no’ a selkie.”

“That’s a relief. The seal thing would have been cool, though.” He reached to her wrist and began to untie the silk fabric. “So tell me where I am again.”

“Dun Aran castle on the isle of Skye.” He rubbed a finger gently over a mark the knot had left. “Do you remember my name?”

She frowned. “Ronald MacDonald, lord of something.”

“Lachlan McDonnel, laird of the McDonnel clan,” he corrected.

“That’s it,” she said, as her gaze shifted to the tattoo of a snake’s head on his right shoulder. It stretched across his upper torso to end with a tail that curled just above his left forearm. “I’ve never seen tribal ink like this.” Which suggested she hadn’t dreamed up the dream man. She lightly ran her fingertip over the tattoo, and was rewarded with a twitch of the big man’s pec. “Why did you go for the giant snake?”

“As a lad I grew too fast,” he said. “My size made me clumsy, and it angered my Da. When my Choosing Day came, I asked for a serpent, that I might be as one.”

She recalled how fluidly he moved, particularly in battle. “Worked like a charm.”

“’Tis no’ a charm,” Lachlan assured her, very gravely, as if what she’d said meant something else to him. “I offered myself to the serpent spirit, and it chose to join with me. It doesnae always happen. Some ask too much, or they’re found unworthy.” He hesitated before he said, “You are no’ Pritani.”

“My grandmother raised me Protestant, but I stopped going to church after she died. Kind of hard to thank god for killing off all your family.” He had no clue what that meant, Kinley realized, any more than she had about what he was saying. “Let’s try something easier. What day is it?”

He thought for a moment. “Washday, I think, or baking day, mayhap.”

“Okay.” So he wasn’t big on calendars. Neither was she. “Do you know what year it is?”

“By mortal reckoning, ah…thirteen fourteen.” He paused. “Why do you laugh now?”

It took her another moment to get her hilarity under control. “Okay. You’re telling me that I’m in the fourteenth century, on an island off the coast of Scotland, in the bed of a clan laird chosen by the snake spirit to fight vampires—sorry, the undead—and let’s not forget that I can throw fire out of my hands.” Yeah, she was definitely dreaming.

“The serpent gifted me only my ability. I chose to fight the undead.” Lachlan studied her face. “But for the rest, aye, you’ve the right of it.”

“Could be worse, I guess. I could be trapped serving pitchers in an endless beer commercial.” She stared up at the rough ceiling beams, which had been carved with more primitive symbols. “Maybe I saw all this on the History Channel. Gran loved watching shows about old Scotland. She never got to visit, you know?”

His brows drew together as if he were trying to work out what she meant. “You dinnae believe me.”

“Oh, no, I do,” she countered. “Why wouldn’t I? I invented you and this place.” She grimaced. “Didn’t you leave me with a bigger guy last night? I mean, after I interrupted all those men drinking in that cathedral? Where’s Lightning Face?”

“I’m real, Kinley,” he said and took her hand. “Flesh, blood, bone, and no’ of your imagining.”

“It’s so authentic, the way you talk. I love the no’ thing.” She patted his cheek. “All you need is a kilt, and you’ll be the perfect highlander.”

He caught her hand and held it against his face. “What’s a kilt, then?”

Kinley felt another, more serious tremor of doubt. “A guy skirt. Oh, but since this is the middle ages, they’re not fashionable yet.” She tried to remember what Bridget had told her about Scotland, but his warm hand over hers was distracting. “Maybe we should, ah, get up.”

“I’m up already.” As his dark eyes searched her face, a shaft of sunlight poured in from the window, gilding them both. “Kinley.”

From the way he stared at her mouth she could guess what was about to happen. Then she saw how the light revealed all the colors of October in his eyes, from the amber starbursts around his pupils to the deep, rich bronze of his outer irises. His hair glinted as he bent down to her, falling in a dark curtain around her face.

His breath whispered across her lips, and then the touch of his mouth made it all real. His lips felt firm and soft all at once, and caressed hers until she opened for him. His hand slid under the back of her skull as he slanted his mouth over hers, and gave her his tongue.

Her imaginary Scottish laird tasted of cinnamon and herbs, and the way he kissed made everything from her collarbones to her thighs go liquid. When she kissed him back, he easily drew her onto his lap, and she straddled his massive thighs. She could feel his muscles tightening, and her own hips pulsed forward. The scent of cool water grew so intense it seemed to stream through her now. He moved, and the hard ridge of his erection fit against her, long and thick.

Man, could she dream, or what?

He caught her lower lip between his teeth, slowly releasing it to end the kiss.

“What?” she breathed.

He buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, and then moved to do the same thing to her neck. Finally he met her gaze. “The smell of your hair, your skin. ’Tis like you’ve been bathed in sunlight.”

Kinley touched his mouth with her fingertips. “You like it?”

Lachlan dragged her up with him until they knelt together on the bed. The small gaps between their bodies disappeared as he splayed his big hands over her back and urged her closer for another kiss. She ran her palms up his chest and clung to his shoulders, her fingernails digging in to his resilient flesh as their mouths grew hungrier.

Yep. He liked it all right.

If she could just kiss him like this for the rest of eternity, it would be enough. But no, in another moment she’d be tearing off whatever he’d dressed her in and offering him whatever he wanted. Because suddenly it wasn’t enough.

A hammering knock startled them apart, and the door to the chamber swung open as a very large, broad man came in.

“My lord, Mistress Tally asks if she should…” The brawny man stopped in his tracks to stare at Kinley. “You’re Pritani?”

She knew he was looking at the tattoo on her thigh, which the shirt didn’t quite cover. “No, sorry, Protestant. Who are you?”

“Tormod Liefson, our land scout and map maker,” Lachlan said as he covered her bare legs with the blanket and climbed off the bed. “Tormod, meet Kinley Chandler, of San Diego.”

The scout grunted and inclined his head as he stepped closer. “You fight well for a candle-making wench from Hispania.”

“Thanks,” Kinley said but felt as if she’d dropped down a second rabbit hole. Tormod had white-blonde hair, icy blue eyes, and tattoos of his own. Scars slashed across his skin as if someone had tried to hack him to pieces with a hatchet. “I bet you fight well, too.”