Dark Highland Fire

Of course, she was married to a MacInnes. Something must be wrong with her, the poor thing. Atrocious taste in men, at the very least. Rowan sighed and took a bite of the apple she'd swiped from the bowl on the kitchen table as she'd snuck out. She chewed contemplatively, continuing to swing her legs and savoring the ripe sweetness of the fruit on her tongue. She might need blood, but oh, how she still loved food. And the American vampires hadn't been much on grocery shopping, much less fresh fruit. This, at least, was a welcome change from buffets, frozen dinners, and takeout.



Real food was good, but what was better was that she was feeling like her old self again, Rowan decided with a languorous stretch. No more dizziness, no more hunger pains that human food could do nothing to assuage. If only she weren't beholden to the delicious, desirable, disastrously sexy Gabriel MacInnes for the return of her strength.



If only, she thought with a pained frown, she wasn't already hungry for more of him. And not just his blood. That she could have handled.



That wouldn't have had her up a tree with a pilfered apple.



The shirt had been a mistake, Rowan knew. But she couldn't help thinking (hoping?) that Gabriel might come back, and confronting the man she'd so nearly let ravish her after knowing him for less than an hour would have required more armor than her tiny little costume could have provided. So she'd slunk into his room, an easy guess when she'd followed her nose and his scent, and borrowed a little something.



Rowan had then spent a restless night surrounded by the aromas of forest and male and, above all, Gabriel. For once the nightmares had stayed away. But she wasn't sure her feverish dreams of her Wolf-eyed would-be protector counted as an improvement. At least he'd gone when she'd told him to. Because she hadn't really wanted him to go.



It wouldn't be long before he figured that out. Which was exactly why she couldn't stay here.



He'd nearly gotten in, she thought with a shudder. The fact that Gabriel had barreled most of the way through her carefully constructed defenses with so little effort horrified her. Something about him, the warm, solid strength of him, sent shock waves through her system that had already put irreparable cracks in the walls she'd erected around her emotions. She couldn't fathom why, after all the men she'd encountered in her life, this one alone struck that hidden and all-important chord in her. But really, the why of it mattered substantially less than how, exactly, she was going to manage to avoid him. She wasn't so stupid as to think her rejection would have put Gabriel off his idea of "protecting" her, despite the way he'd run off into the night. He seemed to think it was a matter of honor, keeping his word to her brother.



Yet another issue she was going to take up with Bastian when she got her hands on him. If she got her hands on him. And she'd promised herself she wasn't going to torment herself over this one more time, hadn't she?



Rowan sighed and tried to clear her troubled thoughts, closing her eyes and listening to the myriad songs of the birds coupled with the soft rustle of leaves in the gently moving air. Inhale. Exhale. Slowly, she felt the tension leaving her as peace trickled through her veins to soothe her. She was in the forest. She was alone. This was her place.



It wasn't something Rowan had any intention of admitting, but there was something about these so-called Highlands that resonated deeply within her. Endless green rolled away into the distance while the waters of Loch Aline flowed deep and dreamless, whispering ancient secrets. This was a place she likely would have sought out had she known it existed.



Of course, as she was being kept here against her will, the shine of Iargail was diminished somewhat.



Rowan took another bite and stared up through the leaves into the brilliant blue sky, lost in thought.



"I'm not sure whether to be offended or flattered that you've climbed a tree to be rid of me."



The voice, the deep, all-too-familiar burr of it, nearly startled her off the branch. Rowan clung to the branch for dear life, dropping her half-finished apple in the process. She'd be damned if Gabriel MacInnes knocked her on her ass more than once. It was as though she'd summoned him with nothing but a thought, Rowan fumed, wishing she could make him go with the same ease, and knowing he'd make it difficult. Inwardly, she cursed the acceleration of her heart, the flush that rose unbidden to her cheeks at the mere knowledge of his presence.



Outwardly, she dealt with him the only way she knew how.



"I would have climbed one farther away if I'd known you were going to seek me out to complain about it."



She looked down through the branches and saw him peering up at her. The sight of him, rumpled, disheveled, and (oh the Goddess help her) bare-chested had her digging her nails into the wood beneath her. The audacity of him, to come to her in such a state ... to come to her at all when she'd expressly discouraged it...



"No complaints," he offered with a smile that would have melted a lesser woman's heart (and in truth made hers feel frustratingly gooey). "But I would like to talk."



"I'd rather not." And really, if this was how it was to be with him, she would rather he took a long vacation in another country. But she had a nasty suspicion it would take a great deal more than that to rid herself of this bizarre affliction. Not to mention ridding herself of him.



Gabriel gave a beleaguered sigh, as though he'd expected exactly that response, and leaned against the trunk of a neighboring tree with one arm. The muscles across his broad chest flexed with the movement. Rowan bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. It had been so long since she'd been compelled to hunt for prey that she'd forgotten the instinct was there. She knew her pupils dilated even as her breathing slowed, every breath filling her nostrils with the scent of Gabriel's life essence. She focused completely on him, the rest of the forest falling away into darkness, and the part of her ancestry that was clever and wild threatened to override every other thing. Rowan struggled to stay put, her rational mind only barely holding the advantage over the part that wanted to pounce and bite. Among other things.



Gabriel, blessedly oblivious to her reaction to him, frowned up into the branches. He cocked his head, trying, she knew, for a better look at her, so she made an effort to keep her face obscured. She was grateful he couldn't see what he was doing to her. Last night had been bad enough. This could be decidedly worse.



"Damn it, Rowan, I know you'd just as soon live up in that bloody tree as look at me, all right? I'm not that dense. I've got it. But since we're going to be having some sort of relationship for the immediate future, I think we'd better come to an understanding. And unless you want to give passing notes a go, you and I are stuck with speech."



"I'm not interested in having a relationship." Her voice at this point was a feral purr. Rowan hated it, but she had little control over it. Wretched instinct again, and she didn't even want to speculate why Gabriel's presence, more than any other, seemed to bring out the beast in her. She could almost see Gabriel's ears prick up at the sultry undertone. His eyes narrowed, and he seemed to be scenting the air for some clue about what he'd heard in her voice.



"Relationship in the most professional sense," he finally clarified, still looking intrigued. "I am, after all, supposed to be your acting bodyguard for the time being." He craned his neck further, and for an electric instant their eyes connected. Rowan quickly tore her gaze away, feeling foolishly lightheaded. Gabriel's voice deepened with concern. It was the absolute last thing she wanted this man to feel for her.



"Look, are you all right up there? You sound a bit ...odd."



"Well, you look like you've been sleeping outdoors, which I was going to be too polite to mention," she growled. "And you have no idea how little I need a bodyguard."



You might, though she silently added, unable to help licking her lips at the sight of his rock-hard abs.



"Oh, that's lovely. You know full well that you're the reason I slept outdoors. During which time, I understand, you raided my T-shirt drawer. Not," he bit out, "that it has any bearing on this conversation." Gabriel's voice had grown heated, that wonderful accent of his thickening until all of his words seemed to roll together into one. He'd come to find her with some sort of an agenda in mind, Rowan thought. A "let's be friends," shiny, happy kind of agenda.



It was more fun than it should have been to shred it to pieces, but she couldn't seem to help herself.



"We're not having a conversation," she replied. "I told you to leave already. Technically, you're talking to yourself."



His handsome features telegraphed a moment of surprise, which quickly transformed into barely leashed fury. "Bullshit," he snapped. "And if you don't get down here, I'm bloody well coming up."



Rowan didn't respond, drawing her feet up to rest on the branch as she leaned against the sturdy trunk. Her movements were slow and deliberate, the product of the intense effort she had to exert to move at all. For some reason, the only command her body really wanted to obey was to throw herself on her erstwhile savior down below. And that was absolutely, positively not going to happen.



"Rowan?" he asked, waiting a few seconds for a response. When she continued to ignore him, mainly out of a twisted sort of curiosity to see what he would do next, she saw his large, rough hands clench into fists. "Rowan," he said again, not a question but a warning.



He moved so quickly she didn't even have time to be impressed. One second he was glaring upward at her. The next he had leaped up and landed, crouched and still glaring, on her own personal branch. His jump had been so surprisingly light and graceful that the limb barely moved with the added weight. Her eyes widened. Gabriel grinned, and it was both triumphant and not very nice. Predatory, even.



Her traitorous stomach burst into a hurricane of butterflies.



"You," she stammered, "you ... you can't just..."



"Damn right I can," he said, cutting her off neatly. "These trees belong to my Pack. You, therefore, are trespassing. You're also being a royal pain in the ass, which seems to be more or less a constant in your case. My tree, my rules. Now shut up so we can have our talk."