Dark Highland Fire

He looked at her somberly. "I had no control over that. Your defiance enraged my father, whose solutions, I admit, would not be my own. But if his actions have brought you to me at last, I cannot regret what was done. If I am to be all you have, so be it. You will love me, Rowan. I will accept nothing less."



Words tried to come, but she choked on them. How dare he? How dare he? It didn't matter whether he had ordered the attack or not. Condoning it made him just as guilty as his father, that fiend Mordred. A traitorous tear slipped down her cheek as she struggled back to her feet, all that she felt threatening to break her apart. She took a shaky step forward, then another, repulsed by the hope she saw in those glowing violet eyes. She stopped, just out of arm's reach, and spat at his feet.



"You may gain my body, you sick son of a bitch. But I swear on the blood of the Goddess herself, no matter what torment you devise, I will never love you! I hate you, do you understand me? I hate you, and will hate you with every breath I have until my dying day!" She screamed the last at him, willing him to understand what he had done. If he took her now, he would be getting nothing more than an empty shell. For the first time in her life, she cursed the lineage that had given her such terrible beauty. Beauty that could inspire such love as to destroy everything in its path.



No wonder the Dyadd did not wed. It seemed that for her kind, love was destined to be nothing more than poison.



Lucien's eye twitched, the only indication her barb had hit its mark. His voice, when he spoke, was soft and deadly. "But you will belong to me. And perhaps that will be enough."



Rowan knew then that the game was up. No matter what she said, what she did, he would have her. She would disappear into the Black Mountains of the dragons and serve this monster until she died. Her future flashed before her, the emptiness and despair of it, and it was suddenly too much. Despite her determination to stand bravely before her fate, she spun blindly away from Lucien and began to run, his cold laughter following her.



"Do you wish me to chase you, little witch? Very well, then ..."



She heard the quick clip of his boots against the pavement as she raced, cursing the spike-heeled instruments of torture that bound her feet. Her speed was far greater than any human's, but still she knew he was gaining on her. Toying with her, really. She hadn't the strength to challenge him. Desperate, she summoned what she had within her and turned to cast it behind her, balls of flame rocketing from her fingertips. Again he laughed, this time seeming genuinely amused.



"Is that really all you have left, my love? How sad... it's always belter when you can fight..."



There was a sudden loud bang as something behind her exploded, followed by Lucien's enraged roar. Hope swelled just as her ankle twisted sharply, and she began to fall forward, offering up a prayer that somehow, some way, fate had seen fit to spare her one last time.



Strong arms caught her just before she hit the ground, and she was lifted and spun at dizzying speed to be crushed against a familiar chest.



"Bastian," she sobbed, even as her vision began to go dark.



"Hang on," he breathed against her hair.



She had one final impression before her consciousness left her—that of an enormous black dragon, wings spread, shrieking at the sky as she rapidly left it behind. Then there was only that sweet, mysterious burst of magic she had encountered but once before.



And cocooned in the safety of her brother's arms, Rowan knew no more.



Chapter 2



Gabriel MacInnes sat quietly on the large, time-worn boulder, nursing a beer and staring at a sky brilliant with stars. A warm night breeze ruffled his hair, carrying with it the scents of pine, of rich earth, and fathomless water. The scents of home, he thought, taking another pull on the beer bottle. Though he'd gone off to make a place of his own in Tobermory several years ago, no place had ever held the same allure for him as these sixty square miles of wilderness, the Pack's since time immemorial.



Iargail would always be his heart.



A pity, then, that he'd never been quite able to figure out his place there. Gabriel sighed, allowing himself to wallow a little. He figured it didn't hurt as long as he acknowledged that wallowing was exactly what he was doing. The sounds of laughter and conversation carried to him from the back of the house, along with the occasional soft drift of music from the stereo someone had dragged outside. He knew he should be there, entertaining his cousins, playing the charming host to the few stragglers who hadn't yet left from last week's Pack gathering. He normally thrived on that sort of thing.



But this year had been different, and for the first time in a long while, Gabriel purposely set himself outside the warm circle of light that the stately manor house cast. He was tired. Tired, and so disinterested in the things that usually amused him (women, his pub, and women, in about that order) that he'd actually begun to worry about himself. It unsettled him. Worrying had always been Gideon's area, and that had suited him just fine.



Until he'd almost lost everyone he actually gave a damn about.



A sudden merry burst of laughter from the terrace had Gabriel turning his head, briefly considering making his way back. Then another soft breath from the woods beyond turned his head to contemplate the deep and welcoming darkness of the Highlands. His home. The place he wished he knew how to protect.



The whole family had been on tenterhooks since December, no surprise considering what had happened with Malachi and the Stone. Gabriel frowned and took another swig, his anger beginning to rise at the memory of the way his cousin had betrayed them all. How he'd tried to hand over everything the Pack had ever built, ever stood for, to the Drakkyn. To Mordred Andrakkar, horns and scales and all.



Andrakkar. Drakkyn. The words were strange, almost poisonous. And yet it seemed that his people were bound somehow to the men with the cold violet eyes who had used the sacred Stone of Destiny to enter this world from their own. But try as they might, none of them, not even Malcolm, had managed to figure out much beyond just that. Nothing beyond what Mordred had told them himself, right before Gideon had ripped half his bloody throat out and sent him back to wherever the hell he'd come from.



Now that, Gabriel thought with a small smile, was a much better memory.



"I'll drink to that," he said aloud, raising the bottle of Harp only to discover it empty. "Hell," he grumbled, glaring at it as though doing so would provide him a magic refill. You'd think there might have been some extra benefit in being related to a bunch of nasty, super-powerful creatures from another dimension. As it was, he couldn't even manage to get drunk by himself without bollixing it up. Later maybe he'd Change into his Wolf form and go be sick on the daisies. That would truly make his night complete.



Gabriel was heading into a comfortable solitary sulk when a familiar voice pulled him back to the present.



"It's an odd night when I feel like I have to ask you if you'd like some company." His brother, Gideon, settled on the rock beside him and handed him one of the beers he carried.



His answer was a sidelong glance. "And still I don't hear you asking."



Gideon grinned, the action brightening his normally serious countenance like the sun after a storm. "Night didn't seem that odd."



Gabriel snorted, but decided to accept both the brother and his offering. It would do him good if just a little bit of Gideon's newfound bliss rubbed off on him. Of course, he didn't happen to have a beautiful blonde wife who was madly in love with him to help with that process as Gideon had. Marriage, Gabriel decided, agreed with his brother. And Carly Silver, now Carly MacInnes, agreed with everyone who met her. Thrown together by evil and a northern New York snowstorm, he thought with a shake of his head. Love was to be found in the most unexpected of places.



It was one of the main reasons why he stayed as far away from those kinds of places as he could manage.



"All right," Gideon sighed after listening to nothing but breathing for a few minutes. "I hate to ask, but I might as well. What in God's name are you so busy brooding about out here?"



"I'm not brooding. I'm ... philosophizing." Gabriel kept a straight face for all of three seconds before both of them dissolved into laughter. At thirty-one, he was old enough to be amused at the fact that he was not a man known for his depth. Hell, he'd carefully cultivated that reputation. And it felt good to have a moment alone with Gideon spent laughing instead of worrying.



"And after the minute or so that took, I'll assume you've just been sleeping out here," chuckled Gideon, clinking his bottle against Gabriel's before taking a long drink.



"You're lucky I'm not in the mood for a fight." Gabriel never lost his grin, though the nudge he gave his brother was hard enough to push him halfway off the side of the boulder.



After the requisite scuffle, the two of them sat in companionable silence for a while, drinking and staring into the night. Gideon appeared to be waiting. Before long, as he no doubt expected, it was Gabriel who broke the silence.



"I just don't understand why they don't do something!" he finally growled, letting some of his frustration seep into his voice. "It's been nearly eight months. We've alerted the Pack, we've upped the guard." He turned to his brother, knowing his eyes were blazing. "They're toying with us, and there's nothing we can do but sit here! There has to be more. I can't accept that there isn't more we can do." More I can do, he silently added.



Gideon's voice was quiet, thoughtful, eyes giving off a faint glow of their own. "What would you have us do, Gabe? Everyone is on watch, everyone takes this as dead serious. But the only ones who know for sure how concerned we need to be, and how this all actually works, are back on the other side of wherever the Stone leads. And they won't be coming through it again. We're making damn sure of that."



Gabriel clenched his teeth and said nothing. He'd been there, in the chamber of the Lia Fáil. He'd seen his father's blood used to open a door into some other godforsaken realm, seen a man begin to change into something he'd only read about in fairy tales. He'd been berated for being the descendant of creatures he could scarcely imagine, threatened with attack until he and his Pack were wiped from the face of the Earth. This is not the only door, the Andrakkar had warned them. And Gabriel had assumed it would be only days, weeks at most, until they met again.