CONALL MIGHT HAVE imagined Lindsay saying a great number of far-fetched things, but certainly nothing about his father. What purpose did that serve? What had his grandfather said? Because his father, Darach, had gone missing a few years ago and hadn’t been seen or heard from since.

Instead of questioning Lindsay further because she likely lied yet again, he did his best to ignore her and resumed searching for a way out. Of all the places they could have ended up, why here?

“This was where Grant was held prisoner when he was young, wasn’t it?” she said softly.

He clenched his jaw and murmured yet another useless chant to free them, but like the rest, it did no good. They were going nowhere, and as Lindsay implied, it had everything to do with that bloody ring. He crouched and watched her out of the corner of his eye as she kept touching the stone.

From the moment his grandfather had handed her over to him in the midst of the River Forth, he was just as she said...smitten. Just not in the sense she meant it. Or so he hoped. Yet Conall knew as he inhaled deeply and tried to keep his eyes off of her, it wasn’t all that different from her version of it. Whatever else happened that night, the second he felt the weight of her in his arms and her cheek rested against his chest, he was gone in a way that irritated him to this day.

While none could deny Lindsay was a remarkably beautiful woman with her pale blond hair and silver eyes, it was more than that. Instant. Unavoidable. He had carried her in his arms on horseback all the way to the abandoned English castle, fearing for her life the whole time. Though only under the influence of herbs, she had seemed a million miles away from him and that bothered him greatly.

A lass he had just met.

Since that moment, he had kept a close eye on her. None were so courageous or foolish. Because the more he watched the way she interacted with people, men in general, the more he realized what she was all about.

She used men to get what she wanted.

That meant doing whatever was necessary to stay safe.

Or so he thought at first until he began to sense far more. While, yes, Lindsay feared for her own safety, it was subliminal. Which somewhat explained why she risked her safety at every given opportunity with her foolhardy behavior. Did she seem to have a gift when it came to men? Aye. Had she been lucky so far? Aye. But it was only a matter of time before that good fortune ended.

“Well?” she prompted, interrupting his thoughts.

“Well, what?” Conall kept his eyes trained on looking for a way out that would never be there. Not via his magic anyway.

“Dear Lord, you make this difficult,” she murmured as she placed her hand against the very wall he had created and sighed. “Was this where Grant was imprisoned? Did you create this wall so he would never have to look at this place again?”

It seemed her, and his grandfather had talked plenty.

“I did,” he confirmed as he stood. “And we will not get past it.”

“What about your family? Maybe they could help.” She frowned as she gave that more thought. “Do you think they’re still at the battle? That what we did worked and the English started coming over the bridge?”

He could only hope.

Right now, however, he had bigger concerns because he couldn’t sense his kin within his mind. While his cousins were likely still at Stirling Bridge, at the very least, he should be able to connect with his mother. Or even his aunts and uncles. Someone. But there was nothing out there but silence.

“Conall?” Lindsay prompted. “Are you even listening to me or am I wasting my breath?”

He sighed, leaned back against the wall and contemplated their next move. Unfortunately, he had no idea what that should be. They were completely trapped without magic which meant there would be no manifesting food or drink or anything else.

“You should sit,” he said at last. “And rest.”

“Sit and rest?” she said, surprised. “What good will that do me?” She frowned and shook her head. “No, I’d rather be useful. How can I help?” Though it was clear she did not want to, she pulled the ring out and eyed it. “Or should I say how can this help?”

Conall narrowed his eyes at the ring, not sure what the bloody thing was up to. All he knew was that repeating what he suspected got them here was not a good idea.

“Oh, just come out with it already,” she said, her tone exasperated as she leaned against the wall beside him. “We both know it was probably the kiss combined with this ring that got us here, to begin with.” She gave him a pointed look, challenging him to say otherwise. “So maybe that’s the way to get out too.”

“Och,” he muttered, avoiding her luminous eyes. They were half the reason he imagined most men got in trouble around her. “So your solution is to kiss our way out of here, aye?”

As if he would stop at a kiss if he did it again.

He was somewhat surprised he made it out of her arms the first time. If she had kissed Hugh Cressingham or the Earl of Surrey like that, there could be no doubt they would storm Stirling Bridge to get her back. He reined in his aggravation at the thought. At how many men she had likely kissed since traveling back in time to get her way. Though he knew bloody well he should be thankful she was willing to do anything to stay alive, it irked him to no end.

He scowled and shook his head. The last thing he should focus on right now was Lindsay kissing other men...or kissing him. Yet all he could think about was the taste of her soft full lips and the feel of her lush body as she melted against him. Aroused despite their dire circumstances, he sat against the wall and rested his elbows on bent knees to hide an untimely erection. One, much to his dismay, he had been battling on and off since he met her.

“I’ve kissed men for lesser reasons,” she muttered as she roamed the rectangular room, eying it dubiously. “This place is awful.” Her eyes went to his. “I’m truly sorry Grant was imprisoned here for so long. I can’t begin to imagine how terrible that must have been.”

If he wasn’t mistaken, she genuinely meant it.

Kidnapped from MacLomain Castle when he was only eleven winters old, his grandfather had indeed spent several long years down here. The first two winters he never saw the light of day. After that, he used his wits and became everything his captor Keir Hamilton needed him to be. Eventually, he became first-in-command of the warlock’s army. Of course, it had all been an act until he was able to come together with his MacLomain kin and defeat Keir. By then the people here had come to love him, and against all the odds, he became Chieftain of Hamilton Castle, even taking the name Hamilton.

When Conall did not respond to her statement, she continued. “You must love your grandfather very much to have gone to such lengths.”

He knew what she was thinking. Why hadn’t anyone blocked this off before him? Grant included?

“But then I know you love Grant despite how cold you seem to him,” she said softly, not afraid, it seemed, to say what was on her mind. Even if it was none of her concern.

“I know you went back to keep an eye on him after that first battle,” she continued. “First, you made sure I was safe, then you left.”

Conall again remained silent. She was referring to the battle he and his cousins had fought days before the main battle at Stirling Bridge. A secret battle that history would never know about. Grant had subjected himself to the frigid river and was far too old to have done such. Grandmum would have had a fit. So Conall kept an eye on him.

Lindsay sat across the chamber from him, tucking her skirts around her legs primly as though she were not a sumptuous vixen. As though she had not kissed him in such a fashion that he knew she wanted more. That had he persisted, he could have willingly spread her legs and...

“Bloody hell,” he whispered and braced his head in his hands. While he was not entirely opposed to being meant for a woman from the future, Lindsay was not the right choice for him. Milly would have been a much better fit because as far as he could tell, she did not purposefully and constantly put herself in harm’s way.

“I didn’t mean to pry about Grant or make you uncomfortable,” Lindsay said softly. “I’m sorry.”

Uncomfortable about Grant? That was the last thing she was doing. Uncomfortable in general? Aye. He shifted, hoping she could not see what was becoming damn hard to hide. Her sitting where she had did not help matters any. Mayhap, however, if he went along with her assumption, it would get his mind off her body.

“I dinnae overly like speaking about my grandfather,” he said, sure to keep his tone as stiff as his stubborn cock. “He is well now. That’s all grandmum will want to hear.”

“Grandmum?” she said. “She’s from my era too, right? Just like your mother?”

“Aye,” he said. “Grandmum was born in nineteen eighty nine.”

“Wow, it’s so strange how that works,” she whispered. “I was born a year later in nineteen ninety.”

Other than a brief blip when his parents came together, time had resumed passing as it always did for medieval MacLomains and modern-day Brouns. Time went by much faster here so a man could live twenty years and it would only be a few years in the future. The premise was that time was trying to catch up with itself.

“Aye, ‘tis strange,” he agreed. “Ma was born in nineteen eighty eight, so a year before my grandmother...at least in twenty-first century terms.”

“I’ll be damned,” Lindsay murmured as she continued to eye him with a look he knew all too well by now. She thought she had found a way to get closer to him. Therefore, a means to eventually get him to do anything she wanted.

Almost as if she followed his thoughts, she cocked her head. “You don’t like that do you, Conall?” Her lashes dropped a scant fraction as she seemed to see right through him. “You don’t want me to get too close.” The corner of her lip curled up slowly, and her knowing eyes sparkled with newfound power. “Why do I get the feeling it’s already too late?”

He frowned and knew he should not entertain her but did. “Too late for what?”

“Too late for you to stop wanting me,” she whispered, her large sultry eyes shimmering in the torchlight. “Because you do, don’t you, Conall?”

Aye. He did. With everything in him.

Like always, it was nearly impossible to pull his eyes from hers, but he did. As it was every time, he had to fight to keep from looking at her again. Gazing at the lass muddled his mind, and right now it needed to stay level. More than that, he had to remember she was not the lass for him.

He would never survive her.

She inhaled deeply and murmured to herself. Words he could hear with his superior hearing. Words that caught him off-guard. Against his better judgment, he looked her way again. “What do you mean you dinnae understand why I’m different than the rest?” He frowned. “Explain, lass.”

“Oh, I think you know.” She stood, her movements fluid and seductive as she sauntered his way. “I think you very well know.”

Though the dress given to her at camp was too big, it didn’t hide her full breasts or her perfect hourglass figure. She was built for a man’s hands and hell if she didn’t know it as she sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. Her slender hand slid onto his thigh dangerously close to his eager cock. If he didn’t know better, he would say she knew exactly what state she had him in.

“You are wearing the ring again,” he managed, irritated by his thickening voice, and the stark lust she provoked.

“I am,” she concurred as her hand slid a fraction closer to his manhood. “Do you know why?”

“Aye.” Conall put his hand over hers and shook his head. “But we will find another way out of here.”

Any way but how they likely got here in the first place.

“You enjoyed that kiss, Laird Hamilton,” she murmured, her voice whisper soft, and seductive. “Don’t tell me you didn’t.”

As she intended, his eyes drifted to her lips. When they did, the tip of her dainty pink tongue slipped out and ran along her plush lower lip. He didn’t realize he had clenched his hand around hers until she jerked ever-so-slightly. When she did, he pulled away only for her to try to stop him which, as it turned out, conveniently put her hand right alongside his rigid cock.

He clenched his jaw and remained very still as her eyes dropped and her breath caught.

If he had any willpower left, he would push her hand away. He would remind her that unlike most men, he did not want her. Yet she was already blatantly admiring proof that said otherwise. A maneuver he knew she did on purpose to reel him ever closer. Regrettably, it was working because he had not moved an inch.

He tried to focus on the hiss of the torches, even the chill of the stone at his back, but all he could see was her hand. How small and delicate it appeared beside the heavy ridge of his cock straining against his breeches. 

“Well, well,” she said softly, her voice raspy, sensual and knowing. “It seems you’re stiff in more ways than one, Laird Hamilton.”

Had she been any other lass, he would have pulled her onto him, freed himself and plunged into her sweet heat, but this was Lindsay. An actress from the future that was not the lass for him. In truth, he had done well to keep women away. On occasion, he took a whore, but that was it.

He sought no connection.

Nothing that could be taken from him.

Nothing he could lose.

“You’ve put the ring on, and now you try to seduce me,” he managed, his voice hoarse though he was trying for bland. “You must be verra convinced a kiss will free us from here.”

“I think it’s worth a shot.” Her pinky finger shifted just enough to make his cock leap. “Unless you have a better idea.”

Unfortunately, he did not. But he had finally summoned enough strength to remove her hand from its precarious perch so he could inspect the ring more closely. Held by two hands coming from opposite directions, its heart encased gem was supposed to seal her fate.

Milly’s had, at last, glowed the color of Adlin’s eyes, but only after they vanquished the evil that had infected it. Dark magic it seemed. Warlocks. Bastardly things that somehow caught wind of Grant and Adlin’s original creation of the rings and tainted the process. While their foul influence could be overcome, it would not be easy. Grant speculated Adlin had dealt with the weakest of the warlocks, so that meant Conall and his cousins would face far worse.

More alarming? Lindsay and her fellow Brouns would as well.

Yet it was that, her Broun ancestry, that was so powerful in combination with its MacLomain counterpart. Her one true love. So no matter what happened, Lindsay was destined to be with him, Bryce or Graham. If all went as it should, the gem would change color, matching the eyes of the man meant for her. In Adlin’s case, it had not worked that way. Milly’s ring claimed several men, but only until the evil was conquered. 

“I think we need to set aside our personal differences and keep our eyes on the bigger picture,” Lindsay said, interrupting his thoughts once more. “If I was brought back in time by this ring, that means I’m supposed to help in future battles so that Scotland’s history doesn’t become obsolete, right?”

“Aye.” Her hand remained in his as he eyed a gem that made him feel more conflicted than he vowed he would ever let it. “’Tis daunting, is it not? ‘Tis so verra much for a twenty-first century lass who knows nothing of this era. Nothing of the enemy or evil that abides here.” His eyes met hers. “Yet still, you rush to save a country that is not yours. You seem so eager to put your life on the line for people that arenae yours.”

While his words sounded challenging and he kept his eyes hard, he was at heart, truly curious about her reasoning. Her motives. How she could possibly be so brave considering where she came from and worse yet, what she did to make money. It made no sense.

“It is daunting,” she conceded as her fingers curled against his. Her fingertips brushed his palm and lingered as her eyes softened to shimmering pewter. “But what choice do I have? There is nowhere to go but forward and believe it or not, I’m not the coward you think I am, Conall.” Her eyes dropped to their hands as she swallowed. “Because though you question my heroism, I know deep down you think I’m merely a survivalist at best.” 

A survivalist? In her case, he could only hope that was true. If so, he bloody well wished she would start going about it without putting her life on the line so much.

“I have not exhausted all our options to get out of here yet.” He stood and again muttered pointless chants at the wall.

Anything to get away from her.

“You and I both know you have,” she said, her soft, breathy voice behind him far faster than he anticipated. “And we both know this ring is our only hope.”

A ring that saw fit to put them here, to begin with.

To what purpose?

“Why were you the first to do it?” she said softly.

He frowned at her over his shoulder. “Do what?”

“This.” She gestured at their surroundings though her eyes never left his. “Why were you the first to block off something that had caused Grant so much pain? His family so much pain?”

Their eyes held as he battled emotions. “It doesnae matter.”

He turned away and started to chant only for her to step around him, put her hand on his chest and meet his eyes again. “It does matter, Conall.” She shook her head. “Why was it you?”

When he didn't respond, she continued.

“Grant didn’t want to, did he?” she whispered. Her eyes never left his. “He told me he visited here often after he became laird. That it was his way of reminding himself where he got his strength...his perseverance.”

“Nay, he didnae want the area sealed off.” He meant to keep his silence, but something about the look in her eyes made him speak. She was open. Different. Not acting. “I wanted it sealed.” He shook his head. “But never Grandfather.”

Lindsay said nothing but listened, her eyes steadfast on his.

So he kept talking.

“There was no need for this dungeon,” he said, more emotion in his voice than intended. He curled his lips in disgust as he looked around. “It took Grant from Clan MacLomain for far too long. It nearly killed him. Yet he still visited it before I sealed it off and I dinnae think it did him any good.” He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “I believe what it represented weakened him so much his own son was taken from beneath his verra nose. To this day he doesnae seem to care about whether or not his son lives.”

Lindsay did not respond right away. She didn’t touch him, bat her lashes or do anything that hinted at an ulterior motive. When she did speak, her voice was without the octave of flirtation that seemed to be in everything she said. Instead, she was curt and to the point.

“You might not respect or even like me, and it’s fair to say I know nothing about your past, but I do know one thing.” Her eyes never wavered. “I have never met a stronger man than Grant.”

He was surprised by the vehemence in her voice and the sudden fire in her eyes. Though it might have been more beneficial to agree with everything he said and perhaps lure him into another kiss, she quickly came to his grandfather’s defense. “While I appreciate that you were worried about his state of mind, I applaud a man courageous enough to face his demons and not hide from what kept him oppressed for so long.”

She pulled away and looked around, her tone still unique, still her.

And still sharp.

“Furthermore, the man I met, the Grant Hamilton who never abandoned Bryce or me when we were taken by the English...” She shook her head and jutted out her chin. “That is a man who would do anything to protect not just his kin but those he doesn’t even know. He would always protect the innocent.” Her eyes shot to Conall, and she rallied more nerve than he saw coming. “I know most people better than they know themselves and I can say without a shred of doubt that Grant would never allow himself to become weakened nor would he willingly allow anyone to take his son.”

Like her voice and eyes, Lindsay’s posture was different. Ferocious but kept in check. Her shoulders were back, but she wasn’t braced for attack. Rather, she almost seemed to be looking down her nose at him with disappointment.

Though tempted to lash back, he was close to yanking her into his arms and giving her that kiss she was looking for. He might not agree with her assessment, but her valiant defense of his kin impressed him greatly. And, it seemed, aroused him even further.

He narrowed his eyes.

Could it be that was her intention? To get what she wanted by manipulating him this way?

Her head whipped back as if she knew what he was thinking.

“You’re hopeless,” she said softly, amazement in her eyes. “You can’t see past your pre-conceived notions of me, can you?” She shook her head. “Nothing gets through but what you expect of me.”

Perhaps that was true, but it was safe. It kept him from pulling her close and heading down a path he refused to take. If he was meant to be with one of Milly’s friends, so be it, but it would not be Lindsay. 

“We have more important things to focus on than your insecurities,” he muttered, back to searching for a way out that did not exist.

“Dear Lord above,” she exclaimed and threw her hands in the air in exasperation before shaking her head as she paced. “How does your family tolerate you? Because you have to be the most pig-headed ignorant fool I’ve ever met! Not to mention insulting beyond reason.”

Conall nearly grinned. Now they were getting somewhere. Or should he say, she was done playing games and by the looks of her red cheeks, done trying to woo him into a kiss. Unfortunately, his only remaining theory on how to get out of here was to use that ring. Yet how to do so without physical contact? Without pulling her into his arms and never letting go?

“I need to see your ring,” he stated, without looking at her.

“I’ll bet you do,” she replied, her voice unsteady as she kept pacing.

“As you said, ‘tis likely our only way out of here,” he relented, confident enough in her distaste for him now to look her way and hold out his hand. “Mayhap if I hold it I can find a way to utilize its magic.”

“Sounds good to me,” she muttered as she tried to pull it off. “Anything not to risk seeing your eye color reflected in its gem because heaven knows, that wouldn’t do either of us any favors.”

He could not agree more. 

Conall frowned as she kept yanking at it. “’Tis not usually an issue getting the ring off, is it?”

“Obviously not, as you very well know.”

The minute she sucked her finger into her mouth to lubricate it, blood roared straight to his cock yet again. So much for self-control. All he could see were those full, sensuous lips wrapped around where he wanted them most and those sultry eyes of hers staring up at him.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered and tried to look elsewhere, but his stubborn gaze was glued. Worse than that, his feet were moving of their own accord. Lindsay’s eyes widened, and she had just enough time to pull her finger free before the last of his willpower snapped, and he yanked her against him. 

“You’ll get your way then,” he growled before he did what he swore he never would again.

He closed his lips over hers.