Claire thought about the way he had looked at her and used his powerful legs to spread hers, without even an if you please. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. It didn’t matter if this was the fifteenth century, she was a modern woman. She wanted to curse him again. She knew better than to dare.
A man rode forward. “Maybe I can be o’ help. Black Royce o’Carrick, at yer service, Lady.”
Claire looked up at him and a frisson of shock went through her. “Black” Royce was actually dark blond, with the hard but nearly perfect features of a Viking. He was in his early thirties, and he was as tall as Malcolm, with broad shoulders and bulging arms. He was clad like the knights who had attacked them. He wore a shirt of mail that reached his upper thighs, with gauntlet, elbow cups, chausses, knee cups and a helmet, the visor up. He carried a lethal-looking lance under one arm, wore two swords, long and short, and over the mail shirt, he wore a brat. It was impossible not to wonder if, like Malcolm, he went bare beneath the leine he surely wore under the chain-mail tunic.
He smiled slowly at her, as if he was aware of her admiration and her suspicions. His eyes flickered as he spoke. “Yer name, Lady?”
She knew Malcolm was watching her. She glanced at him. He was furious—which was fine by her, as he damn well deserved it. She didn’t know what had set him off. “Claire. Claire Camden,” she said. She forced her witless mind to work. “I need to get back to my time,” she said. “Can you help?”
He did not seem taken aback by her question. “I would dearly love to take ye home, but that duty is nay mine.”
“He has abducted me,” Claire cried. But she flushed as she spoke, because she was beginning to recall a few pertinent facts—like being whacked over the head by Sibylla and that warrior Aidan’s intrusion, as well.
Malcolm stepped to her side, his expression purely black. “Ken as ye will,” he said darkly. Then he stared coldly at Royce. He spoke in French. Claire wasn’t surprised, as she recalled that most of the nobles in England and Scotland spoke the language of the European court. “She is my Innocent. She is under my protection and it stays that way until I decide otherwise.”
Claire pretended not to understand.
“I understand,” Royce returned softly in the same language. “She has been through a shock. She is very upset. If you wish, I’ll escort her back to Carrick. I am sure by then she will have calmed.” His smile was dry.
Malcolm spoke. “I have already taken her, Royce, and I will not share.”
Claire flushed, turning away so neither man could guess that she could understand them. She was enraged. How dare he tell the other man what he had done! But he hadn’t been bragging like a boy in a locker room. Were they fighting over her like two dogs over a bone? She was stunned, but what did she expect from a pair of macho medieval warriors?
Royce shrugged and turned to Claire. “Malcolm wishes to protect ye, Lady Claire. He be strong an’ powerful an’ the chief o’ Clan Gillean. Ye be in good hands.”
A sarcastic quip formed. She held it back. She was shocked, angry and frightened, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think that she could survive for very long in fifteenth-century Scotland without someone to look out for her. She slowly faced Malcolm as Royce rode ahead, his men forming in two lines behind him. “When can I go home?”
“I dinna ken.”
“Great,” she retorted, trembling.
He gestured. Claire preceded him to where a man was holding two of the steeds taken from the dead. He paused, taking the reins of the gray horse. “Can ye ride?”
“I grew up on a farm,” Claire said tersely. She hadn’t been on a horse in years and the horses she had ridden back then had been plow horses, not warhorses. But after the events of that evening, getting up on the huge, blowing animal seemed like a piece of cake.
How had her life come to this? And what was she going to do? Despair consumed her. What if she couldn’t get back?
A big, callused hand settled on her shoulder.
Claire slowly turned, a familiar tension vibrating within her. He was powerful and sexual and she did not want to be aware of him as a man. But she was, especially after the brief interlude they had so unfortunately shared.
How could she have done such a thing?
His hand left her and he unpinned his brat, deftly draping it around her. His every accidental touch made it harder to breathe. He pinned the plaid closed just below the hollow of her throat, where her pulse was pounding like mad, belying her intentions to be indifferent to him and pretend she didn’t want him. His hands stilled there and he raised his gaze to hers.
Claire’s heart lurched at the sight of so much heat. Very, very vividly, she recalled his breadth, his length, his hardness and power. Desire made her feel faint.
His hands dropped away and his smile began, smug and satisfied. He nodded at the horse.
Claire mounted, his brat shielding her thighs from view.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN HE FELT SATISFIED that she could control the charger somewhat, Malcolm left Claire with two of Royce’s men and rode to the side of the column so he could be alone. The forest was thick and dark around them, but he could smell the sea as they approached Loch Linnhe. There was no scent in the world like that of the woods mingling with Highland sea, he thought, except, of course, for the scent of her.
But now he could not touch her. He must not touch her. With her, he had no control.
Royce rode over to him. “What’s botherin’ ye, Calum?” he asked softly, speaking in Gaelic.
Malcolm hesitated, aware of his cheeks heating. Fortunately, Masters respected one another and did not lurk upon each other. He spoke in their native tongue, grim. “Sibylla has the power to leap time, Ruari. Moray has given it to her when she was but a lowly Deamhan all these years.”
Royce’s eyes widened; he was clearly dismayed.
As he should be, Malcolm thought. The powerful, demonic earl of Moray was the overlord of evil in Alba. It was said that, long ago, in the beginning, Moray had been a Master, until evil had corrupted him, stealing his soul. There was no doubt his line came from the Ancients, for his power was so great that no Master had been able to vanquish him, not in a thousand years. His quest was power and control, his means, destruction, anarchy and death. He had a great title, great lands, huge armies of both Deamhanain and humans. Those he sent easily into death’s jaws. And he was so charming, so handsome, so clever that he was favored by the royals—especially the current queen, Joan.
Many of the Deamhanain were simply humans possessed—like the knights that had just attacked them, giants among men, their powers enhanced by the demonic possession. Sybilla was human, but Moray had made her his lover, taken her soul, given her his children. And now, he had given her one of the most coveted powers of all, the power to leap the ages.
Royce glanced at him. “I dinna think ye be broodin’ about a Deamhan, even if she be Sibylla, whose time has come.”
“Aye, she must die. If she can leap like a Master, she has too much power now.” The most powerful Deamhanain were always to be hunted and vanquished. It was too dangerous to allow them their lives. “But she may ha’ the page. I followed her to the city of New York,” he said grimly. “I followed her to Lady Claire’s bookshop. She was there first. The shop was ransacked. Lady Claire doesna ken what be stolen, and what nay.”
“If there be a page from the Cladich, it must be returned to the Brotherhood,” Royce said firmly. “Moray has enough powers, an’ he canna have the power to heal his own spawn.”
Malcolm could not imagine a world where the Deamhanain could heal each other.