CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Highland woods were a mystical place on any given night, but to Mena, Samhain had taken on a distinct dreamlike quality. An iridescent mist crept in from the sea and settled on the soft floor of the forest. The dense fog, turned an eerie shade of blue by the moonlight and some unexplainable force of nature, carried the scent of loamy brine and evergreens.
Mena’s skirts displaced the vapor as she picked her way through the thickest parts of undergrowth, wondering just where she should pause.
And wait for him to come for her.
Dear Lord, what was she doing? It had been easy enough to look deep into Liam’s dark eyes and to drown in the desire she saw burning there. To let the scent of him arouse and intoxicate her. Soap, whisky, autumn spices, and that masculine essence that was so unique to him. The one that told her she was safe.
Or that she wasn’t.
Whatever it was, she knew that scent—her soul knew it—and she’d inhaled him deep, as though she could hold a memory in the most minuscule fibers of her body, like she could a breath.
How a man like him could seduce her so easily, so absolutely, still astounded her. He was an enigma. A man with a great deal of sense and the temper of a demon. A good man with a frightening past. A violent man with a wish for peace.
It was the paradox that drew her. He was a puzzle, a complication, someone whom she didn’t understand and who was not at all like her but who, in his own way, arrived at the very same conclusions she did. About many things.
It worried her how incompatible they were.
It amazed her how perfect they were for each other.
Liam was a hero who’d come to hate himself for the sins of his past, and she was a refugee with a secret shame. How fitting that they should find redemption in each other’s arms.
And passion, one couldn’t forget that.
She’d never known a man with such passion. Riddled with so much fathomless need. She’d never been the object of such ardent, fervent attentions. Mena shivered more from the memory of his touch than the chill in the air. Some womanly instinct whispered that the passion he’d shown her thus far was merely the surface of a roiling volcano. The pressure was building, boiling, and churning the air between them until it’d reached the point of eruption. There was simply no containing it anymore.
No denying it. He was relentless, the Demon Highlander. He would not be resisted. He would not be deterred. And Mena was tired. In the absolute way that even her bones felt tired of supporting not just her body, but the weight she carried within her soul. Tired of pretending not to want him, tired of fearing what may occur in the morning. And above all, tired of being alone and afraid.
There was going to be a moment when she regretted the decision to surrender to Liam Mackenzie. But tonight was not that night, and this moment was not that moment.
Mena stumbled upon a small clearing. As she drifted into it, soft mosses cushioned her boots, muffling the sound of her footfalls. A rock the length of a tall man leaned against two shorter, hulking stones in such a way, it reminded Mena of an altar that she’d seen in one of the Great Hall tapestries.
This was the place.
The moonlight slanted down on the tiny glen, lending its azure magic to the enchanted atmosphere of the site. Mena felt every bit the sacrificial virgin being led to meet her fate at the hands of some demanding god. The altar would be the perfect spot to make herself into an offering.
Virgin or not.
For if ever a pagan deity roamed the earth, he surely would take the form of Liam Mackenzie.
A ripple of anticipation seized her, followed by a chill of apprehension, and the mist seemed to respond, swirling as though scattered by a form much bigger and stronger than she. His name escaped her lips on a husky whisper, and she turned to greet Liam, her would-be lover.
Red eyes stared back at her from a face so hideously disfigured, that revulsion rose just as suddenly as terror. Both reactions closed her throat against a scream.
The Brollachan.
He wore no hood this time, no cloak to cover the horror that was his face. The creature had no nose to protect the two dark slits beneath the bridge between his eyes. A gleaming web of flesh dripped down the right side of his head. The left was oddly flat, as though he’d lain on one side for an eternity, and the skin had decided to melt in that direction after a time.
“How sad, lass, that ye didna heed my warning,” the demon hissed from behind lips that couldn’t really close, and thereby didn’t deserve the distinction. “For now, I fear, it is too late.
The demon seized her, and the scream of fright turned into a cry of pain as he wrenched her around and yanked her neck to the side. He pressed her back against his chest, as he twisted one arm painfully behind her in a brutal hold.
“Scream all ye like, lass,” he hissed, drawing another desperate sound from her throat as he pulled on her arm hard enough for pain to rip through her shoulder. “Yer screams are just what he wanted to hear tonight. And we should oblige the Demon Highlander, should we not?” An unmistakable metallic grind was as loud as any scream to her ear. Mena knew what that sound meant before she felt the kiss of his unsheathed dagger beneath her neck.
Frozen against the very hard, very real body of the specter who’d stalked the shadows of Ravencroft Keep since she’d arrived, an absurd question permeated the cold terror coursing through her.
What would a demon need with a blade?
Now that Mena knew he wanted her to scream, to summon Liam, she pressed her lips together. The hold he had on her arm wasn’t immobilizing, but the dagger point he held beneath her throat certainly was.
She found it a mercy that she didn’t have to look at him, that his horrific features wouldn’t be the last thing she saw in this world.
“He’s not coming for me,” she lied, hating how small and frightened her voice made her sound. “You’re mistaken. He remained at the festival.”
It was the dark chuckle that confirmed to Mena who he was. Rough, caustic, full of rasping masculinity and devoid of any humor. Only three other men on this earth had ever made a sound like that.
Liam Mackenzie, Gavin St. James, and Dorian Blackwell.
Brothers.
“Hamish,” Mena whispered. “You’re alive?”
“And ye’re a clever sort.” His serpentine head lowered so that she could hear the slight whistle of air through the pitiable slits in the center of his face. “Though not so clever as ye think if you consider this a life.”
The blade against her throat radiated the chill of the evening, paradoxically burning against the soft, tender skin of her throat. Mena was terrified, but felt oddly detached. A frigid chill that put the ice baths to shame washed over her, but instead of seizing her mind with those fingers of ice, it somehow liberated her.
She’d survived violence before. She’d been struck, threatened, choked, and terrorized. Somehow, through it all, she’d learned to keep her head in a dangerous situation. To cycle through the fear and pain threatening to cloud her thoughts, and pluck from the nebula of knowledge, instead.
Her newfound strength would be priceless in this situation.
Mena knew she wasn’t his true quarry, that she was a means to an end. Which could prove to be her salvation, unless she proved to be useless to him. First she must ascertain what his motives were, and then she could formulate a plan.