Dark Side of the Laird (Highland Bound) (16 page)

And Ewan. I was pretty damn
sure he wouldn’t pull through. Not with how mangled his body was. Almost like Isabella turned into some sort of were-creature and tore the shit out of him with her teeth. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was the devil herself.

Was she now telling everyone that Logan was dead? I was next. With Logan gone and Ewan nearly, there was nothing left here for me, and no one left to protect me from the
evils of this era. Logan had asked me to save Scotland, but I… I didn’t have it in me. I wasn’t here for Scotland. I was here for him, and just because I’d traveled back in time didn’t mean I could somehow miraculously save them all. Besides, in present times, Scotland was still around, and strong, and without me.

Or was that because of me?

Fuck! I couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t be made to make decisions. Logan was everything to me, and now I’d lost her.

My insides hurt, my head pounded, my heart literally ached. I clutched at my chest, knees bunched up in my middle. I might as well throw myself from the window now. Just end it.

I rushed to the window. Tore open the shutters and let the icy winter air into the room. Watched as the sun took its leave. Darkening the room and sending little comfort to my distraught mind. Everywhere I looked reminded me of Logan. Everything about this place, about even myself, reminded me of him.

As the room grew darker, the moon rose, until it was
high in the sky. Round, silver and—full.

Was it a sign from Fate? Was it my destiny to now pursue that circle of stones?

My gut clenched and I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head. No. I couldn’t go back there. The last time I’d run, Logan had chased after me, found me in those stones and punished me with pleasure, right there in the middle. Memories assaulted me from every direction. I could smell him as though he stood not a few feet away. So strong was my sense of him surrounding me, my eyes flew open and I expected to see him there, but he wasn’t. Just as I’d known deep down he wouldn’t be.

Without saying goodbye, I pulled on my cloak and boots and stole through the secret passage that Logan had shown me before, walking down the darkened, cobwebbed and critter-filled stairs into his library. It was dark inside, blessedly empty.

I leaned against his desk for several heartbeats, stilling my rapid breaths, resting my sore limbs. From there I made my way down to the water-gate, planning what I would say to the guards when I arrived there, but they were gone.

I swallowed hard, staring back up at the darkened stairwell and then around at the empty gate. Isabella had made sure this entrance wasn’t guarded. MacDonald’s men would invade at any moment, killing mercilessly.

A twinge of guilt sparked, but I couldn’t stay. Couldn’t die here. I had to go to the stone circle, had to find out what my destiny was. Needed to leave this place to its people.

People I’d grown to love. Walking down the cobbled stairs to the beach, and then running
—lungs burning and legs threatening to collapse—was the hardest thing I’d yet done. Hard to leave these people behind. But what good could I have done them? Nothing. I wasn’t skilled with a weapon and I was no use as leverage. I had no power. I was the laird’s lover, nothing more.

The closer I grew to the stone circle, the stronger his scent grew in my mind. I felt him surrounding me, inside me. Was it his spirit guiding me? Did Logan want me to leave this place, too? Was he protecting me?

At last I broke through the trees and saw the stones jutting up into the moonlit sky. They glowed silver against the black of night. As before, I came forward, touching the runes upon the stone archway, which I’d thought before to be the entrance.

A burning sensation came from my hip as I touched it. I looked down, and a shaft of light glowed at the spot
through my nightgown. My tattoo. The rune tattoo I’d gotten on a whim. It burned—like it had some sort of magical draw to this place.

But that couldn’t be, could it?

With no one about, I lifted my gown up around my hip and stared at the tattoo. It glowed a silvery blue in the moonlight, and then all the runes upon the stones lit up before my eyes.

It was a sign.

I stepped through, sure that by the time I walked into the center, I’d be back in my own time. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I expected to see the cab driver waiting upon the road.

But I wasn’t
back in my own time.

I was in Logan’s torture chamber.
Candles glowing an eerie orange against the dark walls. Offensive scents of death reaching me, assaulting.

“Emma.”

Logan was alive. He called faintly to me in his sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

Emma

T
he room was frigid, colder than outside. Gooseflesh covered my naked skin, prickling the hairs up on my arms. Puffs of air filled the space before my lips as I breathed, and my toes were nearly frozen to the icy stone floors.

Bu
t I didn’t care. Logan was here. Instead of being tossed into that decrepit corridor, I’d been sent through the door.

“Logan!” I rushed forward, relief flooding me
, so much so, I was light-heated, and I had to pause a moment to regain my balance.

He rolled his head at the sound of my voice, his eyes, glassy and pain-filled caught mine.
I was so used to seeing the burning charcoal of his gaze, that the muted gray stunned me.

“Emma,” he rasped
, and his throat bobbed as he tried to swallow. His voice was so scratchy, filled with pain it sent a shudder through me.

“Oh, my God!” I cried, reaching the side of the table and clutching at his face as I pressed my lips to his.

They were cracked and bloody, but I didn’t care. I was so damn thankful that he wasn’t dead. Tears slid over my cheeks, mingling in our kiss. Wet warmth touched my fingertips and I realized that Logan was also crying. I swept his tears away with the pads of my fingers. I kissing him all the more. The man was already so beaten down, I couldn’t bare him thinking that I thought less of him.

But feeling his tears, it made me want to sob. I had to hold myself in check. He needed my strength, not for me to break down. When I finally did pull away a couple of inches to look at him, he said,
“How did ye…?”

I shook my head,
kissing his cheeks and forehead, still disbelieving that I’d actually landed here, and not outside the door where he seemed so far out of reach.

“I don’t know. I went to the stone circle and—”
I bit my lip, refusing to continue.

“Ye were leaving?” he asked, sounding heart-broken
. He swallowed again, and I couldn’t find the words to answer him, because he spoke the truth, and yet to admit that I’d been deserting him, seemed so cruel.

He pressed his lips together firmly. Nodded, then i
n a more sturdy voice, he said, “Good, ye must go. I should nay have…”

But his voice trailed off
on a crack. My own heart lurched at the emotion in his voice.

“Don’t ever have regrets. I’m here, and there is nowhere else I’d rather be.
” And then all that had happened, all I’d sworn to keep pent up inside, came out in a torrent of words that I wished I could have held in a little longer. “Isabella said you were dead. She has your ring. She’s nearly killed Ewan, I don’t know if he’ll make it. I was distraught, and then when I went to the circle…something magical happened.”

Just as I imagined, Logan looked stricken. “We are linked, ye and I.
” He looked off into the distance. “Ewan was hurt?”

I nodded, unable to say all that I’d seen.
“But the healer is looking after him.”

Logan nodded. “I’ve let my people down,” he murmured.

“No, no you haven’t. Don’t say that.”

“I should have known there was a trap when I first arrived.”

“How were you to know?”

“There were clues.”

I shook my head again. “Don’t beat yourself up, Logan. They’ve done that enough to you already. I’m here now. I can help you.”

I still couldn’t figure the whole
transporting thing out. How was I here? Did
how
matter? Somehow, some higher power knew that we two should be together and tore the bounds of time to see it done. And now the bounds of space.

“But ye are nay really here,” he said
, looking at me so despondently I nearly crumpled to my knees. To see a man as strong as Logan brought down so low was unimaginable, heart-wrenching.

“I am
here. Can’t you feel me?” I pressed my hands to his face, kissed him hard and quick on the mouth. “I feel you.”

“Aye, but… I know this must be another vision. Just as real as the others.
The stone circle must have made our telepathy all the more potent.” His eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “Are ye really here, or is this just a dream to keep me sane?”

“
It’s real, Logan. You had them, too?” I asked, still in shock that we were able to communicate in such a way, if indeed this was but another vision.

He nodded, then cringed in pain.

I looked down the length of his beaten body. He looked almost as bad as Ewan. Skin ripped open from crudely welded instruments of torture. Ligature marks on his neck from being stretched, and his wrists and ankles were bloody where he was bound.

My lip quivered looking at the destruction. How could someone be so cruel? How could the king have done this to his own flesh and blood? Why torture him? What had Logan ever done to deserve such treatment?
“I have to help you,” I whispered, enormous, hot tears rolling down my cheeks.

“Ye have to get help, for everyone
at Gealach. If he’s done this to me. If Isabella has gotten to Ewan… There is no telling how long before my people are made to suffer.”

“
What can I do? Isabella has taken over Gealach. Even when I was leaving the guards had been removed from the water gate.”

I expected Logan to cringe, to swear, but he merely nodded. “The king is dying. He wants to see me dead. Every trace of me gone. They’ll burn down the castle, kill everyone inside.
Ye must go warn them. Allow them the chance to leave or fight back. Ye must wake now. Ye must open the secret door, Emma, and bring the treasure of Gealach to Falkland Palace. Ye must present it to the king in exchange for my life.” He gave a slight shake of his head. “’Twill likely not work, but ’tis worth a try.”

My body started to tremble with fear, great torrents.
“No we have to go together. I won’t leave without you. I can’t do it without you. Can’t I help you get out of these bonds?”

“You can try.”
But he didn’t sound very hopeful.

I was determined.
Try I did. I tore at the bonds, breaking my nails back, bleeding, but I couldn’t get the damn leather straps to budge. “How is this possible?” I was frantic now, ripping and grappling. “I can feel you, see you, sense your breath on my cheek, and yet I can’t undo these straps.”

“Because, love, ye are only here in spirit.”
Logan’s voice was calm, incredibly so. He stared up at me with pride, with love, passion, trust.

I shook my head, refusing to believe it. “No. That can’t be.” I yanked at the buckle again, but it was as though I didn’t touch it at all.

“Ye have to go back to Gealach. Ye’re the only chance this country has. But first… make love to me, Emma.”

“What?” I asked, my voice breathless.
Shocked at his request.

“Make love to me. Give me strength to last until ye come for me in truth.”

I couldn’t refuse him. How could I? This could be the last time I ever saw him. “Yes. Yes,” I murmured, pressing my lips to his. Then I stared at him. “How should I do it? I can’t get your bonds undone.”

He grinned up at me. A piece of that wicked, delicious man still present behind the bruised outer shell.
“Just like I taught ye, love. Ye be the one in control.”

“No.” I shook my head. “My body may be controlling yours, but I would never take away your will.”

“God, I love ye,” he said. “This is my will. I want ye desperately. Let me live off this memory.”

I kissed him again, frantically, my body coming alive with each slide of my tongue over his. I wished he could touch me. Wanted so desperately to feel his hands on my back, my hips, my breasts. To feel the slide of his thumb over my cheek, his fingers tangling in my hair.

“Soon,” I whispered, more to myself. “Soon, you will be safe.”

I climbed onto the table, wood splinters biting into my knees. Logan was already hard, his cock jutting from his pelvis, rigid, stiff and a drop of moisture on the tip.

“Put me inside ye,” he begged. “Please, love.”

“Don’t beg me, Logan. You
don’t beg. Logan Grant demands.”

He closed his eyes, and I could see in that moment how very desperate he’d become. How broken. I needed to make him whole again.

“I want you so bad, baby,” I said, straddling him, and leaning over his chest to kiss his lips. My breasts brushed against his chest, the crisp hair on his chest making my nipples pucker and burn for him. Logan hissed a breath. “Am I hurting you?” I asked.

“Nay. Ye give me strength.”
His muscles tightened beneath me and he shifted up, showing me with his body how determined he was.

“I want to give you everything
,” I whispered.

“I only ask for your heart.”

I nuzzled the side of his neck. “You have it.”

“I love ye,” he whispered.

“I love you, too,” I murmured against his lips. I kissed him deeply, passionately, hoping that every ounce of love I felt came through that kiss. Wanting to heal every wound, close every slice, mend every bruise.

I reached between us, gripping his thick cock and slid it between my wet folds, finding my center slick and ready. I pushed back, taking the length of him in deep.

“Och, aye, lass.” Logan ground, his jaw clenching tight, but his eyes wide on mine. “I can feel every bit of ye. Tight, wet, hot. ’Tis hard to imagine ye’re not here with me.”

“I’m here, Logan. Every bit of me.” I moaned, rolling my hips forward and back. I wanted to grip his chest, feel the muscles shift beneath my fingertips but I was afraid I’d hurt him, so I slowly, gently, slid my palms
up his arms to his hands where they were strapped, and entwined my fingers with his. “And I won’t leave until whatever power brought us together, tears me from your arms.”

“Even when ye’re not here, ye’re here. In my heart,” he said.

“Oh, Logan, you have no idea.”

I bent forward again, kissing him as our bodies rocked. He bucked his hips, sliding in and out of me, and I matched his rhythm. With every moment we were joined, he grew strong
er, as though my body gave him resilience and power.

“I wish this could last forever,” I said.

“It does, lass, in our minds.”

Burying my face in the crook of his neck, I felt his pulse beat against my lips. “Your heart is growing stronger.”

“As I said, ye give me strength, love. Strength to keep going.”

“I can’t live without you.” Tears welled in my eyes again.

“Dinna say that.”

“But it’s true.”

I sensed his struggle, his body tightening, his jaw clenching. “’Tis the same for me.” His voice cracked. “Bloody hell, but I want to hold ye.”

Tears did fall
down my cheeks then and I swiped them away. “I want you to hold me, too, so you’d better not let them kill you.”

He chuckled, a weak, half-hearted sound
, but when he spoke, his words were intense and powerful. “I’ll try my damnedest, Emma, ye can count on it.”

“With every breath I will,” I said, capturing his lips in a fiery kiss. I wanted to forget this conversation. Forget that he
was strapped to a table in the bowels of a castle I had little hope of getting him out of without a miracle. I didn’t have a Fezzik to carry him out or a Miracle Max to heal his injuries. Ha, I wasn’t a princess bride either… But it didn’t matter, I had to believe in magic, that Fate would save us both.

So I kissed him hard. Kissed away the pain, the fear. Forced us both into a place where only pleasure, sensation and love reigned. And with that kiss, I rode him. Hips swaying in time with his thrusts, stopping and teasing us both with a swivel here and there. Pulling up until his cock nearly left me, and then crushing us both with a forceful
push down.

Normally when I teased like that, Logan would grab my hips, steady me, and pound up inside me like there was no tomorrow. Now, when there
really might be no tomorrow he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t make the taunting pleasure cease. But that didn’t seem to matter, because in spite of how many times I paused to catch my breath, my pleasure only increased. Heart beat rapidly, breaths quick and shallow. My ears rang. My fingers tingled, and seductive ripples of the beginnings of an orgasm licked at my center.