The Craving (Rogues of Scotland #1) (9 page)

Ronan didn’t know what he thought would happen, but her silence was deafening. It was what he deserved. He had been going through the past weeks as if his life was his to control once more.

All those wasted hours he could have been wooing Meg to love him. They had been glorious days, and he was thankful they would get him through more centuries in the darkness until – if – anyone ever released him from his prison again.

Knowing he loved Meg and she didn’t return his feelings was painful. It must have been what Ana experienced, and why she took her own life.

“You love me?” Meg asked in a soft voice.

Ronan couldn’t stop touching her. His hands reverently cupped her face. “I didna realize it until tonight when you were putting a wall between us. I had to let you know before...”

“Before what?” she pressed.

He smiled, his heart breaking inside his chest. “My time here is up, sweet Meg.”

Her gaze darted to the mirror. “I said you could remain. I’m not sending you back.”

“I know. It’s the curse. When I’m released, I guess I go through a test of sorts.” At least now he knew what he needed to earn his freedom – love.

He could have had that with Meg, he knew it in the depths of his soul. If only he had realized what he would need to fight for. But it was too little, too late.

“You can’t leave,” she said, her voice becoming shrill. “I’m not ready for you to leave.”

“Neither am I.”

Ronan tried to tell her he loved her again when the edges of his vision went black. He could hear Meg screaming his name, but it sounded far away, and growing fainter by the moment.

He blinked, and the next instant he was back in the mirror. The desolation was severe, the despair intense.

The anguish fierce.

His sweet Meg was gone from him forever. He threw back his head and bellowed, putting every ounce of regret into it.

Meg slammed her hands against the mirror, the inky glass unswayed by her attack. She hollered for Ronan again and again, but he didn’t answer.

She refused to let him go, even as the fear for the love growing inside her overwhelmed her. Meg sank to her knees, her hands sliding down the mirror as the tears came.

“Ronan. I love you, too.”

Suddenly Meg was thrown backwards as a blinding white light erupted from the mirror. Something was tossed out before the light disappeared again.

Meg looked over to find Ronan on his side unmoving. She hastily crawled to him and rolled him onto his back.  “Ronan,” she called as she touched his face and smoothed back his hair.  “Ronan, open your eyes and look at me.”

A relieved laugh erupted from her when his lids opened to pin her with his green gaze. “Did you say-”

“Aye. I love you,” she interrupted him as she dashed away tears. “I’m terrified of what will happen now, but I couldn’t deny the truth, especially when you were back in the mirror.”

He pulled her down atop him and kissed her deeply, passionately. Ronan then rolled them over until he leaned over her.

“I doona want to waste another moment. Stand by me for eternity, Meg. Be my wife.”

“I’d love nothing better.”

EPILOGUE

Two weeks later...

Ronan couldn’t believe he was actually getting married. The fortnight had seemed an eternity as he waited impatiently to make Meg his own.

Tilly had remained at Ravensclyde getting everything in order for the wedding. The entire castle had come out for the event.

Ronan looked around the bailey at all the smiling faces, including Tilly’s son Angus and his wife. Angus had pulled him aside and offered Ravensclyde as his and Meg’s home as long as they held it for him. 

He had found a home at Ravensclyde, a life that seemed brighter than he could have ever hoped. The only thing missing were his friends. Ronan would do anything if he could have Daman, Morcant, and Stefan standing with him.

It was a bittersweet moment missing his friends so terribly while being so happy. The melancholy, however, diminished when he caught sight of Meg standing on the steps of the castle.

She looked enchanting in a gown of deep green. Her auburn locks flowed freely down her back with a simple circle of white and yellow flowers around her head.

Her smile was wide as she made her way to him. Ronan took her hand as soon as she was near. He feared she might run away or change her mind about marrying him if he didn’t.

“I’m yours,” she whispered with a wink.

Ronan felt the grip on his heart ease. They faced the priest as the ceremony began. Ronan couldn’t believe magic had taken him from his home into a prison, but it had also delivered him to Meg.

More magic had happened when love blossomed, and now he was going to have her for the rest of his life.

Applause erupted as the ceremony ended, and Meg faced him once more. 

“You’re officially mine,” he told her. “You willna get away from me now.”

“You have me forever.”

“That willna be long enough,” he whispered before he sealed their vows with a kiss.

Look for the next Rogues of Scotland story – THE HUNGER – Coming October 2014!

Until then, read on for the sneak peek at DARKEST FLAME, the first in the Dark King series…

Kellan kept utterly still in his corner. The sound of water sloshing against stone woke him instantly. He opened one eye to see the normally glass-like surface rippling violently as he caught sight of a human emerging from the water.

He barely had time to register it was a heavily breathing woman before a second joined her—this one male.

Kellan shifted his head to get a better look. It had been many centuries since he’d seen a human, and quite frankly, he could go through eternity without seeing another. How he despised them.

He didn’t like his sleep being disturbed either. Yet, he knew Constantine wouldn’t be happy if he made himself known in his dragon form and ate the two intruders . . . as tempting as that might be.

His only other option would be to shift into human form and confront them. And that was too distasteful to even consider. 

Kellan stayed in his spot and watched as the two circled each other.
Nothing’s changed. Humans are always fighting.
 

No matter how many centuries passed, no matter what country he visited, they were all the same. Selfish, belligerent, arrogant, greedy bastards.

Not that he cared how many humans killed each other. The more dead meant they were that much closer to the dragons returning home. It was because of the humans that dragons no longer ruled the realm.

It was humans who had begun the war.

But it had been dragons who ended it.

The humans were talking. Kellan listened to their exchange with interest. He thought back to the many times Con had visited him while he slept, and realized it had been many, many,
many
centuries since he last woke.

Con’s visits every few decades kept those dragons who wished to sleep away centuries—or millennia—up to date on the world so when they awoke they were more or less knowledgeable about the times. So it wasn’t difficult for Kellan to make out what the humans were saying.

The male disliked the female according to the way disdain dripped from his voice. Surprisingly, the female didn’t cower. She fought back, moving quickly—for a mortal—and striking the male deftly and accurately. None of her punches or kicks went astray. 

Kellan smelled blood. It had been a long time since that scent assaulted him. It made him think of the last time he had walked among humans—and why he had chosen to sleep.

There was a grunt from the pair. The male had a broken nose and a cut lip, but the scent Kellan held was strong, too strong for such paltry wounds.

His dragon eyes locked on the female, and he caught sight of her left arm held protectively against her side. Blood ran thick and fast down her leg to drip upon the stones.

In a whirl, the female came up with a weapon of her own. 

Kellan’s interest sharpened when the male said he wanted to wound the female. It wasn’t hard to guess she was to lure the dragons.

He inwardly snorted. Stupid humans. They all thought dragons base creatures who wanted to eat everything in sight or char it. How could he and the other Dragon Kings have fallen so far?

They used to rule the skies, the seas, and the earth. Every dragon of every color had called earth home. They had reigned supreme.

And for Kellan and the other Dragon Kings, it had been their right to rule their dragons, keeping everyone in line. That’s not to say there weren’t battles, but with one word from a Dragon King, all fighting would cease.

How Kellan longed for the days of old. He missed his dragons, and he missed being able to take to the skies whenever he wanted. It’s one of the many reasons he decided to sleep away the time. He couldn’t look upon the earth and humans without wanting to kill them all.

Kellan was impressed with the female, even though he hated to admit it. She was a valiant fighter, and though she was wounded, she was winning.

She moved in a lightning-quick spin before she kicked her opponent to the ground. Then she landed on top of him and sunk her blade into his heart.

Just like that, the battle was over.

The female had lost too much blood, however. She couldn’t swim back out, and she didn’t know her way through the caves of the mountain to seek help. 

The only one that could help her was Kellan. And that wasn’t going to happen. There would be hell to pay with Con, but Kellan had ceased to care long ago.

He wouldn’t return to sleep until she had breathed her last though. Kellan expected her to fall over and die, or try to find her way out.

Instead, she kicked the male away and leaned back against a boulder before pulling some sticks from a pocket on the leg of her skin-tight suit. She bent them, and with a slight
pop,
green light shone around her.

She set those aside and took another small pack from a pocket next to her ankle on her other leg. Her breathing was harsh, and sweat coated her skin.

“Shit,” she murmured and swallowed audibly.

Her accent wasn’t Scots or British. Kellan went through all the dialects Con had played for him over the centuries in his mind until he reached American. 

Could that be why the Brit hadn’t cared for her? It was a silly reason, but then again, humans rarely made sense. 

Kellan forgot about accents as the female reached behind her and grabbed something. There was a zipping noise before her black suit loosened.

With a grunt she pulled her right arm out of the black material before carefully extracting her left. She pushed the thick fabric down, giving Kellan a view of a small top that held her breasts. A bathing suit, he recalled.

Her chest heaved as she tried to breathe through the pain and her skin grew pale. Once more she took the small black parcel she pulled from the pocket of her leg and opened it. She grabbed a white packet and tore it open using her teeth. She briefly closed her eyes before pouring the tiny granules over her wound. 

A gasp passed her lips as she jerked from the contact. Kellan had never had much to say about humans, but he had to give the female credit. Her hands were coated with blood, her arms shook, she was weak, and it was dark, yet she never gave up.

His interest was piqued when he saw her pull out a curved needle and thread. With her wound on her left side, she had to twist to see it, yet she managed to get several stitches done before she slowly fell unconscious.

For long minutes, Kellan stared at her. The female was slumped to her side, her breathing low and irregular. He knew that a fever could soon overtake her.

If it were up to him, he would forget her. She’d die—as all mortals did. Then Kellan remembered why he had chosen to sleep. He had made a vow once, a promise he had broken because of his hatred of humans. 

Con could have ended his life, but he had allowed Kellan his sleep. He seriously doubted Con would give him another pass. Constantine was the King of Dragon Kings. He was the ultimate law—though that never stopped any other Dragon King from doing what he had to do.

Con took their duty of protecting humans seriously. If it had been up to Kellan, he’d have wiped the world of mortals long ago. They were an infection that stained everything. Look what they had done to dragons. 

Everything known about dragons was nothing more than a myth, feared and fantasized into something that wasn’t even close to resembling what life as a dragon really was.

Kellan vividly remembered standing after a battle with the humans to find his beloved Bronzes littered upon the ground. The bronze dragons were the Bringers of Justice.

While Kellan had ordered them to protect the humans, the humans had in turn killed them. A betrayal that even now, thousands of millennia later, Kellan couldn’t forgive.

Because even though dragons were supposed to defend mankind, mankind had never wanted their protection. The mortals had sought early on to betray the very beings that had ruled the land first.

But Kellan hadn’t been the only one betrayed. Ulrik, King of Silvers, had been deceived by a human female—and then by the rest of the Dragon Kings.

Kellan squeezed his eyes closed as he thought of that day. If he’d known what would become of his Bronzes, he’d have sided with Ulrik.

In the end, the dragons had been the ones to lose everything. Con had sent them to another realm. 

And the Kings remained behind.

What good were they though? The few times Kellan woke from his sleep and faced the world, he found his brethren hidden away in plain sight, waiting until cover of darkness or a storm to dare to take to the skies.

Flying was their right, their privilege, and even that had been taken away. Because of humans.

Hours ticked by while he mused over his hatred of man, but still the female didn’t so much as twitch. Kellan would have no choice but to bring her to Con, because he didn’t trust himself to try and see to her wound.